The failed blowout preventer, a key piece of evidence in the Gulf oil spill, is heading for a NASA facility in Louisiana where it will be analyzed.

Engineers took 29½ hours to lift the 50-foot, 300-ton blowout preventer from a mile beneath the sea. It was placed into a metal contraption specifically designed to hold the massive device.

The April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers and led to 206 million gallons of oil spewing from BP’s undersea well.

Investigators know the explosion was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, bursting through several seals and barriers before igniting.

But they don’t know exactly how or why the gas escaped. And they don’t know why the blowout preventer didn’t seal the well pipe.

The exit of the candidate, Daniel Padernacht, a political lawyer and member of a Bronx community board, means that the anti-Espada vote will no longer be split between him and Mr. Rivera.

Mr. Espada, the Senate majority leader, is facing a difficult primary after a year of legal and political challenges. Mr. Rivera, a former political aide who is running for office for the first time, has received significant support from unions, donors and elected officials across the state in his bid for the northwest Bronx seat.

Mr. Padernacht was always a long-shot candidate, but in a district known for extremely low voter turnout, he was expected to receive enough votes in the primary, on Sept. 14, to strengthen Mr. Espada’s hand.

A poll of 400 likely Democratic primary voters released last month showed Mr. Padernacht receiving 8 percent of the vote, enough to deliver victory to Mr. Espada. In a head-to-head matchup without Mr. Padernacht, the poll, conducted by Red Horse Strategies, a political consultancy hired by an anti-Espada group, showed Mr. Rivera and Mr. Espada tied, with each receiving 32 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.8 percent.

“I’m basically going to put all my support behind Gustavo right now so we can join forces as Democrats and try to knock Espada out,” Mr. Padernacht said in an interview Sunday night.

“We didn’t want to take the risk of Espada getting back into office.”

Mr. Padernacht’s name will still appear on the ballot, but he said he would spend the next eight days campaigning for Mr. Rivera and asking his supporters to back Mr. Rivera.

Mr. Rivera called Mr. Padernacht’s support a major development in the campaign. “Adding his strength to our own means that we will be able to take out this guy,” he said.

A spokesman for Mr. Espada’s campaign did not return a call for comment.

Mr. Rivera, 34, has worked for elected officials, most recently Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, and for a number of campaigns, including Barack Obama’s presidential run. He has lived in the 33rd Senate District in the northwest Bronx for 10 years, but was virtually unknown until he started his campaign in May.

Since then, powerful groups like the Services Employees International Union and the Working Families Party have rallied around him as having the best shot at unseating Mr. Espada, who has been held up as a symbol of Albany’s dysfunction. Bill Samuels, a technology entrepreneur and Democratic donor, has endorsed Mr. Rivera and vowed to spend up to $250,000 on the race. He founded the group that paid for the poll.

Mr. Rivera’s main challenge remains introducing himself to an electorate that is very familiar with Mr. Espada, the founder of a network of health clinics.

While most analysts believe Mr. Espada remains the favorite, his legal problems are likely to hurt him at the ballot.

The attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, filed a civil suit in April charging Mr. Espada and others close to him with siphoning $14 million from the health clinics for personal and political purposes. Mr. Espada is also under investigation by the Bronx district attorney’s office about whether he actually lives in Westchester, and by federal prosecutors over the health clinics.

David Ross

Job: Neuropsychiatrist, director of the Virginia Institute of Neuropsychiatry
Residence: Chesterfield County
Age: 50
Quote: “I am aware of no more than a handful of neuropsychiatrists in Virginia.” David Ross specializes in traumatic brain injury and involuntary movement disorders caused by brain medications.

“These common and serious medical conditions often fall in the gap between neurology and psychiatry,” Ross said.

His field of medicine has developed in the past 20 years, as more has been learned about the brain. “Not a lot of doctors specialize in out-patient traumatic brain injuries. I am one of the few.”

His business model is as unusual as his practice. He accepts almost no health insurance. His practice is among only 10 percent in the country that is private pay, he said.

“This business model was difficult to achieve in the insuranceand government-dominated health-care environment, but we have been able to swim against the ocean and keep our heads afloat for nine years.”

Patients pay more out-of-pocket to see Ross. But they also can get what they need, he said. “We are not limited by insurance companies or government restrictions.”

Many of his patients have been in car accidents, they have been hit on their heads or they are victims of domestic abuse.

“Most have mild traumatic brain injury. Some will recover within a few months. Others will have persistent symptoms.”

Symptoms include impaired concentration, memory loss, mood swings, anxiety,

insomnia symptoms and fatigue.

Another set of patients suffers from involuntary movements that fall into two categories — writhing in the face, lips, tongue and fingers and the twisting of the head and neck in one direction.

These disfiguring movements — some severe and socially disabling — can be caused by anti-psychotic medications or a drug prescribed for gastrointestinal problems and can be irreversible, Ross said.

“My patients tend to be complicated.” The initial evaluation is three to four hours and costs $850.

“My job is intellectually challenging, and it’s rewarding to help sick patients get better,” Ross said.

Some cases are so tragic that he can’t talk about them with friends or family, he said, noting that he always protects patient confidentiality.

“I try to look at the positive side: We can help almost all our patients. . . . We do research and use technology at the cutting edge of neuropsychiatry.”

Ross graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in 1986 and did his residency in psychiatry there. He completed a fellowship in neuropsychiatry with a focus on schizophrenia research at University of Maryland in 1992.

The health-services industry is one of the few bright spots in a faltering job market.

The Richmond area lost nearly 5,900 jobs in the 12 months that ended in June, according to Chmura Economics & Analytics.

But it gained nearly 2,100 jobs in the education and health-services sectors.

We looked at emerging jobs in health care, from a doula — Greek for a woman who serves — to a medical practice that bridges neurology and psychiatry.

We talked with a memory coach who trains brains and a respiratory-care therapist who deals daily in saving lives.

Surprisingly, all of the people featured are in their 50s.

It wasn’t by design.

We had no way of knowing ages or races of the dozens of people who responded to our inquiry until we met them and talked with them.

The 50s must be the time of life at which if you’re not doing what you want to by then, you better do something quickly or you may never get there.

In yesterday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, we featured seven unusual and divergent jobs done by people age 31 to “retired.” Three are in their 50s, one is a year younger and another a year older.

*****

Robert ‘Hawk’ Hawkins

Job: Intensive-care respiratory therapist at VCU Medical Center
Residence: Mechanicsville
Age: 58
Quote: “I like just everything about my job. Of course, it’s stressful. But that’s part of the job.” Robert “Hawk” Hawkins retired from his job as an intensive-care respiratory therapist a year ago in October and came back to work full time in the same job a month later.

He liked his job too much to quit, but he was eligible for retirement benefits.

“It’s life-saving, often thrilling and I’ve been doing it for 37 years.”

Hawkins said he sees the people you read about in the news, “the stabbings, the shootings, the car accidents.”

He also works with transplant patients and others in intensive care. He’s run up to 21 ventilators at a time, but he typically works with about 10 patients during his Friday through Sunday 12-hour shifts.

“I breathe for people with machines. I keep them alive until they can get better and can breathe on their own. . . . We’re helping people. It’s the best.”

The end result isn’t always good. “Sometimes it can get to you, especially if it’s young people like a 19-year-old boy who was in a wreck and was brain dead. You have to be a brave person to do pediatrics. I can’t do that.”

Hawkins was an art student at Virginia Commonwealth University in the early 1970s. His grandfather, who was putting him through school, became ill with terminal lung cancer. Hawkins visited him in the hospital.

“I decided then that if I couldn’t do something in the arts I wanted to do something in the medical arts. My first [hospital] director took pity on me [and] now 20 directors later, I am still here.”

He was hired as a trainee and went through a respiratory-care training program in the late 1970s.

“I work for the greatest people on earth. They are so dedicated. I stay out of the politics. I focus on my job. I don’t have a lick of trouble.”

For fun, he rides a Harley Road King. “I’ve never had a bad wreck.” He goes surf fishing in Cape Hatteras, N.C., and plays with his pit bull, Ace, “the sweetest dog.”

****

David Ross

Job: Neuropsychiatrist, director of the Virginia Institute of Neuropsychiatry
Residence: Chesterfield County
Age: 50
Quote: “I am aware of no more than a handful of neuropsychiatrists in Virginia.” David Ross specializes in traumatic brain injury and involuntary movement disorders caused by brain medications.

“These common and serious medical conditions often fall in the gap between neurology and psychiatry,” Ross said.

His field of medicine has developed in the past 20 years, as more has been learned about the brain. “Not a lot of doctors specialize in out-patient traumatic brain injuries. I am one of the few.”

His business model is as unusual as his practice. He accepts almost no health insurance. His practice is among only 10 percent in the country that is private pay, he said.

“This business model was difficult to achieve in the insuranceand government-dominated health-care environment, but we have been able to swim against the ocean and keep our heads afloat for nine years.”

Patients pay more out-of-pocket to see Ross. But they also can get what they need, he said. “We are not limited by insurance companies or government restrictions.”

Many of his patients have been in car accidents, they have been hit on their heads or they are victims of domestic abuse.

“Most have mild traumatic brain injury. Some will recover within a few months. Others will have persistent symptoms.”

Symptoms include impaired concentration, memory loss, mood swings, anxiety,
insomnia symptoms and fatigue.

Another set of patients suffers from involuntary movements that fall into two categories — writhing in the face, lips, tongue and fingers and the twisting of the head and neck in one direction.

These disfiguring movements — some severe and socially disabling — can be caused by anti-psychotic medications or a drug prescribed for gastrointestinal problems and can be irreversible, Ross said.

“My patients tend to be complicated.” The initial evaluation is three to four hours and costs $850.

“My job is intellectually challenging, and it’s rewarding to help sick patients get better,” Ross said.

Some cases are so tragic that he can’t talk about them with friends or family, he said, noting that he always protects patient confidentiality.

“I try to look at the positive side: We can help almost all our patients. . . . We do research and use technology at the cutting edge of neuropsychiatry.”

Ross graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in 1986 and did his residency in psychiatry there. He completed a fellowship in neuropsychiatry with a focus on schizophrenia research at University of Maryland in 1992.

***

Judy Woolfolk

Postpartum doula
Residence: Louisa County
Age:52
Quote: I havent been a doula as long as others, but I love it and I have
been searching for this job for many years.

    
Judy Woolfolk has worked as a registered nurse in a hospital and at a doctor’s office. She’s taught school. She’s been a nanny.

“And now I have the best job of all — doula,” she said.
    
Woolfolk, mother of two college-age children and one deceased son, started practicing as a postpartum doula about a year ago, helping couples make their transition to parents as smoothly and with as little stress as possible.

“It’s a big transition. With a lot of people having babies older in their lives or living far away from family, I am there to mother the mother,” Woolfolk said.

“I am so blessed to have families open their homes and hearts to me, allowing me the privilege to encourage, educate, pamper them and love on their little ones.”

She helps parents gain confidence in their new roles, and she gives them time to rest or spend time with older children.

“You get to be with different families at a special time in their lives, when they bring home a brand-new baby.”

She works a minimum four-hour shift in the daytime and eight hours at night. Most jobs are a few days or nights a week, but they vary according to needs, she said.

Woolfolk said she likes to meet with an expectant mother about a month before delivery to get to know her and find out about her level of support from family, church and friends.

She is one of about 16 postpartum doulas in the Richmond area, said Kathy Stewart, a doula trainer and member of Doulas of North America. About 30 women are labor-and-delivery doulas in the area.

“We need people. We don’t have enough doulas,” Stewart said.

Insurance typically doesn’t pay for doula care. Coverage is provided if a person’s spouse is in the military and deployed.

The cost of a doula in the Richmond area is $20 to $30 an hour, depending upon their level of expertise.
    
***

Paul Mello
Job: Memory coach
Residence: Chesterfield County
Age: 51
Quote:I have a passion for what I do and believe everyone can improve their memory.

When people hear what Paul Mellor does for a living, their first response is: “Really?”
The second reaction is: “How did you get into that?”

And the most common response? “Boy, do I need that.”

Mellor teaches people how to remember.

He teaches them how to recall names and faces, how to overcome absent-mindedness and how to give speeches without using notes.

“What began as a seven-minute speech at the Richmond Toastmasters Club in 1994 has turned into a full-time job.”

He became a full-time coach when his sales job in the insurance industry ended in 2004. He has presented his Memory Magic seminar in 44 states.

“Memory is the most important topic there is, yet it’s often overlooked,” Mellor said. “It’s a subject we seldom address. People talk about having a bad memory, but no one talks about how to improve it. When we’re skilled in memory, all our other skills get better.”

Think what it could do for a person’s career if a bellhop could remember names, if attorneys could speak in court without notes, if police officers could remember license-plate numbers, he said.

Mellor has brought his message to trade associations such as the Illinois funeral directors, California hostage negotiators, Washington state truckers and Arkansas court reporters.

“I have a better memory now than when I was 21,” said Mellor, who has competed for the past six years in the USA Memory Championship.

He can remember a string of 100 numbers. Give him the names and pictures of 99 people and, in 15 minutes, he can put them together.
 
One way to remember someone’s name when you hear it for the first time is to say the person’s name right away and make an association. Or do a quick visualization and attach new information to something you already know.

Want to remember Mellor’s first name, for example? Think of a famous person with that name, say Paul McCartney, and associate the famous Beatle with Mellor.
   

---

Contact Carol Hazard at (804) 775-8023 or chazard@timesdispatch.com.

 

 

MANILA, Philippines – Just political drama.

political lawyer Darwin Icay, the spokesperson of Taguig Mayor Ma. Laarni Cayetano, has claimed that the cases filed by Vice Mayor George Elias and several city councilors against Cayetano and city administrator Jose Luis Montales was just a drama cooked up by “[Dante] Tiñga and his supporters in the city council.”

He added that these would not prevent them from uncovering anomalies allegedly committed by the previous administration.

Tiñga, father of former Taguig Mayor Freddie Tiñga, ran for mayor but lost to Cayetano in the May elections. The elder Tiñga’s running mate was Elias.

Last week, Elias and several councilors aligned with him filed administrative and criminal charges against Cayetano and Montales with the Ombudsman and Office of the President for grave abuse of authority.

This was after Cayetano, through Montales, ordered the session hall padlocked for renovations, preventing the city council from convening.

Icay, meanwhile, claimed that “the Tiñga camp [was] panicking because of the controversial issues we are uncovering.”

He added, “We expect more cases to be filed and more harassment coming from the Tiñga camp.”

WILMINGTON, Del. — In the turbulent year of the tea party, Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware set out to jangle no nerves as he ran for a Senate seat long held by Vice President Joseph Biden. It’s the way Republican strategists originally envisioned 2010, a roster of seasoned politicians pointing the party toward significant gains in the Senate.

“He brings our style of civility and independence to Washington and works to develop solutions,” is the soothing, even quaint message on the 71-year-old lawmaker’s campaign website, which shows him in a suit and tie, working alone at his desk. Experience “is hugely important,” he said in an interview.

After two terms as governor and nine as the state’s lone congressman, Castle appears better positioned than other veterans who faced a tea party-backed challenge this year. If he prevails over Christine O’Donnell on Sept. 14 — he and GOP officials have launched a fierce counterattack — he would join more than a half-dozen other veteran Republican officeholders on the ballot in Senate races.

In matters of style as well as policy and political experience, they are the polar opposite of Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sharron Angle of Nevada and Ken Buck in Colorado. Those three tapped into an anti-government sentiment, espouse politically risky positions, won primaries over establishment candidates, and now face difficult races in the fall.

No matter the blend of candidates that Republicans end up with, a persistently weak economy and voter anger add up to enough competitive races to give them at least an outside chance of winning Senate control. Already, a constellation of outside groups is spending heavily on television in Senate races, including more than $5 million this summer for two groups backed by former George W. Bush political adviser Karl Rove.

Republicans need to capture 10 seats to win a majority, and as many as a dozen held by Democrats appear competitive, as well as at least five currently in the hands of the GOP.

Ironically, as the primary season draws to a close and the fall campaign dawns, both parties try to straddle politically inconvenient facts that underscore broader trends.

Democrats are loath to concede their majority is at risk. “I don’t think there are” enough competitive races for that to happen, said Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, head of the party’s Senate campaign committee. Yet the party’s strategists issue a stream of statements saying that many tea party-backed challengers in tight contests are “too extreme” and will cost the GOP its chance of gaining control.

The committee is making a quick check to see whether it has a late, low-budget opportunity in strongly Republican Alaska, where tea party-backed challenger Joe Miller defeated GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a recent primary.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other lawmakers in his party tried repeatedly to defeat tea party-supported challengers in Kentucky, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and elsewhere in recent months, privately expressing fears they would prove unelectable.

Now, after compiling a mixed record in the primaries, the campaign chairman, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, says the fall is “an opportunity for Republicans, independents libertarians and disgruntled Democrats to come together around a fiscal responsibility message and one that says the government can’t grow itself out of this problem.”

There was never any doubt that GOP strategists wanted Castle on the ballot. Arguably the most moderate Republican in the House, he also was viewed as the only contender with a chance to win the seat at a time when Beau Biden, the state attorney general and son of the vice president, seemed likely to run.

When the younger Biden opted not to run, enter Chris Coons, a political lawyer now in his second term as executive of the largest of the state’s three counties.

Other veteran Republicans on Senate ballots this fall include Rep. John Boozman of Arkansas, whom party officials say needed some coaxing to run. Now he leads Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln by significant margins in public and private polls.

Already, Democrats have tacitly written off a seat in North Dakota, where former GOP Gov. John Hoeven, initially a reluctant candidate, is favored to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan.

Former GOP Sen. Dan Coats is ahead in the polls as he tries to win back an Indiana seat he voluntarily gave up a dozen years ago.

Next door in Illinois, Republican Rep. Mark Kirk is in a tougher race with Democrat Alexi Giannoulias for the seat President Barack Obama once held. Kirk, too, was courted heavily by Cornyn and others.

Republican veterans also are on the ballot in important Midwestern races where GOP senators are retiring. In Ohio, former Rep. Rob Portman, who served in two Cabinet-level positions in the Bush administration, polls ahead of Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and had a multimillion-dollar cash-on-hand advantage in the most recent fundraising report.

Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt, a former member of the House Republican leadership, is in a competitive contest with Democratic Secretary of State Robin Carnahan for an open seat in GOP hands.

In other races that are tight heading into the fall campaign, the political pedigree of the Republican is mixed.

In Florida, former House Speaker Marco Rubio is a rarity, a tea party favorite who is also an accomplished politician. The three-way race with Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek and Gov. Charlie Crist, a former Republican running as an independent, is one of the most unpredictable in the country.

In Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey, a former congressman and ex-head of the conservative Club for Growth, is running against Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak. Sestak defeated Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary.

Republicans got the recruit they wanted in Washington state this summer, and Dino Rossi is challenging Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.

In Wisconsin, California and Connecticut, where veteran Democrats are on the ballot, it’s the size of a candidate’s checkbook as much as ideology that mattered keenly to Republican recruiters.

Millionaire Ron Johnson, a political novice, is challenging Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. In Connecticut, where Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd is retiring, Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, spent millions of her own money to win the primary and has pledged to spend millions more against Democratic Attorney General Dick Blumenthal.

In California, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is challenging three-term Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in the costliest campaign state in the country.

In a difficult environment, Democrats also cite opportunities to pick up a seat.

High on the list is Missouri, followed by Kentucky, where Attorney General Jack Conway is running against Paul, and the complicated three-way Florida election. In Louisiana, Democratic Rep. Charlie Melancon is challenging Republican Sen. David Vitter.

Their claims have been more muted about the Delaware race, although the vice president is expected to make at least two more appearances in the state this fall.

Coons says he successfully restored his county to financial health and is ready to do the same for the federal government.

Treading carefully, at least for now, he says Castle is a “decent and likable man” but one who votes more and more like a conservative Republican while Delaware grows increasingly Democratic.

“He has lost or forgotten the courage to stand up to the increasingly conservative bent of his party,” Coons says, pointing to the congressman’s votes against the Obama administration’s economic stimulus legislation of 2009 as well as the landmark health care bill.

On the other hand, as an outsider, Coons complains that Castle voted for the financial bailout of 2008, adding it lacked accountability.

Castle’s rebuttal skips past any political implications of his votes in Congress.

The stimulus did little beyond creating temporary construction jobs, he says in an interview, and the administration lowballed the cost estimates for the health care bill. “Most of the banking (bailout) money has been repaid with interest.”

A Republican in a Democratic state, and a longtime moderate in a conservative party under pressure from the tea party movement, Castle talks of government and civility, not politics.

“Once we are elected I think we have a responsibility to sit down and work out our differences,” he said.

 

Local News

Posted 2 days ago

Shirley Lin

Today staff

A local political lawyer has made the first bid to run for the Saprae Creek and Draper area in the upcoming municipal election.

Allan Vinni, who is known for being chairman of Habitat for Humanity Wood Buffalo and organizing Law Day, announced Thursday his intention to run for Ward 3 currently held by Coun. Renee Rebus.

Vinni, who has a law practice downtown, said after living in Fort McMurray for a decade, it’s now the right time.

“I came here, not on any five-year plan, I came here with the idea that I was going to live, work and play here until I retired,” he said. “I’ve always thought it was something I would do in the future when it seemed right, and it seems right now.”

Unlike other council candidates, Vinni said he isn’t a huge fan of having a platform or agenda.

“I’m not a huge fan of that, I don’t have an agenda. My agenda is to respond to the concerns of the people in my ward and make decisions on the issues as they arise.”

He said this view is based from his observation of city council back in his native town of Thunder Bay, Ont., where councillors didn’t come up with political agendas. Instead, they just took care of problems as they appeared.

In his press release, Vinni outlined general goals he has of the community including preparing the town that’s seeing a huge population growth, developing support systems for newcomers, protecting smaller communities like Saprae Creek and Draper, and accountability on the part of councillors.

Vinni added that there are concerns about the industrial, commercial and residential developments in his ward that will impact the two communities. “I don’t think a lot of people drive out to Saprae or live there; they’d be surprised at how much heavy traffic there is on the highway already.

The expansion of the airport — there will be a large industrial corridor there that’s not

necessarily a positive thing for Saprae.”

About the current council he said he has been told there were divisions among councillors, but that does not matter for him.

“There’s basically going to be half of new councillors … so it’s going to be a new council and whatever happened in the past is ancient history to me.”

Vinni added that the town needs to cut itself some slack dealing with the population growth its seen in the last

10 years, now sitting at

almost 80,000 people. “We’ve done actually a pretty good job of it.”

shirley.lin@fortmcmurraytoday.com