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By Sabrina Eaton, The Plain Dealer
Ellie Light sure gets around.

In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area.
“It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything,” said a letter from alleged Philadelphian Ellie Light, that was published in the Jan. 19 edition of The Philadelphia Daily News.

A letter from Light in the Jan. 20 edition of the San Francisco Examiner concluded with an identical sentence, but with an address for Light all the way across the country in Daly City, California.
barack-obama-lordstown-091509.jpgAssociated PressPresident Barack Obama has both detractors and fans. A curious number of his fans are named Ellie Light.

Variations of Light’s letter ran in Ohio’s Mansfield News Journal on Jan. 13, with Light claiming an address in Mansfield; in New Mexico’s Ruidoso News on Jan. 12, claiming an address in Three Rivers; in South Carolina’s The Sun News on Jan. 18, claiming an address in Myrtle Beach; and in the Daily News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on Jan. 15, claiming an address in Waynesboro. Her publications list includes other papers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and California, all claiming separate addresses.
Light – who e-mailed an identical missive to this reporter on Jan. 16 without listing a hometown – would not answer e-mailed questions about the address discrepancies in newspapers that ran her letter, or her identity, although she did say she wasn’t a former co-worker of this reporter’s who had a similar name.

“I do not write as a representative of any organization,” she said in an e-mail. “The letter I wrote was motivated by surprise and wonderment at the absence of any media support for our President, who won a record-breaking election by a landslide less than 18 months ago, and now, seems to be abandoned by all, supposedly for the infantile reason that he couldn’t make all of Bush’s errors disappear in one day.”

University of Missouri journalism professor Tom Rosenstiel, co-author of a textbook on journalistic values titled “The Elements of Journalism,” reacted with surprise and wonderment upon learning of Light’s widespread publication under multiple addresses.
phillycom.jpgphilly.com

He said newspapers might be able to avoid similar situations in the future by requesting street addresses and home telephone numbers from would-be correspondents, and verifying that those addresses and phone numbers exist.

“Just because it is inconvenient for us in the news business to find out who people are doesn’t mean it isn’t important anymore,” Rosenstiel said. “It is not OK for people to have multiple identities. This is something that people in the news business and in the business of printing “letters to the editor” need to be aware of.”

The Plain Dealer asks letter writers for a phone number for verification purposes.
www.cleveland.com

The voters have spoken. Republican State Senator Scott Brown has won the Massachusetts special election to fill Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat. ABC NEWS has learned that Democratic candidate Martha Coakley has called Brown and conceded. What was at stake in this race? John Berman, filing for WORLD NEWS, notes “a special election that could completely alter the national agenda.” Massachusetts has been reliably Democratic for some time now…how did this state become a battleground? Berman notes “Independents, the biggest voting bloc in Massachusetts, turning to the Republican. Even some who voted for Barack Obama.” In his campaign, Scott Brown aimed to project an image of a “regular guy”…Berman tells us “his truck (was) a centerpiece of his campaign.” But behind the scenes this was not your father’s Republican candidate-Berman reports that “on-line he took a page out of the Obama playbook. He raised more than a million dollars a day every day last week.” And a look at today’s social networking tools shows another advantage-Berman: “5 times as many fans on Facebook as Martha Coakley. Twice as many Twitter followers. Google searches running 2-1 in favor of Brown.” So what would a Brown victory do to “completely alter the national agenda” as Berman put it? Brown would become the 41st Republican in the U.S. Senate which Jon Karl notes “When it comes to health care, a Republican win gives them the ability to block further votes in the Senate, and would leave Democrats with no good options.” More on that in the entry below.

The United States has vowed to stand by the devastated nation of Haiti as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flew in seeking to overcome the hurdles bogging down a vast aid operation.

Mrs Clinton, who arrived in the devastated capital Port-au-Prince aboard a US Coast Guard plane last night, was the highest-ranking US official to visit the Caribbean nation since Tuesday’s deadly 7.0-magnitude quake.

“We are here at the invitation of your government to help you,” she told a press conference after talks with US officials organizing the relief operation and an hour-long meeting with President Rene Preval.

“As President (Barack) Obama has said, we will be here today, tomorrow and for the time ahead. I know the resilience and strength of the Haitian people. You have been severely tested. But I believe that Haiti can come back stronger and better in the future.”
Related Links

* Haiti: British firemen dig out survivors

* Obama throws full military might into aid effort

* Anarchy looms on streets of Port-au-Prince

Mr Preval, who said he had just visited a man pulled out of the rubble alive after four days by American rescuers, said Mrs Clinton’s visit “warmed our hearts.”

“But it’s also a chance for us to restate priorities and to ensure coordination with the American government and with the international community.”

The two countries were to unveil a statement later today about how they planned to cooperate together.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is also expected to visit to Haiti today, after the worst disaster in the world body’s history dealt a crippling blow to the 12,000-strong mission there.

Mr Ban will assess the Caribbean nation’s needs in the wake of Tuesday’s devastating earthquake and attempt to boost the shattered morale of the Brazilian-led United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH.

He said that his one-day visit aimed “to show his solidarity with the people of Haiti and UN staff” and to “assess the humanitarian assistance effort and the scale of the disaster for himself.”

The UN chief is expected to meet Mr Preval and pledge the world body’s full support in the wake of the disaster, which could have claimed more than 100,000 lives.

On the eve of his departure, Mr Ban grimly confirmed that MINUSTAH civilian chief Hedi Hannabi, his Brazilian deputy Luiz Carlos da Costa and acting police commissioner, Doug Coates of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, were confirmed to have died after their bodies were recovered from the collapsed building.

Hopes of finding a British woman missing in Haiti alive were fading today after the bodies of her bosses were found among the rubble of the United Nation’s headquarters in the disaster-struck capital Port-au-Prince.

Relatives of UN worker Ann Barnes, 59, said they fear the worst as she has been unaccounted for since the earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday.

Google Incorporated’s scourge to bow out of the People’s Republic of China due to the hacking as well as the censoring issue may further the communistic regimes resolution to regulate the cyberspace to its very own policy-making advantage instead of accepting the open-ended Web as urged by the President of United States of America, Barack Obama.

Google China said the previous day that it is quite consenting to block off doing business in the world’s most inhabited country until and unless People’s Republic of China cuts down the restrictions. The decision came after attempts of attacks aimed at the Gmail electronic messaging accounts of the human rights activists as well as what the Mount. View, Calif. Placed Company called up as the attacks o’er the last yr to additionally bind the free speech on the internet.

The Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton called up on the People’s Republic of China’s government to explicate the attacks, which accompany the attempts previous yr to make mandatory the induction of filtrating software system as well as the barricading of the social net-working web sites including Face-book & Twitter. China is as well supporting its companies to spring up computer hardware that will empower the next edition of the web, as per the statement of R. MacKinnon, who is an expert on the Chinese Net controls.

China is building up an exemplary model for how a dictatorial government can in reality pull through the Internet, as per MacKinnon, a previous associate at the Harvard University’s Berk-man Center for Internet & Society, who is currently authoring a book about the Net & free speech. The long-run scheme is to have a mold on the succeeding generation of Net standards that would be more well-matched with the censoring.

Now we just have to wait and see how the Google China war will turn around or will it actually move into the big dilemma scenario for the Chinese people?

Google China