Cassini spacecraft one of NASA's star robots

Mimas, the smallest of Saturn's inner moons, casts its shadow into the outer rings of the planet. Equinox on Saturn, when the Sun crosses the plane of the Ringed Planet's equator, and day and night are of equal length, occurs about every 15 years. In the few months before and after Saturn's equinox, several of the planet's inner moons cast shadows on its rings.

 

With Saturn and Earth at the closest point to each other in their orbits around the Sun, spectacular views of the Ringed Planet will be possible for the next few weeks using even a small telescope. But the best views of Saturn and its moons over the past decade have been from the Cassini spacecraft designed by NASA and European space agencies.

The Cassini-Huygens mission and the Mars rovers are star performers in NASA's drive to explore the solar system with robotic technology. Cassini has been exploring Saturn and its moons since 2004, deploying the Huygens lander in 2005 for a successful touchdown on Saturn's surface and sending thousands of images back to Earth since.

Manned spaceflight has many allures, but robotic space missions will have far longer reach at far lower cost for the foreseeable future.

Saturn is the second-largest planet in the solar system, with hallmark rings and more than 60 moons. /NASA images

Time progression images show a storm in Saturn's northern hemisphere raging for more than 18 months.

Saturn's dense, murky atmosphere serves as a backdrop for Rhea, the Ringed Planet's second-largest moon. This view from Cassini looks toward the rings at a 1 degree angle, making the unilluminated side of the rings appear to be a solid straight band.

An infrared image shows a ring of aurora stretching around Saturn's north polar region. Cassini also has captured images of massive hurricane-like storms swirling at Saturn's poles.

The Sun reflects off a liquid methane sea on Titan, the Ringed Planet's largest moon. Titan and Earth are the only known places in the solar system with bodies of liquid on their surfaces.

Twisted fissures show the effect of powerful tectonic forces on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

 

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, appears deceptively small compared to Dione, Saturn's third-largest moon, in this image captured by Cassini.

Titan rises over the Ringed Planet's horizon. Tethys, a relatively small member of Saturn's large and various extended moon family, is a shiny ball of ice spinning around the gas giant.

Democracy, civil liberty and the War on Terrorism

Heavily armed police set up a perimeter around an apartment building in Watertown, Mass., during the manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. /Image via deadspin.com

It appears Mayor Tom Menino and other top officials made good decisions in the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, including essentially declaring martial law in Watertown and "shutting down" Boston.

I don't know whether to feel deeply grateful or deeply troubled.

One of the legacies of 9/11 is an unprecedent capability for federal, state and local government to declare and enforce martial law. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of police officers and National Guard members on the streets of Watertown in less than 12 hours.

I hope our political leaders keep making good decisions with their new police state powers.

Humanity pushing Earth to environmental brink

With humanity's population ballooning to about 7 billion and industrialization spreading to every corner of the planet, Earth's environmental systems are under severe stress from human activity. The evidence is plain to see on every continent and in every ocean.

Climate change has been linked to mass bleaching of coral throughout the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. /Image via npr.org

Smog from coal-fired power plants and other air polluters has become a persistent problem in several Chinese cities, including Beijing. /Image via theatlanticcities.com

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has affected most if not all animal and plant species in the Gulf of Mexico, from pelicans and other wildlife slathered in slicks to contaminated coastal marshes. /Image via huffingtonpost.com

Logging is a prime cause of deforestation in the Congo River Basin, a global treasure that sustains the second largest rainforest in the world. /Greenpeace image

Climate change and habitat loss have decimated gold frog and toad species in Central America. /Image via nashvillezoo.org

Habitat loss has taken a heavy toll on elephant populations throughout Africa and Asia, shattering communities of animals known to have complex social bonds. /Image via eletracker.wordpress.com

Climate change has been linked to widespread melting of glaciers and sea ice in Antarctica, above, Greenland and the Arctic. The melting of ice in these regions is expected to drive dramatic sea level increases that pose a grave threat to coastal cities around the world. /Nasa image

Polar bears have become a poster child for climate change. With the sharp drop in Arctic sea ice, there have been reports of polar bears drowning after swimming many miles in fruitless attempts to hunt seals. /Getty image

No lifeboat: Earth is humanity's hope for the future

On April 22, 1970, a crowd of environmentalists and other activists gathers in New York City to rally for the first Earth Day. /Image via Hulton Archive

Humanity could not exist without its lush green and blue planet Earth. In comparison, the other planets in our solar system are barren wastelands. We would likely have to burrow under ground to colonize the Moon and Mars.

Earth is humanity's only hope for the future, the basis upon which all our hopes and dreams rest. Understanding and protecting Earth's atmosphere is one of the greatest collective challenges facing our species. Human civilizations thrive when the temperature is just right, ice ages and epic droughts leave their mark with the death of millions.

Humanity came to life on Earth, and life will never be better for humanity than on Earth.

And Earth is hurtling through the endlessly cold darkness of space alone. Ignoring good stewardship of the planet poses enormous risk on a global scale.

Earth viewed over a Moon horizon during NASA's Apollo 8 mission in December 1968. Apollo 8 was humanity's first visit to another world, establishing the capability to travel to the planet's nearest neighbor and gathering photos of the Moon's desolate surface. /NASA image

Republicans missing political revival mark

U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte fires an assault rifle at the opening of a firearms accessories factory in Keene, N.H. The Granite State Republican, who is a possible 2016 White House candidate, helped shoot down a Senate proposal this week for universal background checks on all gun purchases. /Union Leader photo by Meghan Pierce

After polling poorly with everyone except white men in the November 2012 elections, Republicans engaged in collective hand-wringing over broadening the party's appeal. The party's race to become competitive before the 2014 congressional elections has started with Republican lawmakers in Congress stumbling to their knees out of the gate:

• Couldn't or wouldn't cut a deal to stop the meat-axe "sequester" federal budget cuts, which have slowed the job market and probably weakened economic growth overall
• Blocked universal background checks for all gun purchases
• Made little progress on immigration reform

President Obama is off to a good start politically in his second term, without having to do too much. Only 20 months until the midterm elections.

Chechen war children grow up to be monsters

Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, was a flashpoint in both of the Chechen separatist wars with Russia that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. Street battles, artillery shelling and aerial bombardment in the mid-1990s, and again in 1999 and 2000, leveled the city. /Image via historyofrussia.org

After variously simmering and exploding into violence over the past 20 years largely out of the media spotlight, the breakaway regions of the Russian Caucasus have become a focal point of the biggest story in the world.

It's too early to say whether the brothers accused in the Boston Marathon bombings, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were radicalized by the fighting in their homeland. But it's unlikely they would have been in the United States were it not for the struggle between Russia and separatists in Caucasus regions such as Chechnya and Georgia.

Two wars have been fought in Chechnya since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russian President Boris Yeltsin waged the first from 1994 to 1996, and Vladimir Putin started the second as part of his rise to power in 1999. Intense fighting into 2000 was followed by years of Russian counterinsurgency warfare that ultimately led to relative stability under President Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been accused of running Chechnya as a brutal dictator.

Horrific warfare, human rights abuses and political assassinations have been hallmarks of Chechen life for the past two decades. Two children of this war-scarred generation apparently grew up to be the monsters of the Boston Marathon bombings.

READING LIST
The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire

Blogger-activist's trial dangerous Putin political stunt

In one of several outdoor adventure stunts, Vladimir Putin prepares to fly an ultra-light aircraft to lead the migration of a rare Siberian crane. /Image via telegraph.co.uk

Russian President Vladimir Putin has projected a strongman image for years: KGB colonel, Judo expert, hunter, swimmer, pilot, equestrian, fisherman and ruthless Kremlin leader worthy of a leading role in a James Bond movie. Although Putin's publicity stunt machine has misfired recently, the St. Petersburg native has thus far passed the greatest test in Russian politics: time. Putin has held sway in the Kremlin directly or indirectly for more than a dozen years.

One of Putin's most vocal critics, anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny, faces upto 10 years in prison on embezzlement charges that are viewed as at least politically tainted, and at most politically directed. Local prosecutors dismissed the charges against Navalny, but federal prosecutors revived the case after the 36-year-old helped lead huge Moscow street protests against Putin's government in 2011.

The attempt to use the federal courts against a political opponent is ominous even by Putin's Bond villain standards. The strongman is playing with fire. Domestically, Putin runs the risk of cementing Navalny's status as the top opposition leader in the country. Internationally, the trial is publicizing a top concern about Russia's new market economy: corruption.

For the past five years, Navalny has exposed graft at major Russian companies and natural resources monopolies, including:

• VTB Bank's oil drill purchase scam estimated at $156 million
• Transneft's Chinese oil pipeline embezzlement estimated at $4 billion
• Federal government fraud such as rigged contracts documented at $56 million

It's not the kind of image Putin is looking to project.

Since 2000, Vladimir Putin has led Russia out front as president and from behind the scenes as prime minister. Fit and crafty at age 60, he could easily surpass Leonid Brezhnev as the longest serving leader of post-Stalinist Russia. /Image via AP

Putin has fostered a virile outsdoorsman persona, including equestrian excursions, hunting and fishing. /Image via telegraph.co.uk

Putin's "release" of a snow leopard led to an admission that his animal publicity stunts are shameless publicity stunts. The animal, one of the most isolative known in nature, was kept in a cage for a week for Putin's photo op. /Image via telegraph.co.uk

Movie-goers would love seeing Putin playing himself opposite Roger Craig in the next Bond film. /Image via itv.com

American War on Terrorism's Heartbreak Hill

Emergency workers respond to the bombing of the 2013 Boston Marathon finish line. /AP photo Charles Krupa
CBSBoston.com photo gallery

This leaves a dent in the American way of life.

Just as 9/11 ruined the illusion of being safe in the workplace at our biggest cities, the Boston Marathon Bombing has ruined the illusion of being safe at our biggest entertainment events.

In U.S. spectatorship, the Boston Marathon is second only to the Super Bowl.

With three dead and more than 170 injured, the Boston attack ranks among the worst bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan or any other front in War on Terrorism. The bombs appear to have been placed at ground level and were loaded with nails and pellets to maximize lethality.

With no one immediately taking responsibility, it's sobering to ponder who among America's enemies could have perpetrated this Boston bloodbath. At least a half dozen suspects come to mind, after al-Qaeda, both foreign and domestic.

One of the worst outcomes of the hours, days and weeks after this atrocity would be a rush for revenge. Only justice can heal those scarred in the Boston bombing, and there can be no rush to justice.

I lived for several years near the Natick Town Common, where the marathon course crosses through one of the last bastions of Main Street America. It's hard to imagine being anywhere on the course now without the bombing crossing our minds.

Marathon madness: Terrorist attack shocks America

A bomb explodes Monday near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. With at least three dead and more than 100 injured, the bombing of Boston's cherished running event is the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. /WBZ-TV image

Monday's bomb attack on the Boston Marathon is a reminder that the United States faces an insidious struggle with domestic and foreign terrorists. Whoever is responsible for the marathon bombings can expect retribution akin to the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.

Venezuela's socialist experiment enters new phase

Nicolas Maduro celebrates his narrow, 50-49, victory Sunday in Venezuela's presidential election. The hand-picked successor of Hugo Chavez edged opposition leader Henrique Capriles by about 300,000 votes. /Image via npr.org

The socialist experiment in Venezuela continues, with Nicolas Maduro, who served as foreign minister and vice president under Hugo Chavez, winning an incredibly thin victory in Sunday's election. Maduro has pledged to follow in his mentor's footsteps. But his country is politically polarized as well as facing a host of domestic economic and social problems.

Chavez's so-called socialist revolution is at a crossroads. Power outages are frequent in a country with the largest known oil reserves in the world. Capriles ran his campaign almost entirely on the government's mismanagement, waste and corruption as steward of the $1 trillion in oil production revenue generated during Chavez's 14 years as president. NPR reports: "Venezuelans are afflicted by chronic power outages, crumbling infrastructure, unfinished public works projects, double-digit inflation, food and medicine shortages, and rampant crime."

With such a narrow margin of victory and such widespread abuse of public office, Maduro would be wise to heed Capriles' call to clean up the government. Finding Capriles a ministry post would be a good start.

Hopeful day for democracy in Venezuela

Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles holds a campaign rally April 7 in Caracas. /Reuters photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Venezuelan acting President Nicolas Maduro campaigns April 11 in Caracas. The country's longtime president, Hugo Chavez, died March 5. /AP photo by Ramon Espinosa

The polls open across Venezuela in a few hours. It's always hopeful when a country attempts to hold a democratic election.

Fair elections are at the heart of democratic government. The Venezuelan people would be best served with a fair vote today. A free and fair election is a Bullwork of Democracy.

Dolphins know how to network and work it

Dolphins have been observed swimming in groups of more than 60 individuals. /Image via tecnewsgator.com

Communication and complex social groups are two of humanity's defining characteristics. Dolphins can communicate over great distances and form social groups in sizes from mother-child pairs to congregations of pods. Dolphins also exhibit several other social behaviors:

• Dolphin interspecies sex in the Bahamas: "It is possible for conflicts to arise when the two species encounter each other in overlapping areas of their range. Interspecific sexual interactions might serve to diffuse tensions in mixed-species groups."
• Although there is no evidence of a "natural language" among dolphins, they do communicate with each other.
• Spinner dolphins make exclamation point.

Adult spinner dolphins rotate in the air a half-dozen times. /Image via cascadiaresearch.org

Bullwork of Democracy: New look for Nuclear Age

/Image via afp

In a continuing effort to get the journalism job done for viewers, Bullwork of Democracy has crafted a more user-friendly blog.

• With more than 150 posts published, Bullwork Pages have been created to give viewers easy access to news and commentary in fields ranging from business, to crime, to politics, to space exploration. More Bullwork Pages will be added to the blog over the next week.
• Also at the top of the Home Page, a Top 10 list provides links to Bullwork viewers' favorite posts.
• Bullwork viewers are encouraged to send blog feedback or links to important stories that are going untold to bullworkofdemocracy@gmail.com.

The Great Recession's winter of discontent

/Image via stltrib.com

The United States' painstakingly slow recovery from the Great Recession is facing a speed bump.

The first month after the federal sequester registered a chill in the employment market. The March jobs report showed the filling of 88,000 posts, which was about half the figure economists expected. And a survey of small businesses released this week found owners less inclined to add jobs over the next few months.

And Wall Street is bracing for first-quarter earnings reports from U.S. companies. Alcoa kicked off this quarterly report season Monday with profits up 59 percent, but the Aluminum giant's gain was based on one-time benefits and cost reductions. And the price of the key building material is down, which indicates a possible slowdown in the construction industry.

As the rest of the earnings reports arrive over the next week, be prepared for a roller coaster ride, one way or the other.

The Dow has been trading at historic highs for two months, hitting an all-time record 14,673 points at Tuesday's closing bell. More positive earnings reports could drive the blue chip stocks over 15,000 points. Negative reports could prompt a sell-off as investors cash in or lose confidence in the U.S. economic recovery.

Orwell fiction reveals facts about North Korea

/Image via www.bite.ca

I wish George Orwell was still alive to provide the world with an insightful analysis of Kim Jong-un and the totalitarian North Korean government. It should come as no surprise that the quotes below from Orwell's masterpieces, 1984 and Animal Farm, are as revealing about the Hermit Nation as anything you will read, hear or see in the media today.

The Korean Workers' Party is nearly a mirror image of the humanity-crushing Party described in 1984: The state has a monopoly on information, a cult of personality helps keep the government's leader in power, citizens are constantly whipped into a frenzy of fear over attack from foreign invaders, and anyone who dares to dissent or defect runs the risk of persecution as a political prisoner.

From 1984:

• Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain.
• The three slogans of the Party:
  WAR IS PEACE
  FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
  IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
• Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.
• We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
• The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering—a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons—a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting—three hundred million people all with the same face.

From Animal Farm:

• All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
• It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, “Under the guidance of our leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days” or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, “thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!"
• They had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.

Aryan Brotherhood of Texas flexing muscle

Like most gangs, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas embraces several symbols, tattoos and slogans as part of its effort to forge a group identity that elevates loyalty to the organization over loyalty to any particular ABT member. A shield with an upright sword is one of the most common ABT symbols, according to the Anti-Defamation League. /Image via hlntv.com


The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas' efforts to intimidate law enforcement authorities in the Lone Star State have apparently borne fruit, with a federal prosecutor withdrawing from a case involving 34 defendants linked to the violent white supremacist group.

One of the defense attorneys in the case who knows Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hileman personally said the federal prosecutor probably dropped out of the case because he feared for his life following the murders of two other prosecutors who had worked on the ABT investigation and indictments. The group has threatened to inflict "mass casualties" on law enforcement officials who have worked on the case, according to ABC News.

An Anti-Defamation League report calls the ABT "one of the largest and most violent white supremacist prison gangs in the United States." The report's findings include the following:

• The ABT formed in the 1980s after the desegregation of the Texas prison system, which had the unintended consequence of spawning white, black and hispanic gangs throughout Lone Star State corrections facilities. ABT members were linked to 13 murders at Texas prisons in 1984 and 1985.
• The ABT's constitution states the group was "founded upon the sublime principles of White Supremacy" but organized crime activity is the primary focus of ABT members once they get out of prison.
• The total number of active ABT members is estimated at about 2,000 men and hundreds of female associates, which is a relatively high number for U.S. extremist groups. The ABT is concentrated in Texas but also has a presence in all neighboring states.
• ABT membership is considered "for life," and "prospects" who wish to join the group must be sponsored by a member and complete an apprenticeship that can last for more than a year.
• The group is organized with a paramilitary structure that includes sergeants, lieutenants, captain and generals. Several alleged generals are among the 34 defendants facing charges in the federal case being prosecuted in Texas.
• ABT criminal activity in prison and on the streets falls into three categories: organized crime, gang crime and hate crime. Methamphetamine trafficking is a mainstay for the group, which also engages in an range of other criminal activity from extortion rackets, to home invasions, to murder.
• ABT members have been convicted of 30 murders outside of prison since 2000. In nearly half of those killings, the victims were ABT members who had violated the group's rules.
• In the most deadly hate crimes committed by an ABT member, Mark Stroman was sentenced to death for a series of shootings in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. Stroman targeted convenience store clerks in the Dallas area who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent. He was convicted of killing two of store clerks and gravely injuring a third.

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were shot to death March 30 at their home in Forney, Texas. The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is a prime target of the investigation into the killings. /Image via theblaze.com

The weakest of America's Weakest Generation

/Image via flickr.com

I now know of two great-grandmothers over the age of 60 who are raising little girls under the age of 6 because, as one court record states, the tots' mothers are pursuing "individual fulfillment."

Insert your favorite interjection here. The one that comes to my mind is WTF!

I know one of these little girls personally. In a heartbreaking moment that was permanently seared into my memory, this little cherub approached me last summer while I was working on a project in the yard.

"Chris, will you be my father?" she said in an impossibly quiet, innocent voice.

The request to fulfull such an essential and fundamental role in a young child's life was moving at an emotional level that's barely describable. It was like putting love for a defenseless child and hatred for a despicable adult into a blender, then swallowing the entire mixture in one nauseating gulp.

Neuroscience has determined that conscience is one of the last qualities to develop in the human brain. It's why most teenagers are hell on wheels at one point or another.

It seems many members of America's next generation are going to skip the development of a conscience entirely.

Enlightened management style in unexpected place

Bullwork journalist Chris Cheney interviews former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank in 1996. /MetroWest Daily News image


I sat at the car dealership for three hours Monday waiting for my brakes to be fixed, didn't leave with my vehicle and enjoyed the experience.

The dealership has a small business office for customers, like the ones you often find at hotels. I was fortunate to share the two-seat office space with one of the most enlightened executives that I've ever met. Adam is a vice president and general manager for a national company, which is fortunate to have him on the payroll.

I got firsthand exposure to Adam's management style when he called the boss of a work crew he had visited earlier in the day. He had been alarmed at what he saw and was following up on the impact of his conversation with the work crew's foreman. After he had relayed his concerns in a non-threatening manner, Adam turned the conversation in an unanticipated direction. His top priority had been worksite safety, but he also wanted to make sure that his comments to the workers had been well-received.

"I just want to make sure your crew and the foreman don't think that I'm some guy who shows up out of the blue, barks orders, then disappears," Adam said to the work crew's boss.

This was effective business leadership on display. A manager who not only saw something that he found disturbing but also tackled the problems then ensured his actions had the desired effect without damaging relationships with his workers.

I wanted to know more about Adam.

"The joys of command," I said, still peering into my computer screen.

"Yeah, workers can get really wound up," Adam replied, "I just wanted to make sure that even though I saw things that weren't right, they understood that I respected them."

"It's a sign of the times," I said. "Pretty much everybody is afraid of losing their job in this economy."

"That's definitely true," the VP said.

What followed was a wide-ranging conversation about U.S. health care reform and uncertainty in the global economy holding back job creation, raising children of color in a state that doesn't have a clue about race, and the qualities to look for in a good manager. We agreed that, at least for the time being, the United States was likely to have an essentially jobless recovery from the Great Recession. We agreed that ignorance was largely responsible for the pervasive racism our children had been exposed to in the Granite State. And we agreed that, if they take action at all, most American managers grab the most readily available object out of their tool belt when they encounter a problem: the hammer.

Here are some other insights I gained from Adam about good management practices:

• When hiring a manager, ask open-ended questions that will reveal how job candidates will react to difficult situations, which will help determine whether they will run away from problems or, when they do take action, handle challenging employees in an appropriate manner.
• Don't be afraid to call an employee out over communication that appears insubordinate, but take a tactful approach. "If I'm trying to give direction to someone and they roll their eyes, I say, 'There are at least a couple of ways people communicate beyond talking. What are you trying tell me when you roll your eyes? I know you're trying to tell me something, and it's OK to just tell me,'" he said.
• Before a manager starts tearing an employee's work apart and rebuilding it in his or her own image, it's important to understand the situation from the employee's perspective. "I'll ask, 'Help me understand why things are working out this way?'" Adam said. "I'm open to the idea that I could be wrong. And it's in everybody's interest to fully understand the situation before any changes are made."

Adam gave me his card. His industry doesn't match up perfectly with my background. But I'd still love to work for him some day.

Violent racists probed in murder of Texas lawmen

 

Law enforcement authorities are investigating whether the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a prison-based gang modeled after the Aryan Brotherhood, is responsible for the killings of two Lone Star State prosecutors this year. /Image via hlntv.com


It's unclear whether the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is responsible for the recent murders of two Lone Star State prosecutors, but the prison-based gang is clearly among the most dangerous racist organizations in the country.

Law enforcement authorities suspect the ABT is behind the Jan. 31 assassination of Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse and last week's murder of his boss, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland. Two masked gunmen reportedly shot and killed Hasse as he got out of his car outside of the county courthouse, then grabbed their shell casings before leaving the scene. McLelland and his wife were killed over the weekend. CNN reported that McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were shot multiple times in their home and investigators recovered several shell casings from a .223-caliber rifle.

McLelland's office was involved in an investigation that resulted in the indictment last year of 34 suspected ABT members. The group has been linked to multiple cases of extortion, assault and murder.

History points to dire danger on Korean peninsula

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un strikes a heroic pose. His grandfather, Kim Il-sung, was one of the longest-serving national leaders of the 20th century, taking the helm of North Korea from its inception in 1948 and keeping a firm grip on power until his death in 1994. "The Great Leader" created a pervasive cult of personality in North Korea, forming the basis of a Kim dynasty that has endured for more than six decades. /image via blogs.canoe.ca


The North Korean crisis is proof that history is not only interesting but also critically important to guiding world leaders through perilous times.

The drama that has played out on the Korean peninsula over the past 65 years appears to be entering its final act. It's a tragedy of epic proportions, filled with high stakes as well as variously colorful and doomed characters. Here are some of the key episodes to keep in mind as we await the likely explosive finale:

• In one of the biggest diplomatic blunders of the Cold War, the Russian delegation boycotted the United Nations Security Council in 1950 during debate over sending international troops to stop Pyongyang from forcefully reuniting the Korean peninsula. Without the Russians present to cast a veto, the Security Council authorized intervention, and the Korean War began.
• After literally turning the tide with a bold amphibious landing at Inchon in September 1950, legendary U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur went rogue. The commander of the U.N. forces pressed his troops across the 38th parallel, the demarcation line established at the end of World War II that cut the Korean peninsula in half: the North allied with the Russians and the South in the American camp. MacArthur then went a step too far, threatening to cross into China to attack North Korean bases even though President Harry Truman had ordered him to avoid provoking the Chinese from entering the war. On October 25, 1950, about 100,000 Chinese troops crossed into North Korea, the U.N. forces suffered a series of setbacks and MacArthur pressured Truman to launch nuclear weapons strikes. Truman relieved MacArthur of command in April 1951.
• The entry of China into the war ultimately led to stalemate. The Armistice Agreement that has maintained an uneasy peace on the Korean peninsula was signed in July 1953.
• While MacArthur suffered a spectacular fall from grace during the Korean War, the North Korean leader, Kim Il-sung, emerged as one of the most formidable national leaders of the 20th century. When Nikita Krushchev launched a series of reforms in the Soviet Union in 1956, Kim Il-sung ditched the Russians and alligned North Korea with China and its more virulent strain of Communism. The North Korean leader cemented his power by establishing a cult of personality that was later inherited by his son, Kim Jong-il, and grandson, Kim Jong-un. "The Great Leader," who died in 1994, ultimately outlived six South Korean presidents, seven Soviet leaders and 10 U.S. presidents.
• The first detailed accounts North Korean concentration camps emerged after the defections of a camp guard and a camp security chief in the mid-1990s. In 2004, Kwon Hyok, who had served as security chief for Camp 22 in the northeast of the country, was interviewed for a report in The Telegraph. Kwon Hyok described a system of prison camps modeled after the Soviet Union's gulags. He said the camps were filled with not only political prisoners but also generations of their kin serving life sentences of collective punishment. Kwon Hyok said water torture, hanging torture and public executions were commonplace in Camp 22. "The most unforgettable scene I remember was when I watched an entire family being killed," he said of gas chambers where chemical experiments were conducted on prisoners. "They were put inside the chamber and I saw them all suffocate to death. The last person to die was the youngest son, who was crying for his parents and eventually died."
• Kim Jong-il followed in The Great Leader's footsteps, and Kim Jong-un is on the same path. In 2009, the North Korean constitution was amended to refer to Kim Jong-il as "Supreme Leader."
• The North Korean nuclear weapons program was launched under Kim Jong-il to raise the country's prestige and boost its bargaining power on the world stage. In 2005, Kim Jong-il declared North Korea had joined the Nuclear Club, and a spokesman for his foreign ministry said, "We have produced nuclear weapons to defend ourselves and to oppose the increasingly obvious intentions of the (George W.) Bush administration. The current reality proves that powerful strength is needed to preserve justice and truth." To squelch dissent, the Supreme Leader also mastered the technique of alarming the North Korean citizenry over the spectre of a U.S.-led invasion. Kim Jong-un was placed in charge of the drive to develop nuclear bombs before his father's death in December 2011.
• It's hard to tell what superlative Kim Jong-un will adopt as his moniker, but he has clearly adopted his father's vision of a nuclear-armed North Korea extracting concessions from the international community in general and the United States in particular.

There are several sobering lessons and conclusions to draw from North Korea's history.

First, it would be a terrible mistake to underestimate the latest heir to the Kim dynasty. Kim Jong-un has not deviated from wielding the same levers of power his grandfather and father perfected. The Kim cult of personality is as strong as ever. The rhetoric and threats directed at the United States and South Korea have reached alarming proportions. And satellite imagery indicates an expansion of the North Korean gulags since Kim Jong-il's death.

Second, it's going to be extremely difficult to drive a big enough diplomatic wedge between North Korea and China to bring any kind of meaningful regime change to Pyongyang. China remains as adverse as ever to instability at home and in its sphere of influence. Even as the Chinese leadership strives to play nice with the world community and take its place as an equal to the United States as a global superpower, the uncertainty and likely chaos that would follow the collapse of the Kim dynasty is unthinkable in Beijing.

Third, North Korea's successful tests of nuclear bombs and long-range rockets have raised the security stakes on the Korean peninsula immensely. Pyongyang's capability to reach out and touch U.S. bases and allies with nuclear weapons has torn a gaping hole in the decades-long diplomatic strategy of isolating North Korea from the rest of the world. The United States and its allies in the region, particularly South Korea and Japan, are on a collision course with North Korea that could result in a cataclysmic military confrontation at any moment.