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Saturday, October 1, 2016

Drop the mic. Vin Scully, out

(CNN)A ginger-haired gent with vocal cords of 24-karat gold, Vin Scully is coming to the end of one of America"s most colorful broadcasting careers. After a staggering 67 seasons of Dodgers baseball, based originally in Brooklyn, then for more than a half century in Los Angeles, his retirement will begin on Sunday, sometime presumably before sundown, in San Francisco, where the 88-year-old Scully is scheduled to call the television play-by-play of one more Major League Baseball game between those two friendly, feuding archrivals of his lifetime, the Dodgers and Giants, then fade from public life, out of earshot, out of sight.

Drop the mic. Scully, out.

Scully recalled those times vividly.

"I sat in our New Jersey home with my Mom and Dad and the phone rang," he said nostalgically during one of last weekend"s games on TV. "It was Walter O"Malley, the owner of the Dodgers, calling me personally to offer me a job broadcasting the team"s games. He didn"t have an associate do it or an underling do it; he phoned me himself. If not my second father, he certainly became an uncle to me. I really miss him."

Remember, this was 67 seasons down the road, yet Scully couldn"t help but retrace his roots. Things happened for him so fast. By 1953, at the tender age of 25, he became the youngest person in history to broadcast a World Series, doing the telecast of a Dodgers battle with the crosstown New York Yankees. The man behind the microphone was more youthful than most of the ones throwing the balls and swinging the bats.

L.A.: A different kind of place

Soon came 1958, same job, same team, new location.

O"Malley moved the whole operation, lock, stock and jockstraps, 3,000 miles west. They became the Los Angeles Dodgers, leaving behind in Brooklyn angry fans and broken hearts. The New York Giants followed suit, uprooting to San Francisco. Scully came along for the ride. He had been a New Yorker his entire life, cheering through knotholes for the Giants as a child, converting to the Dodgers in his adulthood but NOT cheering, inasmuch as for a professional, this simply wasn"t done.

L.A. was, shall we say, different? For starters, no proper baseball facility was there yet, so when the Dodgers made it to the 1959 World Series, they needed to hold it in the 93,000-seat Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, home to college and Rams football and the 1932 Summer Olympics. It was a preposterously contoured park, a left-field fence being a Little League-like 251 feet from home plate. Windy pop-ups flew over it.

In which other ways was California a new world? Well, there was Hollywood all around Scully now, of course. He ended up in Bob Hope movie comedies and on the "Mr. Ed" television nonsense, where the Dodgers gave a tryout to a talking horse. He hosted a game show on NBC, "It Takes Two." And this was back when Scully"s presence was required at more than 150 baseball games each year, road and home, season and postseason.

Baseball was not his whole world. Scully did pro football games and golf for CBS. He was, for example, there when Joe Montana threw a touchdown pass to Dwight Clark to give the San Francisco 49ers one of their most memorable victories, in 1982.

So many tales to tell, so many things to see. But the grind took its toll. Years and years of trains and planes and buses and gridlocked cars. A lot of memorable moments, mixed in with thousands that blurred and bored. Scully lost a 35-year-old wife and a 33-year-old son along the way, one from a medical drug overdose, the other from a helicopter crash. His faith and family endured, including second wife Sandra, still by his side a week ago when Scully mentioned their grandkids and said on TV, "God has been so good to me."

He endured as well, sticking around long enough not only to do broadcasts on radio and TV, but on laptops on apps. And you never knew what he would say. Hey, he never knew what he would say.

Finally, a blot on his "escutcheon," he blurted out during a recent Dodger game when Kershaw gave up a hit for the first time. "Sorry, I don"t know where I came up with that."

What a farewell tour it has been. Except for one asterisk, that Scully didn"t tour. He gave up the road trips as the years wound down, first the East, then some of the West, making a rare exception as with the San Francisco dates this weekend. So a traditional goodbye tour of the circuit did not occur. As a colleague from the Dodger broadcast crew, Charley Steiner, likes to put it: "Vin"s the only guy whose farewell tour came to him."

From the field up the Dodger Stadium elevator and escalator, like a pilgrimage to a high lama on a mountaintop, came a procession from the visiting teams, week by week. Young men like Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Giancarlo Stanton, fresh princes of baseball all. Older guys like David Ortiz and David Ross, retiring from active duty themselves. Considerably older ones like Dusty Baker and Joe Maddon, managers who knew a true baseball superstar when they saw one. To these men in uniform, Scully made them still feel like kids.

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A human highlight reel, he broadcast Don Larsen"s perfect game of 1956, Hank Aaron"s record-breaking home run of 1974, Bill Buckner"s ball-between-the-legs moment of 1986, Kirk Gibson"s one-armed, one-legged walk-off of 1988. Loyal fans can quote his lines. "Fans" being a relative term, one Scully himself avoids, considering it an unkind way of saying "fanatic." He refers to spectators and viewers as "friends" instead.

Have they heard the last of him? Could be. Propositions that he broadcast October"s postseason games, Dodgers directly involved or not, have been politely rejected. The option to change his mind is definitely his.

Barring that, Vin Scully"s voice will be mute. The hits and runs and errors and wins and losses and heroes will go on and on, but without the best narrator who ever came our way. He has played through.

Sexual harassment in STEM: "It"s tragic for society"

(CNN)"Conversations became increasingly sexual and they eventually progressed to physical touching, like skin on skin on my neck."

"He would actually come up to where I was staying at the observatory at 11 p.m. at night, and knock on the door and wait on my porch as I would hide under my bed with all of the lights off."

"It became clear that he actually wanted a sexual relationship. ... He got very drunk and physically separated me from the group."

These are the experiences of three women who spoke to CNN about a culture of pervasive sexual harassment in academia, especially in the sciences. They were harassed by different men, throughout different parts of their education and careers.

"We see it in anthropology, we see it in philosophy, we see it in physics, we see it in the humanities, we see it in the social sciences. We see it in engineering in particular. Astronomy just happened to be, sort of, first" to get attention, said Alessondra Springmann, a rocket scientist at the University of Arizona who studies asteroids and comets.

Distinguished scientists in the field of astronomy have been making headlines for harassing students they are supposed to be advising.

And it"s happening at the same time as a nationwide push to get more American women into science careers. Young girls are increasingly encouraged to embrace STEM -- the acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics -- in elementary and middle school.

Undermining praise, confidence

A peer-reviewed study of harassment and assault experiences in the scientific field found that 71% of the women surveyed were sexually harassed while conducting fieldwork and 25% were sexually assaulted. The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

"To be told for so much of your life that you are wanted in these fields and then to show up and made to feel profoundly unwelcome, I think is really -- it"s a terrible thing we do to people," Springmann said.

And it cuts right at their confidence.

"You question any praise that your work gets because this person said they were praising your work but it was actually a ruse to get you alone," said Jessica Kirkpatrick, an astrophysicist who works in the private sector.

Sarah Ballard, who studies planets in other solar systems and has discovered two new worlds, says reflecting on her career fills her with mixed emotions.

Ballard, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was first harassed as an undergraduate at a different institution and says "it was a pattern that escalated in a way that I couldn"t make sense of at the time because of my youth and innocence."

Protecting victims

U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier of California announced this week she is sponsoring a bill that would force institutions that receive federal grant money to report harassment investigations. She says universities are continuing to cover up the actions of their faculty even as sexual assault and harassment are driving women out of STEM.

"Many (victims) have left the field and that"s tragic. It"s tragic for society, it"s obviously tragic for the young women who don"t get to pursue their careers and it"s because someone was given the license to conduct themselves in an egregious manner."

"If you"re going to use mice in your research, there are all these federal requirements that have to be complied with," Speier told CNN. "And yet, when it comes to your teaching assistant (there is) no such requirement that you treat them in a humane way."

The bill comes nine months after Speier took to the House floor and made a jarring speech exposing an astronomy professor who was accused of sexual harassment but allowed to keep working, and was later hired by another university.

Universities can be hesitant to fire offenders and lose researchers who bring in federal funding. When a university does take action, harassers are often allowed to leave for another institution with an unblemished record -- a practice known in academia as "passing the trash."

That"s where Speier"s bill might make a difference. "If someone is discriminating, if someone s a sexual predator, they should not have access to federal dollars. If the grant money dries up for that professor, he"s not going to be as successful at the university. He"s not going to be as sought-after."

Often, women are caught in difficult positions -- reporting their adviser would mean abandoning their research and years of hard work. It can derail careers before they even start.

"It would be pretty much impossible to report your adviser for harassing you and then continue to work with them being your thesis adviser," Kirkpatrick said.

"When I finally did report it, I was told that nothing could be done about sexual harassment because it just turns into "he said she said,"" Springmann said.

"I also had the comment of, "How do you feel about ruining a man"s life?"" Kirkpatrick said.

The Berkeley case

"Departments implicitly will dismiss the claims of younger women who are most vulnerable and instead take the word of their older, male, tenured colleague," said Ballard. She attended Berkeley and was part of the Title IX case against well known astronomer Geoff Marcy.

Marcy was once held in so much esteem he was considered for a Nobel Prize. He was found responsible by Berkeley in the Title IX case and retired last year following the allegations.

Marcy released a statement at the time that said, "I never intended to cause distress and I apologize deeply for having done so. I take full responsibility and hold myself accountable for the harm done."

Berkeley was harshly criticized for allowing the professor to retire instead of firing him, but the school said tenured professors cannot be fired -- and Marcy quit before disciplinary procedures could begin. Berkeley also says it is "taking a comprehensive look at our processes" regarding "sexual harassment and assault cases involving faculty and staff."

Marcy"s attorney told CNN in a statement, "Throughout his career, Dr. Marcy has been committed to and been an activist for the advancement of women in science. He has also demonstrated a vigorous and unwavering support of the long overdue efforts to eliminate sexual assault and sexual harassment from all work places, including academia."

Read the full statement

Speier says she hopes to make a difference by tying grant money to sexual offenses. "I have had it with the culture that allows for sexual harassment to continue to fester," she said. "It"s sending an important message to universities across the country that you can"t hide and you can"t brush these cases underneath the proverbial rug."

Opinion: What astronomy can do about sexual harassment

Weld "not sure anybody is more qualified than Hillary Clinton" to be president

Washington (CNN)Libertarian vice presidential hopeful Bill Weld said Friday that he"s "not sure anybody is more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be president of the United States," the latest misstep in what"s been a painful week for the third-party ticket.

Weld"s praise of the Democratic presidential nominee was made in an interview with MSNBC"s Chuck Todd. He quickly added: "I mean, that"s not the end of the inquiry, though. We were two-term governors and I think Gary is very, very solid. At this point, we overlapped as governors and I thought highly of him back when we served together, but having spent the last several months (together), I don"t just like the guy, I love the guy. I think he is very solid and deep."

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Weld, a former Massachusetts governor, said he thought Republican nominee Donald Trump was "out of control" at Monday"s debate, whereas he felt Clinton did "a great job."

Weld also spoke in defense of his running mate, Gary Johnson, after a gaffe earlier this week in which he couldn"t come up with the name of any foreign leader during an MSNBC town hall. Weld said Johnson was not good at "pop quiz" moments and went on to say the gaffe didn"t disqualify Johnson for the presidency.

Would the "Hooters defense" have worked for Trump?

(CNN)As criticism mounts of Donald Trump for his disparaging remarks about women, an old lawsuit reinforcing the candidate"s troubling record on female employees has emerged. The 2012 lawsuit alleged that Trump wanted to get rid of female hostesses he considered unattractive at one of his golf resorts and replace them with better-looking women.

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Unless you"re Hooters. The "breastaurant" argues that for a "Hooters Girl," a "pretty face" and "sex appeal" are essential. Hooters claims sexy female waitresses are a BFOQ. Analogizing the job to an actor or fashion model, for whom looks might qualify as a BFOQ, Hooters states its waitresses are entertainers who audition for their roles and, once hired, maintain a specific appearance to provide that unique Hooters experience.

For the most part, Hooters has avoided adjudication of this defense by settling court cases. But the BFOQ defense would be an interesting proposition to a court today, especially in light of the ever-evolving views of gender in our society. Recently, one federal appeals court flat out said that because of the demanding legal standards, BFOQs are "few and far between. In many industries, it is difficult to imagine any jobs that would qualify as BFOQs."

Similarly, it appears the 2012 case against Trump was settled quietly in 2013 without any admission of wrongdoing. So we won"t ever learn if Trump"s golf resort could have successfully adapted the "Hooters defense" in asserting a BFOQ.

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Had it proceeded to court, the Trump defense might have been that the more fetching hostesses at the restaurant rose to the level of "entertainers" -- not simply hostesses. This would have been a tough argument to make for three reasons: First, the BFOQ exception is very narrowly, and rarely applied -- some modern courts have difficulty even imagining a legitimate BFOQ. Second, the Trump lawsuit alleged that the unattractive employees were treated differently than the attractive employees, which means that unattractive employees could perform the job as well as the attractive ones -- it"s just that the boss didn"t want to look at them while they did it, allegedly. That in turn suggests that the supposed policy was linked not just to improved sales but also to appeasing the boss man when he stopped in for a (Trump) steak. This would probably not meet the exacting standards of a BFOQ exception.

Employer "look" policies are not a thing of the past, though. Just last year the Supreme Court expressly acknowledged them as acceptable, as long as the policy has exceptions for protected classes (like wearing religiously-motivated headgear). At the same time, changing views on gender roles and sexual orientation both socially and in the law may start to chip away at companies" appearance policies. And, even if it is legal for Trump to discriminate on this basis, it"s probably not good for public relations. Fairness may not be required by the law in all instances, but it might be required by a voting constituency.

Charlotte cops issue nearly a hundred warrants related to protests

(CNN)Police in Charlotte have issued a total of 95 warrants in connection with a week of violent protests that ended Tuesday, according to a statement Thursday from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

Some of those warrants have already been served, and police records show 22 people, almost all from Charlotte, were arrested during and after protests. They face charges -- some misdemeanors, some felonies -- related to looting, vandalism and assault.

"These arrests are largely due to the countless hours of video surveillance and tireless work from investigators to bring these suspects to justice," the statement said.

Police are asking the public"s help in identifying more suspects. During the week of protests a total of 82 people were taken into custody and about a quarter of them were charged with crimes related to looting and vandalism.

The protests started after a Charlotte police officer shot and killed 43-year old Keith Lamont Scott, fueling the national debate over whether police are too quick to use deadly force, particularly against African-American men. Scott was black and so is Brentley Vinson, the officer who shot him.

Protests turned violent

The first two nights after the shooting quickly turned violent when protesters started throwing objects at police, broke store front windows and looted some shops. One protester was shot dead on the second night. A curfew was enacted and national guard troops helped keep the peace in the city after the governor issued a state of emergency.

Protesters were demanding to see dash cam video of the encounter and after it"s release family members of Scott and police agreed that more information was needed to find out what happened.

No visual of gun in hand

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But Justin Bamberg, an attorney representing the Scott family, said "according to his wife, he did not have a gun and she did not see a gun."

She is seen pleading with police not to shoot her husband in a video released by the family.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Congress suddenly has buyer"s remorse for overriding Obama"s veto

Washington (CNN)Top congressional leaders from each party expressed buyer"s remorse Thursday about a controversial new law that was enacted over President Barack Obama"s objections that allows 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia.

Just one day after these lawmakers led the first override of a veto during Obama"s presidency they publicly called for making changes to the law. But even as they admitted they agreed with some of the White House"s concerns, GOP leaders quickly blamed the President for "dropping the ball" for failing to engage with Congress on the legislation before it passed.

The White House didn"t hold back in its criticism after both the House and Senate voted decisively on Wednesday to overturn Obama"s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, also referred to as JASTA. The President called the vote Wednesday "political" and his spokesman ripped the move as the "single most embarrassing thing" Congress has done in decades.

EXCLUSIVE: Obama says Congress made a "political vote" overriding his veto of Saudi lawsuit bill

Echoing concerns raised by the White House that the measure could open the US to similar lawsuits from people in other countries, House Speaker Paul Ryan said the law needs to be changed to ensure that US troops are protected.

"I"d like to think there is a way we can fix it so that our service members do not have legal problems overseas while still protecting the rights of the 9/11 victims," Ryan said at his weekly news conference.

The speaker voiced his own reservations about the bill earlier this year, saying people needed to look at the unintended consequences. But he explained that he ultimately decided to allow a House vote on it because "you want to make sure that the 9/11 victims and their families get their day in court."

Asked if Congress would try to fix the law when it returns for a post-election session, Ryan replied, "I don"t know."

OPINION: Will Saudis seek revenge for Congress" veto override?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, speaking at a separate news conference, shared Ryan"s concerns.

"It appears there may be some unintended ramifications of that and I do think it"s worth further discussing," he said. "But it"s certainly is not something that was going to be fixed this week."

McConnell said Obama didn"t reach out to him until this week, which was after the bill had passed both chambers, been vetoed, and was facing an override vote that clearly was going to succeed.

"That was a good example of the failure to communicate early about a piece of legislation that was obviously very popular," McConnell said.

McConnell explained that lawmakers were very focused on the needs of the 9/11 families and didn"t take the time to think through the consequences.

"Because everyone was aware who the potential beneficiaries were, but nobody focused on the potential downside in terms of our international relationships. And I just think it was a ball dropped," McConnell said. "I wish the President -- and I hate to blame everything on him and I don"t -- but it would have been helpful had...we had a discussion about this much earlier than the last week."

White House press secretary Josh Earnest blasted lawmakers for their second thoughts and said there were ample warnings from the administration of the dangerous consequences of the law.

"What"s true in elementary school is true in the United States Congress: ignorance is not an excuse," Earnest said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, typically one of the White House"s strongest allies, voted to override the President"s veto and told reporters she was never pressed by the President to help prevent it from being overturned.

She called the President"s concerns about potential fallout with allies "legitimate" and acknowledged, "I do think that perhaps it could have been written in a little bit of a different way that addressed some of the concerns. The families did think that they made changes but not to the satisfaction of the President obviously."

Pelosi disagreed with the President"s remark that it was a "political vote." While she said she didn"t see his comments, she said the timing of Congress taking up the measure was because the families of the terror attacks pressed for it to pass around the 15th anniversary of the deaths of their loved ones.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is expected to be the next Democratic leader next year, is the chief sponsor of the legislation. The New Yorker said he was open to changing the law but not in any way that could hurt the 9/11 families, many of whom are his constituents.

"So I will look at anything," Schumer said at a news conference. "But it has to be something that doesn"t weaken the bill and limit the rights of these families to get their day in court and justice."

Schumer spoke while standing next to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who was lobbied this week by Obama to sustain his veto, and his was the lone senator to do so. Reid even read aloud to a meeting of his Democratic caucus a letter Obama had written to him outlining his concerns with the bill.

Asked to explain his thinking, Reid declined.

"No, no. I"ve got my friend here. I"m not going to talk about it," he said.

One senator who wanted to talk more about the legislation before it became law was Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Corker said he tried to arrange a meeting this weekend with Senate leaders, Obama, and Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss "a better route" for the legislation.

"We were unable to get the meeting," a frustrated Corker said on the floor. "For reasons that still are unknown to me, that was not achievable. There was no desire whatsoever to sit down and meet."

Earnest said the White House had spoken to Corker.

"He"s going to have to explain to his constituents why he supported a piece of legislation that he claims to harbor significant concerns about," Earnest said of Corker.

Corker spearheaded a letter Wednesday signed by 28 bipartisan senators raising concerns with the law and saying they would consider changes to it, a particularly unusual missive on the day the President"s veto was turned back.

"Every one of those senators that signed the letter voted for the bill, including Sen. Corker. So obviously they thought it was better to have the bill than not," Schumer noted.

As for Obama calling his vote politically-motivated, Schumer rejected the charge.

"I look at the families, it"s hardly political to me," Schumer said. "I"ve worked with these families for five years. I feel their pain."

Could this smog-eating tower solve China"s pollution problem?

Beijing, China (CNN)One of the 21st century"s bleakest problems, air pollution leads to the premature death of 3 million people every year, according to a study published in the journal Nature last year. That number is set to double by 2050.

Most of Roosegaarde"s projects are public-oriented and socially conscious. His Smart Highway project, for instance, envisions roads that charge during the day and glow at night, while Waterlicht uses LED technology to show rising water levels.

Such ambitious endeavors aren"t going unnoticed: Studio Roosegaarde just won the Design Innovation Medal at the London Design Festival.

But while Roosegaarde has high hopes for his Smog Free Tower, he knows it"s not a permanent solution.

Read: Earthquake-proofing the tallest skyscraper in California

"Since we installed it in Beijing, the tower has collected daily as much smog as it did over two weeks in the Netherlands," Roosegaarde says. "This is an issue that can"t be fixed overnight, nor with just one tower. We need a bottom-up effort, with both citizens and governments actively working for change.

"My hope is that one day in 10 or 15 years, we"ll look back at it and find it obsolete. The pressing question is how are we going to get there? This," he says, pointing at the tower, "is a start."