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Some thoughts on the driver after and since the incident, and appeals to the public, the driver, and family, friends, and coworkers to come forward with information. Thank you for watching, and please share and check back for more of the story and how you can help. An investigator may be reached by e-mail at AnswersForCarissa@Hotmail.Com, or at 866-684-3984 (“TO NOTIFY T.I.”).

Direct link to YouTube:  http://youtu.be/-Q1LBbObHLs

Carissa Nwene Foundation Website; just click!

With a twist on the title of the 1943 Betty Smith novel, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”, actor/singer/musician/comedian/entertainer Jake Ehrenreich brings his wonderful Broadway, one-man personal memoir, “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn”, to the stage of the Annenberg Theatre, in Palm Springs.

     Brooklyn-born Ehrehreich, lovingly explores and shares his immigrant family’s history in a moving and comedic musical tribute that spans a forty-year period.  As a child of Holocaust survivors, some of his childhood memories are bittersweet, but they are always spiced with comedy and a sense of hope.

     As an adult, his tales of performing in the Catskill Mountain resorts – a popular vacation-get-a-way location for Jewish families from New York City escaping the heat of summer – are hilariously recreated; based on true stories and his personal observations.  According to Ehrenreich, those Catskills experiences are a way of life long gone in 21^st century America.  With a little prompting from the stage by Ehrenreich, audience members gave voice to their remembered experiences at those resorts.  Ehrenreich brings a winning and engaging personality and style to his show.

     “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn” is a highly entertaining and nostalgic evening in the musical theatre.  And, one more thing, one doesn’t have to be Jewish to enjoy or to appreciate this most personal of journey’s of one man’s love of family and respect of life but, as the old Jewish joke goes, “… but it couldn’t hurt”.  The appealing and audience-friendly show runs through March 25^th.  Call the Box Office at 760-325-4490 for reservations and ticket information.

Leaks are costing American households millions per year

Palm Springs, Calif. (March 20, 2012)- Since 1993, the United Nations has called the world’s attention to the issue of shrinking water resources. World Water Day, commemorated each March 22, encourages communities to think about their water use and reduce waste. Individual efforts are necessary for the conservation of our most vital resource.

The United States, despite being one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet, gets a “D-” when it comes to our drinking water infrastructure, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. The low grade is primarily the result of a simple problem easily corrected: leaking pipes, to which we lose about seven billion gallons of drinking water daily.

“Leaks are a major problem, especially with older water systems – but they can often be easily and inexpensively corrected,” said Jimmy Carter of American Leak Detection. “Eliminating household leaks can actually save you 25 percent on water bills, and prevent thousands of gallons of water from being wasted – it is good for you and the planet.”

The average home loses up to 10,000 gallons each year in leaks. By being proactive homeowners can reduce monthly bills, save millions of gallons of water nationwide and protect an indispensible resource for future generations.

The easiest way to check for water leaks in your home is to read your water meter and write down the number on the face of the dial. Make sure that no one in your home uses water for 30 minutes; check the number on your water meter again. If the number has changed, you have a leak. For other easy do-it-yourself tests visit http://www.americanleakdetection.com.

American Leak Detection is the industry leader in safe, minimally invasive leak-fighting technologies. From infrared to ultrasound, American Leak Detection’s cutting-edge techniques can quickly locate the exact location of any leak – water or gas – in your home or business. Once located, highly trained experts, utilizing state of the art equipment, will repair the leak with the least amount of destruction or disruption. Our precision and expertise allow our technicians to repair leaks fast and effectively, minimizing any need for tear down and repair.

On World Water Day 2012, consider the tremendous and growing need for water conservation, and take action to make sure your home is part of the solution. American Leak Detection offers detection without destruction to protect our water supply and now and in the future.

For more information about American Leak Detection,visit www.americanleakdetection.com.

  “Anna Christie”, by playwright Eugene O’Neill, America’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature, is a powerful drama of alienation and redemption.  It’s a story that abounds in metaphors concerning a former prostitute who falls in love, but runs into problems and difficulty when it comes time to turn her life around.   Sounds pretty tame and prosaic stuff by today’s standards however, in 1921 when the play opened at the Vanderbilt Theatre on Broadway, it set some tongues wagging for its frank and earthy approach concerning prostitution by the play’s characters.  It also won a Pulitzer Prize and a NYC Drama Desk award, clearly announcing that Eugene O’Neill was well on his way to becoming America’s premiere playwright.

       “Anna Christie” isn’t done all that often.  There have been only three or four  mountings in major American cities since its premiere.  In the Old Globe’s production, winningly and seamlessly directed by Daniel Goldstein (a hot young director on Broadway just now with his revival production of “Godspell”), the story set in 1910, resonates with the audience through three characters:  Chris Christopherson (Bill Buell), Captain of the coal barge ‘Simeon Winthrop’, Mat Burke (Austin Durant), a young, bellicose Irish stoker who works the steamer ships, and Anna Christopherson (Jessica Love), the estranged daughter of “Old Chris” who seeks, not only true love, but purification.

     Anna’s mother died when she was five.  The life of a sailor is a lonely one with long stretches of time between sea and home, resulting in Chris’ decision to send her to live with relatives on a farm in Minnesota, a thousand miles from any ocean.  Old Chris has been at sea for the past fifteen years, and has lost all touch with his daughter.  One day a letter arrives announcing that Anna is coming to visit him.  He is better known in the bars and saloons of seaports around the world, than he is to his daughter.

     Bill Buell brings a tough, but weary, seafaring quality to his Chris.  He is blustery, but his inner core is softer than he wants to let on.  Alienation is a powerful motivator and now Chris wants to reconnect with his daughter as a way of making up for his years of being an absent non-parent.  But, his journey won’t be easy. It’s full of obstacles. Buell’s performance is finely judged and his Swedish accent has the ring of authenticity to it. 

Buell, as Chris, understands the power that the sea holds over him.  He both respects and fears it, but it’s all he knows… it’s the life of a sailor.

     As Anna, Jessica Love shows us what years of living without parents and the love of family can do to a young woman who has to do what she can to survive and make her way in a very callous world.  Men are her enemy.  Inwardly she screams at just the thought of men and her relationships with them.  Now she is coming to visit and perhaps, stay with her father on his barge.  He has no idea of her past; a past she would love to leave behind.  Anna is now ready for a clean fresh beginning.  She is just not sure what form it will take.

     Into this charged atmosphere comes Mat Burke, a young, strong, Irishman who makes his living as a stoker on steamships.  Rescued during a storm by Chris and his crew, Mat, played with such intensity by Austin Durant (a world-class perspiration-producing machine if I ever saw one), is full of Celtic charm beneath his tough exterior.  Durant has the poetry and the language lilt down pat.  When he delivers the dialogue and his feelings to Anna with such ease and passion, it’s easy to see why she falls for him.  It’s love at first sight for both of them.   But, ay, here’s the rub.  Chris doesn’t want his Anna married to a sailor.  At one point, he says, “Any girl that marries a sailor, is a fool”.  

Water is the appropriate metaphor for the play.  O’Neill worked on tramp steamers in his youth and he has a semi-autobiographical “roman a clef” attachment to the character of Mat.  Chris knows the mythic quality water has for sailors, and Anna seeks the cleansing power of the sea, as a way toward a new life.

     “Anna Christie” features a wonderful supporting cast.  Kristine Nielsen as Marthy Owen, and Brent Langdon as Larry the bartender, nicely play and portray denizens of the seaport and harbor towns familiar to audiences the world over.  Rounding out the cast  are John Garcia (what a great character face for the movies) as Johnny-the-priest, Jason Maddy as the Postman, Chance Dean as Johnson and a longshoreman, along  Bryan Banville as a Longshoreman.

     A great deal of the success and look of this winning production goes to the creative team.  Scenic Designer Wilson Chin, has taken the arena stage of the White Theatre, and cleverly transformed it into a saloon, a ships exterior, and a couple of ship interior scenes all without challenging the acceptance of the audience.  Especially effective are the fog scenes.  They place the audience right onboard the boat along with the actors.

  The mood lighting by designer Austin R. Smith, for both the exterior and interior scenes lends a verisimilitude to the overall production.  Paul Peterson’s sound design effectively supplies the sounds of the sea (although I think the sound-level needs to come down several notches for audiences in the comfortably intimate 250-seat White stage). The costume designs by Denitsa Bliznakova perfectly match the era and the action.  I especially liked the touch of the sweat-stained vest worn by Chris.

         “Anna Christie” is a first-rate production and is one of the plays selected in the Old Globe’s  “classics up close” program. Don’t Miss It!  The show runs through April 15, 2012.  For information call 619-231-5623 or online to www.theoldglobe.org .

CIA Director David Petraeus says technological advances have opened up a whole new field of spying opportunities by turning personal and household devices into what amounts to intelligence-gathering stations.

Everything from phone applications used to control home lighting to car navigation systems can now be tapped by the CIA or other intelligence agencies and used to monitor the activities of persons of interest, according to Wired magazine’s Danger Zone national security blog.

Petraeus talked openly earlier this month about what he called an “Internet of Things,” or wired devices that could be turned automatically to spying without their users’ knowledge. He made the comments, the Danger Zone reported, at a summit for In-Q-Tel, a company described as an investment arm of the CIA.

“‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus reportedly said at the summit, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”

“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation Internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing,” the CIA director continued.

Petraeus acknowledged these new household spy devices would likely change “our notions of identity and secrecy,” which is something that worries privacy protection groups and lawmakers already concerned about how easy it is to obtain information from personal devices.

Petraeus also expressed interest at the summit in creating new online identities for undercover agents and being able to erase any digital record of their existence.