Missing Student Tik Root Located, “Safe and Well”

26 Mar

Tik Root

Middlebury College posted an update from Tom Root, the father of missing Middlebury student Tik Root, this morning. Though he remains in the custody of Syrian authorities, Root has been located and is “safe and well.” Currently, the Syrian authorities are responsible for his well-being. In the update, Tom Root thanked Senator Patrick Leahy and Ambassador Imad Moustapha for their work on the case.

Professors Tom Root and Andi Lloyd participated in a wave of press interviews yesterday to spread the word about Tik’s plight. Those included interviews with WCAX-TV (Burlington), WBUR in Boston, and an interview with “CNN In The Arena” with Eliot Spitzer.

We continue to hope for a peaceful and happy ending to this situation shortly.

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CONFIRMED: Tik Root Held By Syrian Authorities

25 Mar

Tik Root

MiddBlog, The Addison Independent and CNN are now reporting that Syrian authorities confirmed that they are holding Tik Root ’12 of Middlebury College in custody. Though several other prisoners were released from custody on Friday morning, Root was not among them, a development that made his parents “nervous.”

All three members of the Vermont congressional delegation, Middlebury College, high-ranking officials in the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Damascus are putting pressure on the Syrian government to release Root. Syrian officials reportedly said that if they had picked up an American, it was due to a “misunderstanding.”

Ominously, Root’s social media presence has gone silent. A blog he started to cover the protests in Egypt and had maintained since arriving in Syria has been marked private, several Google Documents were stripped of data and he has not posted to his Facebook wall in days.

The Syrian embassy has released a statement about the matter:

“The Syrian Embassy in Washington was recently made aware of Mr. Pathik Root’s situation and has been following it very closely ever since. We have been in touch with Mr. Root’s parents, his state Senator, and the US embassy in Syria. This is an unfortunate incident that we hope will be resolved as soon as possible.”

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Incredible Pictures From Japan Disaster

25 Mar

The Boston Globe‘s Big Picture and The Daily Mail show some striking pictures from the various disasters in Japan.

First the scenes of devastation from across the country:

The first photographs of the Fukushima 50— those workers who stayed behind to prevent a nuclear meltdown. Of the original 50, five of them have already died.

Survivors have taken up refugee at dozens of makeshift locations across the country.

Finally, look at how quickly this road was repaired. Six days after the quake, it’s ready for use again.

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Why You Need Proper Punctuation

25 Mar

Though I should probably not be the one heaving stones, here an example of horrible punctuation.

Sen. Chuck Grassley: I suppose this isn’t so much an egregious error as embarrassing for a U.S. Senator to be communicating this way. Grassley gets credit for using Twitter effectively for someone his age (79). However, he seems bogged down by the character limit and sometimes his message gets really lost. Like this tweet, for example.

Now, what does any of that mean? Or this one?

Anyways, Grassley took to Twitter yesterday to tell people to stop whining. I think shorter, multiple messages are more effective than these endless abbreviations that drive everyone nuts trying to decipher.

(h/t  Wonkette)


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Meet A 132 Pound Infant

24 Mar

Lu Hao started off life at a healthy 5.7 pounds, but has been growing rapidly and putting on lots of weight since he was three months old. He nows weighs an incredible 132 pounds at the age of three, and continues to grow. His weight is roughly five times more than an average child at his age.

At a family meal, Hao tends to eat three full bowls of rice, more than his father and mother combined. Though they recognize that Hao’s weight is a problem, the parents say they must feed him or he will not stop crying. Instead of walking to school, he prefers to catch a ride on his father’s motorcycle.

Though his favorite toy is Superman, Hao acknowledges that he will never be like him because “I am too fat.” Both parents have taken him to hospitals, but his hormone levels are supposedly normal. Now, they fear his heart could fail and that he will endure merciless teasing from the children at schools.

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