Off the I-15

It looks like the Russians won the Cold War, at least in the water.

Russian submarines surfaced on Thursday after planting a Russian flag at the North Pole … and collecting geological samples for the ocean floor in an attempt to claim territory believed to be rich in natural gas and oil deposits.

So far, the moon, which United States astronauts claimed when they planted a flag on it in 1969, has yielded only a few rocket loads of moon rocks. Though President George Bush did once remark that moon soil could be turned into rocket fuel and used to propel U.S. astronauts to Mars … so they could come back with Mars rocks.

Russian officials believe the North Pole is part of their continental shelf, questioning the validity of Santa’s proletarian workshop and giving them rights to the reserves once global warming melts the polar ice caps and drowns Florida.
Competing world leaders, however, see it differently.

Canada has claimed parts of the Arctic since 1925. Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told Canadian Television CTV: “Look, this isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say, ‘We’re claiming this territory.’ ”

The United States, which planted its flag on the moon in 1969, also did not appreciate Russia’s move to leave its flag on the Arctic Ocean floor.

“I’m not sure whether they put a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bed sheet on the ocean floor,” Tom Casey, deputy State Department spokesman, told reporters. “Either way, it doesn’t have any legal standing or effect on this claim.”
Russian stepped up to defend its probing scientists.

“When explorers reach an unexplored point, they leave flags there,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. “No one is throwing flags around.”

And during a week when foreign auto manufacturers eclipsed domestic ones in sales, one has to ask: Is buying a Prius patriotic?

— Aaron Aupperlee | Staff writer

Oakland Post editor killed while reporting on local bakery

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Police said they recovered a gun linked to the slaying of an Oakland journalist during a series of early morning raids Friday that targeted members of a Black Muslim splinter group that operates a chain of bakeries.

Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, 57, had been working on a story about Your Black Muslim Bakery before he was ambushed and slain Thursday morning near the Alameda County courthouse in downtown Oakland, his colleagues said.

Oakland Police Lt. Ersie Joyner said he believes the seven people arrested Friday include the people responsible for Bailey’s death. Police say they still do not have any motive for Bailey’s killing, and that they had no knowledge that he was working on a story about the bakery.

Before dawn, officers raided the Muslim group’s headquarters at the original bakery on San Pablo Avenue, as well as three houses in Oakland. They arrested seven people, including the son of the group’s founder, on various charges including homicide, robbery and assault, but it was unclear if any of those charges were tied to Bailey’s slaying.

“The search warrant yielded several weapons and other evidence of value including evidence linking the murder of Chauncey Bailey to members of the Your Black Muslim Bakery,” said Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan, who said the raids were part of a yearlong investigation into a variety of violent crimes.
Those include two homicides earlier this year and a kidnapping and torture case in May, Joyner said.

Joseph Debro, an Oakland businessman who writes a column for the Post, said Bailey had recently asked him for information about Your Black Muslim Bakery’s financial troubles for a story Bailey was writing.

“To him it was just another story,” Debro said. “He wasn’t apprehensive or anxious about it at all. He said he was working on a bunch of stories and this was one.”

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, the last journalist killed in the line of duty in the U.S. was Robert Stevens. The photo editor died Oct. 5, 2001, after an anthrax mailing to American Media Inc. in Florida.

Your Black Muslim Bakery was founded in 1968 by the late Yusuf Bey as a haven for struggling urban families. It sells natural baked goods alongside books by Malcolm X and other black leaders.

Bailey was a longtime reporter for the Oakland Tribune before becoming editor of the Post, a weekly newspaper geared toward the Bay Area black community, earlier this year.

He had written stories for the Tribune about the bakery and its founder when Bey was facing rape charges in Alameda County. Most of those charges were later dropped, although one was still pending when Bey died in 2003.

Bey’s son, Yusuf Bey IV, who was in custody Friday, took over the original bakery and several franchises. In 2005, he was accused of being the ringleader in a group of black Muslims who smashed liquor bottles in Oakland corner stores and berated the Muslim owners for selling alcohol to the black community, because alcohol is forbidden by Islam.

Your Black Muslim bakery has been plagued with financial problems for several years, culminating in a bankruptcy filing last October.

In a declaration filed with the bankruptcy court on June 29, Yusuf Bey IV conceded he was “inexperienced in the business world,” and had “received advice and consultation from those who had proven to me they did not have my best interests at heart.”

Interested in reading a face-to-face interview with a notorious Barstow criminal serving time in a state prison?

Perhaps not this year.

The governor recently vetoed a bill that would have eased restrictions on members of the media when interviewing inmates. According to state senate documents, the bill would have allowed journalists to interview inmates in person, face-to-face, prohibited audio monitoring of interviews, and banned administrative retaliation against an inmate for participating in an interview.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation allowed interviews from 1975 to 1996 when it adopted emergency regulations that hampered the media’s access. Similar bills have been vetoed seven times before, the documents state.

In his attached veto message, Schwarzenegger echoed rationale used in past vetos.

“For the past two years I have vetoed similar measures because these bills would allow the media to glamorize murderers and thereby once again traumatize crime victims and their families,” he wrote.

In addition to publicly stating his veto, the message directs the state corrections department to develop new regulations concerning media access with the interests of the media and the victims in mind.

— Aaron Aupperlee | Staff writer

Last week a story from the Associated Press noted that two alligators (or possibly crocodiles) turned up in a Pennsylvania creek. My later efforts to track down more information led me to some Web sites claiming it was a lake, but the AP story definitely said “creek.” How does a huge reptile hide in such a small body of water?

I shared the story of the reptilian invasion with whoever was listening in the newsroom, and Aaron Aupperlee noted that those creatures were “way lost” and in a much worse situation than, for example, the whales that ended up navigating a freshwater strait in an accidental detour en route to the Pacific Ocean.

As someone who’s prone to getting lost — whether on remote desert roads or in the Hollywood Hills — I sympathize with these wayward animals. At least my main worry on such a journey is making it to the next gas station to fuel up and get directions. What must it be like to get lost among creatures of another species, like the bear who wandered into a health clinic? It must be the equivalent of me aimlessly trying to find the way out of a rain forest.

Naturally all these lost animal escapades reminded me of an ongoing story that drew a lot of interest, the tale of Reggie, the ’gator so sly he spent about two years in a California lake and eluded some serious organized efforts to get him out of there. As day-after-day of stories ran about experts trying and failing to trap the beast, Reggie stirred up not just interest but enthusiasm. How could an alligator give experts the slip for so long when they knew what lake his former owner had dumped him in? Why could he be spotted (by eager lake watchers) but not caught? With this mysterious elusive power, Reggie gained a status akin to that of a superhero. Maybe he fought crime and rescued bottom-dwellers in distress deep down at the bottom of Lake Machado. Maybe one of his fans should knit him a cape embroidered with an “R.”

But Reggie, like any other pop culture phenomenon, faded from news reports once his extended live show concluded. What happened to Reggie?

As with any offbeat query, I looked to the Internet. Several reports noted Reggie went of to the Los Angeles Zoo, but none of the stories were recent.

So I checked in with Roxanne Lane, a zoo spokesperson.
Yes, she said, Reggie is still there. He’s quarantined right now undergoing exams to make sure he’s healthy. There was an exciting benchmark passed on June 29, when Reggie devoured his first meal — quail — since arriving at the zoo in late May. Previously, he refused the offered food. That doesn’t indicate a problem, though; Lane said long stretches between meals are normal for alligators. Testing confirmed that the 111-pound, 7 1/2-foot-long Reggie is male, Lane said.

Soon, Reggie will make his zoo debut. Lane said the exact date Reggie will go on display hasn’t yet been announced.

— Stevie St. John, City Editor

You may have noticed it on a return trip from Las Vegas; the giant riverboat in the middle of the desert has closed.

One of the two casinos, Nevada Landing, in Jean, Nev., a welcome break from the desert vistas dominating the desolate northbound burn up the I-15 to Vegas, shut its doors in April to make way for a new housing development, said Yvette Monet, a spokeswoman with MGM Mirage, the company that owns the property.

“It’s good news,” Monet said. “It’s all good at Nevada Landing.”

Plans for the property currently include a residential development and a new hotel and casino on Nevada Landing’s side of the I-15. Monet said the development is still in the planning stages.

In the meantime, the Landing’s nearly 300 employees were offered the opportunity to transfer across the street to the neighboring Gold Strike Casino or to other MGM-owned properties in the area.

A facelift for the Gold Strike is also in the works. An additional 100 gaming machines will be added to the Gold Strike’s floor and renovations to its 800 rooms. Gold Strike will receive more than 100 additional gaming machines to supplement its existing casino operations. Gold Strike is also currently in the midst of a renovation of the property’s more than 800 guest rooms.

I think space is really cool, and the landing of the space shuttle at Edwards Air Force Base is even cooler.

Check out this video and these photos from the shuttle’s landing provided by NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. And check out desertdispatch.com and Friday’s Desert Dispatch for a closer look at Fort Irwin’s new helicopter, the UH-72A Lakota, and Barstow’s connection the space shuttle landing.

Download:

Day 3: Dawn in Barstow, California, 28 January 2007

My father, David Aupperlee, an avid amateur photographer in Ada, Mich., recently sent me a link to some photos Ken Rockwell took while passing through Barstow at the end of January. The shots present some classic Barstow-scapes in a new light — or at least at a new angle — thanks to his super-wide 14mm lens.

Rockwell lives in La Jolla, but one of his hobbies is traveling around finding new and interesting things to photograph.

He writes on his Web site, “I love traveling California and the world and creating beautiful images. I love feeling nature and beauty. I love all the arts and the outdoors.”

Rockwell has exhibited his work in museums and has been published in newspapers, magazines and hardcover books.

Check out the photos at kenrockwell.com.

LUDLOW — A personal aircraft made an emergency landing Tuesday afternoon on a road just off Interstate 40 near Ludlow.

Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the twin-engine Cessna 340 lost power in both engines and made an emergency landing on what he described as a rough road 300 yards north of the I-40. The pilot, the only passenger in the plane, sustained minor injuries, Gregor said.

“You’d be surprised how many times planes go down and the end result is a good one,” Gregor said.

The plane, however, was not so fortunate. Officer Greg Smoak of the California Highway Patrol said the plane suffered significant damage after it landed, losing landing gear and spinning to a stop. CHP officers were first on the scene, followed by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies and an FAA investigator.

The plane, part owned by Samuel Salazar from Jamul, was en route from Bullhead City, Ariz., to the Ontario Airport when it went down at around 3:30 p.m. The FAA and sheriff’s aviation department are currently investigating the incident.

Emergency plane landings and the unfortunate crash have made the news before in the Barstow area. In 1999, an experimental unmanned NASA aircraft crashed on the I-40 near Barstow. NASA pilots lost control of the plane after it left their airspace and it went down. A man from Yermo died in 2001 when his home-made gyrocopter crashed near Mule Canyon Road in Yermo, and a corporate Lear Jet crashed near Helendale in 2003.

Recently, engine troubles caused movie-star Patrick Swayze to make an emergency landing at the Barstow-Daggett Airport. Swayze safely landed in December 2006 despite a heavy crosswind after he blew a rod in the right engine of his Cessna 414.

Patrick Swayze gives the thumbs up with his two dogs after his plane landed safely at the Barstow-Daggett Airport due to engine failure.

— Aaron Aupperlee, staff writer