Nursing Homes Told to Reinstate Workers

Nursing Homes Told to Reinstate Workers - A federal judge in Hartford has ordered a Connecticut nursing home chain to reinstate nearly 600 workers who have been on strike since July 3, and to rescind the pension and health care cuts it had imposed.

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Judge Robert N. Chatigny of the United States District Court in Connecticut ruled on Tuesday night that the nursing homes’ owner, HealthBridge Management, had broken the law by refusing to bargain in good faith and by imposing the cuts before a true negotiating impasse had been reached.

Judge Chatigny issued an injunction that ordered HealthBridge to reinstate the workers by next Monday, even if it means ousting hundreds of the replacement workers hired to run the nursing homes after the strike began.

“Everybody is quite happy about the decision,” said Vern Scatliffe, a nurse’s aide, as he picketed outside Danbury Health Care Center, one of the five nursing homes — the others are in Milford, Newington, Stamford and Westport — where the workers walked out to protest the cuts HealthBridge had imposed. “The judge’s order is a big relief to me. I can now go back to work and earn my living again.”

Saying the company was disappointed by the judge’s decision, Lisa Crutchfield, a HealthBridge spokeswoman, said it had filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to overturn the injunction.

“We are acting in the best interests of our residents — their well-being is paramount to us,” she said. Ms. Crutchfield said the order to reinstate the strikers would “expose residents to the very people who sought to do them harm” during the walkout. HealthBridge has accused the strikers of several acts of sabotage, including changing the names on several patients’ doors and wheelchairs and switching the names of some residents in Alzheimer’s units.

Deborah Chernoff, a spokeswoman for the strikers’ union, the New England Health Care Employees Union, said it had opposed any sabotage. She suggested that the allegations themselves were suspicious, noting that they were first made two weeks after the strike began.

The strike began after HealthBridge declared the negotiations deadlocked and then imposed changes that included freezing the workers’ pensions, requiring many to pay at least $6,000 more a year for family health coverage and eliminating six paid sick days and a week’s vacation for many workers.

Two weeks after the strike began, the striking employees, who belong to a branch of the Service Employees International Union, offered to return to work, but the company refused to take them back. Judge Chatigny said it was “just and proper” to reinstate them “because there is a pressing need to restore the status quo” from before the company made the changes, which he found to be illegal.

The judge acted only after the National Labor Relations Board’s office in Hartford sought an injunction.

David Pickus, president of the strikers’ union, said, “This ruling is a decisive victory for workers and a sign that HealthBridge cannot get away with its unfair and illegal treatment of its employees.” ( nytimes.com )

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Hundreds Of Rail Passengers Fled In Terror

Hundreds Of Rail Passengers Fled In Terror - Hundreds of rail passengers fled in terror when dozens of deadly snakes were found on a train travelling from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi in Vietnam.

A guard and conductor were checking tickets as passengers got on in the central city of Quang Ngai on Thursday evening - and spotted the live king cobras and cobras under a seat.

People fled the carriage as panic broke out, and the smuggler was able to escape in the chaos.

The reptiles - which are extremely venomous and can kill a human within just 30 minutes - were being carried in four see-through cloth bags.

One passenger, Pham Van An, 20, said: "Some of the snakes were very big, and looked terrifying. Most people ran away. But some people went to look at them and the cobras rose up.

"Then police took the snakes off the train."

Officers handed the snakes over to Quang Ngai province's wildlife protection officers for release into the wild.

Nguyen Van Han, chief of the Quang Ngai Forest Protection Department, was unable to say how many snakes were in the bags, but said they weighed a total of 45kg (99lb).

Authorities believe the endangered creatures - which are protected under Vietnamese law - were to be sold to restaurants in Hanoi.

Earlier this month, Gordon Ramsay was labelled "offensive" by animal welfare groups after eating the still-beating heart of a cobra on television.

The TV cook was filmed watching the 6ft-long creature being sliced open at his table in a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City for his new series.

Snake meat is a delicacy in Vietnam , and has long been associated with virility and enhanced male sexual performance. A large king cobra can sell in restaurants for around £310.

Traditionally, customers choose the snake they want and then see it killed in front of them. The meal usually starts with a drink made from the snake's blood.

Conservationists say the illegal hunting and trafficking of wildlife for meat is a huge problem in Vietnam as well as in neighbouring China, Laos and Cambodia.

A recent investigation by the Wildlife Conservation Society found 84% of restaurants in one Vietnamese city alone - Da Lat - were illegally selling wild animals.

And a survey carried out by the charity Wildlife At Risk discovered that more than half the people in Ho Chi Minh City had eaten or used wild animal products.

It said snake, porcupine, bear, civet, weasel, fresh water turtle, and monitor lizard were among the most widely consumed wild meats.

In recent years, Vietnam has made a number of large wildlife seizures, but relatively few smugglers have been convicted, and almost none have received the maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment ( skynews )

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Schwarzenegger, Patty Baena and Maria Shriver's Sons Born Six Days Apart

Schwarzenegger, Patty Baena and Maria Shriver's Sons Born Six Days Apart - In 1984, Dudley Moore played a bigamist whose wives, "Micki and Maude," had babies at the same time. In the Schwarzenegger-Shriver-Baena love triangle, Patty Baena and Maria Shriver gave birth to Schwarzenegger's sons within six days of each other.

Schwarzenegger and Shriver have always seemed to be a poster couple. They have a 25-year marriage and four beautiful kids. There have been rumors of flirtations on Arnold's part, but by and large the marriage appeared healthy, especially when you consider the odds stacked against them.

Schwarzenegger and Shriver have weathered years of Kennedy family drama. Shriver is JFK's niece and the daughter of Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Then there was Arnold's high-profile movie career and Maria's front-woman post with NBC.

Most difficult of all may be that the couple is on opposite sides of the political coin: she is a strict Democrat while he is a first-water Republican. My husband and I have similar politics, but even our few differences can be hard on our relationship. Polar opposites must make strange bedfellows.

The rock-solid house of Schwarzenegger was recently discovered to have cracks in the foundation, however. After the governor's term of office was up in January, he was back in circulation on the film scene sans wife. Then Shriver moved out of their mansion. Rumors of infidelity surfaced, but nothing specific.

On May 17, the bombshell broke. "Conan" had been in an affair with his housekeeper, Mildred Patricia "Patty" Baena. More than that, the two had a child together. Despite Baena's claims that her husband at the time, Rogelio Baena, was the father, Schwarzenegger admitted to paternity.

Here's where the "Micki and Maude" part comes in. TMZ obtained copies of the child's birth certificate. The document shows that Schwarzenegger's fourth and youngest child Christopher was born to Maria Shriver at the same time his baby mama, Patty Baena was giving birth to their love child.

Baena's child's birthday is Oct. 2, 1997. Shriver's son Christopher Sargent Shriver was born Sept. 27, 1997. The former Mr. Universe's boys are six days apart.

Photos of Baena, with the child show his face blurred to preserve juvenile privacy. However the famous Schwarzenegger grin is still visible. Even in an indefinite image, the child looks like his father.

Reading about the tandem births, I immediately thought of the "Micki and Maude" connection. "Micki and Maude" was a funny, warm movie. After a dust-up when the two women discover each other and their coincident babies, it turns out well. Everyone kisses and makes up after a neat 90-minute wind-up. But it's a movie.

Schwarzenegger has hurt a lot of people by his choices: his wife, his children (especially Christopher and the unnamed son of Patty Baena), Rogelio Baena, and even arguably Patty Baena herself. In real life, adultery and deceit don't dovetail so neatly as they do in movies. ( yahoo.com )

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The battle of ‘Jempana’

The battle of ‘Jempana’ - The sound of the xylophone ensemble peaked into a hair-raising crescendo as the bearers of jempana (palanquins) entered a state of trance.

Each jempana was carried on the shoulders of two adult men, the front and rear bearers. Several other men accompanied the bearers throughout the ritual, making sure their trance-induced wild movements would not hurt the spectators or, God forbid, damage the jempana.

The ritual involved six of these palanquins, each containing a pralingga, which is an effigy of a protecting deity sanctified by the people of Timbrah, a small hamlet in Paksabali village, Klungkung.

Before the battle: Devotees carry jempana (palanquins) to a river-side temple for a purification ritual.JP/Agung Parameswara

Popularly known to outsiders as Siyat Jempana (the Battle of Jempana) or Dewa Mapalu (the Battle of deities), the ritual comes at the end of an 11-day-long ritual held at the Panti clan temple. It falls twice a year on the day celebrated by the Balinese Hindus as Kuningan.

During this Kuningan Day mid December last year, the bearers took the jempana into the temple’s middle court. They performed a purwa daksina, circling around the grounds of the court three times before running faster toward each other. The bearers, eyes tightly closed and in deep trance, shouted repeatedly as they collided into each other in the center of the ground, whilst carrying their jempana.

They repeatedly did so for over an hour. As the night grew darker, some other men tried to guide their palanquins into the temple’s inner court. But the bearers wouldn’t have any of it, determined to continue smashing into each other again. After a brief struggle, the bearers were separated from their respective jempana. The palanquins were carried into the inner court followed by their bearers. The temple priest sprinkled holy water on the bearers, bringing them back from their state of trance.

Host of women and young girls performed the sacred Rejang dance to greet the jempana as they entered the inner court.

Despite the seemingly violent nature of the event, locals maintain it is actually a ritual of celebration.

That’s why they prefer to call the ritual Dewa Mesraman (Gathering of Deities), rather than Siyat Jempana and Dewa Mapalu.

The celebratory nature of the ritual was evident in the communal feast of Megibung the villagers
partook in to mark the beginning of the ritual.

Despite the absence of written historical sources on the unique ritual, many scholars believe that Dewa Mesraman is related to the Usaba Gumang festival at the Bukit Gumang temple and the Meami-amian ritual in Asak village, Karangasem.

The Usama Gumang festival involves four villages; Bugbug, Bebandem, Jasri and Ngis. All these villages are ancient communities that maintained their unique traditions despite East Java’s Majapahit Kingdom attempts to culturally homogenize the island when they annexed it in the 14th century. ( thejakartapost.com)

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