BREVITAS

OBAMALAND

Christian Science Monitor - The Obama administration announced that it will loosen some restrictions on Americans' contact and dealings with Cuba – a first step in what is seen as a gradual revision of US policy toward the communist island country. . . They include a broadened list of items that families can send to relatives in Cuba, such as humanitarian goods like clothes, fishing equipment, and personal-hygiene products. Moreover, some US telecommunications companies will now be permitted to apply for licenses to do business in Cuba. If the Cuban government allows it, they could bring improved radio, TV, mobile phone, and Internet service to the country – part of the Obama administration's effort to link Cubans to the outside world. . .

JUST POLITICS

Political Wire - Gov. Rod Blagojevich's staff was told last year that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) would raise up to $5 million in campaign cash for the ex-governor if he was appointed to the U.S. Senate, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. "Besides the $5 million to be raised by Jackson, the proposal also included another $1 million for Blagojevich's campaign fund that would come from Indian donors, sources say. This is the first revelation that a proposal for the Jackson appointment involved an alleged promise that he'd raise campaign cash for the ex-governor. Also, the amount of money allegedly offered to Blagojevich is significantly higher than what's been reported so far."

POLICE BLOTTER

Boston Globe - Police in southern New Hampshire are searching for a burglar who says he's sorry. Pelham police say a resident who pulled into his driveway Friday afternoon caught a burglar coming out of the house with jewelry boxes and electronic items. The homeowner told police that when he approached the burglar, the man apologized, then put the stolen goods back. Police say the homeowner tried to detain the burglar by engaging him in conversation, but the suspect fled by the time officers arrived.

INDICATORS

Handan T. Satiroglu, The Wip - In what Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni eloquently calls "the great emotional sickness of our era," people are finding themselves increasingly detached and drifting away from intimacy. . . A 2006 study published in the American Sociological Review found that Americans had on average only two close friends, as opposed three, two decades ago. One in four Americans said they had no one to confide in, compared to one in ten in 1985, while the number of people who depend solely on their spouse went from five to nine percent.

SPYING ON BIG BROTHER

New Scientist - People watching CCTV images back in the control rooms often have too many screens to monitor at once, and so may miss the criminal or antisocial activities they are there to spot. To the rescue of Big Brother's limited attention capabilities come Ulas Vural and Yusuf Akgul of the Gebze Institute of Technology in Turkey, who have developed a gaze-tracking camera system that watches the eyeballs of CCTV operators as they work. It then automatically produces a summary of the CCTV video sequences they have missed during their shift. "This increases the reliability of the surveillance system by giving a second chance to the operator," the researchers write in the journal Pattern Recognition Letters. The system uses webcam-style cameras trained on the irises of the CCTV operators. From this, software works out where the operators are looking as they stare at each monitor - and the areas they have not been paying attention to. From this it creates a video of what they missed, for them and their bosses to watch at the end of their shift.

INDICATORS

Christian Science Monitor - For the first time in a quarter century, the number of African-Americans incarcerated for drug offenses in state prisons has declined more than 20 percent while the number of white imprisoned drug offenders has increased more than 40 percent. The decline took place over a six year period from 1999 to 2005 and reflects fundamental changes in the so-called "war on drugs" - how it's targeted and prosecuted - as well as the waning of the crack epidemic in predominantly minority urban areas and the increase in methamphetamine abuse in largely white rural neighborhoods

FREEDOM & JUSTICE

Richard Winton, LA Times - Civil rights activists called for the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and sheriff to close the Men's Central Jail, where they say nightmarish conditions and overcrowding have exacerbated the symptoms of thousands of inmates suffering serious mental illness. American Civil Liberties Union leaders made the call as they released a report by an expert on mental health in jails that paints the aging Men's Central Jail in downtown L.A. as a massively overcrowded center where the mentally ill are abused, kept in their cells for much, if not all, of the day, and instead of being treated are subject to discipline

BIG BUST LEADS TO TSA ABUSE OF WOMAN

SUSTAIN YOURSELF

Tree Hugger - With too many [Santa Monica] gardeners filling up the waiting list for community gardens, it's taking as long as 5 years to finally get a plot of dirt to grow veggies. So gardeners and city officials started a registry to connect homeowners willing to have their yards turned into gardens with the people who are willing to do the gardening.

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