Adam

Jon Jang's father died in this dual airplane crash. The article is mostly about the crash and the response, but Jang is in there briefly discussing the effect on his family. An interesting story overall, and how it led to the modernization of air traffic control in the USA. It's a long feature story starting on page one of today's LA Times, with several photos. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ai...-home-headlines Crash Set a New Course The collision of two airliners over the Grand Canyon 50 years ago led to an overhaul of the nation's antiquated air traffic control system. By Jennifer Oldham, Times Staff Writer June 3, 2006 On a day that would transform aviation history, fog hung over Los Angeles International Airport. But it did nothing to dampen the festive mood as passengers lined up eager to start their Fourth of July holiday. At one ticket counter, 64 checked in for Trans World Airlines Flight 2 to Kansas City, Mo. Next door, 53 registered for United Airlines' Chicago-bound Flight 718. The two sets of passengers probably saw each other as they walked breezily through the terminal and outside onto the tarmac, where they boarded the first-class-only flights on rolling staircases. At the top, flight attendants requested their names, took their hats, and pointed out smoking lounges and bathrooms with terry towels. The propeller-driven planes took off three minutes apart. The TWA Super Constellation, dubbed "Star of the Seine," flew northeast over the San Bernardino Mountains. United's flight plan took the DC-7, known as "Mainliner Vancouver," east over Palm Springs. Then they leveled off and flew on almost parallel tracks toward Arizona's Painted Desert, dodging scattered thunderstorms. No one knows if, as they approached the Grand Canyon, anyone aboard was aware that the two aircraft were creeping closer and closer together. It was 10:30 a.m. on June 30, 1956. At 21,000 feet, four miles above the world famous gorge, the DC-7, traveling at 469 feet-per-second, scraped over the Constellation, its left wing tip slicing through the Connie's fuselage and detaching its signature triple-fin tail. At 10:31 a.m., controllers received a radio transmission that was so garbled it would take weeks to decipher: "Salt Lake, United 718, ah, we're going in." The airliners plummeted into the desolate canyon 10 miles north of the Desert View outlook on the South Rim. The force of the impact drove parts of the Constellation 20 feet into the Precambrian granite, twisted silverware into the shape of pretzels, and fused a dime and a penny in a woman's change purse. All aboard both planes — 128 passengers and crew members — died. The spectacular midair collision was the worst commercial aviation accident at that point in the country's history. And for the flying public, it revealed a dangerously antiquated air traffic system. Advances in aircraft instrumentation after World War II allowed more pilots to fly in bad weather, even as bureaucrats struggled to figure out how to keep track of a burgeoning number of planes moving faster and carrying more passengers. At the dawn of the jet age, aviation experts had repeatedly warned lawmakers that a midair collision between two large, fully-loaded commercial aircraft was inevitable due to increasingly crowded skies and traffic control procedures that relied largely on radio communication rather than radar. After a plane left the airspace encircling a large city airport, radar tracking stopped; its crew was left to watch for other planes by looking out the windows. Aviation historians would later write that the effect of the Grand Canyon disaster was "as galvanic as if it had happened over Washington itself." Congress would allocate $810 million to buy navigation equipment and long-range radar, and begin a sweeping reorganization of the nation's fledgling aviation system. "The Federal Aviation Administration was created out of the ashes of that Grand Canyon crash," said Sid McGuirk, an associate professor of air traffic management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. As the aircraft burned in the canyon that morning where the roaring Colorado River met the sedate Little Colorado River, controllers radioed frantically in search of the two planes, neither of which had reported in. They wouldn't be found until dusk, when two brothers who operated an aviation sightseeing company, Palen and Henry Hudgin, flew over the wreckage in their tiny, fixed-wing craft. "When we saw the fuselage of the United plane it had not burned up yet, and was completely intact, including the pilot compartment," Henry Hudgin said in a recent interview with The Times, noting that the fuselage had become lodged in a 500-foot deep fissure on the side of a cliff. "We were both really surprised the next morning when we flew out there to see it was totally burned up." On July 1, federal investigators, TWA and United representatives, military units and hordes of reporters descended on the canyon. The rugged terrain "created the worst recovery conditions in the history of airline accidents," declared an article in the July 5, 1956, TWA employee newspaper, "Skyliner." Pilots made 76 trips into the gorge over the next 10 days in banana-shaped, twin-rotor helicopters. Years later, some recalled that dropping 7,000 feet from the rim to the river through turbulent, 120-degree air was more frightening than missions they later flew in Vietnam, said Dan Driskill, a Flagstaff, Ariz., paramedic who is writing a book about the crash. Meanwhile, climbers tried in vain to scale a 1,000-foot Redwall limestone cliff to reach the DC-7, which had rammed into a promontory on Chuar Butte halfway between the 6,394-foot mesa and the river. Wreckage was showered across the rocky slope and into the adjacent crevasse. Climbers didn't reach the United site until July 5, when they discovered a shelf above the wreck that was wide enough to support a helicopter. Boulder, Colo., climber Dave Lewis, then 20, was among the first to arrive. "I walked to the edge of the flat ground and I was suddenly staring at a steep gully packed with blackened wreckage and all surrounded by spectacular scenery," Lewis said in a recent interview. "It's indescribable if you've never seen a plane crash that burned. It's just chaos. How do you describe particular brands of chaos?" The TWA wreckage, about 1 1/2 miles south of the United site and 500 yards above the river on Temple Butte, was more accessible. For several days, investigators were reluctant to speculate about what caused the crash, until they found a mangled piece of the DC-7's left wing at the TWA site. Embedded in a tear on the wing was material from the Constellation's rear cabin ceiling. After collecting aircraft parts and hauling them out of the canyon, as well as tape recordings from air traffic control centers in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, investigators began piecing together what happened. At congressional hearings in Las Vegas a week after the collision, federal aviation officials testified that when the planes hit, the pilots were flying outside designated airways and several miles off course. A few minutes after TWA Flight 2 lifted off the LAX runway at 9:01 a.m., investigators said, Capt. Jack Gandy had asked for a change in altitude from 19,000 feet to 21,000 feet to avoid thunderstorms. Seeing on their radar that United Flight 718 was at 21,000 feet, Los Angeles controllers denied the request. A Salt Lake City controller radioed a colleague in Los Angeles "their courses cross and they are right together." After he was denied the altitude change, Gandy asked to fly 1,000 feet above the clouds. His request was granted, and he was told the United flight was in the area, but not its altitude. Gandy climbed to 21,000 feet. At the hearing, the Salt Lake controller testified he didn't warn the pilots about each other because they had left controlled airspace to fly more directly to their cross-country destinations and consequently he had no idea what routes they would follow. The public disclosure that so much of the nation's airspace was uncontrolled shocked a country confident after victories in two world wars and overtaken by Elvis mania, where efforts to build a federal highway system had dominated Congress' attention. At the time, editorial cartoons displayed newly signed highway bills next to airway plans covered with cobwebs. In early 1957, the Civil Aeronautics Board — a precursor to the National Transportation Safety Board — released a 25-page report that found the probable cause for the accident was that the "pilots did not see each other in time to avoid the collision." Investigators wrote: "It is not possible to determine why the pilots did not see each other." The evidence did suggest, they said, that "attempting to provide the passengers with a more scenic view of the Grand Canyon area" could have been a factor. The report emphasized that under air traffic rules at the time, the pilots had been required to separate themselves from other aircraft using a "see or be seen" principle. This was necessary because the nation lacked the controllers and equipment to track airplanes outside of designated routes. Since the 1930s, air traffic at high altitudes had been controlled by a rudimentary system based on radio communications. Pilots would periodically radio their heading, altitude and speed to their company's ground station, and the company would relay the information to air traffic controllers. The controllers would scribble the details for each flight on strips of paper and place them on a metal tray lined with horizontal slots. Each slot represented 1,000 feet of airspace — helping controllers visualize how to keep aircraft they could not see separated from one another. Aghast that the system was largely operated on such a primitive concept just two years before jets were set to make their long-awaited commercial debut, lawmakers ordered drastic upgrades. Many of the changes — including integrating the civil and military air traffic control systems, and ordering radar and other equipment to help controllers actually see each plane's location — had been proposed for years but failed to receive adequate funding. It took decades for federal officials to install enough equipment and build enough control centers to monitor all high-altitude traffic over the United States. By 1971, airspace above 18,000 feet was reserved for aircraft carrying transponders that were able to communicate a plane's flight number and location to radar installations on the ground. Word of the crash reached families of the victims slowly, as what began as a mystery of missing planes hardened into grim reality. Neil Davis' sister, Beth, 24, was one of two flight attendants on TWA Flight 2. When he learned of the crash, Davis drove all night from his home in Ogden, Utah, to TWA headquarters in Kansas City. Once there, George Levering, a TWA manager, told him: "There is no hope: everyone was killed. Your sister is gone." Beth Davis, one of five siblings in the tight-knit family from upstate New York, had been only a month away from leaving TWA to accept a Ford Foundation scholarship to study teaching at Cornell University in New York. "I went completely crazy," Davis recalled in a 1994 memoir he wrote about Beth. "I jumped up and ran out of the office and out of the building into the parking lot, not to my car or anywhere in particular, just away." In Washington, D.C., another Davis sister, Jayne Szaz, didn't realize Beth had been working on the Super Connie and was now missing until she received a call from another brother, Wayne. "I couldn't sleep I was so stunned," Szaz said. "When the morning came, I went home on the train — it took me nine hours to go from Washington to central New York state." After grieving with her parents and siblings over the death of the family's "emotional center" — Szaz took the first airplane ride of her life to attend a memorial for her sister in Flagstaff, where the remains of TWA Flight 2 passengers are buried. Some United passengers were laid to rest in a common grave at the Grand Canyon cemetery. The death of Whittier resident James Jang, a chemical engineer for Fluor Corp. also traveling on TWA Flight 2, sent his wife into a deep depression. She was hospitalized two years later in Belmont, Calif., where she received electric shock treatment. "My mother and my father got into an argument before he left," said Jon Jang, a San Francisco musician who was a little more than 2 years old when his father died. "She didn't want him to go. She never got over that — to leave in an argument." When he turned 39, Jon Jang requested letters from his dad's closest friends, who referred to him as "Jimmie," and described a disciplined, intelligent man whose "power of concentration was awesome." James Jang, a 5-foot, 2-inch former Boy Scout and amateur magician, also had a keen sense of humor: "On a dare, [he] asked a 6-foot blond at a nightclub to dance with him — she did," wrote his childhood friend Eddy Way. The accident hit TWA employees particularly hard. They lost 17 colleagues flying as both passengers and crew, including Tom Ashton, an industrial relations supervisor who had recently posed as one of the Andrews Sisters for a company skit. Also on board was Joe Kite, an assistant to the construction director, Kite's pregnant wife and his two daughters. When employees flipped their company calendars to July on the day after the accident, they found a picture of the Grand Canyon. ------------ Fifty years later, the crash still scars the Grand Canyon. Wreckage remains scattered on the near-vertical walls of Chuar and Temple buttes, the treacherous canyon so forbidding in 1956 that investigators stayed just long enough to collect the human remains and several aircraft parts. To prevent looting, the National Park Service closed the sites for 20 years. In 1976, park rangers asked the airlines to remove several large pieces, saying tourists "may consider the visible aircraft remains as blight on the natural scenic beauty of the Grand Canyon." Then they reopened the area. Even so, flash floods that follow summer monsoons continually unearth pieces of wreckage. By some accounts, 40% of the Super Connie remains, along with 85% of the DC-7. At the TWA site in 1990, hiker Mike McComb found a tan purse containing identification, a TWA schedule, a stamp book, a scarf and several sticks of gum. "It was kind of a time capsule," said McComb, a pilot who has made the strenuous 50-mile journey to the site several times and flies tourists over it daily. "As I approached the TWA site, there were little teardrops of melted aluminum that had splashed on the canyon," said Driskill, the Flagstaff paramedic, of a recent hike to Temple Butte. "Then I saw solid puddles of melted aluminum spilled down rocks. There were big chunks of aircraft aluminum — bigger than a person — buried under boulders." Family members remain similarly marked by that day. "The world should benefit in some way from the untimely loss of a worthy person; there should be a trade-off," Jayne Szaz wrote of her sister Beth. "But search as we might, we could find no such meaning in Beth's death." Szaz has painstakingly collected pictures of Davis and letters she wrote various family members and placed them in a three-ring binder. Included are slides Davis took during her three years at TWA. There are scenic spots in Germany and Italy, and a picture of the Grand Canyon, which Davis shot from an airplane window several months before her death. "Being the studious person that Beth was," her brother Neil wrote, "she had annotated almost every picture and slide…. On this particular one of the gaping canyon below, she had written: 'What a place to die!' " * (INFOBOX BELOW) Ill-fated flight paths A midair collision over the Grand Canyon in 1956 killed 128 people and sparked air traffic reforms. Controllers knew the planes would pass near each other, but the crash occurred when pilots veered off course, dodging storms and possibly trying to give passengers a better view of the canyon. Worst airline crashes over the U.S. Deaths Date Location Airline 273 May 25, 1979 Chicago American 265 Nov. 12, 2001 Belle Harbor, Queens, N.Y. American 230 July 17, 1996 Off East Moriches, N.Y. TWA 156 Aug. 16. 1987 Romulus, Mich. Northwest 135 Aug. 2, 1985 Dallas-Ft. Worth Delta 134 Dec. 16, 1960 Staten Island/Brooklyn, N.Y. United/TWA 132 Sept. 8, 1994 Aliquippa, Pa. USAir 128 June 30, 1956 Grand Canyon, Ariz. United/TWA Note: Does not include deliberate deaths in terrorist attack at World Trade Center. Sources: Air Disaster Volume 4, The Propeller Era; PlaneCrashInfo.com; Air Transport Assn.; ESRI; TeleAtlas; USGS

Not sure what thread to put this in, and it's dealing with shellac, not vinyl, but I thought I'd try here. I'm looking for a working 78 player in Southern California, ideally one from the 1930s or 1940s (certainly one that looks old-time) that I might film for an inset shot for the documentary that I'm doing on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music? Ideally for no money. I even have the 78s. Thanks! Please contact me directly by PM or the email below. Adam -- Adam Hyman Co-producer The Harry Smith Project amleon13@earthlink.net

Might be your best shot at playing with Braxton. Seriously, though, with 100 tubas there, I'm not sure if actually knowing how to play one would be necessary... Heck, I saw 100 guitarists at Disney Hall in March. Braxton is late to the game; Branca beat him to it.

I thought I had heard that Philly had left the United States. Guess this confirms it.

Hi all, Went to a show of "Found Footage" films at the UCLA Hammer Museum the other night. One film is worth seeking out, and probably isn't impossible to find. The link is no longer on the Hammer Museum webiste, but I'll cut & paste the description below. It was a Christian show broadcast on CBS, the pilot for a series that would investigate the three archtypical personalities of the Delinquent, the Hipster, and Square. It's not on iMdb. "Jazz is the music of your generation" says the host to the youth who are presumably watching. And the band, playing background throughout, and a featured full song at one point, is the Max Roach Quintet with Booker Little on trumpet, George Coleman on tenor, Ray Draper on tuba, and Art Davis on bass, well shot, in good sound. It's in the collection of Craig Baldwin in the Bay Area. Here's a link to the Other Cinema screening of it in 2001 - look at the 2/17 show. http://www.othercinema.com/spring2001.html Here's is the event from last week At the Hammer Museum > Thursday, May 25, 2006 > 7pm > Free! > Thrift Store Movies II > Hammer Museum > 10899 Wilshire Blvd > Westwood > > For the second year, The Hammer Museum and UCLA Department of Art welcome LA > Weekly art critic Doug Harvey and other archivists of found media presenting a > selection of films, videos, and slides rescued from the obscurity of thrift > stores, swap meets, and dumpsters. The evening includes > > ` a special version of Charles Phoenix’s God Bless Americana slideshow, > featuring estate sale vacation images from the fabulous bygone era of > 1950’s Southern California cultural ascendancy > > ` Noel Lawrence of San Francisco’s legendary Other Cinema presenting works > from his and Craig Baldwin’s archives including a post-apocalyptic 80’s > Christian rock video, as well as excerpts from their DVD releases of recovered > media. > > - A medley of hotdog related shorts including a discofied trip through an > Oscar Mayer wiener factory > > - Global A (Johannes and Lars Auvinen)’s presentation on the work of tragic > 60’s Canadian found footage (and soundtrack) collage filmmaker Arthur Lipsett > > - A continuous courtyard screening of Glenn Bach’s random recombinant > educational filmstrip collage “Gentle Words Open Iron Gates” > > - excerpts from recent and upcoming programs by the Coalition for Cinematic > Conservation and Preservation at the The Echo Park Film Center including 70’s > newscast footage of San Diego apartment fires (with live musical accompaniment > by the cult band Fireworks), vintage Asian and Indian music videos, and the > classic “ABC of Sex Education for Trainables”

My first CD was The Waterboy's - Fisherman's Blues. I thought I bought it in 86 or 87, but I just looked at it (still have it of course) and teh date on it is 88. I didn't own a CD player until late 89 or 90, but I bought that CD in 88 and transferred it to cassette using a friend's CD player. I do remember that a few other early ones were the Jimi Hendrix Live at Winterland shown earlier, Mano Negra - Puta's Fever; Les Negresses Vertes - Mlah.

That's the one I was thinking about, and obviously remembering incorrectly (as I don't own it).

Good, so finally a nice new remastering of these. And that 2 disc Brunswick set as well? That would be great!

What current CD issues cover any of this material?

Stone's biggest problem is that he is hamfisted. He's full of ideas, and I think often good ones for finding appropriate visual strategies for his topics. But then he doesn't know how or when to stop, and he just hammers you his his point. I think his cinematography is great, generally, but a lot of that credit also goes to Robert Richardson.

Don't they say this kind of thing about every one of their albums? I seem to remember Yield and the one that came after it being praised as "a return to form", etc etc. I still think the best album they did was MirrorBall! It's like the Rolling Stones. Every new album is somehow their "best in 25 years."

Hmm, I was going to go for almost the same order, plus the Bechet and one Ellington. I hope they have more than one of each.

agreed , these prices are only slightly better than those achievable through amazon.uk marketplace sellers teh site crashed on me mid shopping experience. need to try agian later.

up

I think it would be terrific fun if all athletes could take whatever steroids or performance-enhancing products they could find. Don't just stop at a juiced ball or corked bat. It'd be hilarious to see bulked-up players hitting balls 500 feet, then dropping dead rounding the bases. Bionic parts should be acceptable too. Could you imagine someone throwing a 150 mph curveball. I bet if this happened, attendance would also go way up. I also have the cynical view that someday again some form of performance enhancements will return to the games for this very reason.

I really regret missing Weston at the Bakery. Too bad I had filming last week. I think Alex Blake steals whatever show I see him in. Let's hope they come by again soon.

Maupin is in Los Anglees and is playing around a lot. One lovely thing about Cryptogramphone releases is that if you go to a Crypto night show, the CDs are all $10, and you're buying them straight from the artists & label. Gauthier does a nice job on the artwork for each of the CDs as well.

Just when you thought the story was going away, more news this week: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-05090...-home-headlines Ferrari Crash Leads to Confiscation of Badges, Guns By Richard Winton and David Pierson, Times Staff Writers 2:21 PM PDT, May 9, 2006 Authorities confiscated guns, badges and several police cars while serving search warrants today as part of their investigation into a tiny San Gabriel Valley transit agency that finds itself at the center of a growing investigation into the crash of a Ferrari in Malibu. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies searched the headquarters of the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority in Monrovia, as well as the homes of four officials. The probe comes three months after a Swedish businessman crashed a rare Enzo Ferrari on Pacific Coast Highway, telling deputies who responded that he was a deputy commissioner of the agency's "anti-terrorism division." A few minutes later, two men arrived at the crash scene and told the deputies they were from "homeland security" and needed to talk to Bo Stefan Eriksson. Eriksson was charged last month with grand theft, embezzlement and being drunk when he crashed the exotic car. A onetime business associate was charged with illegally obtaining a gun by claiming to be an officer with the transit agency's police department. Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said today that detectives and prosecutors are trying to figure out why the men were connected to an obscure private company that provided rides to disabled people in Monrovia and Sierra Madre. "This investigation is entirely focused like a laser beam on the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority Police Department and whether laws have been violated," Whitmore said. "Detectives are seeking to determine what the badges were used for and what is the extent of the agency." More than 25 deputies searched five locations, including a large home at Woodlyn Lane in Bradbury belonging to Yosef Maiwandi, a founder and transit commissioner, and his Monrovia business, Homer's Auto Service. Also, Los Angeles city prosecutors said they charged Eriksson with misdemeanor hit and run and driving without a California license and insurance after he allegedly crashed a Porsche Cayenne into a SUV near his Bel-Air home. Eriksson, 44, allegedly rear-ended a Ford Explorer on Jan. 4 on Sunset Boulevard at Beverly Glen Boulevard, said Jonathan Diamond, a spokesman for the city attorney's office. "Rather than exchanging information, he drove off," Diamond said. Diamond said Eriksson did not own the Cayenne, but authorities linked it to him. Diamond would not elaborate. A manual for that Porsche model was seized during a recent search of Eriksson's home, court records show. Eriksson, a Swedish national, was to appear in court today on the three new charges, which were filed Friday. The arraignment was delayed to later in the month. David Elden, one of Eriksson's attorneys, said the hit-and-run accusations were minor compared to the charges filed by the district attorney's office in connection with the Enzo and other exotic cars. Eriksson faces up to 14 years in state prison if convicted of seven felony counts of embezzlement, grand theft auto and possession of a firearm by a felon and two misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence. He is accused of trying to defraud three British banks by importing three luxury vehicles — the red Enzo, a black Enzo and a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren — into the United States without the banks' knowledge. Deputy Dist. Atty. Tamara Hall said Eriksson tried to conceal the importation by using different Swedish passport numbers on customs forms and bank documents. Eriksson has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His attorneys insist that he did not steal the cars and was negotiating a financial settlement with the banks before his arrest last month. He is being held in lieu of $3-million bail pending trial.

Oh yeah, GA, if you like this, I would check out work by Jenny Scheinman. Also, for violin work of a different nature, you simply must investigate Billy Bang, who most assuredly incorporates "much blues or black sound" There is definitely some interesting jazz violin work going on these days.

Gauthier runs the Cryptonight series at Club Tropical (or is it Cafe Tropical). A good guy. The Cryptogramophone label is rather interesting, IMHO. I had something more to say, but I've blanked for the moment.

Sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite. My aunt & uncle have a tempur-pedic, and it is fabulous. I figure that you spend 1/3 of your life in bed. It's worth spending more on that than really on anything else you own (except the house). That said, I've only had hand-me-down beds. Whenever I get to buy one, it will be a tempur-pedic or equivalent.

More news: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fe...-home-headlines A Pileup of Charges in the Case of the Totaled Ferrari The man arrested after the crash of a rare Enzo faces weapons, theft and drunk driving counts. By Richard Winton and David Pierson, Times Staff Writers April 18, 2006 Los Angeles prosecutors filed embezzlement, grand theft, drunk driving and weapons charges Monday against a former European video game executive, whose involvement in the crash of a rare Ferrari Enzo in Malibu two months ago has mushroomed into a case filled with international intrigue. The charges, more extensive than prosecutors had suggested last week, come as officials with Scotland Yard and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue to investigate the case, which involves the Swedish underworld, fake Homeland Security officials and an exotic car collection. If convicted on all counts, Bo Stefan M. Eriksson, 44, would face up to 14 years in prison. He pleaded not guilty through his attorney, who described the charges as "overblown." The case stems from the 162-mph crash of the Enzo, one of only 400 made, on Pacific Coast Highway on Feb. 21. Eriksson told sheriff's deputies that he was a passenger and that the driver, a man he knew only as "Dietrich," had fled into the hills. But prosecutors charged Monday that Dietrich never existed and that Eriksson had been behind the wheel — with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit — when the crash occurred. The charges were filed after officials received results of a DNA test of blood found on the vehicle's driver-side air bag. Laying out their case against Eriksson for the first time, prosecutors accused him of embezzlement and grand theft for allegedly bringing the Enzo and the rest of his $3.8-million car collection to the United States, even though he had only leased them from British financial institutions. The lease contract, authorities said, prohibited him from taking the vehicles out of England. He was also charged with possessing a handgun, which is illegal because he had been convicted of drug and counterfeiting felonies in Sweden. Eriksson, dressed in an orange jail uniform, appeared in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom packed with journalists from around the world. His attorneys protested that the $5.5-million bail set by Judge Mary Strobel was excessive. Prosecutors sought the high amount because they said detectives searching his Bel-Air estate April 8 found an airline ticket in Eriksson's name that would have him depart to London two days later. "Right now, I have six or seven murder cases, including a death penalty case, where the bail is $1 million," said attorney Andrew Flier outside court. Eriksson's other attorney, David Elden, said the .357-caliber handgun was not his client's but belonged "to a deputy sheriff for Orange County." The attorney did not elaborate, and Orange County Sheriff's Department officials declined to comment. In an interview outside court, Elden described Eriksson as "totally innocent of all these charges." "The press has blown this out of proportion," he said, adding that Eriksson is in a dispute with the British financial institutions over ownership of the destroyed Ferrari as well as two other expensive vehicles. Elden also said Eriksson is not a flight risk because he has business ties in Los Angeles, though he did not say what they were. Eriksson arrived in Los Angeles sometime last year, moving into the posh Bel-Air Crest section of Los Angeles with his wife and young son. Eriksson had been an executive with Gizmondo, a London-based video game company that filed for bankruptcy earlier this year with more than $200 million in debt. The finances of that company are now under investigation. According to Swedish police records contained in the prosecutors' court filing, Eriksson in the late 1980s and early '90s was involved in counterfeiting, assault and drug crimes tied to a Swedish underworld group in Uppsala, a city 50 miles north of Stockholm. He was sentenced to prison three separate times, according to the records. Some observers Monday marveled at how the single-car, non-injury crash in Malibu could unravel such a string of revelations. "It's amazing. If the guy didn't get into the wreck, none of this would have happened," said Malibu Mayor Andy Stern, who said he hopes the charges send a message to other sports car drivers who exceed the speed limit on PCH. "I've seen guys like him before get away with things so long and never get caught," he added. "So they do it more and more. But eventually, you get caught."

Oh, here's the rest of the list: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/arts/pulitzers2006.html Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama and Music By THE NEW YORK TIMES The Pulitzer Prizes were announced on Monday. Following are the winners in Letters, Drama and Music. FICTION: 'March,' by Geraldine Brooks Geraldine Brooks's novel concerns slavery, the Civil War and Mr. March of "Little Women." Review (March 27, 2005) GENERAL NONFICTION: 'Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya,' by Caroline Elkins Caroline Elkins's catalog of atrocities and mass killing perpetrated by the British is an important and excruciating record; it will shock even those who think they have assumed the worst about Europe's era of control in Africa. Review (January 30, 2005) BIOGRAPHY: 'American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,' by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin recount the great tragic epic of the 20th century: the discovery of how to release nuclear energy, and its application to making bombs capable of blasting, irradiating and burning out entire cities. Review (May 15, 2005) HISTORY: 'Polio: An American Story,' by David M. Oshinsky David Oshinsky, a professor of history at the University of Texas, frames the conquest of polio within the cultural upheavals of the time. Review (April 10, 2005)` POETRY: 'Late Wife,' by Claudia Emerson Epistolary poems about losing love and finding it again. SPECIAL CITATION: Edmund S. Morgan From the Pulitzer site: A Special Citation to Edmund S. Morgan for a creative and deeply influential body of work as an American historian that spans the last half century. From the Pulitzer Site SPECIAL CITATION: Thelonious Monk From the Pulitzer site: A posthumous Special Citation to American composer Thelonious Monk for a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz. From the Pulitzer Site Audio Excerpts: "Straight, No Chaser" from "Jazz Profile: Thelonious Monk" | "'Round Midnight" from "Genius of Modern Music, Vol.1" | "In Walked Bud" from "The Very Best" (mp3 format) DRAMA: No Award There was no prize awarded for drama this year. MUSIC: 'Piano Concerto: "Chiavi in Mano,"' by Yehudi Wyner Yehudi Wyner's comments on the piece, from the Pulitzer site: "'Chiavi in mano' - the title of the piano concerto - is the mantra used by automobile salesmen and realtors in Italy: Buy the house or the car and the keys are yours. But the more pertinent reason for the title is the fact that the piano writing is designed to fall 'under the hand.'" From the Pulitzer Site

Pulitzer Prize Winners for 2006 include: Two Special Citations A Special Citation to Edmund S. Morgan for a creative and deeply influential body of work as an American historian that spans the last half century. and A posthumous Special Citation to American composer Thelonious Monk for a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz. Congratulations!

So many stires on antiquities looting recently, from the Met agreeing to return the Eurphronios krater to Italy, to the trial of former Getty curator Marion True, to the Gospel of Judas, which is also a looted antiquity. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ju...1,4755347.story Judas Gospel Figure Has Tainted Past A dealer credited with 'rescuing' the document allegedly played a major role in the looting of antiquities. She received a suspended sentence. By Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, Times Staff Writer April 13, 2006 In its unveiling of the Gospel of Judas last week, the National Geographic Society credited Swiss antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger Tchacos with "rescuing" the ancient manuscript, described as one of the most important archeological finds of the last century. But National Geographic made no mention of a suspended sentence Tchacos received in Italy four years ago for possession of looted antiquities, nor her alleged involvement for years in antiquities trafficking. "In the past, she was at the center of the looting in Italy," said Paolo Ferri, the Italian state prosecutor who has led an investigation of the illicit trade for 10 years. National Geographic purchased exclusive publication rights for the Gospel of Judas' contents for $1 million from a foundation run by Tchacos' Swiss attorney, Mario Jean Roberty. The deal will also give Roberty's foundation and, indirectly, Tchacos a percentage of National Geographic's royalties from two books, a documentary and other proceeds stemming from the Judas Gospel. Though Tchacos' past has no direct bearing on the legitimacy of the Judas Gospel, the fact that she and her attorney stand to benefit from the financial relationship with National Geographic has raised sharp questions from leaders in the archeological community. "Nobody should be doing business with these people," said Jane Waldbaum, president of the Archeological Institute of America. "You get down in the mud with these people and you legitimize them…. You encourage not only the trade but the looting that feeds the trade." Harold Attridge, dean of the Divinity School at Yale University and a noted biblical scholar, said that given the importance of the text, he understood why the renowned scientific and educational nonprofit would publish the document and then return it to a museum in Egypt. But, he added, National Geographic has made "moral compromises" in publishing the Judas Gospel. "So far as you're an ethical purist, you have to cringe at it all," he said. Yale chose not to buy the document from Tchacos in 2000 because of legal concerns about its origins, he said. A top official of National Geographic said Wednesday the organization was told that Tchacos had legal troubles in Italy, but went ahead with the publication of the Gospel of Judas after finding no record of a conviction and doing the best it could to answer other questions, including whether it had left Egypt and entered the U.S. legally. "We decided that on balance, yes, this is something we should do, and we felt comfortable about doing it," said Terry Garcia, executive vice president for mission programs at National Geographic. "We had an opportunity to add an extra measure of certainty to make sure it was returned to Egypt, that it was authenticated and that the best scholarly minds were involved." Roberty's promise to transfer the manuscript to the Egyptian museum after it was exhibited in the U.S. made moot many of the questions about its legal status, Garcia said. A law firm could find no record in Italy of Tchacos' legal problems, he added. The Judas Gospel is part of an ancient manuscript that dates to about AD 200 and is an account that gives a dramatically different view of the disciple the Bible says betrayed Jesus. It portrays Judas as Jesus' favorite disciple and states that Jesus asked Judas to hand him over to the Romans for crucifixion and liberation from his earthly body. National Geographic's authentication and translation of the lost gospel, in partnership with the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery and Roberty's Maecenas Foundation, made headlines across the world. In a documentary aired Sunday and a related book, "The Lost Gospel," Tchacos is portrayed as a heroic figure who fought to save the deteriorating manuscript. She is quoted as saying she was "guided by providence." "I think I was chosen by Judas to rehabilitate him," she said in the film. "I think the circumstance of this manuscript coming to me was predestined." Tchacos bought the gospel and other texts contained in the manuscript in 2000 for about $300,000 after it had sat moldering for years in a Long Island safe deposit box. Her initial attempt to sell it to Yale fell through because of concerns about the legal status of the document, said Attridge, the Divinity School dean. In deciding whether to purchase the Gospel, Attridge said, Yale found itself faced with a dilemma: Should the university buy an object that may have been illegally brought into the United States in order to preserve it? Or should it risk losing the piece for ethical reasons? "This is kind of like a hostage situation where you have some artifact that is in effect being held for ransom. What do you do? Not do business with them…. Or do you preserve it, and try to save the piece?"