Fiona McCann
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Papers of Britain's renaissance man saved for nation
Guardian **I hate it when papers and art that should be in a state museum for all to see are instead auctioned off to the highest bidder. You read about it all the time in the news. It's very disheartening. Royal Society rejoices after last-minute deal to buy Robert Hooke's manuscripts James Randerson, science correspondent Saturday April 1, 2006 The Guardian The documents are remarkable survivors from the heroic age of science, an insight into the 17th century through manuscripts that mark "the beginning of the modern world", and when they were put up for auction this week, the expected £1m-plus price tag was thought too high for them to remain in Britain. But with minutes to spare, the auction was stopped and the lost manuscripts of legendary scientist Robert Hooke were saved. "It's the most wonderful story," said Lisa Jardine, professor of renaissance studies at Queen Mary College, University of London. "This is an intrinsic part of one of our greatest periods of history." Felix Pryor, manuscript consultant at auction house Bonhams, said: "Even a non-scientist must be moved to read in Hooke's own handwriting of how he peered at bacteria through a microscope for practically the first time in history, or how he debated with Isaac Newton about the nature of gravity and the movement of the planets." Hooke was the quintessential renaissance man, Britain's answer to Leonardo Da Vinci. School physics pupils will probably know him best for his fundamental law on spring forces, but he also coined the word "cell" for the fundamental building blocks of living things and suggested water's freezing point should be the zero point on a thermometer. He pioneered the modern watch and invented a diversity of gadgets, from the iris diaphragm in cameras to the universal joint used in motor vehicles. His scribblings, which date from 1661 to 1682, are an insight into the bitchy politics of the scientific establishment and feature Newton, Wren and Samuel Pepys. "RH had all week Discovered great numbers of exceeding small animalls swimming to & fro, they appeard of the bigness of a mite through a glasse that magnify about 100000 times," said Hooke, describing the view under one of the first microscopes. There is also his description of a precursor to the computer: "Mr Leibnitz shwed his arithmetick engine, to perform mechanically all the operations of Arithmetick with certainty & speed." Last week though, chances that the manuscripts would remain in the country looked remote. The Royal Society was mounting a fundraising campaign to buy them, while at the same time pursuing a legal claim to their ownership. The society believed the documents, which are Hooke's notes of Royal Society meetings, were stolen from their archives some 300 years ago. "They have a very strong moral and legal claim to those minutes and papers," said Julian Radcliffe, chairman of the Art Loss Register, brought in by the scientific academy to help broker a deal. There was also talk of blocking export of the manuscripts if they were bought by a foreign buyer. This two-pronged attack prompted a furious response from Bonhams, who branded it sabre rattling. "The bottom line is you either believe you have a case and go to law or you pay for something," said Julian Roup, spokesman. In the end, the Royal Society opted to drop its legal claim and concentrate on rustling up cash. The eventual compromise went to the wire. With minutes to spare, Bonhams chairman Robert Brooks announced lot 189 had been removed because the owners had agreed a private sale to the Royal Society. The society said it paid "about £1m" for the manuscripts, but would not reveal where it got the money. Although the academy appealed in February for a benefactor, it was a groundswell of modest donations that let the deal be pulled off. Some members of the public chipped in, and 122 fellows of the Royal Society made donations or pledges. But the society was still £500,000 short. At this point, it approached the Wellcome Trust, which agreed to provide the remainder. There was still the auction: what happened if bidding got out of the Royal Society's reach? To give the owners an incentive to take the manuscripts out of auction, the Royal Society deployed a tax scheme aimed at keeping works of national importance in the country. An institution such as the British Library will buy the manuscripts and loan them permanently to the Royal Society. Hooke fans are over the moon. "This is the most extraordinary thing that's happened in my entire career," said Professor Jardine. |
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1.4.06 15:32 |
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Raped, beaten and helpless: UK's sex slaves
Guardian "...Eva was sold twice within the UK. She has no idea who her traffickers are except that they are Albanian - police say northern Albanians have a particularly strong hold on trafficking. 'They know everybody,' Eva says. 'It is difficult to hide.' Appalling levels of violence mean that women often deny they have been trafficked when 'recovered' in raids by the police or refuse to disclose their experiences - particularly when, in contravention of Home Office guidelines on gender, they are questioned by men, using male interpreters. And there is a wider mistrust. 'I was told by the men who bought me that they own the British police. If I spoke, they would know and kill my mother back home,' says one 22-year-old Lithuanian. One study of 26 trafficked women found that they suffered from gynaecological and psychological problems and sexually transmitted diseases including hepatitis C and syphilis. They had been attacked with sticks, screwdrivers, household implements, bottles and knives. The women had been burnt with cigarettes and thrown from moving cars. One woman, on Christmas Day, had seen 80 clients." >>Read on |
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2.4.06 03:20 |
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20six INSECURITY
Dunno about you, but when I log in here, it says that 20six's security certificate has expired. It asks me if I want to continue. Now wat's up with that? The past few days my old computer has been having such a hassle just to move around the net that I was thinking I was going to have to replace it with a brand new win 98 (ha ha--a little computer humour, or poverty humour or something). So anyway, I decided to uninstall the AVG antivirus I had on it (AntiVir doesn't work on win 95 anymore), so I did. I put AVAST! on it instead. Really, any of them are too big too handle for my machine, but we do the best we can. I finally got the Avast to scan just the regular drive, and lo and behold it said it found an unknown worm in my win system files and what did I want to do with it??? I said I wanted it tortured to death and then drawn and quartered and drug through the whole folder for all the files to see what will happen to them if they go bad. Then I wanted the pieces shredded and flushed down the cyber toilet forever. Well, after that my wee machine seems a lot happier, and it is not chugging around so slowly and noisily, so I am a lot happier too. |
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2.4.06 19:58 |
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...and another thing!
**Sorry. Wasn't thinking when I posted the first rooster. This one is better.  I am in the process of putting my favourites in my Bloglines cus I am such a lazy arse that if it isn't put before me on a silver platter, I'm too sodding lazy not too mention attention-deficit to go get it. Anyway, I went to put Timothy's blog in my reader by clicking on his homepage and 20six says I cannot see it cus access is restricted. Can you imagine that!!If there is anything that gets me going it is to tell me I cannot do something, so I went back and added the standard rss accoutrements, or however you spell it, to the basic URL and there you go! The XML was right there of the last ten entries, so I put them in my baby bloglines and away we went. Hey, Donna, the same thing works for you--although I see you have your RSS feed on request or something. So anyway, I just felt like crowing. (Click photo to view - image of stained-glass rooster from >>here) |
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2.4.06 21:28 |
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Revealed: victims of UK's cold war torture camp
Guardian Ian Cobain Monday April 3, 2006 The Guardian  Archive pictures of German prisoners held by the British following the second world war. Photographs: Martin Argles Photographs of victims of a secret torture programme operated by British authorities during the early days of the cold war are published for the first time today after being concealed for almost 60 years. The pictures show men who had suffered months of starvation, sleep deprivation, beatings and extreme cold at one of a number of interrogation centres run by the War Office in postwar Germany. A few were starved or beaten to death, while British soldiers are alleged to have tortured some victims with thumb screws and shin screws recovered from a gestapo prison. The men in the photographs are not Nazis, however, but suspected communists, arrested in 1946 because they were thought to support the Soviet Union, an ally 18 months earlier. Apparently believing that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable, the War Office was seeking information about Russian military and intelligence methods. Dozens of women were also detained and tortured, as were a number of genuine Soviet agents, scores of suspected Nazis, and former members of the SS. Yesterday there were calls for the Ministry of Defence to acknowledge what had happened and apologise. Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrats' defence spokesman, said: "It's too late for anyone to be held personally responsible, or held politically to account, but it's not too late for the MoD to acknowledge what has happened." Sherman Carroll, of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, said British authorities should also apologise and pay compensation to survivors. "The suggestion that Britain did not use torture during world war two and in the immediate aftermath, because it was regarded as 'ineffective', is a mythology that has been successfully propagated for decades," he said. "The fact that it took place should be acknowledged." The MoD dismissed the calls, saying questions about the interrogation centres were a matter for the Foreign Office. Declassified Whitehall papers show that members of the Labour government of the day went to great lengths to hide the ill-treatment, in part, as one minister wrote, to conceal "the fact that we are alleged to have treated internees in a manner reminiscent of the German concentration camps". Almost six decades later the photographs were still being kept secret. Four months ago they were removed from a police report on the mistreatment of inmates at one of the interrogation centres, near Hanover, shortly before the document was released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act. Although the file was in the possession of the Foreign Office, the pictures were removed at the request of the Ministry of Defence. They have finally been released after an appeal by the Guardian. The photographs were taken in February 1947 by a Royal Navy officer who was determined to bring the torture programme to an end. Pictures of other victims, taken by the same officer, appear to have vanished from the Foreign Office files. Meanwhile documents about a secret interrogation centre which the War Office operated in central London between 1945 and 1948, where large numbers of men are now known to have been badly mistreated, are still being withheld by the Ministry of Defence. Officials say the papers cannot yet be released because they have been contaminated with asbestos. It is not clear whether the men in the photographs fully recovered from their mistreatment. It is also unclear, from examination of the War Office and Foreign Office documents now available, when the torture of prisoners in Germany came to an end. -------------------------- Guardian The postwar photographs that British authorities tried to keep hidden · Treatment of suspected communists revealed · Four court martialled after police inspector's inquiry Ian Cobain Monday April 3, 2006 The Guardian For almost 60 years, the evidence of Britain's clandestine torture programme in postwar Germany has lain hidden in the government's files. Harrowing photographs of young men who had survived being systematically starved, as well as beaten, deprived of sleep and exposed to extreme cold, were considered too shocking to be seen. As one minister of the day wrote, as few people as possible should be aware that British authorities had treated prisoners "in a manner reminiscent of the German concentration camps". Many other photographs known to have been taken have vanished from the archives, and even this year some government officials were arguing that none should be published. The pictures show suspected communists who were tortured in an attempt to gather information about Soviet military intentions and intelligence methods at a time when some British officials were convinced that a third world war was only months away. Others interrogated at the same prison, at Bad Nenndorf, near Hanover, included Nazis, prominent German industrialists of the Hitler era, and former members of the SS. At least two men suspected of being communists were starved to death, at least one was beaten to death, others suffered serious illness or injuries, and many lost toes to frostbite. The appalling treatment of the 372 men and 44 women who were interrogated at Bad Nenndorf between 1945 and 1947 are detailed in a report by a Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Tom Hayward. He had been called in by senior army officers to investigate the mistreatment of inmates, partly as a result of the evidence provided by these photographs. Insp Hayward's report remained secret until last December, when the Guardian secured its release under the Freedom of Information Act. The photographs seen here were removed before the Foreign Office released the report, apparently because the Ministry of Defence did not wish them to be published. That decision was reversed last week, following an appeal by the Guardian. One of the men photographed, Gerhard Menzel, 23, a student, was arrested by British intelligence officers in Hamburg in June 1946. He had fallen under suspicion because he was believed to have travelled to the British-controlled zone of Germany from Omsk in Siberia, where he had been a prisoner of war. His weight, measured several weeks after his arrest at 10st 3lb, had fallen to 7st 10lb by the time he was transferred from Bad Nenndorf to a British-run internment camp eight months later. In the meantime, he told Hayward, his hands had been chained behind his back for up to 16 days at a time, periods during which he was repeatedly punched in the face. He had also been held in a bare, freezing cell for up to two weeks at a time and doused in cold water every 30 minutes from 4.30am until midnight, a practice the detective discovered to have been common. A doctor at the internment camp reported that Mr Menzel was one of a group of 12 inmates transferred from Bad Nenndorf, all emaciated and dressed in rags. Previous arrivals had also been half-starved. Some had facial scars, apparently the result of beatings. A few had scars on their shins, said to be the result of torture with shin screws which had been retrieved from a Gestapo prison at Hamburg. Mr Menzel "was only skin and bones," the doctor wrote. "He could neither walk nor stand up without assistance, and could only speak with difficulty because his tongue and lips were swollen and broken open. "It was impossible to take his body temperature because it was not higher than 35 degrees Celsius and the thermometer only starts at 35." The prisoner was also confused, anxious and suffering memory loss, his lungs were badly infected and his blood pressure was dangerously low. Only after being washed, fed and heated with lamps could his body temperature be raised to 36.3C, but the doctor feared his chances of survival were slim. Another man pictured, Heinz Biedermann, 20, a clerk, had been arrested in October 1946 because he was in the British zone, while his father, who lived at Stendal in the Russian zone, had been identified as "an ardent communist". By the time he was transferred from Bad Nenndorf four months later his weight had fallen from 11st 3lb to 7st 12lb. He said he had been held in solitary confinement for much of the time, threatened with execution, and forced to live and sleep in sub-zero temperatures while barely clothed. One British army guard told Inspector Hayward that Mr Biedermann had "wasted like a candle" during his imprisonment. Another, a private in the Essex Regiment, told the detective that he complained that he and his comrades were behaving as badly as Germans. "I became very unpopular after this ... the sergeant appeared to take a poor view of my remarks." On Mr Biedermann's transfer to the internment camp, an officer at Bad Nenndorf requested he be detained "for an adequate time" to prevent him giving the Soviets "detailed information on this centre and methods of interrogation". Foreign Office records show that the navy officer commanding the internment camp, Captain Arthur Curtis, was so shocked by the condition of the men being sent to him that he ordered these photographs be taken to support his complaints about the treatment of these "living skeletons". Photographs of several other prisoners, taken at the same time, appear to have vanished from the Foreign Office files. On the other side of the British zone, meanwhile, a Royal Artillery officer was complaining about the state of Bad Nenndorf inmates who were being dumped from a truck at the entrance to a military hospital. Some weighed little more than six stones, and two died shortly after their arrival. The records show that Bad Nenndorf was run by a War Office department called the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC). By late 1946, CSDIC appears to have lost interest in Nazis, and was targeting communists. It appears the prisoners were questioned about Soviet methods and intentions, rather than about the Communist party itself. Some of Bad Nenndorf's inmates were indeed spying for the Soviets: one prisoner, who was half-Norwegian and half-Russian, told Hayward he was an officer in the NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB, and had been operating continuously in Germany since 1938. Another, a German journalist who had been freed by the Soviets from a Gestapo prison, was caught flying into Croydon aerodrome with false British papers. Both men were starved and badly tortured. Others clearly were not spies, however. One man who was starved to death was a gay ex-soldier caught with forged papers while crossing into the British zone in search of his lover, while the other was a young German who was being interrogated because he had volunteered to spy for the British in the Russian zone, and was wrongly suspected of lying because of an official error over his medical records. Four British officers were court martialled after Hayward's investigation. Declassified documents show that the hearings were held largely behind closed doors to prevent the Soviets from discovering that Russians were being detained. Another consideration was admitted to be the determination to conceal the existence of several other CSDIC prisons. While it is now known that one interrogation centre was in central London, little is known about those in Germany, other than their locations. Following the courts martial, the prison at Bad Nenndorf, which was in a converted bath-house, was replaced with a purpose-built interrogation centre near an RAF base at Gütersloh, and orders were issued for inmates to be examined by a doctor before interrogation. It is unclear when this centre closed. The only officer at Bad Nenndorf to be convicted was the prison doctor. At the age of 49, his sentence was to be dismissed from the army. The commanding officer, Colonel Robin Stephens, was cleared of a charge of "disgraceful conduct of a cruel kind" and told he was free to apply to rejoin his former employers at MI5. |
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3.4.06 04:24 |
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Customer Service?
I wrote to 'Community Support' here at 20six with a problem. The correspondence goes like this: 03 April 2006 WHY IS ACCESS DENIED? It came to my attention today that a 20six favourite of mine, username timothypukowski, has had access to his blog denied for quite some time with NO explanation to him after it was requested. The blogger has decided to move to Livejournal, and I don't blame him. How RUDE to destroy someone's blog without even offering an explanation or giving a reason or answering email about it. What's going on here? That's not acceptable behaviour. amillionpieces on 03 April 2006 at 12:26 Fiona. First of all I have never been asked about this blog, I have received no correspondance about this at all. Secondly I never block access to any blogger's account without first e-mailling them and explaining why it could happen and how it could be avoided. How can I fix a problem I know nothing of? Take a chill pill. I shall find look into if he has been blocked or if there is an error in the system. amillionpieces on 03 April 2006 at 12:33 A glitch, the blog is back. ---------- First of all, is 20six owned and operated by only one person who gets email or what? Secondly, it is my understanding that indeed correspondence was sent to 20six about this blog. Thirdly, I do NOT appreciate being told to take a chill pill. So, it was just 'a glitch'. No 'sorry for the hassle' --it was just 'a glitch'. Nice. |
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3.4.06 13:28 |
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Witness to Auschwitz horror dies at 82
Times Online David Sanderson and Lewis Smith Rudolf Vrba escaped the gas chambers to tell the world of the Nazi genocide  RUDOLF VRBA, who escaped Auschwitz to bring the Allies the first eye-witness account of the atrocities at the concentration camp, has died at the age of 82 in Canada.He was one of only five Jewish inmates to make a successful escape from Auschwitz-Birkenau after hiding for three days under a pile of planks. Described by friends as the “greatest man” they have known, Mr Vrba had been deported from his native Czechoslovakia at the age of 18 in 1942. Together with his friend Alfred Wetzler he escaped to write a report in 1944 which awoke the Allied political leadership to what was happening in the death camps. Mr Vrba, who was born Walter Rosenberg in 1924 and was the son of a steam sawmill owner, joined Czechslovak partisan units after his escape. He was decorated several times for his bravery and after the Second World War gave evidence at trials in Germany of SS guards. He then gained a doctorate in chemistry and worked in Prague and Israel before joining the British Medical Research Council in 1960, where he stayed for seven years. His testimony to Nazi evil reached a worldwide audience as a central part of Claude Lanzmann’s highly acclaimed 1985 epic documentary about the Holocaust, Shoah. Stanley Meadows, who befriended Mr Vrba when he first came to England and took British nationality, described him as “the greatest man I have ever known”. Mr Meadows said: “He was not only a brave man but a determined man. There was no one like him. He was warm and kind, a wonderful man.” While living in England Mr Vrba published his autobiography, I Cannot Forgive, which detailed his escape from the camp. He and Mr Wetzler had taken the opportunity to hide beneath the planks, piled up in preparation for a hut to be built. Soviet prisoners of war secured the planks over the men and covered them with tobacco and benzene to confuse tracker dogs. The two thought they were about to be caught and executed when a guard started pulling planks away - but he stopped before spotting them. After hiding for three days without food the pair slipped away and walked through Nazi-held territory until they reached the partisans. In 1967 Mr Vrba left the UK to join the University of British Columbia, in Canada, where he became an associate professor and continued to work for the rest of his life. Professor Michael Walker, who worked with him for more than thirty years, told The Times yesterday: “Even when he was terminally ill he was talking about teaching students. “Put simply, he was a helluva guy. He had a lot of insight into the nature of people and was not embittered by his experiences.” Mr Vrba was also involved in Holocaust education projects. In 2001 a Rudolf Vrba award for films on human rights was established by Mary Robinson, who was then the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Vaclav Havel, then President of the Czech Republic. Mr Vrba, who had been ill with cancer and died on Monday, is survived by his wife, Robin, and by his daughter, Zuza, who lives in Cambridge. His elder daughter, Helinka, a successful doctor, committed suicide several years ago. Mr Walker said: “Rudi was a remarkable person who retained all his faculties. I saw him one week before he died and he was still talking about teaching the students. The students loved him as a teacher and when they found out about his past they would often be stunned. He did not regard himself as a victim.” Mr Meadows added: “He will be remembered for his courage, his great sense of humour, his storytelling, his warmth of personality and, of course, for the greatest escape of the 20th century.” Death Camp
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3.4.06 20:51 |
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Police may seize donations to animal rights protesters
Guardian **How about if the police seize the tax monies being used to fund the war in Iraq and other immoral activities? Sandra Laville Friday April 7, 2006 Public donations to animal rights activists could be seized by police if they are found to be funding the criminal activity behind an extremist campaign against Oxford University, the Guardian has learnt. Thames Valley police is spending millions of pounds over the next two years in an extraordinary operation around the building of the Oxford University animal testing laboratory. Three special teams of officers are policing demonstrations, investigating criminal activities and gaining intelligence on the hardcore of activists behind arson attacks, intimidation, blackmail and harassment of companies and individuals linked to the university. The police may use new legislation that allows officers to seize the assets behind criminal campaigns. Sources have told the Guardian that the police are targeting the money behind the Speak campaign, which was set up to stop the building. The campaign group, which denies any links with the Animal Liberation Front or any criminal activity, is partly funded through donations and from sources abroad. Investigators plan to seize any money they find being used to fund criminal activity, using last year's Serious and Organised Crime Act, and the Proceeds of Crime Act. Work on building the laboratory resumed last November after more than a year. The original contractors, Montpellier, pulled out as a result of threats from animal rights extremists. The operation to prevent the same happening to the new contractors, who have remained anonymous, involves a complex and hugely expensive security operation, partly funded by the government. But a hardcore of animal rights activists is determined to breach the security fences, guards and cameras around the site. It is understood extremists have posed as police officers and delivery drivers in an attempt to enter. Police believe there is a hardcore of up to 20 extremists behind the campaign of intimidation, blackmail and the use of incendiary devices. "We know who these people are. They have committed offences all over the country and there is clear cooperation between the different animal rights groups," a police source said. Oxford University will try to extend its injunction against animal rights activists at the high court on Monday. Lawyers for the university want a permanent ban on protesters harassing anyone connected to the university. The injunction bans protesters from publishing on their website or via email the addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers or email addresses of people linked to the university or the construction. It also prevents them from using megaphones, klaxons, sirens, whistles and drums during their weekly protests outside the laboratory site. Speak will challenge the injunction. The Animal Liberation Front has warned that anyone linked to the university is a legitimate target. |
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7.4.06 04:38 |
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GHOST TOWN
 There used to be this little place on the net I would go to just to check out which of my blog links they were using in their gossip section. They used a feed reader and would pick up various posts concerning Belfast. It was a sweet little site as it had news and commercial links and weather and links to surrounding areas and all kinds of stuff.Now it is empty. All the framework is still there and it has a current date every day, but there is no content! It has been abandoned. A virtual ghost town. It's kinda sad :'( >>SEE??? |
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8.4.06 16:31 |
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WAR AND THE HUGE INCREASE OF CANCER
My ma asked me yesterday to look up some stuff on the net about depression and Omega 3 fatty acids. She hasn't tolerated the chemo for her lung cancer, the doctor won't communicate with her and tries to bully her in an attempt to cover his own deficiencies, such as not having her test results to be able to discuss them with her. She feels angry and like giving up. Anyway, I found several articles saying that Omega 3 fatty acids were indeed useful in treating depression and bi-polar disorder. I also found something even more interesting. I happened upon an article written by a conspiracy-theory doctor concerning the huge increase in lung cancer deaths throughout various locations. It is his belief that this increase stems from America's and NATO's use of depleted uranium bombs in its several wars in recent years. From there I found several articles concerning the levels of cancers in the bombed citizens as well as in the troops deployed to do the bombing. The cancer-causing agents are air-borne and travel all over, so we are not just talking about a war zone problem, although with America's proclivity for starting and carrying on wars, that would be bad enough. I will list some links for further reading on everything I saw in case anyone is interested:
I am aware that EPA comes from fish oil, so I would ask here if anyone knows a vegetarian alternative to this? |
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9.4.06 17:08 |
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Diary of a death foretold: how Gaza Briton was shot by Israelis
Times Online By Andrew Norfolk April 11, 2006 A YOUNG British peace activist who died after being shot in the head by an Israeli soldier was “intentionally killed”, an inquest jury ruled yesterday.  Five days before he was fatally injured, Tom Hurndall, 22, wrote in his journal that he had been “shot at, gassed, chased by soldiers, had sound grenades thrown within metres of me, been hit by falling debris and been in the way of a 10-tonne D9 [bulldozer] that didn’t stop.“It took a huge amount of will to continue. I wondered what it would be like to be shot, and strangely I wasn’t too scared,” he wrote, adding that he knew that an Israeli sniper could be targeting him at any moment. “The certainty is that they are watching, and it is in the decision of any one Israeli soldier or settler that my life depends. I know that I’d probably never know what hit me, but it’s part of the job to be as visible as possible.” Mr Hurndall, from North London, was trying to lead children out of the line of fire in Gaza when he was targeted by an Israeli army marksman, who had a rifle with a telescopic sight. The peace activist was wearing a bright orange jacket to identify him as a civilian volunteer. His mother, Jocelyn Hurndall, wept yesterday at a London coroner’s court as she read extracts from his journal. The inquest, at St Pancras Coroner’s Court, heard that Mr Hurndall, a student at Manchester Metropolitan University, was in Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement. He died from his injuries after spending nine months in a coma after the April 2003 shooting in the Palestinian town of Rafah. The activist’s father, Antony Hurndall, a City lawyer, told the hearing that on the day of the shooting, his son and other activists had been trying to block Israeli tanks that were shooting randomly into local houses. Mr Hurndall, his father said, noticed that bullets were hitting the ground near a group of 10-15 children who were playing on a mound of sand. Most fled but some were paralysed by fear. “Tom went to take one girl out of the line of fire, which he did successfully, but when he went back, as he knelt down to (collect another) he was shot.” Mr Hurndall said the Israeli authorities initially claimed that his son had been shot during a return of fire with a gunman. “They just lied continuously. It was a case of them shooting civilians and then making up a story. And they were not used to being challenged.” A campaign by the Hurndall family led to Taysir Hayb, a former sergeant in the Israeli Defence Force, being sentenced last year to eight years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter by a military court. Israeli authorities declined to take part in the inquest. The jury of five men and five women ruled that Mr Hurndall “was shot intentionally with the intention of killing him”, and voiced its “dismay with the lack of co-operation from the Israeli authorities”. Three weeks after Mr Hurndall’s shooting, a British cameraman James Miller, 34, was also shot and killed in Rafah. An inquest at the same coroner’s court last week resulted in a verdict that Mr Miller, who was filming a documentary about Palestinian children in Gaza, was deliberately and unlawfully killed. The coroner, Dr Andrew Reid, who presided over both inquests, said yesterday that he would be writing to the Attorney-General to see whether any further legal action could be taken over the deaths of the two Britons. Michael Mansfield, QC, representing Mr Hurndall’s parents, said yesterday that they were delighted. “This has been a long and harrowing struggle for them in their search for the truth. Today is a vindication of that struggle,” he said. “Make no mistake about it, the Israeli Defence Force have today been found culpable by this jury of murder.” |
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11.4.06 05:05 |
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FAVOUR PLEASE!
If anyone would be willing to copy their 'Lucida Sans Typewriter' font for me and send me the file, shoot me an email and let me know. Pretty please! |
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13.4.06 04:14 |
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Caravaggio masterpiece was hidden in plain sight
Catholic Online By John H. Carroll Catholic News Service 4/13/2006 Cardinals, priests, rogues, art historians, aristocrats and even the Irish Republican Army are involved in the story told in The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece. The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr. Random House (New York, 2005)  Pride of place in the National Gallery of Ireland goes to the priceless Baroque painting, "The Taking of Christ," by Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. In this intriguing tale an American author, Jonathan Harr, tells how this masterpiece disappeared from a grand Roman palazzo, remained hidden for more than a century and now rests in the Irish capital. Click on photo for full view from the wonderful Web Gallery of Art From the little we know about Caravaggio's life, it appears this creator of magnificent "holy pictures" was in fact a roguish vagabond. He was born in 1571 in the Milan area, probably in the village of Caravaggio. He settled in Rome, where he obtained commissions from the hierarchy to paint expressive Gospel scenes. However, Harr indicates that the young artist was also active in Rome's corrupt demimonde. In 1606, Pope Paul V exiled Caravaggio from Rome after the artist killed a Roman aristocrat in a duel. In exile the artist continued to paint impressive religious masterpieces, such as the "Beheading of John the Baptist," now in the Cathedral of St. John in Malta. Finally in 1610 Caravaggio died on a Mediterranean beach en route to Rome. In the following four centuries, one of Caravaggio's greatest paintings was lost, even though for most of the 20th century it was hung in plain sight. Two young Italian art students, Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa, discovered that Caravaggio had painted "The Taking of Christ" for Cardinal Girolamo Mattei and his brothers, Ciriaco and Asdrubale, members of the Roman aristocracy. But the young Italian scholars could not locate the painting in any collection. Now the focus of the search turns to the British Isles. During the Napoleonic era, the Mattei family fell on hard times and sold some art treasures to a wealthy Scot who installed the paintings in his country home. A young English Oxford graduate, Capt. Percival Lea-Wilson, an inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary, married Marie Monica Ryan of Ireland in 1914. During the 1916 Irish Republican uprising in Dublin, Lea-Wilson abused IRA prisoners. That organisation has a long memory. In 1920, unidentified gunmen shot and killed Lea-Wilson. His distraught widow began to study at Trinity College and became a pediatrician. She bought a painting titled "The Betrayal of Christ" at an estate sale. It was attributed to a Dutch painter, Gerard Honthorst, who painted in the Italian style under the name Gherardo Della Notte. Eventually she donated the painting to the Jesuits of the House of St. Ignatius in Dublin. Decades later, the Jesuits decided to have their nondescript "The Betrayal of Christ" cleaned at the National Gallery of Ireland. Sergio Benedetti, an Italian-born and -educated art restorer, undertook the task and discovered the missing masterpiece. The Jesuits loaned the painting to the National Gallery for indefinite exhibition and in 1993 an international group gathered in the National Gallery of Ireland to celebrate the discovery and exhibition of the priceless masterpiece, "The Taking of Christ" by Caravaggio. By a curious coincidence, Cardinal Mattei was "protector of Ireland" in the papal hierarchy. He and members of his circle must have had connections with the likes of such Irish exiles in Rome as Hugh O'Neill, the prince of Ulster, and Archbishop Peter Lombard of Armagh, the primate of Ireland. Some of the Irish may have seen "The Taking of Christ" in the Mattei palazzo long before its disappearance and discovery in Dublin. ------------- Harr is the author of A Civil Action and lives in Northampton, Mass., where he has taught writing at Smith College. Carroll is a retired civil servant. |
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14.4.06 02:25 |
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Playing around
The other day I got it in my head that I wanted to use a font I had on my other work computer but not at home. I could find it to download on the net, but it cost money. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? That's why I asked you guys if you could send it to me. Then I happened upon this nifty graphics article in About.com by Sue Chastain. Now usually I have to say I find About.com to be extremely annoying. This article, however, opened my eyes to several things I found very interesting. I learned that even if you don't have a font installed on your computer that if you open the font file and leave it open, that font will show up in your applications--such as Word or Outlook Express. In my case, it shows up in Semagic, which I am using to write this post at the moment. I am using a font called Andale Mono, which Microsoft now SELLS to you rather than giving it away but which I found for free on a website. I also downloaded a Gaeilge font which looks like this: Fiona McCann Cool, or what? There is one thing I'm not sure of, however, and that is, if YOU don't have these fonts installed on YOUR computer, are you still able to even SEE them??? You guys can drop me a comment and tell me. You can google fonts and find a bunch of unique kinds which you can use in your posts or on your web pages or your emails, etc. and all for free. But here's another thing I found from Sue's article, and that is a great little free programme called AMP Font Viewer which you can get >>here and which will let you see ALL your installed fonts and also install any you want but don't have yet. I'm sure you guys have more, but I have about 460 different fonts which are found in your FONTS folder inside your CONTROL PANEL. It would take a long time to look at them all one by one. The font viewer lets you see them all at once. So that's it. I just thought some of you might like to experiment. P.S. Some of you might think I have such a hunky-dory, stress-free existence that I can spend all kinds of time doing stupid shite like playing with fonts, etc., because I haven't a care in the world. No, I do it precisely because I don't want to think about my real life, so I do this instead to keep from becoming crazier than I already am.  It's NOT working!!! |
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14.4.06 22:14 |
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Happy Easter
 May the blessings of Easter be on all of you. |
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16.4.06 01:09 |
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No justice for Christian Blewitt
These were the headlines and story last year, and I was horrified when I read how this little boy's adoptive 'parents' decided he was not suitable for their lifestyle and decided to punish him by what I can only describe as torture. I don't know what else you would call force feeding him a massive amount of salt, beating or shaking him until his brain area was bruised, and then dumping him into a cot to die. At the time I saved Christian's photo because I felt so sorry for him that his own mother gave him away and his adoptive parents had murdered him. I thought at least he would have someone to look at his little face and remember him with some kind of love. Take a look at these and then tell me if there is any justice in the world--Ian and Angela Gay have been released from prison because the appeal judges think new trumped up medical conjecture might be able to clear them of their paltry 5 year sentence. They will face a re-trial. They are free at this time. Five years for couple who poisoned boy with salt Times Online  ------------------- Couple are jailed for killing child because he was not perfect Telegraph.co.uk By Nick Britten 14/01/2005 A wealthy couple who killed their three-year-old adopted son because he was not the "perfect child" they craved were jailed for five years yesterday. Ian and Angela Gay became incensed that Christian Blewitt didn't live up to their expectations of the ideal family.  Christian Blewitt was force fed salt Five weeks into an adoption trial period, as their frustration grew, they force-fed him more than four teaspoons of salt as a punishment for refusing his food before dumping him in a cot, where he collapsed. He suffered severe brain injuries, a heart attack and died in hospital four days later. The prosecution alleged that he had also been either beaten or shaken after doctors found that he had 11 areas of bruising around the brain. The couple, who had also adopted Christian's younger brother and sister, were cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter. Sentencing them at Worcester Crown Court, Mr Justice Pitchers said Christian's behaviour was "hardly out of the ordinary" for a three-year-old, even one that hadn't had Christian's "difficult start" in life. He was taken into care shortly after his first birthday and then spent time with foster parents.  Angela Gay: ‘selfish’ He said the Gays, from Halesowen, West Midlands, were "intelligent people" and had made "a deliberate choice in cold blood" how to punish Christian. He accepted that it was a single episode of abuse and that they were unaware the dose would prove fatal. He accused Angela Gay, 37, of being "entirely selfish". Her return to work as Christian lay critically ill showed "where her priorities lay". He added: "You were interested only in what was best for you, not what was best for him.'' As sentence was passed, the Gays held hands and showed no emotion. Having left the dock they embraced before being led away separately. Mrs Gay's parents, Margaret and Royston Swain, both 61, said they were "completely devastated" by the verdicts. Mr Swain said: "Angela has worked hard all her life and was one of the few actuaries in the UK. She would have been the perfect mother.'' Christian's natural mother, Tracey Osik, 23, said: "I was furious when I heard that they only got five years. It should have been life after what they did to Christian. I might not have been the best mother but they had all the advantages." Christian's maternal grandmother, Susan Osik, said her daughter "didn't give a damn" about her son or what happened to him, preferring to spend her time nightclubbing. She said: "Tracey wasn't looking after him properly. All his clothes were wet. I was concerned about his health. He started losing a lot of weight. He had to go to hospital on a drip. "He didn't have much but that couple had everything. They should have been able to give Christian, his brother and sister a far better life. "They should have looked after him properly. Five years isn't enough. It was very cruel, and they should throw away the key." Det Ch Insp Steve Cullen, from West Mercia police, said: "Christian led a brief life and we can at least be thankful that the period he spent with his foster carers were happy times. We are pleased that justice has been done for Christian today." |
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17.4.06 05:37 |
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ABUSE!
All the comment/conversation over at Steve's post reminds me of a go-round I recently had with Livejournal when I found out that the journal of a convicted baby rapist was still available online. I wrote to LJ Abuse and asked them why they would keep it around. It is my understanding that LJ deleted a journal of a convicted murderer. Their reply was that unless you break the terms of service (TOS), LJ will not delete your journal. They said there were lots of unsavoury people who have journals and many who are convicted of crimes, etc. but if they don't break the TOS, there's nothing that can be done. I pointed out to LJ that upon even a cursory reading of the vaunted TOS, it is quite clear that LJ can do whatever they want to anyone's journal at their discretion--TOS or not. Upon further googling of LJ abuse, it became quite clear as well that LJ has pretty much been all over the board as regards blocking or censoring people's journals. There is even a community devoted to bitching about LJ Abuse and also a very good Blogspot blog concerning it! Googling also revealed that many users use their journals to discuss doing things that are clearly illegal--such as child molestation. LJ allows this I guess. I cannot say for sure because there is NO way I am going to research that topic as I haven't the stomach for it. Therefore, my final comment to them was that since they obviously HAD the power to delete the baby rapist's journal and chose not to, that baby rape must not bother them that much. I also said that I was pretty sure that if it had been one of THEIR babies who was raped and filmed, I am sure the journal would have been deleted a long time ago. LJ closed the complaint. I thought at first that I would quit all my use of Livejournal due to their attitude. However, it also occurred to me that no matter where you go, there are going to be people who do disgusting things and write and put up pictures about it. I don't have the money to purchase my own server. I am fairly conservative in a lot of ways and then liberal in others. On things that mean a lot to me, like child or animal abuse, I am intransigent. My views on other issues would surely offend a lot of people I know. One of the choicest assets of the internet is also its biggest pitfall and that is that nearly ANYONE can access the net and make his or her views known for all to see. Navigating clear of disturbing things on the net is not an easy task. I have also found that sometimes when you complain about things that you don't like on the net, you can make a difference and get people to take positive action. Many times no one cares. It's kinda just like real life. |
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19.4.06 19:45 |
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Ever faithful in life and in death...Ulster's own Greyfriars Bobby
Belfast Telegraph Alsatian Ben pines by owner's graveside By Fiona McIlwaine Biggins and Eimear O'Hagan newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk 22 April 2006 An Ulster cemetery has had an unusual mourner visiting a grave over recent weeks - Ulster's own version of the famous Greyfriars Bobby. Ben, a 12-year-old Alsatian dog, has been found on a number of occasions "crying" at the grave of his beloved owner, Lily, in Our Lady's Cemetery in Newtownabbey. Peter McAtamney explained that his wife Lily and Ben had been inseparable and since she died in February the dog has literally been "wrecked by grief". He said his wife was devoted to the dog and now Ben was having problems adjusting to life without her. "We've had him since he was a six weeks. When he was born no one would take him because he was such a big, strong puppy, people thought there was something wrong with him. But we took him and I'm so glad, because he's been the best dog you could ever wish for. "Once my wife took a fall in the yard behind the house and he bent his head down and she took hold of his collar, and he helped her up and helped her to the back door. "She loved him - she used to take him to bed with her. When he came into the bedroom, I got thrown out! She'd even get up in the middle of the night to make him wee snacks. I would tell her she was spoiling him and she would tell me to mind my own business!" Three days after Mrs Mc Atamney was buried, Ben went missing. The 70-year-old widower revealed: "Ben got out of his pen and we couldn't find him. I thought he might have gone to the graveyard and I asked my home help, Maureen McNinch, to have a look. She found him on the grave, he was whimpering and was tearful. "I think he knew where Lily was buried because at the funeral he saw people coming and going between the house and the cemetery, and he just put two and two together and worked out that's where she was. He's a very intelligent dog." With Ben continuing to pine for his late owner, Mr McAtamney is keeping a close eye on him. "He'd go to the grave every day if he was allowed to but I've locked the gates now to stop him going because it's not safe for him to be running around the roads. "He's coming round a bit now and he's getting a lot of love and attention from me which I think is what he needs." Sharon Hatt from The Dog's Trust said: "This truly goes to show that dogs really are man's best friend. There is no substitute for the companionship found when you own a dog and this highlights that the bond really is so deep." The legendary tale of Greyfriars Bobby recalls how the Skye terrier visited his dead master's grave in Edinburgh every day for 14 years. |
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22.4.06 16:17 |
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Nobody
 Cartoon by Peter Steiner from the New Yorker, 1993 |
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22.4.06 21:19 |
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HEATHER from Greyhound Rescue West of England, formerly from Kerry
GRWE  Our own Timothy Pukowski had a hand in rescuing a very famous greyhound named Heather, whose story and picture can be found on the GRWE website among other places--and now here. Tim is in Ireland and takes the greyhounds in as a foster 'parent' for awhile so that they can be re-homed. Heather's story from last year is a heartbreaker, but the truth is that she is one of hundreds of dogs who are mistreated, mutilated, dumped and murdered every year when they don't prove economically beneficial to their racing owners. Here is part of Heather's story from the website: (cached) Jan Lake, Trustee for the Charity says, "We were first contacted by a small rescue in Kerry, Southern Ireland, as they had picked up a greyhound called Heather, in a very poor condition. Heather had been given a heavy dose of anaesthetic, which presumably had been meant to kill her. Her owner had then cut off her ears, and left her to die. She had obviously come round from the effects of the anaesthetic and was found wandering, bleeding heavily, trying to make her way 'home' to her owner. It is very difficult for the small shelters to find homes for greyhounds in Ireland, so we were only too pleased to be able to help them by taking Heather." There are many rescue stories on the GRWE site which have happy endings. As you might imagine, the groups which do this kind of work can always use help from volunteers as well as those willing and able to send financial aid to cover expenses. The GRWE website has several links for those interested, and I'm sure Tim might be able to direct you to his rescue group as well. |
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26.4.06 06:16 |
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