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(Warning: Contains Graphic Photos)
Mittelbau Dora
Concentration Camp
Nordhausen, Germany
"This is what hell must be like" - French survivor Jean Mialet
Breaking out of the Remagen Bridgehead on 25 March, 1945, the 104th Infantry Division, as part of the U.S. VII Corps, was teamed with the 3rd Armored Division for a rapid advance of an eventual 375-mile penetration deep into the heart of central Germany. Hitler's once mighty war machine was crumbling, but counter attacks and stubborn pockets of resistance, by the hungry and desperate enemy, continued as tongue-twisting towns and villages like Holzhausen, Niederingelbach, Dalwigsthal, Strasseberbach & Eibelshausen appeared and were soon overrun. In black forbidding nights and gray days, often sullen with the slow, cold drizzle of rain, the thrust continued with Easter Sunday and April Fool's Day practically unnoticed. The 193-mile segment from the Rhine to Paderborn had taken only nine days with captured Wehrmacht vehicles and even barnyard carts supplementing more conventional means of military transport for the relentless push to the east.
The morning of 11 April dawned with yet another strangely named town to be reckoned with. Easier to pronounce, but impossible to forget, Nordhausen, home of the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp, was first viewed as just another spot on the map, but became a name to be stamped forever in the annuals of Timberwolf and 3rd Armored history - permanently engraved in the hearts and memories of all present.
The history of the 104th Infantry Division, Timberwolf Tracks , relates the long to be remembered and heart gripping story from first-hand accounts:
"In Nordhausen the Division found a large German concentration camp for political prisoners, discovering 5,000 corpses among the 6,000 inmates in various stages of decay. The corpses were scattered throughout the buildings and grounds of the large camp and all of them appeared to have been starved to such an extent that they were mere skeletons wrapped in skin. Most of the bodies apparently lay untouched since death had overtaken them, but some were stacked like cordwood under stairways. In almost all bunkers and buildings the living were found lying among the dead. In one corner was a pile of arms and legs. All medical personnel that could be spared in the Division were rushed to the scene to give medical aid. Hundreds of the male citizens of the town were ordered to the camp, where under guard, they worked several days carrying litter cases and collecting corpses by hand. They dug mass graves on a prominent hill near the camp and carried the corpses through the town to the graves."
Sergeant Ragene Farris of the 329th Medical Battalion,104th Infantry Division, was there and explained the impact of the gruesome sights at Nordhausen upon the men of the 104th:
"For days and weeks, even months afterwards, the word Nordhausen brought us a mixed response of emotions. We were battle-tired and combat-wise medics, and we thought there was nothing left in the books we didn't know. Yet in a short period of two days I and many others of the Division saw and lived a story we shall never forget.
The strongly Nazified town of Nordhausen fell before air-armor and night attack on 11 April. Our S-2, Captain Johnson, brought the news that we were needed to evacuate patients from a concentration camp in one of the large factory areas of the city. Lying among the multitudes of dead were reported to be a few living 'beings', and with quick medical attention some might be saved. Colonel Taggart called into action, early 12 April, the litter bearers and medical technicians as well as any other men available from duties with our own wounded. In a caravan of trucks we rushed into a job which proved unbelievable to an American; a job distasteful and sobering; one created by the fanatical inhuman Nazi machine. We found out the full meaning of the words 'Concentration Camp.'
Bombs had ground flesh and bones into the cement floor. Rows upon rows of skin-covered skeletons met our eyes. Men lay as they starved, discolored, and lying in indescribable human filth. Their striped coats and prison numbers hung to their frames as a last token of those who enslaved and killed them. In this large motor shop there were no living beings; only the distorted dead. We went to the stairs and under the casing were neatly piled about seventy-five bodies, a sight I could never erase from memories. Dying on the second floor were, upon later count, about twenty-five men or half-men. Some of these, lying in double-decked wooden bedsteads, were grotesquely still, yet hanging tenaciously to life's breath. They were still alive.
We saw, at a quick survey, this was to be as big a medical job as we had been called upon to do. Speed would save lives, so we fell into a day of evacuation, hospitalization, and feeding, unparalleled to any day of combat. It became evident almost immediately that our few medics could not evacuate hundreds of patients, set up improvised hospital wards, and feed many mouths without help. So under the leadership of Colonel Jones and Chaplain Steinbeck, who spoke German, we rounded up German civilians on the streets of this Nazi city as we saw them. The order was, "You will work." In this manner, about one hundred German litter bearers were gathered up and rushed to the scene.
I was accosted by a less emaciated prisoner who asked if anyone spoke French. When I answered, he brightened and related that a group of Frenchmen had established a small colony in the large cellar of another building, and would I please bring aid to them. This was my signal to get into gear, and off across bomb-cratered grounds we picked our way to this particular building. There were many bodies strewn about. One girl in particular I noticed; I would say she was about seventeen years old. She lay there where she had fallen, gangrened and naked. In my own thoughts I choked up - couldn't quite understand how and why war could do these things. But my job crowded out any serious impressions at the moment. Only later I thought of what I had seen. Now we approached the cellar stairs leading to the French group. I heard 'monsieur' very softly, and at my feet, lying as if dead, was a cadaverous man; he raised up and said, in beautiful Parisian French, that if he were stronger he would honor me by the traditional kiss on either cheek. I learned that he was a captain from France's famous Saint Cyr Military Academy and had received particularly sadistic attention from the SS Troopers. He looked to be seventy-five but was only forty-five. His last step had taken him to the edge of the stairs. He had gone as far as possible to escape the fury of war when the Americans fought into Nordhausen. He lay dust-covered, where he had nearly been crushed by falling walls - yet he displayed remarkable discipline and composure. With care, he was lifted upon a litter and taken to our waiting ambulances. I often wonder if he made it back to life, and if he had ever been able to tell his story.
We went downstairs into a filth indescribable, accompanied by a horrible dead-rot stench. There in beds of crude wood I saw men too weak to move dead comrades from their side. One hunched-down French boy was huddled up against a dead comrade, as if to keep warm, having no concept that the friend had been dead two or three days and unable to move his own limbs. There were others, in dark cellar rooms, lying in disease and filth, being eaten away by diarrhea and malnutrition. It was like stepping into the Dark Ages to walk into one of these cellar-cells and seek out the living; like walking into a world apart and returning to bring these shadow-men into the environment of a clean American ambulance. In one bomb crater lay about twenty bodies. We pulled three or four feebly struggling living ones from the bottom of the pile; they had been struggling for five or six days to get out but the weight of the other bodies piled on them had been too much for their starved, emaciated frames. We saw those on a bank who had been cut down by machine guns in trying to escape the fury of the guards. I saw one man feebly stagger to attention and salute us as tears slowly trickled down his cheeks. Too weak to walk, this man was genuinely moved to pay tribute to those who were helping him - showing him the first kind act in years. A few men were able to walk on their swollen, bulging feet; they had no shoes and they were unbelievably dirty. There were lash marks on many of their scantily covered backs - definite proof of beatings and floggings by their inhuman guards. One Parisian business told me he had been kicked and beaten repeatedly. He was comparatively healthy, as he had been in camp only three months. He told me that many of the 3,000 dead in the camp had been worked, beaten and forced at top speed until they could work on longer, after which they were starved off or killed outright."
"Everything that is now in space had its origins here, not in America or Russia." --
Rene SteenbekeTwo miles northwest of Nordhausen a huge underground V-bomb factory was discovered. It was two miles in length, with two large tunnels approximately fifty feet in width and height, connected laterally by forty-eight smaller tunnels. From 1943 until 1945, 60,000 prisoners had toiled here in production of V-1 and V-2 bombs*. Of these, 20,000 had died from various causes including starvation, fatigue and execution. The SS was in charge of the factory and the camp, with German criminals as strawbosses. Workers were executed at the slightest suggestion of sabotage. No workers had ever been allowed to leave the camp and when they became too weak to work, they were abandoned to die and their bodies burned at the crematorium within the grounds. Reports indicated that approximately one hundred bodies were cremated per day, and there were about thirty corpses piled on the ground awaiting such treatment when the 104th arrived. These bodies showed many signs of beating, starvation and torture.
*(The V-1, V for Vengeance, was the pilotless radio-controlled aircraft carrying a high-explosive bomb, put into operation a week after D-Day. In the June-July period they were coming down by the hundreds on London and killed more than 5,000 people and injured 35,000 more. This terror weapon of little military value, put an enormous strain on the British public. The V-2 was worse and more effective, the world's first medium-range ballistic missile. This long-dreaded "secret weapon" of Hitler, launched from Holland, first hit London on 8 September, 1944.)
More than a half-century later, the memories of Nordhausen remain fixed in the minds of the 104th Division Timberwolves who were there and witnessed that terrible evidence of atrocity. Leon Karalokian of the 104th Signal Company is among those who can't forget:
"Nordhausen was to provide a ghastly traumatic experience never to be forgotten by those who passed through it. On the grounds laid out in neat rows were an estimated thousand decaying corpses ranging from the near skeletonized to the newly dead. In the building bedded on straw side by side in indescribable filth lay the emaciated living, too weak to move away from the dead. Nordhausen did not have the huge inmate of Auschwitz. Nor did it have the gas chambers of Dachau or Buchenwald, a refinement apparently reserved for Jewish victims who were on the bottom of the insane Nazi scale of values. Its crematory, though small, was able to convert 100 of yesterday's men to a heap of ashes each day. The 5,000 victims here, dead and alive, were predominantly Polish slave workers, with some French, conscripted to turn out in enormous underground factories the deadly supersonic V-2 rockets. The full medical resources of the division and from other units did all possible for the living. The very few walking skeletons able to stand wandered about dazedly in the now familiar striped uniforms, bodies shrunken, white faces blood drained, reaching for the hands of their liberators as they shed their tears. Battle-hardened men of the 104th wept too.
The emotional impact was heavy on all who were witness to these incidents but considerably more so on this writer. As an American of Armenian ancestry I had been brought up, as have virtually all first and second generation Americans of similar background, on the eye witnessed horror stories of an even more sanguine genocide in Turkey three decades earlier. Massacre was the word here, knives and bullets for the males, desert death marches, hunger and rape for the women and children. A million or more Armenian lives destroyed at the whim of those who ruled the old Turkish Otterman Empire. Staring at the human debris on the ground awaiting burial I asked myself, 'Is this what is meant by genocide? Was this also the fate of the grandparents, uncles and aunts I had never known?'.
Time dulls the impact of events. There are those who now maintain Hitler's holocaust never occurred. Would that it was possible to take the doubters by the hand, back through the years, and point out the tragedy of this minor concentration camp! Sobered and drained each of us eventually left the area, in the words of a poet a sadder but wiser man."
Boelcke Kaserne Camp-Nordhausen
Mittelbau Dora Survivors Commemorate Liberation - Reuters Press Story
You are invited to read the rest
of the history of the 104th Infantry Division & to sign our Guestbook.
Additional Nordhausen accounts can be found in our War
Stories .
This page last updated: 6 October, 2010
©1999 National Timberwolf Association
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After much anticipation and a period of being available to a private audience the team at Edgeio took the covers off of their creation tonight and launched to the general public. Edgeio takes listings (classifieds) from RSS-enabled sources and organizes them in a central location for users to be able to browse and search. The Edgeio ethos is that content belongs on the edges, and that is where the name originates from (Edge input/output). Content on the edges means the content on the millions of blogs and other sites out there which Edgeio does a good job of aggregating and organizing.
From a seller's perspective, to post an item you write about it on your blog and tag it 'listing' (along with any other keywords which are suitable to categorize the item for sale). Edgeio taps into the blog cloud via weblogs.com and other ping services (as well as its own ping server which is at http://www.edgeio.com/RPC2) to find new posts that have been tagged for listing. Once it finds your post, which usually happens very quickly, it will send a trackback to your post to make you aware that Edgeio has found it. Once you have posted, the first time you post an item you will need to go to Edgeio to claim your blog (a process that works similar to Technorati's) from which point you can add additional metadata to your listing within Edgeio. The additional data you enter includes things like additional tags to categorize the item, your geographic location (which again you only enter once and is used when you search for items to buy as well) and the price of the item. It only takes moments from the time you post your listing to the time that it appears in Edgeio and is available for buyers to find.
From a buyers perspective, you can go to Edgeio and then find items that are for sale a number of ways. The first and most obvious way is to enter terms into the search box. This will display results which are item summaries sorted in chronological order. The other way to find items is by browsing through the tag clusters that are located on the front page and working your way down to items that interest you. The last way in which you can find items is interesting, as Edgeio has lists of most popular items, the latest items and the most active weblogs posting items. The popular items list and the latest items list have feeds available for users to subscribe to or use in other applications. One cool thing you notice is the geography slider widget that is persistently in the sidebar while you are looking through items. If you are looking at search results and would like to filter them down to just the state you are in, or the zip code you are in, then you just slide the slider. I have been told that this slider will be even more fine-grained in the near future by giving 'slide points' which are certain distance radiuses around the current points (eg. Within 10 miles of your current post code). The way the slider works and refreshes the results or the page automatically has been very well implemented and makes a lot of sense. The interface has been very well done, it is clean and easy to understand (I tested this by handing over the URL to a non-tech user and they were able to find listings the may be interested in).
Throughout the search results, listings from blogs that have been claimed gain precedence over unclaimed listings. In the future sellers will have the ability to highlight their listing for a small fee. Reputation is currently handled via third party sites, the seller has an option to associate their listing with their Flickr, eBay or LinkedIn account so that their credibility can be traced back. It appears at the moment that a lot of the transactions on Edgeio will be face-to-face transactions, where verifying credibility is different as opposed to when you are sending payment to somebody you don't know in a foreign country or another state.
The whole point of Edgeio is to connect the buyer and seller through its platform that aggregates listings, so there are no payment options at the moment nor can you see any account history from buyers or sellers on what they have purchased or sold before. It is currently being left up to the buyer and seller to close the transaction. Edgeio also offers a lot of social controls as a means to keep the listing relevant and current. Users are able to mark a listing as being 'bad' by telling Edgeio that the item is spam, that it is no longer current, that is hasn't been categorized correctly or that the publishers information is not accurate. These forms of social controls and filtering work well on sites such as Craigslist and their effect on Edgeio and how well they work to prevent spam will only be known over time.
On important aspect to Edgeio is the availability of feeds for every part of the system. With standard RSS feeds (Dave Winer is an advisor to the company) developers of other applications or webmasters are able to include items for sale on Edgio into their own sites or applications, or take the listings further in some form of a mashup (I am guessing we will see the first mashups – potentially with Google Maps, shortly). I like the idea of being able to subscribe to a feed that will display new items that may not be available now but I wish to purchase – so I will see them as soon as they are posted.
I subscribe to the theory that the publishing and control of content belongs to the user and that we are heading in that direction. There are a few reasons for this, the first and most important is that the user owns his or her data, even if it is something as simple as a classified listing, so the user should be able to have effective control over the environment where this data is contained. With centralized services such as eBay and Craigslist the buyer and seller are left to the mercy of the platform provider. Blogging has enabled users to create content and publish it on the web easily, so using that platform for listings is only one of a number of potential services that can be built on top of what we have today. The short-term barriers I foresee are the size of this market today and how effective Edgeio will be in promoting itself as the standard place for listings. In terms of scalability, only a much larger inventory will be able to test the theory of having tags and tag clusters as a directory as opposed to a rigid directory structure (which is very hard to maintain and expand). Edgeio is putting categorization and the categories themselves into the hands of users with self-monitoring in place that will attempt to assure that things don't get out of hand. While having 1,300 or so listings at the time of launch is a good start, the size of the market and the number of listings on blogs will not compare to eBay or Craigslist any time soon (though Edgeio can also use other directories as sources as well, making it a classifieds meta-site).
In the long-term there is a fantastic opportunity, especially since publishing to the web on your own terms is something that is becoming more and more available to ordinary web users (and with services such as MySpace and MSN spaces the number of users is getting really big). Edgeio is a very open platform, they want others to build applications and use the listing content in other sites and applications. I am sure that regardless of the success of Edgeio that its more traditional competition has had to think about their own policies with providing feeds and other openness measures and I hope that the launch of Edgeio may spur change with other platforms.
Edgeio was founded by Keith Teare (easyNet and Realnames) and Micheal Arrington (Techcrunch) along with the founding technical team consisting of Matt Kaufman (There and Realnames) and Vidar Hokstad (Yahoo! Europe). Edgeio have raised $1.5M in angel capital from a large list of investors with names such as Louis Monier, Frank Caufield, Auren Hoffman, the RSS Investors Fund, Jeff Clavier, Ron Conway and Michael Tanne.
Edgeio will need to overcome those barriers, as well as have more and more sellers adopt the model that they are pushing (ie. The 'listing' tag). They are going the right way about it, with a very nice interface and some very cool features, along with the will to make this happen and the right people to see it through. The launch is also being reported by Om Malik amonst others.
Disclaimer: Mike Arrington, a founder of Edgeio is also the Founder of this blog. All the opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer (Nik Cubrilovic)

subset: commoncrawl


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By Gillian Schutte · 20 Apr 2012
The horrified astonishment at the recent cake-eating debacle has shaken up the world and brought the issue of racism to the fore once again this year.
The social media world went into shock this week, as they beheld the Swedish Minister of Culture perform a clitoridectomy on the sculpted vulva of a human sized cake, which took the shape of an African woman undergoing forced genital mutilation. She then fed it to the black-faced artist who screamed in agony as she sliced through the baked labium - much to the amusement of the white guests. The inside of the cake was blood red and the guests smiled and ate of the black female cake-body, seemingly oblivious to the macabre nature of the whole affair.
The response from women all over the world was visceral. They called it racist, misogynistic and hateful. Many black women expressed outrage and hurt, given the historical referencing to the Sartjie Baartman narrative.
As a white woman I was sickened to the core and momentarily at a loss for words -- and it was this response that got me thinking about how deep the construct of whiteness really goes. It took me a while to grasp that the horrible, misdirected and grotesque tastelessness of this gastronomic protest art actually successfully made a point about whiteness.
It exposed the European cake eaters as savage in their non-responsiveness to the horror of the act in which they willingly participated, apparently ignorant to the notion that the 'art' was in the observation of their behaviour. This, I think, is what was so disturbing to the white gaze, which was forced to gaze upon whiteness and try to make sense of the primal nature of it all.
It disturbed the white certainty of rationality and possibly pointed to our own complicity in the insulting and grossly insensitive act of the eating of an African woman's most private body parts in what became a reversal of the anthropological participant observation ethos.
It certainly got me thinking about my own upbringing in a country that was built upon the dehumanisation of black people whilst I was trying to make sense of what appeared to be an uncanny physical manifestation of feminist writer bell hooks' thesis on Eating the Other. I was forced to ask myself if it is really possible for those of us who grew up white in South Africa to fully transcend the inevitable unconscious hold of the whiteness construct, even those of us who are in interracial relationships.
Furthermore how much does the same macabre insensitivity to blackness play out in the day-to-day lives of white South Africans that we may also be oblivious to?
Having Our Cake and Eating It
I know whiteness through and through. I was raised on it. I've lived it, I've eaten it and mostly I've heard it: at tea parties, at dinner parties, at braais and pubs and family gatherings ... and all in all I have come to the sad conclusion that, besides the miniscule number of renegade white folk who may or may not have authentically transcended the whiteness trap, whiteness has largely remained a static and unyielding phenomenon in South Africa.
This is thanks to the liberal legacy of the Nelson Mandela epoch, which created a situation in which there is no real pressure on whiteness to change.
Whilst white concerns remain central to the master narrative - in the economy, in the press, in film and popular culture, whiteness in South Africa remains an obdurate monolith mostly in denial of the social, political, and cultural privileges still accorded to whites in our unequal society. It would seem though, that whites are carefully taught not to recognise white privilege just as males are taught not to recognise male privilege.
This is evidenced in the average white dialogue around race in which whiteness is often presented as victim to the 'savagery' of blackness in the form of endless whinging about crime, corruption, inefficiency and BEE. From intellectual discourse, to mainstream chatter, to barely-educated braai banter, whiteness is always sure of one thing - superiority over other races - particularly the African race. Whether it is disguised in liberal equanimity or downright racism, this whiteness discourse espouses the same learnt notion that white is right - even in a so-called Rainbow Nation.
This mythical rainbow nation, it turns out, is none other than the 'liberalist' enfant terrible that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) gave birth to whilst South Africa was dealing with the labour pains of a reconciliatory-premised transformation. Though it was established as an emotional clearinghouse for the traumas and atrocities experienced and committed in the days of apartheid and as a catalyst for healing the nation -- it turned out to be the motherfucker of all fuck ups for blackness.
In fact it did nothing for black folk, who were apartheid's rightful victims. Rather it alleviated white folk's guilt and annulled their fear of a retaliatory bloodbath. Hell, it even allowed perpetrators of racist and heinous crimes against humanity to develop a newfound camaraderie with Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Cyril Ramaphosa – all three of whom have since been appropriated by the white liberal narrative as icons, mascots and success symbols. Viler though is that this trio is also held up by the whiteness construct as empirical evidence that some black folk do indeed contain intelligence and humanity, because, after all, they display the same gentle virtues, rationality and corporate acumen as whites.
But it is the image of Mandela that has been most 'eaten' by whiteness, to use bell hooks' term again when discussing the ways in which whiteness creates a false gastronomically expedient relationship with the 'other' through the romanticisation of blackness for the purposes of cultural commodification - (just one example of the many she describes).
When apartheid was in full swing, the black freedom fighters could not have foreseen the commodification of their struggle in the contemporary profit-driven smorgasbord claimed by whites in South Africa - a banquet table laden with delectable and marketable black cultural commodities, such as Steve Biko T-Shirts, Ubuntu slogans and Madiba Magic. As Winnie Mandela allegedly did not say - Mandela's aging smiling image is used by certain white folk as a fundraiser in a wheelchair - so shameless is this Madiba Magic feeding frenzy.
Mandela's smiling effigy has also become a symbol of reconciliation in South Africa and is held up by liberals as a sign that progressive political change is indeed taking place. His image has been appropriated, re-colonised and stripped of a revolutionary history to be devoured as a symbol of white liberalism and logic. Thus the previously demonised Mandela has miraculously become an icon in the West and has created a kind of denialist insanity in the average white liberal mind. He's cute, he's old, he smiles a lot and he somehow absolves white folk of their guilt - much as Jesus on the cross absolves Christians of their sins. Like the Jesus icon, he is not really real - he's kind of a fuzzy deified construct through whom one can transcend all sorts of racist misdemeanours.
But when it comes to the rest of 'them' - as in those 'blacks', who by their mere presence do not absolve white folk of their guilt and who cannot be directly commodified and consumed; those who have the cheek to beg at robots; who dare protest their poverty and demand dignity and who at times have to steal to survive; well white people generally say disgusting things about 'them' real black folk, using a veritable plethora of terms. Sometimes it is outright racism - like, 'Those monkeys can't run a country' to 'Fucking Kaffirs' (often in Virgin Active gyms). Other times it is simply changing their accents to some sort of monosyllabic phonetics when talking to the gardener or the maid. Many times it is the overuse of the words 'us' and 'them', as if indeed, black folk are a different species.
In fact much racist white banter seems premised on the fact that 'they' may not belong to the human race at all, as the father of 'absolute knowledge' Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel suggested in the early 1800's when he posited, with great white man authority, "The Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality - all that we call feeling - if we would rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type of character."
And here we are, hundreds of years later and seventeen years into a 'Rainbow Nation' and mainstream white racial banter remains the same dehumanising rant, albeit delivered in less erudite language.
But these mainstream racists are openly despicable and easy to spot.
It is the liberals that espouse a so-called post-race epoch that need to be watched out for because it is this uber privileged class of white folk that has become even more dangerous to blackness than the outright white supremacists. Members of this echelon have been the direct beneficiaries of the TRC and it is they who have cleverly constructed a new liberal 'discourse of disguise', largely designed to dupe fellow humans into believing that they are not white supremacists even whilst they maintain their stranglehold over the dominant discourse of knowledge and capital. They are largely the educated and academic class of self-appointed gatekeepers who have been forced to move over slightly and share the institutions of higher learning and business with black folk.
Despite their polite liberal façade, the white folk that populate this class most often secretly believe that black people are not nearly as learned as themselves and that they lack the type of leadership skills needed to run these institutions. Thus they often set about sabotaging the black folk in these positions of power by withdrawing their moral support and using subtle and insidious put-downs camouflaged as supportive language. Behind closed doors though, and safely with 'their own', they openly critique blackness with smug little laughs and comically raised eyebrows and nudge-nudge wink-wink commentary, in a sort of 'having their cake and eating it' ritual.
When they are called to book they draw upon their vociferous 'hegemony-denial' and make up nonsensical and expedient new terms such as 'black supremacy' whilst conjuring up new fields of learning aimed at disproving their 'god-given' privilege.
This is white dominion at its best.
As someone who grew up inside the construct of whiteness, that for over four decades has dished me up a platter of privileges which I've oft imagined I have long since rejected - my disgust at the black minstrel female cake eating debacle has, incongruously, also left me asking the hardest question of all -- is it possible for white people, myself included, to ever fully transcend the whiteness construct or are we all vulnerable to being exposed and tripping over our own unconscious programming by some genius provocateur?
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The "Genius Provocateur" Says the Audience did Nothing Wrong
In this article, written by the artist Makode Linde (sorry, it's in Swedish , but try Google translate) http://www.aftonbladet.se/debatt/article14700358.ab, he himself - in contrast to loads of people all over the world who assume he has meant to expose whiteness just like Gillian Schutte assumes in the article above - endorses the act of Swedish Minister of Culture Liljeroth and says that she has done nothing wrong, nothing racist. The world is in shock at the obvious racist act - the artist opposes any such interpretation. Hence, he is sadly NOT at all a "genius provocateur". He thinks it is sad that anybody assumes that the Swedish Minister of Culture is racist, and explicitly says that he thinks she is not, quite the contrary - he says that she understood his art. Werid, but true.
Are We This Primitive
I think Gillian Schutte is exactly what South Africa needs. Rather than pretend we are a happy Rainbow Nation, she is going after this festering boil. Let's rather lance it on our terms before it pops in an uncontrollable way. Let's be grown-ups and deal with unfortunate scourge of unfortunate race relations in our society
Thanks for Courage to Speak
Thank you Gillian for being courageous enough to speak out on this subject. I hope the minister is reflecting, as you have on the meaning of all of this. Whites in SA have very little clue, even the well meaning more progressive ones, of the extent to which they think, feel and act in alignment with white norms, tradition and culture. In my experience there are few, sadly too few, who have transcended the white perspective. Even then I have my doubts. My experience has shown me that one day, the other shoe drops. I have a few very good white friends where loving and trusting relationships have been cultivated and what I see in them is indeed a conscious working to unlearn the whiteness rather than an assumption of oneself as being white and ok because you fight for justice and equality.
Insightful Tirade - Now Let's Get Constructive
That was a perceptive and clear enough account of the resilience of whiteness, but I would love to hear a response to it - or a sequel, perhaps - that draws out some sort of alternative discourse for white people to try out. After all, there's little point in saying "don't do x" if the person one is talking to has no notion of what else to do. I suspect that this is generally the case. It's pretty hard to conjure up a new discourse, especially after a few beers around a braai when sentiments turn defensive.
Without an alternative, our current whiteness-construct will not encounter any real opponent in the discourse 'marketplace'. So here's an elementary stab at drawing out constructive elements that are suggested in your piece. To summarise your core notion in different words, the memes propagating whiteness have, thus far, been evolutionary survivors in the competition for discursive space, but are also, unfortunately, destructive in multiple ways. Part of their success lies in an unchallenged cocksureness about the virtues of the sort of rationality and ethical intuitions that party constitute whiteness. Therefore, a useful (but incomplete) strategy to combat this would be - as you imply - to challenge this cocksureness: to call people to account when they express this sort of unreflexive arrogance. This is certainly important - and it can be done with varying degrees of gentleness - since without raising awareness of the unconscious totalising that make whiteness (or anything else) so ethically offensive, there's little that can be done. But once awareness is raised, it's of paramount importance to suggest another way to proceed - some sort of positive alternative. Perhaps something simple like encouraging radical empathy is a useful starting point here. "Don't totalise; rather understand the other's paradigm, in all its foreignness" is what I have in mind. If people are challenged to stop assessing another ethnicity in terms of the values and virtues of their own ethnicity, and instead to listen – to be brave and to really try to understand a foreign perspective – then perhaps much good can be done.
Biased Reporting
you neglect to note that this artist was Black, how does that fit with the argument? In addition the Minister was concerned she would be lablelled racist if she refused to open this event. Lets keep to the facts and argue from an informed viewpoint.


text:
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This guide is designed to assist you through the development process and to ultimately expedite your project toward a successful completion. From obtaining a Land Use Permit to receiving your Certificate of Occupancy, this guide will lead you through the process. The Development Guide contains a complete listing of the department, division, agency and/or commission you may need to deal with, preliminary information you will need, an explanation of how and when to access each process, and a glossary of important development terms. Regardless of the nature or scope of your project, you are encouraged to contact the department, division, agency and/or commission listed for further information. Your prompt contact will enable us to anticipate your needs and serve you properly. The Town of Carrboro and all of the agencies responsible for reviewing development proposals within the Town aim to be responsive to your needs. Please do not hesitate to contact any agency to assist you along the way.
We hope the Town of Carrboro Development Guide will serve as a valuable resource for you.
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UnBooks:My New Life as a T-Rex
I awoke with a start and reached for my alarm clock, still screaming away at me into the side of my head. The sound was excruciating, boring a hole into my significantly small brain and rattling it within my cavernous skull. Unable to reach the alarm clock, I rolled myself over to it, but lost control and fell off of my bed.
"Still gotta get used to this damned tail." I cursed through my teeth and kicked the clock into the corner, which must have either stopped the alarm or destroyed the entire clock. In addition to my tail, my powerful legs were something else I still hadn't adjusted to yet.
The date was September 3rd. Three months since my operation and I was still struggling with the basest of everyday tasks. I avoided leaving my apartment unless it was absolutely necessary. I'm sure my neighbors could hear me tripping over myself every morning as I struggled to haul my awkward form through the door frame and into my kitchen, which hadn't been cleaned since my operation. The counters were stained red and pink, the floor had scratches and deep holes from my daily attempts to wedge my enormous head into my fridge to snap up another dozen steaks, and later fighting to get it out, claws swinging as my disproportionate body flipped, rolled, and shook, just trying to get hold of a counter or a cupboard with which to pull myself loose.
"Why," I thought, "did I ever decide to become a T-Rex?"
I guess I first realized that I wanted to become a prehistoric lizard when my fiancée and I moved in together. This was all about a year ago. Dr. Caulfield says I have a fear of commitment. He thinks these thoughts stemmed from the fact that my wedding was only a month away and I was getting a case of the freakouts. But this was real. I told him this. It just seemed so obvious. Something inside told me I had to become a T-Rex.
When I told my fiancée, she left me. She couldn't understand. No one could understand. I barely understood myself. All I knew was that I had to find a way to become a T-Rex, with or without the support of those I love. So began my quest to find a doctor crazy enough to perform the operation. I didn't even know if such a procedure existed. But I had to try. My lizard instincts told me that I would find a way to make it work. And I did.
He told me not to release his name in this book, but he was a godsend and I only wish he would let me give him proper recognition. He was not a "real" doctor, in that he didn't go to medical school, but I heard his friends call him "Doc" and that was good enough for me. In those times, I was ready to believe anything. I was a desperate lizard.
He took my $340 and led me into a dark alley. I could hear a woman crying as a man with a clothes hanger solved her problems. The smell of death lingered in the air. He put me in a shed and asked me to wait there. I do not remember his return, only the sound of a door opening and a sudden pain in the back of my head.
When I awoke, I had a massive headache. I tried to scratch at my newly grown scales, but I discovered that my arms were significantly shorter, and my wrists and forearms were broken to form new joints.
"This is the happiest day of my life," I whispered. I then blacked out again from the pain, because morphine would have cost extra and I was planning on treating myself to Papa John's to celebrate later.
I was indeed happy, at least, I was at first. Those first few weeks of crippling pain, both in my arms and in my legs, which had been lengthened using bones from my arms and hands, rendered me immobile. My jaw felt stretched, almost to the point of popping loose at any moment. I didn't eat at all during my recovery. Looking back, this was probably not a good thing. And yet...I was happy. I was satisfied. I finally had purpose: to be a T-Rex.
After these first few weeks, I began to appreciate my teeth. They were long, white, and hard, and made eating large pieces of meat an utter delight. I rather enjoyed how large my mouth was, too. I remember thinking that I had found what true happiness is: being able to eat a man in two bites.
But after a month or so, I found that my new life as a T-Rex was not everything I had hoped. I realized that I may have overlooked some of the negative sides of being a T-Rex in the city. For example, getting in and out of my apartment proved to be an arduous ordeal. I had forgotten that there are very few dinosaur-sized apartments in Manhattan. But this wasn't the only reason I avoided leaving home.
It was August. The weather was comfortable and breezy, and the skies were clear. I decided to take a walk. As I strolled down the streets of New York, dodging the funny looks and occasional jeers that I was so used to, ("Hey, T-Rex! Go back to the Jurassic period!" "Yeh, nice arms there, T-Rex! I bet you're a great typist!") I noticed a cute girl sipping coffee in a corner coffee shop. Although I had not spoken to a soul since my operation, I decided I was going to talk to her. I took a minute, inhaled through my lizard nostrils, and mustered up the courage to try to enter the coffee shop.
After several attempts to squeeze through the door without making too much of a scene, I ultimately ended up crashing through the side window, causing several people to panic and escape through the back door and the now open window. I half crawled, half stumbled relatively smoothly towards her table to introduce myself.
"Hi," I almost whispered. "My name's Gavin. I...I'm a T-Rex."
She seemed rather startled by my hesitant greeting, which caused me to immediately regret this decision. I suddenly felt very self aware. Why did I even think of approaching a strange woman whom I have never met and just tell her my name? My mind was racing and the room seemed to be spinning as I frantically looked for somewhere large enough for me to hide my gigantic head as well as my inconveniently long tail, but there was nowhere to run and I felt as if I were under the spotlight.
"I can see that," she finally said, which startled me, snapping me back to attention and out of my fear. "I like your teeth." A compliment? This came as a shock. One minute, I was scared and alone, and now there was a beacon of hope, a warm fire to which I could draw myself near and bask in its friendly glow. She liked me. I liked her. I was in bliss. My tongue briefly struggled to form words as my imagination danced along the shores of nirvana.
"You...come here often?" I forced the words out and quickly regretted them. What a stupid line. Why would I say that? What was wrong with me?
"I should ask you the same question," she said coolly, "but I can see that you don't, because the door is usually intact."
"AHAHAHAHAHAAA!!" I was laughing way too hard at that joke. A smirk would have been appropriate, maybe a chuckle. I felt so awkward and out of place that I wanted to disappear.
"You're cute," she said. And once again I retreated into my dreamland of kind faces and open spaces, a vast expanse of vaporous euphoria, I was floating. I was in heaven. Planets flew by as my anxiety melted away and sank into a thirsty ground thousands of feet below me as I soared above thick clouds, leaving a sweet, dewy scent in my lizard nostrils.
Then I ate her. I don't know why. I just got so excited and worked up that I leaned forward and took her torso off. For a moment, I did nothing. I stared at her, torso severed at the waist, leaving nothing but a pair of legs and a bloody stump. I swallowed slowly as I waited for my conscious mind to catch up with reality. And then it all hit me at once.
What had I done? Here was this girl, sitting alone, thinking about something else, probably about her mother and how she was starting chemotherapy on Thursday and how the priest had told her not to lose hope and how he promised that he would pray for her and said that it would be up to her to take care of her. She just wanted for her family to be okay. And then I barged in, destroyed half of the store, made inane small talk with her, and then I ate her. What kind of monster had I become? Who had I become? I wasn't me. I wanted to become a T-Rex and now I was one. I was a big time T-Rex and I was out of control. My predatory instincts had begun to take over my rational thoughts, and I descended into the mindset of the king of the lizards.
I returned to my apartment and became rather depressed for the next few months. I spent my days lying in a spot in my living room where the sun came in the perfect angle through my window in the mornings. As I lay there, day after day, warming my bones, I began to wonder if my decision to become a T-Rex was made in haste. I had started keeping a blog, which had proved to be slow going, seeing as how I had to swing my torso from right to left in order to reach the keyboard with my short, relatively useless arms. Even this depressed me. My arms hung limp most of the time. The muscles had completely atrophied and wasted away. I had already given up the French horn before my surgery, but during this time of depression I thought playing it again would help. But it only made it worse. First of all, I could barely hold it with one arm. I couldn't reach both of my arms around to hold it properly. I propped it up against my kitchen counter, however, and attempted to get just one note out of my horn. But alas, my lizard lips were not designed for brass instruments.
I continued my blog, describing my struggles as an interspecies American and writing the occasional poem here and there. I never had many readers. But the readers I did have were very supportive. I received the occasional e-mail from people who said they could tell that I was hurt, and that they could never understand what I was going through but would support me in any way they could. But one e-mail stood out to me, because this was someone who claimed that they did understand my pain and my struggle.
" | My name is Christina Holden, and I am a transsexual. I was born as Chris Holden, and raised to believe I was male throughout my childhood. As I read your story, I can't help but identify with your difficult journey and the difficult discovery that you do not belong in the body you were born with. At age nine, I began collecting The Little Mermaid pillows, bedsheets, and playsets. I began experimenting with my mother's dresses, skirts, and makeup in secret. I told my parents about it when I was 15. My father divorced my mother as a result, and my mother barely speaks to me anymore. Without their support, I began working hard as a waitress to make enough money for hormone treatments and eventual surgery. On my 24th birthday, my transformation was complete and I was reborn as Christina. I have not had much support, but I still feel much happier now that my body is as it should be. I found your blog by chance, and as I read it I started to cry. I feel your pain. I know what it's like. And it's not easy. I only hope that you have people to support you and lift you up in this difficult time. Much love, and good luck. ~Christina |
" |
I stared at my computer screen in disbelief. "What kind of a freak would ever want to change genders?" I thought.
Cream of the Crap This article was one of the Top 10 articles of 2008 (ish).
Featured Article (read another featured article) | Featured version: 5 June 2008 |
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text:
It's time to meet your American Idol 2012 Top 13 finalists. Last night on American Idol the semi-finalists were whittled down and left us with the season's Top 10 plus 3 wildcard spots also known as "America didn't want you, but the judges are going to force us to watch you again" singers.
Starting next week the American Idol 2012 finalists will hit the stage and perform for your votes as we march on the May finale. Here's who you'll be watching.
American Idol 2012 Top 13:
DeAndre Brackensick
17 – San Jose, CA
Wildcard pick
Hollie Cavanagh
18 – McKinney, TX
America's Top 10
Colton Dixon
20 – Murfreesboro, TN
America's Top 10
Heejun Han
22 – Flushing, NY
America's Top 10
Jermaine Jones
25 – Pine Hill, NJ
America's Top 10
Skylar Laine
18 – Brandon, MS
America's Top 10
Joshua Ledet
19 – Westlake, LA
America's Top 10
Shannon Magrane
16 – Tampa, FL
America's Top 10
Phillip Phillips
21 – Leesburg, GA
America's Top 10
Jeremy Rosado
19 – Valrico, FL
Wildcard pick
Jessica Sanchez
16 – San Diego, CA
America's Top 10
Elise Testone
28 – Charleston, SC
America's Top 10
Erika Van Pelt
26 – South Kingstown, RI
Wildcard pick
Are you pleased with the American Idol season 11 finalists? Who has what it takes to win it all and take home the crown? Share your thoughts below.
All images copyrighted: Michael Becker / FOX


text:
Building an acoustic guitar may seem like an extremely complicated process, but it can be broken down into a series of chronological steps.
With a very steady hand, luthier Jeff Huss preps a fretboard for its side-position markers.
Building an acoustic guitar may seem like an extremely complicated process, but it can be broken down into a series of chronological steps. While it would take a book (and there are some good ones out there) to describe how to create this fairly simple, yet elegant machine in more detail, I'd like to give you an overview of the process with this month's column.
Because we build our bodies first, we start by dimensioning the wood for our top, back, and sides. Choosing the top wood for its stiffness-to-weight ratio, we generally make our tops from spruce or cedar. This means these woods are light enough to not act like a "tone sink," but strong enough to withstand the incredible amount of tension they will be subjected to when the guitar is strung up. While back and side woods color the tone that the top produces, the majority of the sound is the result of the construction choices made for the top.
The top and back "plates" are thickness- sanded to dimension after they have been joined in a book-matched pattern. We cut a soundhole into the top, install a rosette, and then profile them—a process that creates a smooth, flat surface where the top meets the rosette. Next, we brace the plates with spruce bracing. We use a traditional "X" pattern for our tops and a simpler, ladder-brace pattern for the backs. At this point, we profile the sides to a uniform thickness and bend them to shape using a bending jig and the help of a little heat and moisture.
After bending the sides, we place them into a mold that will house the body throughout the construction process, and install spreaders to hold the sides firmly against our mold. Now we'll glue the head block, tail block, and kerfed linings into place to create the rim onto which we glue the top and back. When the glue is cured, we remove the spreader mechanism through the soundhole, pull the rough body from the mold, trim the edges, and finish the decorative purfling and binding work. After the scraping and sanding work is finished, the body is complete and ready to be paired with a neck.
Necks begin as a large plank of hardwood— generally mahogany—that is sawn into smaller billets yielding two, one-piece necks. These are rough sawn into neck blanks on the band saw, routed for a truss rod slot, and cut on an angle for the peghead. After we glue the veneer for the peghead face and shape the peghead, we drill the holes for the tuners. Using a jig, we then measure the angle of the body where the neck will attach, and that angle is transferred to the table saw where the neck heel is cut to correspond to the body. After cutting, we drill and install our corresponding index holes, bolt holes, and inserts in the body and neck heel for the bolt-on neck joint.
Our fretboards—made from ebony or rosewood—are shaped, slotted, radiused, and bound. They are indexed onto the neck blank, and the truss rod is installed and then attached with epoxy. The neck is now shaped, a nut slot is cut, and the neck is final-fitted to the body to ensure proper playability. Inlay work is then done on the fretboard and peghead, and we fit the nut, install side-position markers, and sand out the body and neck and prepare them for the finish work.
At this point, some woods, such as mahogany, are stained, and any open-pored woods are filled with a paste wood-filler that lets us apply a thinner, final finish. Then we spray the topcoats and do leveling work between coats to ensure a flat and thin finish. After it's cured, the finish is leveled once again before we fine-sand and buff all the finished surfaces to bring out a bright luster.
Once the finish work is complete, the assembly can begin. The neck and body are bolted together, the fretboard extension is glued down, and the bridge is glued on. The guitar is mounted on a workbench that simulates string tension, and the fretboard is prepared for the fretwork. Frets are then installed, trimmed, leveled, and polished.
After the nut has been trimmed, polished, and slotted, we install it. Next, the tuners are mounted, the saddle is shaped and inserted into the bridge slot, and the pickguard is attached. And finally, we string up the guitar, adjust the action, and perform any necessary tweaks. Our guitar is now ready to begin what we hope are many, many years of making music.
Jeff Huss
co-owner of Huss & Dalton Guitar Company, moved to Virginia in the late '80s to play bluegrass. He and his business partner, Mark Dalton, formed their company in 1995. Since then they've earned world-wide recognition for their high-end, boutique guitars and banjos.


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Some call it the Mormon moment, even the Mitt Romney effect.
Whatever you call it, Mormons around the United States say they have never been asked so many questions about their faith, and especially about their experiences serving missions.
But lately, everybody has been asking Jason Wright about his mission to Brazil — even though he returned 20 years ago.
"Probably the most frequent question is 'Why? And did they make you?''" Wright said.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Days Saints (LDS) are not required to go on mission. But if they apply, Church authorities in Salt Lake City decide where they will go.
Men, who must be at least 19, go on two year missions. Women, who must be 21, go for 18 months.
"When I explain that serving a mission for the LDS Church is not mandatory, they want to know why in the world you would do it," Wright said. "They just repeat that question when they find out that you don't go to school. You don't communicate with home much during that time. You don't date, see movies, go swimming or participate in the world much during that two-year period of time. And you pay your own way, by the way."
For Wright, who's now an author and political commentator living in Virginia, it was not an easy decision.
"I was turning off what for most 18- and 19-year-old men is one of the most exciting and adventurous times of your life," he said. "I was turning all that off to go serve the Lord in this foreign land."
It's a decision that Mormon young people continue to make.
Every week, about 400 new missionaries arrive at the Mission Training Center in Provo, Utah, already wearing their signature white shirts and ties. This is where two-thirds of all Mormon missionaries start their journey. They have just a couple minutes to say goodbye to their families at the curb. In most cases, they won't see them again until they return from their missions.
"It is a very big day," said Spencer Christensen, a manager at the Mission Training Center. "This has been anticipated for months and months by these families, usually years by the missionaries."
Christensen says the center can accommodate up to 4,000 people at a time. Some missionaries will be here for three weeks, but if they are studying a language, they stay as long as 12 weeks.
In class, the language lessons are almost exclusively focused on religious matters. The students are grouped in pairs, as they will be in the field.
Alex Nightingale is a teacher at the Provo traning center. He's just 21, originally from Australia, and fresh off his own mission to Singapore. He's teaching Mandarin to a group headed to Taiwan. Nightingale says the first few days here can be overwhelming.
"You see a lot of big eyes," he said. "They step their first foot in the classroom, and the teacher addresses them in Chinese, and they don't hear them speak English for quite a number of days."
This particular class is trying something new. Normally missionaries study Chinese for 12 weeks. This group is trying to do it in nine.
"I remember my first day at the MTC," said Keyley Taylor of Bountiful, Utah. "I heard a missionary say that starting to learn a language at the Missionary Training Center was like trying to get a drink out of a fire hydrant. You might get some water in your mouth, but really you just get blasted in the face."
"I think that sums it up for me," she added.
Despite the seemingly impossible task of learning Mandarin in nine weeks, the missionaries seemed convinced that this is what they're supposed to be doing. Anthony Buckwalter remembers when he first received the letter telling him where he would serve.
"I can't really describe it," he said ."But once I read the word Taiwan, I almost had this instant love for the people of Taiwan, and a huge desire to serve them and help them come into Christ."
The number of Mormons willing to commit to a mission is down from a peak in the early 1990s, when there were more than 60,000 church members actively serving missions around the world.
Reid Neilson, a historian of the Mormon Church, says a dip in numbers is partly a result of demographic shifts — fewer young people are in the Church.
But there's another reason.
"There was also a shift years ago to raise the level of expectations of who could serve a mission. They called that raising the bar," Neilson said. "All of a sudden, not every man or every young woman could serve a mission because of past behavior, transgression or other challenges they might have, whether it might be physical or mental or emotional issues."
Neilson added that the number of missionaries was starting to climb back up, as the LDS Church expands into new areas.
"Now where do you see growth? You see it in Africa, you see it in South America, you see it in the Philippines, and parts of Asia," he said. "As people are interested, people are more open to changing religious traditions, open to experiencing new religious experiences, that's where the growth of the Church is."
And that's where many of the new Mormon missionaries are heading.
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text: > "David Mathog" <mathog at caltech.edu> writes: >> A vendor who shall remain nameless graced us with a hot swappable drive >> caddy in which one of the three mounting screws used to fasten the drive >> to the caddy had been treated with blue LocTite. This wasn't obvious >> from external inspection, but the telltale blue glop was on the threads >> when the screw finally let go and came out. It was beginning to look >> like power tools were going to be needed to get it out, and the screw >> head was pretty badly torn up after removal. > > I believe a touch from a soldering iron will usually loosen LocTite, > but that might also damage a drive, so be careful. Blue Loctite is removable with just a little more force than needed with mechanical lock washers. It is critical to get a good, solid fit with the tool to the bolt / screw though. Were you using the correct driver or just one that fit "good enough"? Red Loctite is a permanent Loctite. > >> This is the first time I have encountered a drive screw on a removable >> drive which was, well, unremovable. Is this a trend or are we just >> dealing with a sadistic assembler? > > I've never seen it used with a drive, it is certainly not normal. > > Perry


text:
On September 18, 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the so-called Camp David Accords, cementing the notion that land for peace would become the basis for a resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict. Their agreement led to a peace treaty the following year between Israel and Egypt. However the current fighting between Israel and Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip ends, one thing is certain: the era of land-for-peace is over.
At first, Jimmy Carter's land-for-peace formula looked promising. One in three Arabs lived in Egypt. Within the White House and at Foggy Bottom, presidents and diplomats believed that where Egypt went, so would go the Arab world. Hence, the precedent of trading the Sinai for peace became a source of hope.
It was this example that Bill Clinton sought to capitalize upon in the 1993 Oslo Accords. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) agreed to recognize Israel and work toward peace in exchange for land in historical Palestine. I was in Bahrain in 1994 when PLO chairman Yasser Arafat entered the Gaza Strip to establish the Palestinian Authority. Enthusiasm was palpable across the region. Within weeks, Jordan had signed its own peace accord with Israel, and Persian Gulf emirates, Tunisia, and Morocco looked like they might follow suit.
The logic of land for peace became the basis for Israel's unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000. The formula of trading land for peace had already begun to unravel. Israel expected if not peace, then quiet. They had removed the last remaining dispute between Israel and Lebanon. Alas, Israel's withdrawal foreshadowed greater conflict. Even though the United Nations certified Israel's withdrawal as complete, Hezbollah laid claim not only to the Shebaa Farms – an Israeli occupied area which historically is part of Syria – but also seven villages in the Galilee, a region well within Israel's recognized borders.
Peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority was also rapidly deteriorating. Certainly, when it comes to the Arab-Israel conflict, there are always mutual recriminations. What is clear, however, is that Arafat had voided his pledge to resolve future conflict with Israel at the negotiating table. Many commentators mark the beginning of the "Second Intifada" as Likud leader Ariel Sharon's September 28, 2000 visit to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. But this is dishonest. On August 24, 2000, several weeks before Sharon's visit, Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Middein threatened, "Violence is near, and the Palestinian people are willing to sacrifice even 5,000 casualties." Communications Minister Imad al-Faluji reportedly admitted to Palestinian radio that "Arafat ordered preparations for the current intifada immediately after the Camp David summit, as part of the negotiating process with Israel." The Oslo Process and the land-for-peace formula that underlay it had begun to breakdown.
Many warriors transform themselves into peacemakers in the twilight of their lives, and Sharon was no different. In 2005, Israel undertook a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Palestinians and Israelis might argue about Jerusalem, right of return, and other final status issues, but there were no longer land disputes in Gaza. What followed was a disaster: Whereas southern Israel was once free of violence, suddenly towns like Sderot became targets for hundreds of rockets and missiles. Southern Lebanon, too, became a forward staging base for ever more advanced weaponry, as Hezbollah would demonstrate in 2006. The more land Israel ceded, the more insecure it became and the more violence her citizenry suffered. Sharon did not gamble that Gaza would become the launching ground from which Israel's enemies could strike Tel Aviv for the first time since Saddam Hussein's Scud missile attacks in 1991.
The current violence will be the last straw for land-for-peace. Egypt's withdrawal of its envoy convinces even Israeli doves that Arab countries see treaties as little more than truces. That the new Egyptian government appears complicit in smuggling weaponry to Hamas in violation of its commitment to police territory returned to it underlines this conclusion.
Palestinians hope for an independent state with the bulk if not the entirety of the West Bank as its core. But Israelis know that their country is less than 10 miles wide at its narrowest point. Forget heat-seeking missiles; withdrawal from the West Bank would put planes landing at Ben Gurion Airport within a terrorist's rifle range. Most Israelis view their experience of land-for-peace in the same fashion that Native Americans consider their experience with the concept.
Diplomats may scramble for a ceasefire, but any quiet will be deceptive. Hamas' decision to turn Gaza into a forward missile base rather than the engine for an independent Palestine condemns 35 years of peacemaking to history's garbage bin and sets the stage for a conflict far more disruptive than anyone in the region has seen in a half century.


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Burberry Womenswear February 2016
A mix of patterns and textures influenced by British artists, musicians and history. Shop and personalise select pieces from the collection until 7 March.
For the first time, see the collection at our Regent Street flagship after the show until 27 February, and our Faubourg Saint-Honoré store in Paris from 1 to 8 March.
A versatile runway bag with no two styles the same: a unique mix of texture, fabric and detail, and individually named after British streets, towns and villages.
A long, sartorial silhouette. Military buttons and topstitching fall in with warm double-faced cashmere wool and parade red piping.
A timeless silhouette with exaggerated sartorial details. Brushed tartan wool mohair offsets bold seam detailing.
An off-duty icon in hardwearing cotton. Practical pockets and perfectly polished buttons salute original army designs.
A classic shape cut from chunky wool and silk. Tailored lapels sit alongside hand-worked fringing.
Our outerwear icon, featuring sleek patent leather with polished heritage-inspired buckles and military topstitching.
A limited edition Runway Nails collection in three distinctive metallic shades inspired by the womenswear show: Gold Glitter, Silver Glitter and Ruby Glitter.
A Burberry Acoustic artist, Jake performed five songs live at the show including 'Country Song' and new track 'On My One'. His music has featured on past show soundtracks.


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I'm on an island in Hawaii. And I can't stop eating macadamia nuts. Let's see, I've found macadamia nut icecream, macadamia nut chocolates, and pancakes with macadamia nuts. Now I've moved on to the pure stuff- raw, whole macadamias, of which I took some glamour shots just now for this post. I am loving the perfectly subtle butter flavor and a nut that I would consider crunchysmooth. The recipe for Macadamia and Ginger Stuffing that I just discovered on Epicurious seems amazing. It's got great ratings and despite the exotic flavors, the ingredients are easy to find. The recipe also notes that you can season the bird with some citrus juices and sesame oil to really bring together the theme between the bird and the stuffing. I won't be home for Thanksgiving, but I most definitely plan on making this at Christmas, to take my taste buds back to tropical paradise.
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Each Assessor's office in Nevada estimates the property's "taxable" value by considering its location, zoning, actual use, etc. Land values are estimated from market sales of vacant property, or other recognized appraisal methods when vacant sales are limited or non-existent. The taxable value of buildings, structures, etc, is the estimated replacement cost new, using approved costing in accordance with the Nevada Administrative Code, less depreciation. The land value is then added to the properties improvement value, if any, to arrive at the property's overall taxable value. The taxable value arrived at may not exceed the properties "Full Cash" or "Market Value". If a structure has been removed from the property and the Assessor's office is notified, the Assessor will delete the value from the assessment. Also, if on or after the lien date there was partial or total destruction of an improvement and the property was rendered unusable for not less than 90 consecutive days, the owner of the property may be entitled to an adjustment or credit NRS 361.227.
If, in your opinion, the taxable value of your property exceeds the value indicated in the real estate market, please call or come in to the Assessor's Office and discuss your appraisal with an appraiser in the Assessor's Office. The Assessor welcomes the opportunity to review any evidence you can provide that will show the valuation is unrealistic. If, after discussing the matter with the Assessor's staff, a difference of opinion still exists, you may appeal your assessment to the County Board of Equalization. You may obtain the forms from the Assessor's Office during the month of December and until the deadline for filing, which is January 15 unless it falls on a holiday or weekend, which then would make the deadline the next business day. Please call (775)293-6542 to have an appeal form mailed to you. The forms are relatively easy so you may represent yourself rather than incur legal expenses. If the County Board, after hearing your petition, still agrees with the Assessor's appraisal, you may appeal the County Board's decision to the State Board of Equalization. If the State Board also agrees with the Assessor's Office and you still disagree, you may take your appeal to District Court.NRS 361.355


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By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Melania Trump opened her first big solo international trip as U.S. first lady on Tuesday with a wave, a smile and a baby in her arms, aiming to promote child welfare during a five-day tour of Africa.
She arrived in the West African nation of Ghana after an overnight flight from Washington and quickly made her way to the Greater Accra Regional Hospital.
The first lady saw how babies are weighed — they're placed in sacks that are then hung from a hook attached to a scale. She also watched a nurse demonstrate how vitamins are administered to babies by mouth and toured the neonatal intensive care unit.
Mrs. Trump also cradled an infant and declared the baby a "beautiful boy" as she handed him back to his mother.
Mothers at the hospital for her visit received gifts of teddy bears nestled in white baby blankets, personally handed out by the first lady, according to her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham. The items carried the logo of "Be Best," the child well-being initiative Mrs. Trump launched last May.
With the Africa visit, the first lady aims to take "Be Best" and its focus on opioid abuse and online behavior to an international audience.
The first lady also had a private tea with her Ghanaian counterpart, Rebecca Akufo-Addo. They exchanged gifts: a Chippendale silver tray embossed with an image of the White House inside a leather case signed by "First Lady Melania Trump" for Akufo-Addo, and Kente cloth and artifacts for Mrs. Trump, according to Grisham.
The first ladies met privately for about a half-hour at Jubilee House, Ghana's presidential palace. The two first met last week in New York at a reception on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where Mrs. Trump spoke about her upcoming trip.
Mrs. Trump's visit opened in low-key fashion. Several Ghanaians interviewed said they knew little about it.
"Did you say President Trump's wife just arrived in Accra?" street vendor Awo Yeboah asked. "I don't think I have ever heard her name, Melania."
Other locals said they knew about the visit but didn't know what Mrs. Trump was doing.
Mrs. Trump landed in the capital, Accra, on Tuesday morning after a more than 12-hour journey from Washington. She was welcomed at the airport with dancing and drumming, schoolchildren waving mini U.S. and Ghanaian flags and the gift of a flower bouquet. Akufo-Addo was at the airport to welcome her.
Mrs. Trump also plans to visit Malawi, Kenya and Egypt.
Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap
AP reporter Francis Kokutse in Accra contributed to this report.


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Poll: More Than Half of Russians Want the Soviet Union Back
Fifty-five percent of Russian adults think it's a 'great misfortune' that the Soviet republic no longer exists, according to a new poll. By Gideon Lichfield
The US polling company Pew Research Center has just released a survey of Russian and Ukrainian attitudes to what's going on in eastern Ukraine, and one fact caught our eye: 55% of Russian adults think it's a "great misfortune" that the Soviet Union no longer exists:
Pew has asked Russians this question twice before, and got roughly the same result: 58% in 2009 and 50% in 2011. (There's a 3.6-percentage-point margin of error.) What makes this rather striking is that, in 2009, none of the people Pew surveyed (aged 18 and older) would have been born after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Today, roughly 6 million fully post-Soviet Russians have reached adulthood, judging by Russian official data (spreadsheet, link in Russian).
Of Russians under 30—who would have been at most seven years old in 1991—some 40% lamented the USSR's demise, Pew found. Again, looking at the population data, which show some 27 million people born between 1984 and 1996, that means about 10 million Russian adults long for the restoration of a country and political system of which they have no meaningful personal memory.


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What do you want for Christmas?
by Terri Winder
"Mom, what do you want for Christmas?" My daughter had just drawn my name and there was none of that, " I'm-not-telling-who's-name-I-got" business with her.
"Umm, I don't know," I answered. "You're going to have to let me think about it."
From Santa Claus on down, "What do you want for Christmas" may be the most commonly asked question this month. One can pretty much tell how old the respondent is by the answer.
The days of dolls and any kind of tracks – besides sound tracks – are past at our house. Our teenager's lists are rather predictable; all we have to ask is which book, which DVD, which CD? Then we throw in a few stocking stuffers and it's all good.
Christmas morning they dig for something to put in their mouths, then they plug in the earphones, put their noses in a book, or have their eyes glued to the TV.
However, back to my daughter's question. I'm sure I'll think up something, but already this month I've received some of the most enjoyable gifts ever created: purple hued sunrises and green tinged sunsets; the evening the moon was simply an echo of orange blush, with a solitary star for accent; star-studded nights, the sky so crisp and clean; and the days-- oh, the days… has December ever been so delicious?
I can hardly wait to see what each new day will be like, especially knowing that the calm precedes the storm. It reminds me of the statement, "Today is a gift; that's why we call it the present."
Beyond the intense beauty and the pure pleasure it elicits, there is a greater gift, put into words by Glenna Webb as she recently shared the following story:
Glenna also loves and appreciates the beauties of nature, and she often gives thanks to the Creator for His gifts. One day her front doorbell rang, but as she opened the door she found no one there. What she did find, however, was the sight of an exquisite double rainbow, filling the eastern sky. It was as though God had summoned her to the door and then presented her with something he knew would delight her.
So the greater gift is the knowledge that we have a Heavenly Father who cares about us, and delights in blessing us. Even as we take pleasure in our children's enjoyment of their Christmas gifts, surely He is pleased when we experience the joys of life. Even as we give our children what they want, I tend to believe that whatever it is we "collect"- or seek after- that is what we will find, that is what we will be given.
Any material thing I receive for Christmas will pale in comparison to this knowledge, but the greater gift here is that by planning and buying and wrapping for each other, we emulate the generosity of God. What more could I possibly want than that?
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Category: Samantha Young
As Dust Dances (Play On, #2) by Samantha Young
✦ #BlogTour ✦ #Excerpt ✦ #Review ✦ #Giveaway (3x/Signed Paperback)
The New York Times Bestselling author of the On Dublin Streetseries and PLAY ON returns to the world of the arts in this intense and emotional standalone romance about love, sacrifice, and surviving both.
Once upon a time Skylar Finch was the lead singer of a hugely successful American pop-rock band. But fame made her miserable. When years of living a lie suddenly ended in tragedy, Skylar fell off the map.
Eighteen months later she's sleeping in a tent in a cemetery in Glasgow, making just enough money to eat by busking on the streets. She manages to avoid recognition, but not the attention of one of Glasgow's ambitious A&R executives.
Killian O'Dea works at Skyscraper Records, Scotland's most successful record label. Raised by his uncle and owner of the label, Killian's upbringing would have been devoid of affection entirely if it wasn't for his loving sister. Killian is unflinchingly determined to bring the label more success than ever, and the young homeless woman who busks on Buchanan Street is going to help him do that. Her music speaks to him in a way he refuses to over-analyze. All he knows is that if it can touch his dark soul, it'll set everyone else's alight.
Skylar makes it clear that she doesn't want to sign with him. But when she experiences the dangerous reality of a woman sleeping rough, Skylar has no one else but Killian to turn to. An undeniable connection forms between them. But Skylar doesn't want the career Killian is trying to forge for her, and when her past comes back to haunt her Killian will be faced with a decision that could ruin him. He must either free Skylar from his selfish machinations and destroy everything he's ever worked for, or lose a woman who has come to mean more to him than he ever thought possible…


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New Pictures of Hoags Object!
News story originally written on September 12, 2002
The Hubble Space Telescope has recently taken some exciting pictures of Hoags Object, a mysterious galaxy 600 million light years from Earth.
The galaxy was named after Art Hoag, the astronomer who found it in 1950. Located in the constellation Serpens, Hoags Object is about the size of our galaxy but it has an unusual shape with a blue ring of young stars and a yellow center of older stars. It is so unusual, in fact, that Art Hoag did not know it was a galaxy when he first found it.
Hoags Object is unlike other ring shaped galaxies, which often form by collision with another galaxy, because it shows no signs of collision. Astronomers suspect that the outer ring of stars was formed two to three billion years ago when a galaxy passing nearby left young stars behind.