LippoBank Scholarship 2008 Intake

LippoBank Scholarship 2008 Intake
PT Bank Lippo Tbk ( “LB”), major investment company Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Malaysia, believes in the development of human capital in the Republic of Indonesia. In this regard, LB is pleased to scholarships and financial aid to deserving Indonesian students who intend to pursue their tertiary education in selected universities in Indonesia.

Thus, LB invites applications from high school graduates who wish to pursue bachelor program in the specialty areas of trade, finance, economic, accounting, computer sciences, mathematics, statistics and law.

The scholarship grant will be based on the merits of the applicant, including academic classes and school extracurricular activities. However, in order to provide opportunities for those who could face difficulties in financing their higher education, special attention will be given to applications from students who come from disadvantaged families financially.
I. Requirements:
LB Scholarship Applicants must meet the following minimum requirements:
(I) must be Indonesian citizens;
(Ii) should complete the application form;
(iii) grade point average to the National average result and points for the secondary school exam result should be 8.00 or higher;
(iv) should be able to prove that they are from disadvantaged families financially, showing an official letter from poverty, from local authorities and home electricity bill;
(c) do not currently receive any scholarship or other equivalent award;
(Vi) English;
(vii) must comply with all rules and regulations imposed by LB in connection with the programme of scholarships;
(viii) Accepted applicants must be willing to participate in any LB programmes and activities, such as the internship program at LB or any of its subsidiaries;
(x) Scholarship recipients are prohibited to work during the entire period of study.
(x) should fill in all the documents listed in the additional requirements and conditions. (Click for details)

II. Coverage of scholarships:
The scholarship covers the following:
(I) registration fee at the university, at which the recipient of scholarship students;
(ii) tuition fees, duration of training, not more than 4 (four) years, or 8 (eight) academic semester or less depending on the selected program. LB is not obliged to provide any additional funding or other assistance should scholarship recipient does not finish the course in time;
(iii) Living allowance to cover living expenses during the entire period of study;
(Iv) leadership allowance needed for research;
(c) Internet manual for access to the Internet for study purposes;
(Vi) personal computer;
(vii) study aids needed for the final year of study.

III. Payment of scholarship funds:
Scholarship funds should be allocated in the following agreements:
(I) tuition fees must be paid directly to the relevant University;
(ii) Others should be allocated directly to the recipients of scholarships.

Payment of such scholarship funds to be scholarship recipient possibilities:
(I) maintain a satisfactory academic constantly, and
(ii) perform all necessary functions and responsibilities.

IV. Vacation from school
Save for school holidays, scholarship recipients will not accept any interruption in the educational activity without obtaining prior written approval from LB.

V. PENALTIES
(I) if any of the recipients of scholarships decides to withdraw from the fellowship programme, such scholarship recipient must reimburse all funds spent and return all facilities provided during his / her participation in LB in the scholarship programme, including, but not limited to a personal computer;
(ii) any breach of duty, responsibility and any other requirements imposed by LB subject to penalty to be determined by LB and / or termination of funding scholarships.

VI. Duties and responsibilities
Throughout the period of training, scholarship recipient must:
(I) will be ready to comply with all rules and regulations established by LB, as well as university;
(ii) be willing to attend and participate in all LB scholarship or collection activities;
(iii) to take part in LB human capital development programmes, and
(iv) report on the academic and non-academic progress of LB quarterly.

After graduation, scholarship recipients must join LB Alumni Association and actively participate in the program and activities.

VII. TERMINATION scholarship
The fellowship programme should be stopped at the emergence of one of the following:
(I) scholarship recipients completed the training course;
(ii) scholarship recipient refuses or has no ability to continue training in the relevant University;
(iii) scholarship recipient violates or does not perform any of the functions, responsibilities and requirements;
(iv) scholarship recipient is unsuccessful in order to meet the necessary level of achievement;
(c) the recipient of scholarships is proven, provided incorrect or misleading information in the application form or its supporting documents, or
(vi) scholarship recipient is involved in any illegal activities.

VIII. OBLIGATION TO WORK
(I) during the period of training, scholarship recipients must be willing to participate in the internship programme at LB.
(ii) after completion of the usual programs, scholarships recipients are forced to work at LB and / or his affiliation period for 4 consecutive years, subject to the availability of work in LB and / or his affiliation.

IX. APPLICATIONS
Application form can be obtained directly from LB Head Office (Corporate Secretary Group) at Menara Asia 15th Floor, Jl. Boulevard Diponegoro Kav.101, Lippo Karawaci, Tangerang, or download by clicking here.

X. general procedures
Interested applicants who meet the requirements must complete and return the questionnaire, along with necessary supporting documents no later than June 27, 2008 at LB Head Office:

PT Bank Lippo Tbk
Head Office
15th Floor Menara Asia
Raya Jalan Diponegoro 101
Lippo Karawaci, Tangerang 15810
Indonesia.
Attention: Corporate Secretary

XI. FURTHER INFORMATION
For more information about LB Scholarship please contact us at 021-5460555 Ext. 65067/59016.
LB will only consider applications that have completed complied with all requirements and notifies the shortlisted applicants for participation in the ongoing phase of the selection process. LB will not return the documents submitted applications for LB.

Decisions to award scholarships, subject to the discretion of LB and can not be appealed for reconsideration. LB reserves the right to change or cancel any of the above features or requirements of LB Scholarship without prior notice and / or explanations. LB will only announce successful applicants in LB website.
Visit www.lippobank.co.id

Wylliams/Henry dancers premieres challenging new works

Wylliams/Henry dancers premieres challenging new works
Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Theatre presented its spring concert May 15 and 16 at White Recital Hall in the UMKC Performing Arts Center, which featured a premiere of a recent work by a new choreographer, “City” by Jennifer Muller. The concert also included revivals of several other high-powered works in the company’s repertoire, such as “Trains” choreographed by co-founder, Mary Pat Henry, “Evidence of Souls Not Seen” by co-founder and former faculty member, the late Leni Wylliams, and “Games” by world-renowned choreographer Donald McKayle.

Foxboro Hot Tubs are far from green
Foxboro Hot Tubs’ “Stop, Drop, and Roll!” is a lot like guzzling a bottle of sno-cone syrup.

It tastes great at first, but its excess will give you a stomach ache.

It is universally known by now that Foxboro Hot Tubs is merely Green Day in the guise of a ’60s garage-rock band, with leanings toward British Invasion staples.

Text~Touch(sm): Haptic Highlighting/Rating of Text

Text~Touch(sm): Haptic Highlighting/Rating of Text

Humans Are MultiModal Creatures With MultiModal Minds

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texture]

Using Other/Related Haptic Technology Readers Would be Able To Feel The Range of Textures Layered Over The Text Within A Corpus.

Such Texture Could Be Used to Denote Another Dimension Of The Text OR Denote Relative Importance.

[http://scholarship20.blogspot.com/2008/06/writecolorsm-multicoloring-for.html]

THINK That This Is FarFetched? Not Really.

A Decade Ago I Began to Explore Haptic Interaction in Web and non-Web Databases

The Magic Touch(sm) [http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/Touch.htm]

/Gerry

Spring 2008 ELI Conference: Using Wikipedia to Reenvision the Term Paper [AV/PPT]

Spring 2008 ELI Conference: Using Wikipedia to Reenvision the Term Paper [AV/PPT]

[03-19-08] NOW AVAILABLE [03-19-08]

Audio / Power Point Presentation [54:20]

[http://educause.acrobat.com/p79061869/]

PowerPoint Presentation [704 KB]

[http://www.educause.edu/upload/presentations/ELI082/SESS07/Brockhaus_ELI%20Wikipedia%202008.ppt]

Some Announcements

Some Announcements
President Brodhead’s Review

Just a reminder that you still have a couple of days to send your comments regarding President Brodhead to the committee conducting his performance review for the Board of Trustees. The deadline for submitting comments is October 29.

If you do not have enough time to write a letter, send a postcard or send an e-mail. Make your voice heard.

Tell them that Duke can do a lot better.

In formation on how to participate is here.

Another group has taken the lead in rallying the Duke community to participate in the comment phase for President Brodhead’s review. They are called Friends for a Better Duke or FABDU and they want a Duke to be a fab place once again. You can check out their website here.

Stuart Taylor

Our other friends at Duke Students for an Ethical Duke have are hosting a book signing and lecture by Stuart Taylor, the co-author of Until Proven Innocent at Duke on November 2. The book signing will be at 6:00 and the lecture will follow at 7:00. Details, including directions to the venue, Love Auditorium are here.

Stuart is an excellent speaker and his lecture will be every bit as interesting and informative as KC Johnsons’s a few weeks ago. Incidentally, DSED informs us that Stuart originally signed on to debate any of the book’s critics who wished to come forward. However, there have been no takers so far so he will give a lecture instead.

Duke and the Police
by Jason Trumpbour, FODU spokesperson

Duke and the Police

I have been keeping a low profile recently and that is deliberate. Mike Nifong had tried to make an issue of FODU’s efforts to call attention to his misdeeds. Now that the relevant authorities have taken the matter up, I am content to let them handle it. I will have much to say about the bar hearing, removal proceeding and contempt hearing in due course. In the meantime, I want to call attention to some disturbing information brought to light by the folks at LieStoppers concerning Duke. See also this timeline and the hearing transcript.

If you will recall, last May Mike Nifong requested the court issue a subpoena to Duke University to provide records of card key activity by all members of the Duke lacrosse team and also provide their home addresses. This information is protected by a federal statute called the Family Educational Right to Privacy Act and cannot be disclosed without a showing of need. Nifong’s request was patently overbroad, but Duke University refused to challenge it. Instead, Duke told the lacrosse players that it would comply with the request and that, if they did not like it, they could do something about it themselves. Attorneys for the lacrosse players challenged the request on their own and a hearing was held in July. The judge then handling the case, Kenneth Titus denied the request. It turns out that Nifong’s request was a complete fraud on the court because, as LieSoppers discovered, Duke University had already turned these records over to police months earlier in March evidently in violation of FERPA.

This new information is disturbing as it relates to Duke on several levels.

First, the Duke administration chose to supply personal information about its students to a manifestly unethical and corrupt district attorney in connection with a politically motivated investigation. Do not be fooled by the administration’s story that they did not know what to believe or that they instinctively trust public officials. Duke had been told by the police that the case was bogus and the file would likely be closed after the police had interviewed that alleged victim. How the police later came to aggressively investigate the case is an interesting story. I will have to tell it to you sometime, but not now. Suffice it to say that these circumstances were an additional reason for them to be very suspicious of the motives of Mike Nifong and the police.

Second, the principle beneficiary of this bit of theater would not have been Mike Nifong. He already had indictments against three defendants and he could have subpoenaed their records with no difficulty. Nifong had no need to use the records of the other players at trial, because his position at that point in time was that they had been exculpated by the April 4 lineup. Nor would there have likely been any repercussions for him or the police for merely soliciting a violation of FERPA. The real beneficiary would seem to be Duke University because it would provide a legal fig leaf to cover its apparent violation of federal law. Worse, Nifong’s apparent willingness to cover for Duke shows that Duke, through its own misconduct, had found itself entangled in Nifong’s malicious prosecution to the point that its interests had started to overlap with those of Nifong.

Third, even if the leak of personal information had not been illegal, it was extremely prejudicial to the players. Judge Titus found that Nifong had failed to show any legitimate reason for the police to have this information. Indeed, just as with the Ryan McFadyen e-mail, police used it to as part of a fishing expedition.

Finally, and probably most disturbing of all, this surreptitious leak of private information occurred at a time when Duke was pretending to support the players, had encouraged them to talk to Duke officials citing a totally fictitious student/teacher privilege and had even hired a local attorney who they offered to the players in an ambiguous relationship meant to approximate that of a defense attorney. Now we see what kind of “help” Duke was providing the players. No person truly acting in the role of defense counsel would have volunteered this information without a subpeona.

For those who insisted that our criticism of the Duke administration for its lack of public support for its falsely accused students was unfair because Duke was probably concerned about its students and was probably working behind the scenes to help them, guess again. For those who have insisted that speaking out against the conduct of Mike Nifong might work against the University’s interests and expose it to unacceptable risks, look at the risks the administration was willing to take in order to further the interests of those working against the players.

Speaking of the Ryan McFadyen e-mail, the claim by Sergeant Gottlieb in his post dated notes prepared in July that the police received a copy of the Ryan McFadyen e-mail through a Crimestoppers tip always sounded suspect to me. The affidavit in support of the search warrant application recites that “On 3/27/2006 Sgt. Gottlieb was contacted by a confidential source. The source provided Sgt. Gottlieb a copy of an e-mail sent by email address. . . .” The Ryan McFadyen e-mail was widely distributed because, aside from being tasteless, there was need to conceal its contents. It is possible that some private individual unconnected to the team came across a copy of it. However, the only other people who had access to the e-mail and its chain of replies were Duke University employees. Is Sergeant Gottlieb’s new version of events in July 2006, which characteristically contradicts an earlier document produced by the police, one supplied to a judge no less, an attempt to conceal another surreptitious leak of private information by Duke officials? In his deposition for the bar hearing, Benjamin Himan indicated that, on March 27, 2006, he, Sergeant Gottlieb and Nifong met and among the topics discussed was obtaining “e-mails and stuff like that.” However, we do not see the police or Nifong actually making a formal request for the e-mail records of the players.

I do not believe that the administration actually wanted to help frame its own students. There is some indication that members of the administration initially believed the charges based on their own personal prejudices rather than objective facts. However, the one common denominator present is that there was always some other priority for the administration that was greater than the welfare of its students. They wanted to be on the right side in the eyes of the public regardless of the facts or law. They wanted to maintain their cozy working relationships with local officials. They wanted to appease small, vocal constituencies within their faculty. They did not think the lacrosse players deserved their help.

People, particularly lawyers, keep asking me, “Doesn’t Duke have access to legal advice?” They are puzzled at how a major university with its own legal staff and a top ten law school on campus could continuously make such horrible mistakes and seemingly lack any appreciation for what was going on in the lacrosse case. Duke does have access to plenty of legal advice. The reality is that the administration does not care. I found this out first hand. In settling with several of the players, particularly in the Dowd case, the Duke administration essentially used University resources to pay for the privilege of doing whatever it wanted. They were not mistaken about the consequences of their actions. It was never going to be any other way.

It is impossible to defend the administration’s motives in violating FERPA as somehow a well intentioned attempt to further the cause of justice as it understood it to be at the time. If the administration had truly been committed to justice, it would have pursued it without regard to where it might take them and which side it might be found to lay. Yet, when the time came for speaking up for the due process rights of its students, the administration was silent and remained silent until late December. No, there was never any commitment by the administration to seeing justice done in the lacrosse case at least through December and certainly not in March. In the absence of such a commitment, there was only self interest and playing favorites.

Collin Leaves Duke as Well

In other news, Collin Finnerty has announced that he is transferring to Loyola College. As with Reade Seligmann, it is disgraceful that Duke has not done more to retain a student who suffered because of his Duke affiliation and did so with dignity and character. Reade, Collin and David represented the University well and made us proud.

I live not too far from Loyola College. It is an excellent school with a top notch lacrosse program (they beat Duke last year). The people there are glad to have him and I am sure that they will take good care of him in a way that the Duke administration was unwilling to do. Welcome to Baltimore Collin!

Joan Collins

I do not want Joan Collins’s latest article to be overlooked by bumping it from the top place with this update so, after reading this, keep reading below. I would just like to add that it is not surprising to me that faith was important to all of the lacrosse team members, their families and the Presslers and that it helped them through their ordeal. The deep faith she describes them having was certainly apparent to me by their conduct all along, especially that of Reade, Collin and David. I am sure that there were many, many moments of despair for them. However, they did not give up. They did not let themselves be paralyzed with self pity. They did not give in to hatred. They never lost the ability to see beyond their own concerns and now want to use their experience to help others in similar situations.

St. Louis de Montfort, in his Letter to the Friends of the Cross, described the proper way for people to confront and even embrace the vicissitudes of life, which provide opportunities for spiritual growth and a closer, more uncomplicated and uncluttered relationship with God. To suffer setbacks without hope and without faith is to suffer as the damned do. However, to suffer with hope and with faith is to suffer as Christ and the holy martyrs did. What the three families went through was horrible and they are still suffering materially for it. However, not only were they not destroyed by the experience, as Joan points out, they are better people for it. St. Louis emphasizes that there is nothing meritorious about suffering in and of itself. Recently, someone wrote a letter to the Herald-Sun complaining about all of the legal actions against Mike Nifong and compared him to Jesus. I wish I were kidding. However, to suffer for an evil or unjust cause is to be a martyr not for God, but for Satan. If Mike Nifong would only embrace the, in his case, just suffering he brought on himself, as the penitent thief at Christ’s side did, he too could be a better person for this experience and actually would be like Christ.

While we are on the subject, this was the thought for the week during Mike Nifong’s bar hearing on a site run by Irish Jesuits called Sacred Space:

Jesus urged us not to swear at all: “All you need say is ‘Yes’ if you mean yes, ‘No’ if you mean no.” Only constant honesty with ourselves can make us really sincere. The world knows an honest person. Many would not tell a downright lie, but few, even of the pious, always tell the truth. It was the truth in Jesus that devastated his enemies. In proportion as we live a recollected life, with Jesus as model, we attain a simplicity and lucidity of character which has less and less need for untruth.

I thought the coincidence was remarkable. That should be the lesson for all of us in the lacrosse case, not just Mike Nifong.

Disruptive Scholarship: An Idea Whose Time Has Come: (Re)Use / (Re)Mix / (Re)New

Disruptive Scholarship: An Idea Whose Time Has Come: (Re)Use / (Re)Mix / (Re)New

3rd International Plagiarism Conference
“Transforming Practice for an Authentic Future”

23 - 25 June 2008 / City Campus East, Northumbria University /
Newcastle-upon-tyne, UK /

Day 2 / Wednesday / 25th June 2008
2.00 pm - 3.00 pm
Keynote 4
Gerry McKiernan
Iowa State University, US.

Hadrian’s Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of modern-day England. … [It was] 117 kilometres long, … [I]ts width and height [were] dependent on the construction materials [that] … were available nearby. … [T]he wall in the east follow[ed] the outcrop of a hard, resistant igneous diabase rock escarpment … Local limestone was used in the

construction, except for … section[s] in the west … where turf was used instead … .

The Broad Wall was initially built with a clay-bonded rubble core and mortared dressed rubble facing stones, but this seems to have made it vulnerable to collapse, and repair with a mortared core was sometimes necessary…. [I]n time … [Hadrian's] Wall was abandoned and fell into ruin. Over the centuries and even into the twentieth century a large proportion of the stone was reused in other local buildings.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian's_Wall]

Throughout history, humans have (re)used local resources to create not only buildings and fortifications, but monuments, roads, and a wide variety of other structures. For countless generations, artists, composers, and writers have freely incorporated elements from local and distant cultures to create new visual, musical, and textual forms.

In The Web 2.0 World, the open (re)combination of multiple media has become commonplace in many venues, practices that Lawrence Lessig [http://lessig.org/], founder of Creative Commons [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons], and others, would characterize as emblematic of a ‘Remix ‘ or ‘Read/Write’ culture. Indeed, from his point of view, “the health, progress, and wealth creation of a culture is fundamentally tied to this participatory remix process” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix_culture].

In the recently-released Horizon Report 2008 - a joint publication of the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), six emerging information technologies and practices that are expected to significantly impact educational organizations are profiled: Grassroots Video, Collaborative Webs, Mobile Broadband, Data Mashups, Collaborative Intelligence, and Social Operating Systems
[http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf].

In this presentation, we will review the Read/Write Traditions of the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences; analyze key Past / Present / Future Participatory Technologies; and explore the potential of Web 2.0 for creating/fostering Disruptive Learning / Scholarship / Teaching in the 21st century.

Full Programme With Keynote And Guest Speaker Bios Available At:[http://www.plagiarismconference.co.uk/programme.php]

Pubmed Faceoff: The Extreme MakeOver MashUp For Search Results

Pubmed Faceoff: The Extreme MakeOver MashUp For Search Results
Friends/

A Most Impressive Development !

/Gerry

Pubmed Faceoff

What’s this all about?

This site applies a simple, photorealistic variant of the Chernoff Faces visualization technique

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernoff_faces]

[http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Human%20Engineering.files/Chernoff/Chernoff%20Faces.htm]

to impact factor data for papers in the PubMed database of biomedical literature. Basically it allows you to search PubMed and have the results represented as a set of human faces. “I was published a couple of years ago in a crap journal and nobody is citing me.”

The theory is that mapping multidimensional data (in this case the age, journal impact factor and citation count associated with each paper) to facial features takes advantage of the fact that our brains are highly tuned to recognise, process and differentiate between human faces.

Each paper is represented as a face. The ethnicity and gender of the face is selected at random for visual interest - you can turn this feature off if you so choose.

“I was published recently in a good journal. Citations are as expected.”

The age of a face correlates with the publication date of the paper. Younger faces are more recent papers. “I was published recently in a good journal and I’m getting lots of citations.”

A smile means that the paper has been cited more times than expected (based on its age).

Larger smiles mean more citations.

A frown means that the paper has been cited far less than you might expect.

The raised eyebrows correlate with the impact factor (sort of - actually the Eigenfactor) of the journal in which the paper was published.

[http://www.eigenfactor.org/]

Source
[http://www.postgenomic.com/faces/index.php]

Thanks To

/ Frank Norman /Librarian / National Institute for Medical Research / The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA, UK /

Beasiswa: Liverpool Hope University’s International Scholarships

Beasiswa: Liverpool Hope University’s International Scholarships
Liverpool Hope University is committed to encouraging statements from students with high academic qualifications would benefit from studying in Britain.

Liverpool Hope University is pleased to announce the new scheme International scholarships for students applying to obtain or postgraduate programme in the 2008/2009 academic year.
Scholarship abroad

Overseas scholarships availble as postgraduate candidates and is worth £ 1000. The number of overseas scholarships are unlimited. They are awarded on criteria based on academic merit and submitted applications;
The criteria for application:

Undergraduate applicants: Applications approval Foreign students who have achieved, in aggregate, the first class marks in their higher education. If successful, the student will receive an award £ 1000 annually, subject to satisfactory academic progress.

Postgraduate applicants: Applications approval Foreign students who have first-class results in their final degree classification.
Scholarships abroad are deducted from the standard of education and student fees will be at the expense of clean-training for a fee.

International scholarships for graduate students

International postgraduate scholarships are available for taught postgraduate applicants and half worth of fees. The number of international postgraduate scholarships in five, and they are awarded by a decision of the University Committee on the basis of scientific merit and submitted the application.

The criteria for application: Applications are invited from the International students who have first-class results in their final degree classification and can demonstrate high academic achievement.

Please note:

* The overseas fellowships and scholarships for postgraduate International are available only to applicants to pay full international fees; British citizens, the EU and EEA have no right to apply
* Applicants must submit an international fellowship questionnaire to the International Bureau. The application must be accompanied by a verified transcript and academic certificates.
* The application deadlines apply:
In September entry: Scholarship applications must be received by June 30, 2008
During the January entry: Scholarship applications must be received by November 28, 2008
* Other conditions of use

Application Form

For full terms and conditions, the application form and guidelines to apply, please download the form below.
International Scholarship Application Form

Announcements and a Follow Up

One of the groups sponsoring KC Johnson’s address, Duke Students for and Ethical Duke (not to be confused with the equally estimable Duke Students for an Ethical Durham) is a new group dedicated to making sure that the appalling treatment of certain Duke students by the administration and a few of their professors is not forgotten and does not go unaddressed. They are pledged to “defend the dignity and the academic and legal rights of Duke students, both individually and collectively, whether threatened by other students, faculty, or administrators alike.” Here is an article from the Chronicle.

This is a very encouraging development. The fact that the number of groups focusing attention on these issues is growing and not decreasing with time should indicate to the trustees and administration that these issues are not going to go away. It is also good that the students themselves are getting involved. We at FODU are certainly concerned for Duke as an institution. However, most of all, we have done what we have done for the students. Those of us who are alumni want present students to enjoy what we enjoyed while at Duke: a university committed to the care, nurturing and dignity of ALL students. Those who are parents want these things for their children.

Follow up to Duke and the Police

First, a Duke official contacted me after I posted the last update and took issue with two statements I made there. I repeated information that had been told to me personally and which had also been widely reported. However, this official says these two statements are inaccurate and offers an alternative view. As the other bloggers in this case have done, I reproduce this person’s comments below in order to allow a fair opportunity to reply. I also appreciate this person’s willingness to respond and engage us in a dialogue, something lacking among Duke officials up to this point.

1) No one in the university “hired” Wes Covington. In fact, I was the unfortunate agent who brought him into contact with the players. When I met with them on March 17th and first learned of the police search, I was surprised and concerned that they had neither told their parents about it nor retained counsel. I told them to call their parents and consult with them about a lawyer. I said that I would also find out if there was anyone locally who could help them. I then asked Sue Wasiolek for a recommendation and she pointed me to Covington. I was the one who passed his name along to the four captains. They met with him at least once that I am aware of but to the best of my knowledge, he was never formally retained by any of them. I would be surprised if anyone in the administration other than Wasiolek knew anything about this until much later. By 3/24 (the day after the NTO was served) he was entirely out of the picture as far as I know.

2) The persistent rumor about “student/teacher privilege” is somewhat inaccurate. This came up in a meeting between the captains and Trask, Pressler [and] Alleva . . . on 2/24. By then, the players had all retained counsel and been advised not to speak about the matter without the presence of counsel. Trask had been sent down to athletics (I think) to assess the situation and report back to Allen Building. When he asked the players to tell him everything that had happened, they responded that they had been advised not to speak (in fact, they were dying to tell anyone who would listen what had (or hadn’t) happened). Trask responded that they could call their lawyers to come over and that he would wait for them. The players (specifically, David Evans) then said they would go ahead without representation. At that point, Trask said “We could argue that it (their account of the evening of 3/13) is a protected educational record. We might lose that argument.” The players then went on to detail what had happened at the party. Incidentally, it was clear . . . that Trask was absolutely certain that nothing had happened and that the players were innocent; I’m not sure that he played much of a role in what ensued in the following weeks.

Either way, my larger point remains unchanged. Officials of Duke University–and, in a couple of cases at least, I do think genuinely–were indicating to the players their belief in their innocence at the same time that the University was surreptitiously passing protected personal information about them out the back door to police officers with questionable motives and disputed integrity.

The problems with Mike Nifong and his conduct were manifest as I mentioned in the last post. However, Duke had every reason to be very suspicious of the motives of the police as well. Before that interview with the victim occurred, the original police investigator assigned to the case spoke with Sergeant Mark Gottlieb and they agreed that he would take over the case. As detailed last September in both the News and Observer and the Chronicle, Sergeant Gottlieb had been the subject of numerous allegations involving the violation of the rights of Duke students and use of thug-like tactics against them because of some particular animus he had against Duke students. Days before the lacrosse case incident, Durham Police Department officials had moved Gottlieb from patrol to investigations in District 2 apparently in response to these complaints. Duke officials had been notified of the complaints against Gottlieb no later than February. Now Gottlieb was back chasing Duke students, having in his own words “adopted” the lacrosse case. And into Gottlieb’s very hands, Duke personally delivered this protected information without a subpoena.

Second, in the comments, someone asked why turning the key card data over to the police was prejudicial to the players. Sure it was illegal, but how did it harm them? A good investigator will gather as much information as possible and then form a theory. However, that is not how it is always done. Some police investigators unfortunately do not go wherever the evidence takes them. Instead, they make up their mind what happened and then go out and try to find evidence that supports their theory while ignoring all else. Sometimes they will even make up evidence. Even “good” cops sometimes do all this. No better illustration of these problems can be found than the way Durham police actually conducted the lacrosse case investigation.

Let me be clear. There is nothing inherently sinister about police. Most police officers are dedicated, honest professionals who want to make a difference in the community. As in every human organization, there are some who do not live up to these ideals. In the middle are a bunch of people who see police work as just another job. Even under the best circumstances, the role of a defense attorney, as with any other type attorney, is to protect against the worst case scenario. They do that by forcing police to establish probable cause and preventing opportunities for fishing expeditions.

In investigating an alleged crime, the police must establish two things: whether a crime occurred and who did it. In the context of the lacrosse case, the police had skipped over the first step and were already trying to find three people to indict. This was despite their initial skepticism about the accuser’s story. In fact, throughout the entire case, they specifically avoided looking for corroborating evidence to test the accuser’s claims, evidently afraid of what they would find. Remember that the application for the Nontestimonial Order sought by police stated that the dna evidence would “immediately rule out any innocent persons, and show conclusive evidence as to who the suspect(s) are. . . .” Yet, the police did not wait for the results of the DNA testing to come back before inducing Duke to give them the keycard information. The keycard data helped police establish who was at the party and, more importantly, who was not. As described in the Pressler/Yeager book, the police were afraid that the accuser would pick someone out of the lineup who was not at the party and that is exactly what she did.

It is not that information protected by FERPA can never be obtained by police. All police have to show is that they have some particular need for the information, i.e. that it would be helpful to them in their investigation. That is a very low threshold, yet the police and Nifong were unable to make that showing with regard to the key card data. That they were unable to do so demonstrates that no legitimate reason existed for them to have this information.

eBay Address and Billing Glitches

eBay Address and Billing Glitches

I recently received a question about eBay shipping charge and address glitches:

The ebay system seems to have a glitch in it. I had a buyer insist that the invoice did not show my mailing address. I checked all my settings and it should show up on every invoice. I figured she just made a mistake, but then I sent her an invoice and copy to myself and the address did not show. Also, I have sent invoices where the shipping charges changed on discounted shipping. Once again, I thought there was some error on the other person part, until I purchased multiple items from two different ebayers and found that once I clicked on Pay Now, the shipping charged either defaulted to the charge for one item or added all shipping charges w/o the discount. I ended in all cases having to pay thru Paypal directly instead of thru ebay.

Have you heard of this happening to other sellers?

The following link addresses the issue: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m09/i11/s02

Apparently eBay and PayPal have fixed the issue. See: http://www.ebaychatter.com/the_chatter/2007/09/paypal-ship-to-.html

Does anyone else have experience with the shipping charge issue in the 2^nd part of the question?

Thanks,

Phil

Get £5 Pounds Per Referral From Matched.Co.UK

Get £5 Pounds Per Referral From Matched.Co.UK

Next Page »