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| A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page | |||||||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, March 25, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 59 | |||||||||
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 Ministerio
de Gobernación, Policía
y Seguridad Pública/Paul Gamboa Quesada School
children parade before the former Libano theater.
Police target
neighborhood
to take back the street By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The neighborhood is one of crack pipes and garbage. When police go there they go in groups and are supported heavily by patrol cars and trucks. Friday the cops went with balloons to engage in an event called Rescatemos nuestra calle, "rescuing our street." The neighborhood is between avenidas 7 and 9 and calles 8 and 10. The area is dominated by the art deco Líbano theater that is now an auto repair parts vendor. To the north is the triangular Botica Solera building recently taken over by the Municipalidad de San José so the drug users and bums could be evicted. Despite the challenges, there are youngsters living in this neighborhood and exposed to a lot of illegality. The Fuerza Pública brought clowns, music and even the mounted officers and their horses. Youngsters turned out with their parents. The pitch from police was simple: unite to keep control of the public areas and keep the crooks and drug users away. Vacationers get warnings from government agencies By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Semana Santa is a time when the bulk of the population enjoys a week-long vacation and returns to school work refreshed. But some never return. Water accidents, falls and traffic mishaps are high on the list of dangers confronting vacationers, and public agencies are issuing warnings. The national energy commission, for example, has a list of cautions for those who might visit some of the country's active volcanos. The main caution is to follow the instructions of park guards and signs. The commission also suggests that volcano visitors bring a handkerchief and a bottle of water in case they are hit with some of the acidic fumes. There were three motor vehicle deaths over the weekend. This is not an unusual number for any weekend. A 17- year-old died Saturday in Miramar when the vehicle he was driving overturned, said judicial agents. A motorcyclist, identified by the last name of Zúñiga, died Saturday about 10:40 p.m. in Alajuelita in a collision with another motorcycle, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. A 26-year-old man died Sunday in the Nicoya hospital from injuries suffered on a motorcycle-vehicle mishap near Sámara. about 3 a.m. The Judicial Investigating Organization identified him by the last name of Zeledón. There also were assorted injuries from knife play Saturday night and early Sunday. But there were no fatalities, said judicial investigators. None appeared to be linked to the holiday. Police also issued warnings, including one that said homeowners who vacation should make an effort to have a trusted family member or friend keep an eye on their home. Holidays are periods of elevated thefts. Smaller may be better with Intel's new technology By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Throughout the years, computers have gotten smaller and smaller and thinner, lighter and faster. With the newest advancements, there is a new breed of thin and fast laptops being introduced to the market. They are less than an inch thick and consume less energy than their predecessors. For over three decades Intel has been providing semi-conductor chips for computer hardware makers around the world. Intel’s chips have been running many computers for years, both Macs and PCs. But, since tablet computers hit the market the trend has shifted towards the small, mobile devices while sales of desktop computers drop. Earlier this year, Intel introduced a new genre of laptops called ultra-book convertible laptops. Intel marketing associate Mike Fard explains. “This year it’s all about touch. We have touch computers based on Windows 8 running the Intel processors, but even more exciting than just touch, is the ultra-book convertible," he said. "What that means is that you have a standard laptop that converts into a tablet and we have multiple designs that feature this capability of going from a tablet to a laptop. This is one from Lenovo; we also have one from Dell.” Intel has adopted a technology called Ivy Bridge on its new line of chips which reduces power consumption dramatically. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, the company surprised everyone with its announcement that it is ahead of schedule in reducing the power requirements for one group of its processors. ”Energy efficiency is very important to us. We constantly bring out processors that are more energy efficient which means we provide more battery life,” Fard said. This newest generation of laptops is sure to be a hit with consumers, with lower prices than before. Earlier thin laptops were in the $1,000 price range. The ultra book convertible however, is expected to sell for around $600, making it more competitive against regular tablet PCs.
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| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A. 2013 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, March 25, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 59 | |
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Saturday's
Puriscal gathering will honor artist Vincent van Gogh
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh never visited Puriscal, but he will be honored nevertheless by a gathering in that town Saturday. The occasion is the 160th birthday celebration on the troubled artist and another effort by expats Catherine and Roland Klein to create a culturally meaningful event. They said that 50 persons already have registered for the event even though registration was not required. This is the same couple who celebrated the birthday of Charles Darwin in February. According to the program, the event Saturday will be more complex. Joseph Kaknes, who played Van Gogh in a one-man show with a local theater group last year plans on painting two Van Goghs at the event, said the couple. |
"We have a line-up of speakers doing
audio visual presentations on the history of modern art, a biography of
Vincent van Gogh, daily life in 19th century France, and a plethora of
other fun things like a mock gallery of Van Gogh's art, about a hundred
representative works in chronological order to show the development of
his works," they said. Although Dutch, Van Gogh did most of his work in
France. The gathering is at the couple's finca about eight kilometers (about five miles) outside of Puriscal Centro. The couple can be reached at 2416-0893 or 2416-2154 and at roland@zenwest.com. They are calling the event a Tropical ChautauQua. That's a play on the adult education movement that started in the 19th century around Chautauqua Lake in upstate New York. The event, which is a potluck, begins at noon and continues for the rest of the day, in part, to accommodate newcomers. A .pdf file with more details is available buy email. It also includes transportation instructions. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, March 25, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 59 | |||||
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| Ground-breaking study explores pros and cons of gated
communities |
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By
the Taylor & Francis news staff
Gated communities are perceived to be safe havens in a world of risk and uncertainty, but new research from the United States challenges these opinion and suggests that, although opportunistic burglaries may be minimized, the risk of other crimes could be increased. The study, one of only a handful to investigate the crime statistics relating to these housing developments, reveals the unexpected reality behind the security gates. Research published this month in the journal Justice Quarterly confirms that homes in gated communities are subjected to fewer burglaries than those in non-gated communities. However, there is evidence that these communities not only push crime to other, less secure, neighborhoods, but also present an increased risk of other crimes, including intimate partner violence. Lynn Addington, associate professor in the Department of Justice, Law & Society at American University, Washington, and Callie Marie Rennison, associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado, Denver, conducted an extensive literature review. They also did a detailed study of data from the U.S. National Crime Victimization Survey and the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey in the preparation of their paper, “Keeping the Barbarians outside the gate? Comparing burglary victimization in gated and non-gated communities.” The authors conclude that, in the United States: “… gated communities do lower the odds of experiencing a residential burglary even when controlling for housing unit factors such as tenure, income, and geographical location as well as individual characteristics such as age [and] race.” Acknowledging that worries about security and crime, as well as fear of crime, are consistently among the top reasons cited for living in a gated community, the authors are keen to emphasize that, statistically, burglary is a rare event. They also discuss the wide-ranging impacts of gated-community living. For instance, homes in gated communities are generally more |
expensive than
their non-gated counterparts, but there are concerns regarding
limitations of access for emergency personnel such as fire fighters,
ambulances, and police. There is also a question of the costs incurred
by wider society as a result of reduced participation in the overall
community and local government, reduced diversity and the potential for
crime to be displaced to other areas. Crucially, the authors emphasize that people living in gated communities may be at greater risk of other crimes, such as intimate partner violence, bullying, or violent assault in or near the home, because the victim is locked in with the offender. In addition, gated communities may also be at greater risk from minor offenses, such as vandalism committed by bored and over-controlled adolescents. Their study also lays to rest the perception – strengthened by reality TV shows in the United States such as “Real Housewives of Orange County” – that such communities are exclusively for the rich. The American Housing Survey upon which the research is based has been collecting data specifically about gated communities since 2001. The definition of “gated communities” used by that survey is broad, ranging from expensive and exclusive residential developments and retirement complexes through to public housing projects and trailer parks. Addington and Rennison stress that although upper- and middle-class households may actively choose to live in gated communities, many people on low incomes have fewer housing choices, with no option but to live enclosed in public housing projects. But even exclusive developments are frequently of mixed tenure, with owner-occupiers and long- and short-term rentals all being common. The authors are clear that their ground-breaking study is exploratory in nature, and there are limitations with the data they consulted. They therefore highly recommend that further research be conducted to address the role of gated communities on other crimes beyond burglary. Their study also emphasizes the need to include considerations about the diversity of gated communities and their residents in future research projects. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M.
Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, March 25, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 59 | |||||||||
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| Same-sex marriage in court, as political acceptance grows By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear two landmark cases on same-sex marriage. While justices ponder the constitutionality of laws restricting gay-marriage rights, across the street from the court at the U.S. Capitol the politics of homosexuality in general, and same-sex marriage in particular, are shifting. Earlier this month, Sen. Rob Portman became the first Republican in the chamber to endorse same-sex marriage. “The joy and the stability of marriage that I have had for 26 years I want all three of my kids to have it, including our son, who is gay," he said. The announcement, on CNN, did nothing to change the opinions of fellow-Republican senators like Orrin Hatch. “We are friends. But where we differ is I do not believe we should change the traditional definition of marriage," Hatch said. The cases before the Supreme Court include a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex unions. The law, known as DOMA, received strong bipartisan support when it was enacted in 1996, including from then-sen. Robert Byrd, a Democrat. “To insist that male-male or female-female relationships must have the same status as the marriage relationship is more than unwise. It is patently absurd," he said. But others who voted for DOMA have had a change of heart. Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, said, “It is not the only vote I regret, but it is one of them. It was not a good vote. I have changed my whole view on that completely.” Public-opinion polls show a growing majority backing same-sex marriage rights. A decade ago, barely one-in-three Americans did so. Sen. Richard Durbin, a Democrat, says, until recently, Republicans used the issue to hammer Democrats at the voting booth. “We used to jokingly say that the campaign against all Democrats was on the issues of ‘God, gays, and guns’," he said. More recently, the tide has turned. Democrats, including President Barack Obama, have won elections proclaiming support for same-sex marriage. Durbin, who voted for DOMA in 1996, applauds the turn of events. “Younger generations think that positions supporting marriage equality are more consistent with their values and vision of America. And Democrats have led in that, and maybe we will benefit from it. But at least many of us feel we are in the right position in terms of America’s values," he said. To be clear, some Democratic lawmakers do not endorse same-sex marriage, and some Republicans are urging their party to rethink the issue. University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said, “Within the Republican Party, a majority still opposes same-sex marriage. It is a real dilemma for Republicans. It is a loser for them, and they know it. They cannot endorse it, because of the social conservatives. They cannot oppose it, because of their need for a broader constituency, to reach out to voters before they become a permanent minority party.” Sabato says Democrats have reaped benefits from backing gay rights, and not just at the ballot box. “It has helped the Democrats, certainly in fundraising. The gay and lesbian population pours money into the Democratic Party," he said. The Supreme Court could uphold anti-gay marriage laws or strike them down as unconstitutional. If struck down, the court could conceivably pave the way for same-sex marriage rights nationwide. Larry Sabato says such an outcome would reduce the political potency of the issue for Democrats and Republicans. Notre Dame rings out with newly minted bells By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris rang in this Palm Sunday with a set of newly minted bells to mark its 850th anniversary. They replace what some unkindly called the most discordant bells in Europe. The new chimes were inaugurated Saturday. The heart of Paris went suddenly silent as, for the first time in more than two centuries, 10 bells pealed out from Notre Dame Cathedral to thousands gathered to hear them on a sunny afternoon. Some, like San Francisco tourist Faith Fuller, were moved to tears. "They made me cry. This is 850 years of history of a fantastic cathedral. And I'm here in an historic moment hearing the bells ring for the first time. So it's emotional for me, and beautiful." The ceremony was presided over by government officials and Roman Catholic clergy, including Paris archbishop, Cardinal Andre Ving-Trois, who said he hoped the bells will offer a melodious counterpart to the city traffic and bustle. Notre Dame's original bells were destroyed during the French revolution, melted down to make cannons and coins. Only one survived, 13-ton Emmanuel. The nine new bells are now hanging in the cathedral's belfries. All are similarly named after religious figures. They replace four bells hung in the 19th century. They include a second big bell called Marie, which was cast in the Netherlands in the same tradition as Emmanuel. The other eight smaller bells were cast in the Normandy foundry of bell maker Paul Bergamo. "The idea of this project was to recreate a set of bells which was as great as the ones that were existing before the French revolution. It was not to recreate an old-style set, but a 21st century set of bells." The cathedral’s bells rang for coronations and for the end of the two world wars. But some bell experts joke their clangs were so discordant they rendered deaf Quasimodo, the famous fictional Hunchback of Notre Dame. Bergamo is more diplomatic. You can always find some worse. If it was for a medium-sized church lost in the countryside, maybe it could have been acceptable. But for the first church of France to have a set which is not one of the best sets in France is not acceptable." But replacing them has not been easy. Because of France's 1905 law separating religion and state, the bells are property of the French government, not the Catholic church. "That's probably why it took so long to replace these bells. Because it was not a priority of the state to replace these bells." Bergamo's foundry began crafting the eight smaller bells in February 2012, relying on years of historic research and modern-day computer modeling. "A good bell is the bells which ring well. It is a bell for the found or the casting part is a bell with a good skin, a good aspect. And, thirdly, as a symbolic object, it should be a bell where the decoration has a meaning." The cathedral displayed the new bells last month, before hanging them up. More than a million visitors flocked to see them. Some gathered around Regis Singer, chief of the bell project, as he described their acoustics. The bells must also be in tune with the main bell, Emmanuel, which sets the musical foundation. Together, bell maker Bergamo says, they are much more than the sum of their parts. Listening to the bells ringing out, Parisian Patrice Birot describes them as both soft and strong. "Definitely, I think the role of the bell is to gather people at one point. For me it's a reminder that we have to be in one point in time, at the same time, at the same place, it's like a French prise de conscience becoming aware of what is happening. And let's find out what is happening." For the moment, the old bells are in Bergamo's foundry as a search goes on for the best place to showcase them, probably in the cathedral grounds. They may not be in tune and they may not be beautiful, but they are part of history. Nearly a million new citizens naturalized in U.S. last year By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Nearly a million people became U.S. citizens last year, and just over a million became legal permanent residents, according to new data released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The data shows the numbers of new “green card” holders and naturalizations, the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, have been fairly steady over the past few years, with a modest bump in naturalizations last year. Claire Bergeron, a researcher with the Migration Policy Institute, attributes that increase to the 2012 presidential election. “There were a lot of outreach efforts leading up to the presidential election to get people to naturalize. A lot of the big ones we saw this year were Latino organizations,” she said. Latino voters, including many new citizens, helped secure President Barack Obama’s re-election and increased the power of his Democratic Party in Congress. A total of 757,434 people naturalized in 2012, up from 694,193 the year before. The majority of new citizens were born in Mexico, the Philippines, India, the Dominican Republic and China, according to the data released Friday. Naturalizations increased the most among people born in the Dominican Republic and Cuba between 2011 and 2012. Vietnam, South Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria and Somalia were among the top 20 countries of origin. Immigration policy experts say the 2012 data is fairly unremarkable, except that it may be a point of reference as immigration trends change in future years if Congress passes immigration reform. Growing numbers of lawmakers are calling for a path to citizenship for the estimated 11.5 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. But what type of path, and how long it would take is the subject of intense debate, with new pitches flying through Washington each week. Last year, the U.S. granted green cards to 1,031,631 foreigners. That lets them live and work permanently anywhere in the U.S. and opens the door to citizenship within five years. Mexico, China and India were the leading countries of birth of America’s newest legal permanent residents. People born in Iraq, Burma, Bangladesh and Ethiopia were among the top 20. The majority of the green card holders already lived in the U.S. when their status changed. Nearly 66 percent were granted permanent resident status based on a family relationship with a U.S. citizen or another green card holder. The system to determine who gets a green card is a complicated process, with preference going to family members and foreigners with needed job skills or who came from countries not well represented in the U.S. Some immigration reformers are suggesting a new green card category be created for the undocumented immigrants in the U.S., while others object to what they consider to be an amnesty for people who broke the law. Erwin DeLeon, an immigration specialist with the Washington-based research group the Urban Institute, says he expects new data trends will emerge in about a decade because of the work Congress is doing now. If Congress passes immigration reform this year or next, he says, “by 2020 you’ll see a big spike” in permanent residents and new citizens. Bergeron isn’t so sure about the timing, however, since some proposals are suggesting illegal immigrants would have to wait as long as 10 years to become legal, with an additional five-year wait to naturalize. Next generation collider might be set up in Japan By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Scientists in Switzerland announced earlier this month that they are confident their experiments with the world's most powerful atom smasher have finally turned up the long-sought Higgs boson, also known as the god particle. Discovery of the elusive sub-atomic particle, which scientists believe imparts mass to all matter, also provides tantalizing clues to some of the most profound mysteries of the universe. The search for Higgs began decades ago at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in suburban Chicago, Illinois. Scientists there are developing new technologies to delve even deeper into the mysteries of particle physics. At the Grid Computing Center at Fermilab, half a world away from the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, the key to understanding how the Higgs boson works and what it means for the universe, could be on one of these digital storage devices. “The data has much more information in it than just information about the Higgs boson,” said scientist Robert Roser, who is overseeing the effort at Fermilab to sift through the computer data generated when atoms are smashed together by the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC. “It’s a gold mine. You can look at it for years and tease out interesting pieces of information from it. It’s an important store of knowledge that we have to use for decades really,” said Roser. Roser said Fermilab is not waiting decades, however, to dig deeper into the sub-atomic world. “Energy matters, and so the higher the energy, the deeper you can probe these different particles to see whether or not there is a substructure inside these particles,” he said. To get that higher energy, Technical Division scientist Andy Hocker is working with physicists at Fermilab to build the next-generation particle accelerator, one that someday will make the LHC obsolete. “What we are planning to build here at Fermilab is basically one of the most powerful proton accelerators in the world. We won’t be at the energy frontier anymore, but at the intensity frontier as we call it. An intense beam of protons that is basically unparalleled in the world,” said Hocker. Instead of particles being accelerated around a vast circle, as with the LHC, Fermilab’s new linear device, housed in a facility about 31 kilometers long, would aim two particle beams in a straight line at each other, much like two bullets fired to collide with each other at the speed of light. “The advantage of a linear accelerator is that you don’t have to keep those particles on a stable orbit. It’s much easier to send something in a straight line than it is to keep it in orbit in a circle,” said Hocker. While the technology for the new International Linear Collider might be developed at Fermilab in the United States, engineering physicist Elvin Harms said that if it is approved, it might not be built there. “Right now I’d say the odds are the Japanese are showing the strongest interest in hosting the International Linear Collider, but I would say that the first word, international, is important because this is going to be an international collaboration,” said Harms. The International Linear Collider project includes about 2,000 people from 300 universities, and laboratories from 24 different countries. The estimated price tag - between $7 billion and $8 billion. |
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| A.M. Costa
Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Monday, March 25, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 59 | |||||||||
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Soccer
game in the snow results in loss for Costa Rica By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The U.S. national soccer team won a 1-0 victory Friday in a snowy game with the Costa Rican team in Commerce City, Colorado. The game was one of the qualifiers for a berth in the World Cup competition in Brazil next year. The conditions to which Costa Ricans are not accustomed, prompted complaints and a formal protest from the Tico squad. The snow started falling before the game began. The flakes were wet and large. A later report said as much as 11 inches fell in the area over Friday night and Saturday morning. Officials stopped the game briefly after about 55 minutes of play to have snow cleared from the lines. Some Costa Ricans said they thought the game should have been rescheduled. The weather was more typical of a Green Bay, Wisconsin, American football game than soccer. The teams played with a yellow and black ball, but even that was sometimes hard to see in the snow. There did not seem to be incidents of players losing their footing because of the snow. Some even played in short sleeves. U.S. cops say nitrous oxide is not a laughing matter Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
Law enforcement authorities have arrested three defendants and executed 26 search warrants as part of a federal criminal investigation into the sale of nitrous oxide – an inhalant ostensibly offered for use as a booster in sports cars, but in reality being distributed solely for recreational drug use. Documents related to the investigation allege that nitrous oxide is being sold by stores across Southern California that purport to sell the gas for welding or car racing applications, but in fact are merely distributing a drug used by young people at rave-style parties. A fourth defendant charged as part of the investigation is currently being sought by authorities, said the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles. Nitrous oxide is a dangerous prescription drug that is inhaled by recreational users, typically from balloons that are filled from large, compressed gas cylinders. The drug can cause many significant and debilitating side effects, including, in extreme cases, death. During the past year, several adolescents in the Los Angeles region have been killed in car accidents linked to the use of nitrous oxide, and acts of violence have been associated with the inhalation or sale of the drug, according to court documents. Sales of nitrous oxide as a drug have dramatically increased in Southern California over the past five years, according to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Two criminal complaints filed in United States District Court allege that the four defendants – as well as a host of storefronts across Los Angeles and Orange counties – engaged in “misbranding” of nitrous oxide because they are distributing nitrous oxide for personal use without a prescription and in containers that do not include proper warning labels. A 73-page affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaints outlines a 15-month investigation dubbed “Operation No Laughing Matter,” a reference to laughing gas, a commonly used name for nitrous oxide. The prescription drug has legitimate uses, such as an anesthesia, but is used also for recreational purposes to create a temporary, euphoric rush. |
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