Sniff This...

Thinking of taking your cds, dvds, and other types of disc media on your next trip to Malaysia..
Think again.Chances are your return from Kuala Lumpur may be interrupted by this pair, Lucky and Flo, two black labs who have been trained to sniff out polycarbonate like western nations train dogs to detect explosives and drugs. It seems pirating copyrighted media has become such a big business in Malaysia that the authorities are making an attempt to curb some of the trade.
Anyone who has ever dealt with labs knows that they are about the sweetest dogs in the world but they are also very dedicated to pleasing their handlers and are quite capable of making a big fuss!This primitive technology unfortunately hasn’t advanced to the point where the labs can tell the difference between what is copyrighted intellectual property and what is bootlegged..

Sixty-One..!

Emil Narick (1916-2007)

When I was a kid I didn’t have a lot of heroes, mostly baseball players, Mickey Mantle, the Brave’s Eddie Matthews, the Pirates’ Frank Thomas and Bill Mazeroski. I remember being sad the day Frank Thomas was traded to the Reds, a transaction which wound up shaping the team that won the World Series in 1960.
Other heroes included Van Cliburn the pianist and Bobby Fischer, the chess master (boy what a head case he turned out to be).
One hero I've always remembered was an attorney who represented the United Steelworkers, Emil Narick. It wasn’t his day job that impressed me. On weekends he refereed college and NFL games!
The last thing I remember about Narick, about the time I was getting out of college was that he ran unsuccessfully for the Presidency of the United Steel Workers. I never knew about his short stint with the EEOC or his subsequent 15 year career as a Judge of both Common Pleas and Commonwealth Courts
Narick died Saturday. When I told my mom about his death she remembered him for his time on the Bench.
I will always think of him as a man who had two simultaneous careers and excelled at both.