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The Day After....and other news
Author: TriSec    Date: 06/13/2009 12:13:03

Good Morning!

Well, the elections have come to a close in Iran and naturally there's a disputed result. According to the official state media (funny how that works) the incumbent Ahmedinijad has won in a landslide victory with 62% of the vote. Given the intense coverage and speculation leading up to the election, many in Iran are disappointed that the results weren't closer. But then again, they may have been. Iran didn't allow outside observers, and there were many stories of voter intimidation and election thuggery in the days leading up to the election. We'll have to wait and see....but I don't think there's going to be any real change coming just yet.

Iran tense in wake of election


TEHRAN, Iran—Iran's government says incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the winner of the election with a landslide 62.63 percent of the vote. Top opposition contender Mir Hossein Mousavi takes only 33.75 percent of vote in a result disputed by his supporters.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Anti-riot police guarded the offices overseeing Iran's disputed elections Saturday with the count pointing to a landslide victory by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while his opponent denounced the results as "treason" and threatened a challenge.

The standoff left Tehran in tense anticipation. Many people opened shops and carried out errands, but the backdrop was far from normal: black-clad police gathering around key government buildings and mobile phone text messaging blocked in an apparent attempt to stifle one of the main communication tools of the pro-reform movement of Mir Hossein Mousavi.

A statement from Mousavi posted on his Web site urged his supporters to resist a "governance of lie and dictatorship."

Outside the Interior Ministry, which directed Friday's voting, security forces set up a cordon. The results had flowed quickly after polls closed showing the hard-line president with a comfortable lead -- defying expectations of a nail-biter showdown following a month of fierce campaigning and bringing immediate charges of vote rigging by Mousavi.

But an expected announcement on the full outcome was temporarily put on hold. A reason for the delay was not made public, but it suggested intervention by Iran's Islamic authorities seeking to put the brakes on a potentially volatile showdown.

Ahmadinejad had the apparent backing of the ruling theocracy, which holds near-total power and would have the ability to put the election results on the slow track.

There were no immediate reports of serious clashes or mass protests, and the next step by Mousavi's backers were unclear. Mousavi, who became the hero of a powerful youth-driven movement, had not made a public address or issued messages since declaring himself the true victor moments after polls closed and accusing authorities of "manipulating" the vote.




Along Tehran's Vali Asr St. -- where Mousavi supporters joined in a massive campaign rally earlier this week -- an Associated Press photographer saw police clubbing and chasing people. The reasons for the action was unclear. There were no signs of a demonstration or green-colored banners and clothing -- the color of Mousavi's "green" campaign following.

"I'm warning that I won't surrender to this manipulation," said the Mousavi statement Saturday. "The outcome of what we've seen from the performance of officials ... is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran sacred system and governance of lie and dictatorship."

He warned "people won't respect those who take power through fraud" and called the decision to announce Ahmadinejad winner of the election was a "treason to the votes of the people."

Continued...


Changing gears, we've got two local stories from New England this morning that have garnered national attention....one ended in prison, and the other ended in flames (literally). Let's start with the trial first...

Last summer, a disgruntled parent kidnapped his own child from a social worker on the streets of Boston and fled. After a nationwide manhunt, he and the child were found safe in Baltimore, and were returned to Boston. Usually, this is a routine prosecution and would have disappeared from the headlines except for one thing. The now-guilty gentleman called himself "Clark Rockefeller" and passed himself off as a member of that elite clan for much of his adult life. The trial was hyper-sensationalized around these parts for days; thankfully it's all over now and he's headed for prison.


Rockefeller saga ends with 'guilty'


He came to America at 17 to strike it rich, and for most of the last three decades he succeeded, mingling with the power elite of Southern California, the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and Beacon Hill in Boston.

Yesterday, the man who calls himself Clark Rockefeller was sentenced to four to five years in state prison for his conviction in the kidnapping of his daughter last summer, ending a colorful chapter in the bizarre saga of the German national whom police call a "person of interest" in an ongoing California homicide investigation.

As he stood in Suffolk Superior Court yesterday listening first to the jury hand down its verdict and later a judge hand out his punishment, Rockefeller, whose real name is Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, wore a navy blue blazer and preppy red-striped tie. But his reddish hair, once tousled, hung in long, limp tendrils. His feet and wrists were shackled. His face was pale.

He stood stoically as the verdict was read, his body rigid and his face devoid of emotion.

Once, his witty stories made him the center of attention at cocktail parties and fund-raising galas. Yesterday, not one family member or friend sat in the courtroom as a jury convicted him of parental kidnapping and assault charges in the case that has drawn widespread attention for its tales of schemes, aliases, and betrayal.

According to his lawyers, Rockefeller's brother and mother in Germany and his 8-year-old daughter, Reigh, with whom he fled the city for six days, had not been in touch with him.

His former wife, Sandra Boss, who testified against him during the trial, was relieved when she learned of the conviction, said prosecutor David Deakin, who called her in Britain to tell her about the verdict.

"While Reigh was gone, I faced a mother's worst nightmare: the possibility of losing a child without a trace," Boss said in a victim impact statement read by Deakin. "Since Reigh's recovery and return, I have struggled to distance us both from the events of that terrifying week, to regain the normalcy of our lives, and to restore a sense of trust and well-being in Reigh."

The verdict capped an extraordinary two-week trial, during which Deakin painted the defendant as a "self-centered, controlling, and manipulative" con man extraordinaire who has used a slew of aliases and bogus biographical details since coming to the United States from Bavaria in 1978. Rockefeller's two lawyers tried to cast him as a mentally disturbed man who believed in the fantasy world he had created and said he should be acquitted on grounds of insanity.

But the jury of four men and eight women rejected the defense argument, finding Rockefeller guilty on two of the four counts against him: parental kidnapping and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He was acquitted of two lesser charges, assault and battery and providing a false name to police.

Continued...



Finally this morning.....let us ponder the boob. It's a curious part of human anatomy. Volumes have been written on it as a 'secondary sexual characteristic', so much so that many of us (especially males!) often forget its primary role, that of providing milk for human young. Let us also ponder a cup of coffee. Comforting to many, it provides a jolt of caffeine to start the day or perk us up in the afternoon....and like the boob, volumes have been written about coffee and whether or not there are any medicinal benefits or risks to consuming it. But are coffee and boobs mutually exclusive? One businessman in Vassalboro, Maine didn't think so. Earlier this year, he opened a small topless coffee shop in that small town. The residents burned it down.

Topless cafe finds friends after a fire


VASSALBORO, Maine - Donna Goodrich drove up to the charred remains of the Grand View Coffee Shop and pressed a $10 bill into the palm of Amy Greenleaf, a University of Maine student who had worked as a topless waitress here before arson gutted the building behind her.

"I'm awfully sorry," said Goodrich, 53, a former waitress at a conventional eating establishment. "This is just terrible what happened."

Greenleaf, 20, smiled as she accepted the money, which Goodrich said her husband would augment later with a $50 check for a rebuilding drive being conducted from a small tent in the coffee shop's parking lot.

The coffee shop's owner, Donald Crabtree, is pledging to rebuild, restock, and reenergize an enterprise that created a tornado of controversy in Vassalboro; brought international attention to this small, sleepy town; and prompted Town Meeting this week to overwhelmingly approve an ordinance to regulate sexually oriented businesses.

"We ain't going nowhere," said Crabtree, who was asleep in the building and escaped with six others after the fire broke out. "We're going to put her back up, bigger and better. It's not the end of us yet."

Just how that will happen is anybody's guess. Crabtree said he has $700 to his name, no credit cards, and no plans to own one or take out a loan. Just clearing the site could cost as much as $30,000, and Crabtree had no insurance.

For now, he is relying on the generosity of former customers and strangers who have been pulling off Route 3 just north of Augusta to stuff cash into a large collection bin next to boxes of chocolate powdered doughnuts, tall containers of coffee, and piles of Danish.

"I've got to get the girls back to work," said Crabtree, who spends hours inside the cab of his truck, facing a jumble of stacked, blackened debris.

Earlier this week, Crabtree began offering coffee and doughnuts from a slightly damaged room inside the building. There, out of public view, the waitresses are topless. Outside, other waitresses pass the time fully clothed, chatting with former customers, pouring coffee, and collecting donations from all over the Northeast and even parts of Canada.

"I love my job," said Star Cunningham, 23, a Grand View waitress and single mother who cares for a 3-year-old boy and a disabled mother. "The customers are awesome."

The pay, nearly all through tips, has been outstanding for economically struggling mid-Maine, Cunningham said. Each week, she recalled, the work yielded a minimum of $500 in cash.

Greenleaf said she had been saving money to spend her junior year of college in Britain. If the Grand View cannot be rebuilt, that plan will hit a roadblock.

"There's no way to find a job with this kind of atmosphere," said Greenleaf, who spends $10 a day traveling to the shop from Belfast. "You never had an upset customer."

Continued...


So...there you go. Nothing overly harsh for a Saturday. The Sox keep on winning; they beat the World Champion Phils in 13 last night....and maybe the freakin' sun will come out around here today!


 

6 comments (Latest Comment: 06/13/2009 22:38:00 by Mondobubba)
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Comment by trojanrabbit on 06/13/2009 13:28:52
Excellent blog as always, Tri!



Yeah, the freakin' sun's out.

Comment by BobR on 06/13/2009 14:46:59
I started reading that coffee shop story with a feeling of unease about milk and coffee, but it when a different way, thankfully...

Comment by livingonli on 06/13/2009 16:25:18
Greetings everyone.



Just back from the lab where I had to do samples before my endocrinologist appointment on Tuesday since I forgot to go during the week.

Comment by Will in Chicago on 06/13/2009 16:36:25
Good morning, bloggers! Happy Weekend!



Excellent post, TriSec!



If the Iranian people feel that the election was stolen, I wonder what will happen? Somehow, I do not think that they will be quiet.

Comment by livingonli on 06/13/2009 19:17:03
Time to head off to the salt mine.

Comment by Mondobubba on 06/13/2009 22:38:00
Yankees 1, Mets 6. It's hard out there this year for a Yankee fan.