Forensic spotlight cast on Bach's music

Forensic spotlight cast on Bach's music
Friday, 3 October 2008 Anna Salleh

ABC

Debate surrounds how much Anna Magdalena contributed to her husband's music

The international forensic science community is set to examine the provocative theory that Johann Sebastian Bach's wife, Anna Magdalena, wrote some of the works attributed to the great composer.

Associate Professor Martin Jarvis of Charles Darwin University in Australia will present his research at the International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences in Melbourne next week.
"The scientific evidence says the way we understand the relationship between Johann Sebastian Bach and Anna Magdelena is not correct," says Jarvis.

He says Anna Magdalena is normally portrayed as a simple woman who was only good for having babies and accurately copying Bach's manuscripts.

"My conclusions may not be wholly accurate," he says. "But the way in which tradition has put Anna Magdalena into this pathetic role ... is rubbish."

Jarvis, who is artistic director of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra says ever since his student days at the Royal Academy of Music in London in the 1970s, he has thought the Bach Cello suites did not sound like Bach.

"Certainly in the first suite, the movements are short and very simple, in comparison with the first movement of the violin works," he says. "And I couldn't understand why."

Jarvis' interest was further piqued by the discovery of a note written on the cover of the cello suites manuscript, by its owner.

This is the first time that Jarvis is presenting his work to the forensic science community.
Dr Bryan Found of the The Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society has been assisting Jarvis with his analysis.

"On the surface of what I've seen it seems valid conclusions are being drawn," he says.

Found says Jarvis has uniquely linked forensics with musicology in his analysis and will have to get feedback and peer review by experts in both field.

Full news article: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/10/03/2381722.htm?site=science&topic=latest

Judge denies new trial for teacher

Judge denies new trial for teacher
By: Linda Finarelli, Staff Writer
10/01/2008

Three anonymous letters calling into question the guilt of former Longstreth Elementary School teacher Susan Romanyszyn, who was convicted of 11 counts of terroristic threats in June, will have no impact on the verdict rendered against her.


Bucks County Court Judge Rea Boylan recently issued two rulings denying defense attorney Sara Webster's request for a new trial for Romanyszyn.Sentencing is now set for Nov. 2.

Romanyszyn, 46, of Warminster, was found guilty of terrorizing the school - scattering notes threatening to bomb the school and kill teachers and planting a fake bomb in a student's desk - between Oct. 11 and 19 of last year. The jury acquitted the then fourth-grade teacher of six counts of terrortistic threats and of a facsimile weapons of mass destruction charge.

Romanyszyn, who had previously taught math at Klinger Middle School for seven years and kindergarten at Longstreth for two, maintained her innocence during her testimony at trial and in comments following the verdict. Diagnosed with cancer following her arrest, she has been undergoing treatment since then.

Rest of the story:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20146500&BRD=1306&PAG=461&dept_id=187834&rfi=6




Follow the story:
Teacher arrested
http://cbs13.com/national/Susan.Romanyszyn.Longstreth.2.643201.html

Teacher convicted: http://www.enews20.com/news_Teacher_Convicted_in_Threatening_Case_08854.html

Judge denies new trial
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20146500&BRD=1306&PAG=461&dept_id=187834&rfi=6

Quogue Village Mayor trial date to be set

Publication: The East Hampton Press & The Southampton Press
Motz trial date could be set soon
By Vera Chinese Oct 1, 08 2:23 PM



A trial schedule could soon be set in the case involving Quogue Village Mayor George Motz, who was indicted last month on charges that he “cherry picked” profitable accounts for his Manhattan-based investment firm and then altered documents to impede the ensuing criminal investigation.


Mr. Motz, 66, and his attorney, G. Robert Gage, are expected to appear in federal court in Central Islip at noon this Friday, in front of U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt for a status conference. The conferences, which are pre-trial meetings, are used to discuss how a case is proceeding and to set a tentative schedule for future court dates.

http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=170680


Follow the story from the beginning:

Mayor is indicted
http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=164771

Trial date to be set
http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=170680

Lawyers waiting on documents
http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=172021

Defense agency rescinds whistleblower's gag order

Defense agency rescinds whistleblower's gag order
By Robert Brodsky rbrodsky@govexec.com
September 26, 2008


The Defense Contract Audit Agency has rescinded a controversial, and possibly illegal, nondisclosure memo filed in 2007 against an agency whistleblower, Government Executive has learned.

Two days after a Sept. 10 hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in which lawmakers excoriated agency leaders for appearing to retaliate against employees who had raised concerns about suspicious contractor fees, DCAA lifted the year-old gag order against veteran auditor Diem-Thi Le.

In a Sept. 12 memo obtained by Government Executive, Jan Findley, branch manager of DCAA's Santa Ana, Calif., office, wrote that Le was now free to share agency records with the Office of Special Counsel or any other government investigator.

Find the rest of the story here:
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=41071&dcn=todaysnews

Miss Marple's final case: real-life crime mystery of late Oscar-winning actor

Alan Travis The Guardian,
Tuesday September 30 2008

She was an Academy Award-winning character actor best known in later life for her flamboyant screen portrayal of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple.

But after her death, Dame Margaret Rutherford became the victim of a crime mystery worthy of the spinster detective herself.

The case involved Rutherford's live-in companion, the disappearance of an Oscar, and a Fulham antiques dealer.

Rutherford, who played Miss Marple in four films between 1961 and 1964, appearing alongside her real-life husband, Stringer Davis, employed a down on her luck former soprano as a companion in her declining years.

Violet Lang-Davis lived at the couple's home in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire, before Rutherford died in 1972. Lang-Davis, then in her 60s, stayed on to look after Rutherford's widower and grew so close to him that they contemplated marriage. But he died in August 1973 before they could tie the knot.

He left a will which bequeathed everything to his wife, even though she was dead. All the silver, china and furniture the grande dame of the English stage and screen had accumulated in her career was due to pass to Stringer Davis's distant cousin William James Davis. Lang-Davis was left nothing.

As Detective Sergeant Paul Hunter of the Gerrards Cross police told the director of public prosecutions: "She then embarked on a series of actions designed to secure the inheritance of the late Mr Davis," according to a Whitehall file released this month at the National Archives.
She went to see her old priest in Brook Green, west London, Father Joseph Williams, who had agreed to marry her and Davis. She left a copy of a will naming herself as sole beneficiary while Williams was out visiting parishioners. An accompanying note asked him to act as an executor and to forward it to the Rutherford family solicitors.

Read teh rest of the story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/sep/30/2

No fraud found in voter registration

Note, this article was not found when visiting the original link--it was copied in its entirety from the link's cached pages

Original link: http://www.keysnet.com/news/story/23716.html

Cached link: http://74.125.113.104/search?q=cache:oc7srmc2Qj8J:www.keysnet.com/news/story/23716.html+Dodamead+also+voiced+concern+at+not+being+able+to+obtain+a+copy+of+his+own+records+and+that+a+handwriting+expert+was+not+used+in+the+case&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

No fraud found in voter registration
Keys man claims signature not his

By RYAN McCARTHY
rmccarthy@keynoter.com
Posted - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 07:01 AM EDT

The Monroe County State Attorney's Office has found no evidence of fraud in a Marathon man's voter registration records, though he disagrees.

After he voted in the primary in August, Tom Dodamead filed a complaint with the Supervisor of Elections Office, claiming the signature on a change-of-affiliation form with his information was not his. Dodamead says he did fill out a form changing his party from Independent to Democrat -- just not the one on file with the Elections office.

"I'm saying I didn't do it, that's the way I feel about it," Dodamead said, adding he has no plans to pursue the matter further.

"It's pretty stressful for me; I'd rather it just go away. I thought it was important enough to make sure it wasn't happening to anyone else," he said.

Well, investigators say it didn't happen to him.

They say no motive appears evident to tamper with the affiliation form because the party change was what Dodamead desired and the information on it is consistent with his other records.

"Had the contents of the two cards been different in any way, that might have suggested that some crime was being committed," State Attorney's Office spokesman Matthew Helmerich said.
"Results of the investigation indicate that although Mr. Dodamead believes his signature on the card in question was not his signature, it is," a State Attorney's Office report says. "Therefore, no evidence exists indicating a criminal act occurred."

The report cites a mark Dodamead uses when signing his name "indicating he is Thomas Emile Dodamead III." "That mark, on the card in question, is similar to the mark on his Florida driver's license record. This record contains four separate signatures of Mr. Dodamead," the report reads.

Dodamead said the information in the report was not what he was told by the State Attorney's Office.

"They just said they can't resolve it; they can't figure out who's telling the truth," he said.
Dodamead also voiced concern at not being able to obtain a copy of his own records and that a handwriting expert was not used in the case.

"It wasn't necessary to analyze the handwriting. There's a preponderance of evidence that says he was present with ID when both cards were filled out," Helmerich said of the card in question and the new one he filled out before voting in August.

"I didn't want this to turn into a big political issue. I just wanted to make sure it's not happening on a regular basis," Dodamead said.