Daily Corinthian • Friday, November 15, 2013 • 11A
Mass burial held in Philippine city hit by typhoon makeshift medical center. “We know the gravity of our countrymen’s suffering, and we know that, now more than ever, all of us are called on to do whatever we can to help alleviate our countrymen’s suffering,� President Benigno S. Aquino III said in a statement. Authorities say 2,357 people have been confirmed dead, a figure that is expected to rise, perhaps significantly, when information is collected from other areas of the disaster zone. With sweat rolling down their faces, John Cajipe, 31, and three teenage boys who work at the Tacloban cemetery placed the first body in the grave’s right-hand corner. The second body followed two minutes later, carefully placed alongside the first. And so on, until scores of coffins filled the 6-foot (2-meter) deep grave. A ritual to sprinkle holy water on the site is expected to be held Friday, one week after the typhoon struck. A portion of the femur was removed from each corpse by the National
Associated Press
TACLOBAN, Philippines — The air was thick with the stench of decay as sweating workers lowered the plastic coffins one by one into a grave the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Scores of unidentified bodies were interred together Thursday in a hillside cemetery without any ritual — the first mass burial in this city shattered by last week’s Typhoon Haiyan. Six days after the disaster, some progress was being made in providing food, water and medical aid to the half-million people displaced in the Philippines. Massive bottlenecks blocking the distribution of international assistance have begun to clear. Soldiers on trucks gave out rice and water, and chainsaw-wielding teams cut debris from blocked roads to clear the way for relief trucks in Tacloban, the capital of the hardesthit Leyte province. Thousands of people continued to swarm Tacloban’s damaged airport, desperate to leave or to get treatment at a
Bureau of Investigation. Technicians will extract DNA from each bit of bone to try to identify the dead, said Joseph David, crime photographer for the bureau. “I hope this is the last time I see something like this,� said Mayor Alfred Romualdez. “When I look at this, it just reminds me of what has happened from the day the storm hit until today.� The massive flow of international aid was bolstered by Thursday’s arrival of the USS George Washington in the Philippine Sea near the Gulf of Leyte. The aircraft carrier will set up a position off the coast of Samar Island to assess the damage and provide medical and water supplies, the 7th Fleet said in a statement. The carrier and its strike group together bring 21 helicopters to the area, which can help reach the most inaccessible parts of the disaster zone. The United Kingdom also is sending an aircraft carrier, the HMS Illustrious, with seven helicopters and facilities to produce fresh water, Brit-
ain’s Ministry of Defense said. It said the ship is expected to reach the area around Nov. 25. The U.S. already has a half-dozen other ships — including a destroyer and two huge supply vessels — in the area, along with two P-3 aircraft that are being used to survey the damage so that planners can assess where aid is most needed, the 7th Fleet said. “We are operating 247,� said Capt. Cassandra Gesecki, a spokeswoman for the Marines, who have set up an operations hub near Manila’s international airport. “We are inundated with flights.� Valerie Amos, the U.N. humanitarian chief who toured Tacloban on Wednesday, said about 11.5 million people have been affected by the typhoon, which includes those who lost loved ones, were injured, or suffered damage to their homes or livelihoods. “The situation is dismal. ... Tens of thousands of people are living in the open ... exposed to rain and wind,� she told reporters in Manila. She said the immediate
priority for humanitarian agencies in the next few days is to transport and distribute high-energy biscuits and other food, tarpaulins, tents, drinking water and basic sanitation services. “I think we are all extremely distressed that this is Day 6 and we have not managed to reach everyone,� she said. Amos said because of a lack of fuel in Tacloban, trucks are unable to move the aid material from the airport to the city. The weather also remains a challenge, with frequent downpours. The good news is that the road to the airport has been cleared of debris, she said. On Wednesday, the U.N.’s World Food Program distributed rice and other items to nearly 50,000 people in the Tacloban area. Nearly 10 tons of high-energy biscuits were also delivered to the city on Wednesday, with another 25 tons on the way. But for thousands of people who have squatted in Tacloban’s sports arena, known as the Astrodome, no aid has arrived since the typhoon struck.
A volunteer from the village council handed out only stamps for food that is yet to be seen. The first nighttime flights — of C-130 transport planes — finally landed since the typhoon struck, suggesting air control systems are now in place for an aroundthe-clock operation, a prerequisite for the massive relief operation needed. Tacloban city administrator Tecson Lim said 70 percent of the city’s 220,000 people are in need of emergency assistance, and that only 70 of the city’s 2,700 employees have been showing up for work. He also stuck to an earlier estimate that 10,000 people had died in Tacloban even though Aquino has said the final death toll would top 2,500. Philippine Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla said it may take six weeks before the first typhoon-hit towns get their electricity back. In Tacloban, order needed to be restored “because if there’s no peace and order, it’s hard to reinstall the power posts,� he said.
Should students learn cursive? Some states say yes cluding an increasing need for children in a digitalheavy age to master computer keyboarding and evidence that even most adults use some hybrid of classic cursive and print in everyday life. “If you just stop and think for a second about what are the sorts of skills that people are likely to be using in the future, it’s much more likely that keyboarding will help students succeed in careers and in school than it is that cursive will,� said Morgan Polikoff, an assistant professor of K-12 policy and leadership at the University of Southern California. States that adopted Common Core aren’t precluded from deviating from the standards. But in the world of education, where classroom time is limited and performance stakes are high, optional offerings tend to get sidelined in favor of what’s required. That’s why at least seven
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The swirling lines from Linden Bateman’s pen have been conscripted into a national fight to keep cursive writing in American classrooms. Cursive. Penmanship. Handwriting. In years gone by, it helped distinguish the literate from the illiterate. But now, in the digital age, people are increasingly communicating by computer and smartphone. No handwritten signature necessary. Call it a sign of the times. When the new Common Core educational standards were crafted, penmanship classes were dropped. But at least seven of the 45 states that adopted the standards are fighting to restore the cursive instruction. Bateman, a 72-year-old state representative from Idaho, says cursive conveys intelligence and grace, engages creativity and builds brain cells. “Modern research indicates that more areas of the human brain are engaged when children use cursive handwriting than when they keyboard,� said Bateman, who handwrites 125 ornate letters each year. “We’re not thinking this through. It’s beyond belief to me that states have allowed cursive to slip from the standards.� State leaders who developed the Common Core — a set of preferred K-12 course offerings for public schools — omitted cursive for a host of reasons, in-
states — California, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Utah — have moved to keep the cursive requirement. Legislation passed in North Carolina and elsewhere couples cursive with memorization of multiplication tables as twin “back to basics� mandates. Cursive advocates cite recent brain science that indicates the fluid motion employed when writing script enhances hand-eye coordination and develops fine motor skills, in turn promoting reading, writing and cognition skills. They further argue that scholars of the future will lose the ability to interpret valuable cultural resources — historical documents, ancestors’ letters and journals, handwritten scholarship — if they can’t read cursive. If they can’t write it, how will they communicate from unwired settings like summer camp or the battlefield?
Jericho Sports Ministry at Tate Baptist Church Announces open sign ups for the upcoming basketball season. Cost is $35 for each player (includes jersey). Ages are from 4 years to 16 years old. Practices will begin on December 9th. Season starts January 4th, lasting 6 weeks. Some games will be played on Friday night this year to accommodate the increased numbers of players we have had through the last several years. Mandatory player evaluations will be on December 2nd or 3rd from 6-8 pm at Tate Baptist Church
Stop By Or Call Tate Baptist Church at 286-2935 or Dr. Mike Weeden’s office at 286-8860 for sign-up or more information. Sign-Up deadline is November 30.
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“The Constitution of the United States is written in cursive. Think about that,� Bateman said. All the fuss seems a bit loopy to certain members of Gens X, Y and Z — which have diverged increasingly from handwriting to computers. The volume of first-class mail at the U.S. Postal Service fell in 2010 to its lowest level in a quartercentury, just as computer use — and the keyboarding it involves — was surging. Some 95 percent of teens use the Internet, and the
percentage using smartphones to go online has grown from 23 percent in 2011 to 37 percent today, according to the Pew Research Center. A 2012 Pew report found the volume of text messages among teens rose from 50 a day on average in 2009 to 60 a day on average two years later. Pew research has also shown that educators don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. A survey of teachers of American middle school and high school students published in July found
78 percent believed digital tools such as the Internet, social media and cellphones were encouraging their students’ creativity and personal expression. Kristen Purcell, associate director for research at Pew’s Internet & American Life Project, said researchers found it surprising — given those results — that 94 percent of the 2,462 Advanced Placement and National Writing Project surveyed still said they “encourage their students to do at least some of their writing by hand.�