A Bit of Strained Groin and a Dash of Trick Knee

Chris Kluwe in 2010, as a Minnesota Viking

Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

Playing sports all my life has made me quite familiar with the multiple flavors of pain a body can experience. Some hurt worse than others! Here is a tasting guide to all the wonderful sensations I?ve been lucky enough to feel, most of which lasted an entire game or longer (some of them much, much longer).

Strained Groin has a spicy yet long-lasting bouquet filled with aromas of Grimacing and Wince. It starts out with a small gremlin perched right above the hip dancing around on needle-tip claws that gently sink into the tendon with every motion. When the muscles are engaged to punt a ball, the gremlin pulls out a white-hot sword and plunges it into the inner thigh, producing a sharp jolt of burning stabbityness. Thankfully, this lasts only for a brief second; unthankfully, it?s replaced by him spinning the sword around like a high-rpm drill bit when foot hits ball. Then he leaves the sword there, still whirling away. The next time punting is required, he grabs another sword (I have no idea where he keeps all of them) and repeats the process. I recommend Strained Groin for those wishing to experience the joys of castration without the permanency.

Exploded ACL (Nonkicking Leg)

This wonderful selection has a deep, harsher taste ?reminiscent of a piston hammering down on an exposed nerve?that ends with a grinding twist, similar to popping a chicken drumstick away from the thigh. Exploded ACL (Nonkicking Leg) is immediately recognizable to observers by its beautifully rich color of Writhing and Clutch, complemented by a brief flash of Scream. The subsequent six months (postsurgery) are a harmonious medley of dull lead-swollen aching, bright nails-on-chalkboard pain spikes, and absolute-zero icicles spearing under the kneecap when too much pressure is applied. I recommend this vintage for those not wanting to walk for an extended period of time.

Exploded ACL (Kicking Leg)

Similar to Exploded ACL (Nonkicking Leg), Exploded ACL (Kicking Leg) starts off with a buckling wrench, much like stepping down on a surface that is no longer there. Warm stiffness immediately envelops the senses; it?s initially misleading due to its remarkable similarity to Strain or Tweak but recognizable by a true connoisseur as the piquant bursts of weakness and instability creep through. Attempting to kick a football is much like swinging your leg through a cloud of marshmallow?much energy is expended, but the resulting punt is generally slow and less than ideal. Exploded ACL (Kicking Leg) is a longer-lasting vintage, potentially anywhere from three to six weeks, depending on willpower and pertinent information shared by doctors, but it eventually gives way to the familiar taste of Exploded ACL (Nonkicking Leg) (postsurgery). I recommend Exploded ACL (Kicking Leg) for the experienced professional only, as too much exposure can lead to deleterious side effects, including Permanent Dragfoot.

Sprained Ankle (Various Types)

Sprained Ankles come in multiple flavors, but they all share the common theme of sick nausea creeping up the leg intermingled with piercing lightning bolts whenever weight is borne on the affected area. This is a more subtle flavor than the previously mentioned injuries, and one that can sneak up on the palate most surprisingly, oftentimes catching the subject quite unaware and

leaving him breathless. Trying to punt with Sprained Ankle is particularly unique when the sprain is located on the kicking foot. The appendage in question tends to flop around like a gasping fish stranded on the deck of a boat, and the ball acts as a gaff hook that dashes its brains into oblivion, leaving it limp and lifeless. A delicate filigree of acid etches its way up the nervous system and slowly settles in, pulsing gently in time with the rhythm of one?s heartbeat. I recommend Sprained Ankle to novices and experts alike, as it never really loses its initial surge of vivacity, no matter how many times you experience it.

This is one of my personal favorites, as it provides the tight, winding constriction of a barbed-wire boa constrictor along with a passive helplessness infused into its entire core. Trying to accomplish even the simplest of tasks can lead to an overwhelming flurry of sensations coursing throughout the entire body?dominant strains of Gasp and Sob overriding the more earthy tones of Gritted Teeth and Indrawn Breath, with Withered Hunch underlying them all. Wrenched Back can be enhanced by the application of an epidural, which feels like a drainpipe being shoved into your spinal cord. This will quickly drown out and numb the other flavors, though, so beware of using it before you?ve experienced the full suite of Wrenched Back. I recommend this one to anyone wondering what utter frailty feels like.

I?ve had the joy of encountering this delightful m?lange of sensations multiple times, and it always delivers a zesty punch. The first taste concentrates all the senses into a tightly packed knot of jagged steel edges trapped halfway along the back of the leg, like a small caltrop buried tightly within the flesh. Any sort of strenuous motion sets the barbs in deeper and deeper, radiating concentric tremors of spastic fire into the surrounding muscle fibers until a dull flame has engulfed the entire backside. Kicking with Pulled Hamstring is breathtakingly invigorating, and I cannot stress the breathtakingly part enough. I urge anyone who wants to feel the physical snapping of a rubber band within his body to try Pulled Hamstring, but set aside several weeks of quality time to recover from the riotous sense explosion.

Trick Knee is perhaps the most intense of the flavors, not due to its initial impact, but because of its sustained presence. It starts out fairly strong?the kneecap slides over to the side while the meniscus folds itself underneath, producing a sudden contraction of the entire body due to the feeling of dislocation welling up. A surge of tight restriction emanates from the locale as tense muscles quiver like overtuned violin strings, and the feeling of shifting the kneecap back in place is very similar to cracking a knuckle (and in fact can produce an audible pop, adding a delightful aural component to the mix). The brief absence of pain gives a delicious juxtaposition to the grinding of bone on bone when the knee is bent and used once again, much like two pumice stones rubbing against each other. Short, shooting stars of stabbing light randomly flash through the joint for days thereafter, giving the overall sensation a long, dry finish. I recommend Trick Knee for anyone searching for ways to entertain children and horrify medical professionals when they test for ACL stability.

These are but a few of the countless items in my personal reserve. Some vintages are longer lasting than others, some are yet to be discovered, but all of them are unique in their devilish complexity. I recommend pairing any of them with large amounts of morphine.

Excerpted from the book Beautifully Unique Sparkleponies by Chris Kluwe. Copyright ? 2013 by Chris Kluwe. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2013/06/beautifully_unique_sparkleponies_excerpt_a_tasting_menu_of_pro_football.html

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Power struggle underway in rebel-held Syrian town

FILE - In this Tuesday, March 5, 2013 file photo, citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian man sitting on a fallen statue of former Syrian President Hafez Assad in a central square in Raqqa, Syria. The Arabic words on the fallen statue read: "tomorrow will be better." A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC, File)

FILE - In this Tuesday, March 5, 2013 file photo, citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Syrian man sitting on a fallen statue of former Syrian President Hafez Assad in a central square in Raqqa, Syria. The Arabic words on the fallen statue read: "tomorrow will be better." A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC, File)

FILE - In this Monday, March 4, 2013 file image taken from video obtained from Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a statue of former Syrian President Hafez Assad is pulled down in a central square in Raqqa, Syria. A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition. (AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video, File)

FILE - In this Monday, March 4, 2013 file image taken from video obtained from Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a statue of former Syrian President Hafez Assad is pulled down in a central square in Raqqa, Syria. A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video, File)

FILE - In this Monday, March 4, 2013 file photo citizen journalism image provided by Coordination Committee in Kafr Susa which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows people tearing down a huge poster of President Bashar Assad and hitting it with their shoes, in Raqqa, Syria. A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Coordination Committee In Kafr Susa, File)

FILE - In this Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012 file image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Free Syrian Army soldiers sit at a check point in Ain al-Arous town in Raqqa, Syria. A quiet power struggle in taking place in the eastern city between Islamic extremist rebels, who control the city after capturing it four months ago from the regime, and moderates trying to curtail their influence, making it a test case for the opposition.(AP Photo/Ugarit News via AP video, File)

BEIRUT (AP) ? A slogan painted in small letters on a school wall reads, "We the people want Syria to be a civil, democratic state." Scrawled next to it in bigger letters is the response from an unknown Islamic hard-liner: "The laws of the civil state contradict the Islamic caliphate."

A quiet power struggle is taking place in the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa ever since a Muslim extremist faction of the rebels swept in and wrested the town from the regime nearly four months ago.

Armed men wearing Afghan-style outfits patrol the streets, raising black Islamic banners at checkpoints instead of the rebellion's three-star flags. But moderates are trying to counter the extremists' tight grip, establishing dozens of newspapers, magazines and civil society forums in an effort to educate the roughly 500,000 residents about democracy and their right to vote.

Raqqa, the first and only provincial capital to fall into rebel hands, is now a test case for the opposition, which has wrestled with how to govern territories it has captured amid Western concerns that Islamic groups will hijack power if President Bashar Assad is ousted.

The tensions reflect a wider struggle going on in the rebel movement across Syria, where alliances of Islamic extremist brigades have filled the void left behind whenever Assad's forces retreat, while moderate and secular rebels have failed to coalesce into effective fighters and the opposition's political leadership has failed to unify its ranks.

The rebel capture of Raqqa on March 5 consolidated opposition gains in a string of towns along the Euphrates River, which runs across the desert from the Turkish border in the north to the Iraqi border in the southeast.

Even so, the momentum on the battlefield over the past few months has been with regime, aided by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon. More than 93,000 people have been killed since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011, according to the U.N. ? though a count by activists puts the death toll at over 100,000.

Two extremist factions, Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, led the push into Raqqa, which fell relatively quickly after a campaign that lasted less than a month. Most of the Jabhat al-Nusra fighters in the city are foreign jihadis, while the Ahrar al-Sham fighters are Syrians with a jihadist ideology.

Other opponents of the Assad regime in the city have been put off by what they see as the extremists' unnecessary brutality. In the days after seizing the city, the Muslim brigades brought captured security forces into public squares, killed them and drove their bodies through the streets.

Then in May, fighters affiliated with al-Qaida killed three men described as Shiite Muslims in the city's main Clock Square, shooting them in the back of the head. In a speech to a crowd that had gathered, a fighter said the killing was in retaliation for the massacres of Sunni Muslims in the town of Banias and the city of Homs, both in western Syria, according to online video of the scene. The statement was made in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a merger of Jabhat al-Nusra and Iraq's al-Qaida arm announced in April.

Armed gunmen with their faces covered in masks shot pistols and rifles wildly in the air in celebration after the three men were killed. They wore clothing favored by Afghanistan's Taliban and Arab mujahedeen who fought in that country ? a sign that they belonged to Jabhat al-Nusra.

The Shiites "were executed in front of everyone, young and old," said Mohammad Shoeib, an activist, recalling how for several hours, nobody dared approach the bodies to take them for burial until a nurse did. The nurse, Mohammad Saado, was assassinated by unknown gunmen the next day, Shoeib said. Other activists corroborated his account.

"Executing people in this manner in a public square and killing Saado was unacceptable and turned many people against them," Shoeib said. "Our revolution was against oppression and we don't accept such actions under any circumstance."

Activists set up a mourning tent in the same spot where the three were executed, receiving mourners for three days in a sign of their anger. "They didn't like it," he said of Jabhat al-Nusra, "but people demonstrated their right to an opinion and they should respect that."

Shoeib, 28, is one of the directors of "Haqquna," Arabic for "It's Our Right," an organization founded about three weeks after Raqqa fell that aims to educate people about democracy. The group's logo is a victory sign with the index finger bearing an ink mark, signifying the right to vote. The logo can be seen on walls in the city and on leaflets distributed by the group.

More than 40 publications have popped up in Raqqa, including newspapers and magazines as well as online publications, many of them run by young activists.

Many recall with pride the day rebels overran their city, about 120 miles (195 kilometers) east of the commercial capital of Aleppo, after capturing the country's largest dam and storming its central prison.

On March 5, cheering rebels and Raqqa residents brought down the bronze statue of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad after tying a rope around its neck. Others tore down a huge portrait of his son, the current president.

It was a striking scene in a city once considered so loyal to the regime that in November 2011 ? early in the 2-year-old uprising ? Assad prayed at Raqqa's al-Nour mosque for the Muslim holiday of Eid in an apparent attempt to show that the regime was fully in control there.

Activists like to compare Raqqa with Benghazi, the first major city in Libya to revolt against Moammar Gadhafi and fall into rebel hands.

But unlike Benghazi, which then became the rebel capital and the heartland for the militias of the months-long civil war in Libya, Raqqa feels sequestered and insecure. Regime warplanes still swoop down at random, shattering the calm with punishing airstrikes on opposition-held buildings.

Schools have closed and government employees have not been paid their salaries in months as a form of punishment.

Residents complain that the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, has paid no attention to the needs of Raqqa.

"The opposition groups are too busy fighting each other," said one owner of a sweets shop in the center of Raqqa. "They have not sent anyone to ask about our needs, nor is there any contact with any of them."

In March, the Coalition elected an interim prime minister, Ghassan Hitto, tasked with forming an interim government that would help administer rebel-held territories in northern and eastern Syria. But the opposition has been plagued with infighting, and Hitto has been effectively sidelined.

Khalid Salah, spokesman for the Coalition, insisted the opposition was trying to support Raqqa despite a lack of funds and other resources. He said the city was receiving aid from the Coalition but that it was unmarked so many people are unaware of its origin.

"We are trying to step up aid and make up for some shortcomings in the next weeks," he said, adding that regime airstrikes around the city made the work more difficult.

Rebel groups, particularly Ahrar al-Sham, administer daily life in Raqqa, setting up bakeries, keeping electricity and water going as much as possible and distributing aid they receive from international supporters. They have set up courts that impose Islamic law, mostly dealing with financial disputes and criminal cases such as kidnappings and theft.

Many residents are grateful, saying the Islamic brigades are simply making up for the shortcomings of the opposition in exile.

Mouaz al-Howeidi, a 40-year-old programmer and Web designer-turned activist, said it's promising that the power struggle has itself not turned violent.

But he said civil groups were at a disadvantage because the rebels have more means at their disposal to get their message across, through mosques and by controlling the city's resources.

"They control everything in Raqqa," he said. "And they have weapons and money ? this makes everything easier."

The owner of the sweets shop, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, said Islamic groups were the flip side of the regime.

"Raqqa has not been liberated. It has been re-occupied by the Islamists."

___

A Syrian journalist contributed from Raqqa.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-26-Syria-Moderates%20vs%20Extremists/id-044dea46f3e949f5806cdf251c50f1e6

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American factory boss held hostage by Beijing workers

BEIJING (AP) -- An American executive said he has been held hostage for four days at his medical supply plant in Beijing by scores of workers demanding severance packages like those given to 30 co-workers in a phased-out department.

Chip Starnes, 42, a co-owner of Coral Springs, Florida-based Specialty Medical Supplies, said local officials had visited the 10-year-old plant on the capital's outskirts and coerced him into signing agreements Saturday to meet the workers' demands even though he sought to make clear that the remaining 100 workers weren't being laid off.

The workers were expecting wire transfers by Tuesday, he said, adding that about 80 of them had been blocking every exit around the clock and depriving him of sleep by shining bright lights and banging on windows of his office. He declined to clarify the amount, saying he wanted to keep it confidential.

"I feel like a trapped animal," Starnes told The Associated Press on Monday from his first-floor office window, while holding onto the window's bars. "I think it's inhumane what is going on right now. I have been in this area for 10 years and created a lot of jobs and I would never have thought in my wildest imagination something like this would happen."

Workers inside the compound, a pair of two-story buildings behind gates and hedges in the Huairou district of the northeastern Beijing suburbs, repeatedly declined requests for comment, saying they did not want to talk to foreign media.

It is not rare in China for managers to be held by workers demanding back pay or other benefits, often from their Chinese owners, though occasionally also involving foreign bosses.

The labor action reflects growing uneasiness among workers about their jobs amid China's slowing economic growth and the sense that growing labor costs make the country less attractive for some foreign-owned factories. The account about local officials coercing Starnes to meet workers' demands ? if true ? reflects how officials typically consider stifling unrest to be a priority.

Huairou district and Qiaozi township governments declined to comment.

A local police spokesman said police were at the scene to maintain order. Four uniformed police and about a dozen other men who declined to identify themselves were standing across the road from the plant.

"As far as I know, there was a labor dispute between the workers and the company management and the dispute is being solved," said spokesman Zhao Lu of the Huairou Public Security Bureau. " I am not sure about the details of the solution, but I can guarantee the personal safety of the manager."

Representatives from the U.S. Embassy stood outside the gate much of the day, and eventually were let in. U.S. Embassy spokesman Nolan Barkhouse said the two sides were on the verge of an agreement and that Starnes would have access to his attorneys. It was unclear what agreement might be reached, and subsequent attempts to contact Starnes were not immediately successful.

Starnes said the company had gradually been winding down its plastics division, planning to move it to Mumbai, India. He arrived in Beijing last Tuesday to lay off the last 30 people. Some had been working there for up to nine years, so their compensation packages were "pretty nice," he said.

Some of the workers in the other divisions got wind of this, and, coupled with rumors that the whole plant was moving to India, started demanding similar severance packages on Friday.

Christian Murck, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said he wasn't familiar with Starnes' case, but that such hostage-taking was "not a major problem" for the foreign business community.

"It happened more often say 15 years ago than today, but it still happens from time to time," he said. "It rarely leads to personal harm to the managers involved, but there are cases when it has in years past."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-factory-boss-held-hostage-073624139.html

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Tenet Healthcare buying Vanguard Health for $1.8B

DALLAS (AP) ? Tenet Healthcare Corp. plans to buy fellow hospital operator Vanguard Health Systems Inc. for about $1.8 billion, in a deal that will expand its reach into new markets as millions of patients start to gain insurance coverage through the health care overhaul.

Tenet said Monday that it will pay $21 per share, a 70 percent premium to Vanguard Health's Friday closing price of $12.37. The companies said the transaction also includes $2.5 billion in debt, and they value the entire deal at $4.3 billion.

Shares of Vanguard Health soared 67 percent, or $8.33, to $20.70 Monday morning after the companies announced the deal. The company's stock price had advanced only about 1 percent as of last Friday since closing 2012 at $12.25.

Tenet investors also liked the deal, pushing the Dallas-based company's stock up 6.7 percent, or $2.82, to $44.67. Meanwhile, the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 1.5 percent.

The federal health care overhaul is expected to help hospitals by reducing the number of uninsured patients they treat. Starting next year, the overhaul will provide income-based tax credits to help people buy coverage, and the state-and-federally funded Medicaid program will expand its coverage in several states.

Tenet said Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanguard will help it expand into several new markets and increase the benefit it expects to realize from the overhaul. Vanguard runs 28 acute care and specialty hospitals in Texas, Massachusetts and major cities like Chicago, Phoenix and Detroit. Its specialty locations include heart, children's and rehabilitation hospitals.

The deal also will bring new business to Tenet's Conifer Health Solutions segment, which helps hospitals manage revenue and run their business operations.

The boards of both companies have unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close by the end of this year. After that, Tenet will own 79 hospitals and 157 outpatient facilities. It currently has 49 hospitals and 126 outpatient facilities.

Tenet expects annual savings and gains of $100 million to $200 million largely from operating more efficiently after the companies combine.

Vanguard Health said that its founder, Chairman and CEO Charlie Martin, will join Tenet's board. Vanguard's vice chairman, Keith Pitts, will continue in that position at Tenet.

Tenet has secured fully committed financing for the transaction from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-06-24-US-Tenet-Healthcare-Acquisition/id-7c75ad6344de4d50a3e952b253c427cb

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APNewsBreak: Wing walker, pilot had clean records

A stunt plane loses control as a wing walker performs at the Vectren Air Show just before crashing, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. The crash killed the pilot and the stunt walker instantly, authorities said. (AP Photo/Thanh V Tran)

A stunt plane loses control as a wing walker performs at the Vectren Air Show just before crashing, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. The crash killed the pilot and the stunt walker instantly, authorities said. (AP Photo/Thanh V Tran)

Flames erupt from a plane after a stunt plane crashed while performing with a wing walker at the Vectren Air Show, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. The crash killed the pilot and the wing walker instantly, authorities said. (AP Photo/Thanh V Tran)

A wing walker performs at the Vectren Air Show just before crashing, Saturday, June 22, 2013, in Dayton, Ohio. The crash killed the pilot and the stunt walker instantly, authorities said. (AP Photo/Thanh V Tran)

Flames erupt from a plane after it crashed at the Vectren Air Show at the airport in Dayton, Ohio. The crash killed the pilot and stunt walker on the plane instantly, authorities said. (AP Photo/Dayton Daily News, Ty Greenlees)

This photo provided provided WHIO TV shows a plane after it crashed Saturday, June 22, 2013, at the Vectren Air Show near Dayton, Ohio. There was no immediate word on the fate of the pilot, wing walker or anyone else aboard the plane. No one on the ground was hurt. (AP Photo/WHIO-TV)

CINCINNATI (AP) ? An aerobatic pilot and a wing walker killed in a fiery crash at an Ohio air show over the weekend had clean safety records, according to Federal Aviation Administration records released Monday.

Neither wing walker Jane Wicker, who had a pilot's license, nor pilot Charlie Schwenker had accidents in the past or were disciplined for any reason, the FAA records showed, according to agency spokesman Roland Herwig. The information was released as the result of a public records request by The Associated Press.

Wicker and Schwenker, both of Virginia, were killed Saturday in a crash captured on video and witnessed by thousands of horrified spectators at the Vectren Air Show near Dayton. Wicker was on the wing of the plane when it suddenly went down after a stunt, exploding on impact.

Wicker, 44, was the mother of two teenage sons and was engaged to be married next year atop an airplane. Schwenker, 64, was about to celebrate his nine-year wedding anniversary, which is Tuesday.

Friends and family were working on planning funerals for both.

Wicker is the third wing walker to die in two years.

From 1975 to 2010, just two wing walkers were killed in the U.S., one in 1975 and another in 1993, said John Cudahy, president of the Leesburg, Va.-based International Council of Air Shows.

In 2011, Todd Green fell 200 feet to his death at an air show in Michigan while performing a stunt in which he grabbed the skid of a helicopter. That same year, Amanda Franklin died two months after being badly burned in a plane crash during a performance in South Texas when the engine lost power. The pilot, her husband, Kyle, survived.

"It's not entirely an anomaly but not quite as dangerous as it would appear to be," Cudahy said, adding that the recent spike appears to be a coincidence.

He said it was too early to say whether Saturday's crash would lead to any changes in safety standards among wing walkers and their pilots and that those standards already are high.

Jason Aguilera, the National Transportation Safety Board investigator leading the probe into the crash, said Sunday that it was too early to rule anything out and that the agency would issue its findings in six months to a year.

Wing walker Teresa Stokes of Houston and her pilot boyfriend, Gene Soucy, said their hearts were heavy after watching video footage of the crash, but it doesn't give them any second thoughts about what they do.

"It is the craziest fun ride you've ever been on," Stokes said. "You're like Superman flying around, going upside-down doing rolls and loops, and I'm just screaming and laughing."

Soucy said he never worries because he's "really good at flying upside-down and doing rolls."

"This is just what we do," he said. "Some people sit at a typewriter looking out a window all day. We're flying with the wind."

Wing walking began in the 1920s in the barnstorming era of air shows following World War I.

The practice fell off the middle of the 20th century but picked back up again in the 1970s. Still, there are only about a dozen wing walkers in the U.S., Cudahy said.

John King, pilot and president of the Flying Circus Airshow, where Wicker trained, described Wicker, of Bristow, Va., and Schwenker, of Oakton, Va., as "ultimate professionals."

"I don't know of anyone who could have done any better than what they were doing," he said.

On Saturday, Wicker sat helplessly on the plane's wing after she had just finished a stunt as the aircraft suddenly turned and slammed into the ground, exploding on impact and stunning the crowd.

In one post on her website, the stuntwoman explains what she loved most about her job.

"There is nothing that feels more exhilarating or freer to me than the wind and sky rushing by me as the earth rolls around my head," says the post. "I'm alive up there. To soar like a bird and touch the sky puts me in a place where I feel I totally belong."

She also answered a question she said she got frequently: What about the risk?

"I feel safer on the wing of my airplane than I do driving to the airport," she wrote. "Why? Because I'm in control of those risks and not at the mercy of those other drivers."

FAA spokeswoman Lynn Lunsford said the agency is often asked why wing walking is allowed.

"The people who do these acts spend hours and hours and hours performing and practicing away from the crowd, and even though it may look inherently dangerous, they're practiced in such a way that they maintain as much safety as possible," he said. "The vast majority of these things occur without a hitch, so you know whenever one of them goes wrong and there's a crash, it's an unusual event."

___

Associated Press writer Verena Dobnik in New York contributed to this report.

___

Follow Amanda Lee Myers on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AmandaLeeAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-06-24-Air%20Show%20Crash/id-854e672c8c58458d954b9cbf36f92c3f

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Telefonica sells Irish unit 02

MADRID (AP) ? Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica says it has sold its Irish division, 02, to Hutchison Whampoa in a bid to reduce debt.

In a statement Monday, Telefonica SA says it sold the 100 percent stake to Hutchison Whampoa's Irish subsidiary, Three Ireland, for 850 million euros ($1.12 billion).

The price includes an initial 780 million euros and a deferred payment of 70 million euros dependent on agreed financial objectives being met.

Three said the acquisition of O2 will boost its market share to 37.5 percent, second to Vodafone, and bring subscriber numbers to 2 million.

Telefonica says the sale would bring it closer to its goal of reducing net debt to below 47 billion euros in 2013.

The deal is subject to regulatory approval.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-06-24-Spain-Telefonica-Ireland/id-fcde692837ab42bda671110a4f39186c

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New Sony smartwatch, 5-inch mid-ranger tipped ahead of Mobile Asia Expo

Sony 'Xperia C' and updated Android-powered wearable reportedly on the way

It seems Sony Mobile may about to reveal several high-profile devices at its press conference at Shanghai's Mobile Asia Expo tomorrow. We've already heard rumors about the "Togari" or Xperia ZU -- supposedly a Snapdragon 800-powered device with a 6.4-inch display -- and the latest round of leaks brings news of a possible smartwatch and mid-range handset to go with it.

The first report comes from CNET, which claims to have details of a new Android-powered smartwatch from the Japanese manufacturer. Supposedly a successor to the earlier NM2SW smartwatch, the new device will feature a larger display and feature a three-button layout similar to Xperia smartphones, according to the site's source. Like other Sony accessories, the watch is said to support pairing with smartphones via NFC, with further connectivity being handled over Bluetooth. For its part, Sony has been teasing a smartwatch-related announcement on its official Xperia Twitter account in recent days.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/Inh8XefL-Tc/story01.htm

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