02.06.2011
Wanderer from 1800s gets more peaceful NY grave
Historians announced that all they found when they dug up the 1889 grave of the man known as the Leatherman was dozens of coffin nails.
"The Leatherman was a mystery in life and he's going to be a mystery in death," said Ossining Historical Society President Norman MacDonald.
The grave in Ossining's Sparta Cemetery was being relocated because it was just a few paces from busy Route 9, and recent interest in the Leatherman was bringing more visitors to his resting place. MacDonald said the grave site had become dangerous.
Accounts of the nomad's all-leather outfit, his quiet demeanor and his regular ways — he made a 365-mile loop through the same towns about every month — have fostered interest, although his name is unknown and he died 122 years ago.
Pearl Jam recorded a song about him, "Leatherman," in 1998 describing him as "making the rounds 10 miles a day."
The historical society won permission to disinter the remains and hoped to arrange DNA testing that might shed some light on where the Leatherman came from and whether he had autism, as some suggest.
But MacDonald said there were no visible remains of the body. Nicholas Bellantoni, a University of Connecticut archeologist, said there was no hope of finding a DNA sample suitable for testing.
"It's ashes to ashes," he said.
Bellantoni, who supervised the excavation, said time, plus the impact of traffic over the shallow gravesite, had combined to destroy both soft and hard tissue. He also said a road-grading project could have scraped away some of the original gravesite.
However, he said the soil in the grave would hold "what is left organically of the Leatherman."
So the nails and some soil from the grave were placed in a new pine coffin topped with wildflowers and lowered into a newly dug hole on the cemetery's hillside, well above the road, after a Presbyterian minister read the 23rd Psalm.
Dan DeLuca, author of "The Old Leather Man: Historical Accounts of a Connecticut and New York Legend," attended the ceremony — in a leather jacket — and brought along a tin pipe he said was the Leatherman's. Before the coffin was buried, he placed four tarnished pennies and said if children left tarnished pennies for the Leatherman, he would replace them with shiny ones.
DeLuca has declared that the Leatherman was not Jules Bourglay, the name on a marker that went up in 1953 and was taken away Sunday to the historical society's museum. That name and the story that went with it — that the Leatherman came from France as the victim of a sad love affair — were false and were retracted after they were published in a Connecticut newspaper, DeLuca found.
The new marker is a boulder bearing a plaque that says only "The Leatherman."
DeLuca suspects the Leatherman came from Canada.
It is known that the Leatherman lived outdoors in winter and summer, using caves and rock overhangs for shelter. He relied on the kindness of strangers for food.
Some accounts said he showed up for a handout at the same houses every 34 days as he made his way around Westchester County and eastern Connecticut.
The Leatherman didn't say much, "possibly because he knew French rather than English," MacDonald said. "He'd say a word or two, and he used some sign language."
He was found dead in 1889 in a cave in what is now Briarcliff Manor; he was given a pauper's grave in Sparta Cemetery, which holds some veterans of the American Revolution.
There was some opposition to the exhumation.
At LeavetheLeathermanAlone.com, Don Johnson of Bethany, Conn., and others argued that it would have been disrespectful to the Leatherman to test his remains because he obviously tried to keep his privacy.
"I believe that the Leather Man's DNA is his property, and he went to unimaginable lengths to guard his identity during his life," Johnson wrote.
He said Wednesday he was happy that no visible remains were found.
MacDonald disagreed about the Leatherman's quest for privacy.
"I wouldn't say he was a private person, because he depended on people almost every day," he said. "Besides, you don't walk around in a 60-pound leather suit if you're trying to be anonymous."
08:09 | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : cernay, lille, trombone, keso, 9
Space Shuttle Endeavour Returns to Earth After Final Mission
Endeavour, the youngest shuttle in NASA's orbiter fleet, touched down here at Kennedy Space Center at 2:35 a.m. EDT (0635 GMT), wrapping up a demanding 16-day mission to the International Space Station. After travelling more than 122 million miles over the course of 25 missions, Endeavour's wheels rolled to a stop for the final time on Runway 15 at the Florida spaceport's Shuttle Landing Facility.
"It's very bittersweet," pilot Greg H. Johnson said in an in-flight interview. "I just love this vehicle. I fell in love with this vehicle the first time I got to fly, three years ago on STS-123. She's performed absolutely magnificently. This vehicle is a wonderful machine and it's an honor and a privilege for each one of us to be a part of her final flight."
Now that Endeavour is on the ground again, the shuttle will begin the next Earth-bound phase of its career: being prepared for public display at a museum.
Four institutions across the country were selected by NASA chief Charles Bolden to display Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour and the test vehicle Enterprise, following the retirement of the agency's shuttle program. []
Endeavour has been promised to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The months-long decommissioning process after the shuttle lands will make sure Endeavour is properly decontaminated and safe for the exhibit.
Discovery will find a home at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., Atlantis will be showcased at the visitor center at Kennedy Space Center, and Enterprise will be moved to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City.
The good ship Endeavour
Endeavour launched on its 25th and final mission on May 16 to deliver a $2 billion astrophysics experiment, called the , and extra supplies to the International Space Station. The orbiter spent 11 days, 17 hours and 41 minutes parked at the orbiting outpost.
Shuttle commander Mark Kelly, pilot Johnson and mission specialists Greg Chamitoff, Mike Fincke, Andrew Feustel and Roberto Vittori delivered and installed the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the exterior of the station's starboard truss. The particle physics detector will measure high-energy cosmic rays, and search for signs of antimatter and mysterious dark matter in the universe.
"We got the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer installed, which is a remarkable thing for physics and for science," Kelly said before Endeavour undocked from the space station. "We're looking forward to hearing what those discoveries are."
The crew performed four spacewalks to make upgrades to the station. The fourth and final outing marked the final spacewalk ever taken by members of a shuttle crew. []
On its last trip into space, the orbiter tacked more than 6 million miles onto its odometer, bringing the shuttle's total distance travelled to over 122 million miles.
Endeavour's legacy in space
NASA's space shuttles have played instrumental roles in the , and Endeavour made 12 visits to the orbiting complex in 25 flights. The shuttle delivered and attached the station's first U.S. segment, the Unity node, in December 1998.
Endeavour went on to haul up crucial segments of the station, including sections of the backbone-like truss, solar arrays, the Tranquility module, Cupola observatory, and most recently the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.
NASA has one final shuttle mission planned before its 30-year space shuttle program is retired for good. Theis scheduled to launch on a supply mission to the International Space Station in early July.
Earlier tonight, Atlantis made its final slow crawl to the launch pad in advance of its targeted launch on July 8. In a rare passing of two shuttles in the night, Atlantis should reach the pad about an hour after Endeavour's landing.
You can follow SPACE.com Staff Writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Visit SPACE.com for complete coverage ofor follow us and on .
07:38 | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : iwc, schmuck, citation, mad, www
LoopFuse Releases 2011 Marketing Automation Survey Results
Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) June 01, 2011
, the leader in , today announced that according to its , better quality leads is the most important benefit of marketing automation among respondents, followed closely by a better understanding of prospect behavior and a higher volume of leads overall. Among most widely used marketing automation features, Email Marketing tops the list, followed closely by Web Lead Capture.Lead Scoring, a more advanced practice, scored the lowest, uncovering a significant opportunity for capturing better quality leads.
Based on a survey of B2B sales and marketing professionals, almost 70 percent have implemented or intend to implement marketing automation software in 2011. The majority of the 2011 Marketing Automation Survey respondents are marketers and sales people associated with Business-to-Business (B2B)-focused SMBs, with experience in a wide range of full-featured marketing automation suites as well as a host of email marketing-only solutions.
Other survey results show: High cost of marketing automation software cited as the top barrier to adoption. Social Media Monitoring and Campaign ROI Reporting are top priorities for 2011. The benefits and strong ROI from Lead Scoring are not being widely realized by marketing organizations.
“Marketing Automation continues to gain traction among SMBs, especially as they seek to engage more potential customers online,” said , president and CEO, LoopFuse. “Within such a dynamic marketplace, neither high costs nor complexity should be barriers to marketing automation adoption among SMBs. Our SMB-friendly pricing and feature set, including a free version, removes cost and complexity as barriers to adoption and allows any company to realize the clear benefits of marketing automation.”Try the LoopFuse solution for free by visiting us at .
About LoopFuseLoopFuse, the first and only provider of free marketing automation for up to 1,000 prospects, is the leader in on-demand lead management solutions designed specifically for SMBs.Organizations leveraging LoopFuse achieve 50 percent more productivity from their sales and marketing departments by efficiently nurturing, scoring and then assigning leads in Salesforce.com (CRM). LoopFuse enables marketers to build higher yielding pipelines, more efficient marketing departments and more effective sales teams — all resulting in increased revenue. LoopFuse is privately held company based in Atlanta. For more information on LoopFuse, please visitor follow us on Twitter at .
Contact:Shannon RentnerLoopFuseemail: pr(at)loopfuse(dot)comtel. +1.404.931.2242
###
Shannon RentnerLoopFuse404 931 2242Email Information
04:39 | Lien permanent | Commentaires (0) | Envoyer cette note | Tags : turbo, beatles, education, 78660, boissy-le-chatel