text:
While I was doing mask duty and BiPaP mask duty I heard the most horrible story on the radio.
At first I thought it must be a fictional story. I didn't want to believe it. But it's all true. Here are some of the pieces of this horror.
It concentrated on the women who were used as slaves in Ireland (with full cooperation of the government by the way) but this sort of forced slavery of women seems to have been commonplace in other countries. It is surprising to hear of such miserable acts of religious groups and government but I am getting used to these tales. It maybe that religious groups depend on these slaves just as much as our governments depend on heifers and steers as citizens.
The worst part of the radio broadcast was to hear of a mass grave.
A mass grave containing 155 corpses was discovered in 1993 at the grounds of a former convent in Dublin.
It appears that the mass graves are all over Ireland. But before we go into the mass graves business let me find out about the women slaves first. They were held in what were called the Magdalene asylums or the Magdalene laundries.
One of the women who gave witness says she tried to escape but was caught and raped by a priest.
Will this horror never end?
The nuns say they are innocent. But how is that possible? Surely they knew?
No evidence of sexual abuse is present in the report that was published but the victims say that they suffered such abuse. So why don't we have this recorded? Good question.
The McAleese report said that 10 percent of Magdalene residents were sent in by their families, almost 9 percent were referred by the Roman Catholic Church and 17 percent entered voluntarily. There is no surviving documentation on the rest. No evidence of sexual abuse was included in the report.
Seems to me the report is very limited.
And why did so many of these inmates die? Were they worked to death and given poor food?
Asylum records estimate that 30,000 women were held captive in Ireland's Magdalene Laundries. The youngest was 9 and the oldest was 89. Almost 900 women and children died while living and working in them. Ireland's last such home closed in October 1996.
Are the 900 who died part of the mass graves that are being found?
As usual the government takes its time to admit its collusion in this sort of crap.
But it seems obvious that the authorities would have to be involved in order to get the women there, to keep them there and return them there when they tried to escape.
I am going to bed.
I won't do the mass graves tonight.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-slaves-of-magdalene-20131216-2zfwd.html#ixzz3HEUyLK2X
At first I thought it must be a fictional story. I didn't want to believe it. But it's all true. Here are some of the pieces of this horror.
It concentrated on the women who were used as slaves in Ireland (with full cooperation of the government by the way) but this sort of forced slavery of women seems to have been commonplace in other countries. It is surprising to hear of such miserable acts of religious groups and government but I am getting used to these tales. It maybe that religious groups depend on these slaves just as much as our governments depend on heifers and steers as citizens.
The worst part of the radio broadcast was to hear of a mass grave.
A mass grave containing 155 corpses was discovered in 1993 at the grounds of a former convent in Dublin.
It appears that the mass graves are all over Ireland. But before we go into the mass graves business let me find out about the women slaves first. They were held in what were called the Magdalene asylums or the Magdalene laundries.
Magdalene asylum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Magdalene Laundry in England, early twentieth century, from Frances Finnegan, Do Penance or Perish(Fig. 5) Congrave Press, 2001
Magdalene asylums, also known as Magdalene laundries, were institutions from the 18th to the late 20th centuries ostensibly to house "fallen women", a term used to imply female sexual promiscuity or work in prostitution. Asylums operated throughout Europe and North America for much of the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century, the last one closing in 1996. The institutions were named after the Biblical character Mary Magdalene, in earlier centuries characterised as a reformed prostitute.
The first Magdalene institution was founded in late 1758 in Whitechapel, England,[1] which led to the establishment of a similar institution in Ireland by 1767.[1] The first Magdalene asylum in the United States was theMagdalen Society of Philadelphia, founded in 1800; other North American cities, including New York, Boston, Chicago, and Toronto, quickly followed suit.[2][3] In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Magdalen asylums were common in several countries.[2] By 1900, there were more than 300 asylums in England and more than 20 in Scotland.[1][4]
Magdalene asylums by country[edit]
There are no precise figures for the number of girls who worked in the eight Magdalene laundries, run by the Good Shepherd Sisters, in twentieth-century Australia because Good Shepherd has not released their records. As a result of the 2004 Senate report "Forgotten Australians"[5] it is known that the Good Shepherd laundries in Australia acted as prisons for the girls who were forced to labor in workhouses laundering linen for local hospitals or commercial premises. The report also described the conditions as characterized by inedible food, unhygienic living conditions and little or no education. In 2008, Senator Andrew Murray likened the Convent of the Good Shepherd 'The Pines', Adelaide to a prisoner-of-war camp.[6]
A network of asylums across Canada were operated by the Congregation of the Sisters of Misericorde, which was founded in 1848. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia: "In receiving patients no discrimination is made in regard to religion, colour, or nationality. After their convalescence, those who desire to remain in the home are placed under a special sister and are known as 'Daughters of St. Margaret'. They follow a certain rule of life but contract no religious obligations. Should they desire to remain in the convent, after a period of probation, they are allowed to become Magdalens and eventually make the vows of the Magdalen institute."[7] The order also ran several other types of institutions, including some in the United States.[citation needed]
The first Magdalen institution, Magdalen Hospital for the Reception of Penitent Prostitutes, was founded in late 1758 in London and was active to 1966.[1]
Irish asylum, c. early twentieth century
Main article: Magdalene laundries in Ireland
An estimated 30,000 women were confined in Irish asylums. The first asylum in Ireland opened on Leeson Street in Dublin in 1765, founded by Lady Arabella Denny. The last Irish asylum closed in 1996. In Belfast, in Northern Ireland, the Church of Ireland-run Ulster Magdalene Asylum was founded in 1839, while parallel institutions were run by Catholics and Presbyterians.[8][9]
A mass grave containing 155 corpses was discovered in 1993 at the grounds of a former convent in Dublin.[10] This eventually led to media revelations about the operations of the secretive institutions. A formal state apology was issued in 2013, and a £50 million compensation scheme was set up. The Vatican and the four religious institutes that ran the Irish asylums have refused to compensate the survivors of abuse, despite demands from the Irish government, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee Against Torture.[11][12][13][14]
The Magdalene Sisters, a 2002 film by Peter Mullan, is based on historical facts about four young women incarcerated in a Dublin Magdalen Laundry from 1964 to 1968.
Senator Martin McAleese report on the Laundries glossed over details of the abuse.[15] In 2013 the BBC did a special investigation, Sue Lloyd Roberts "Demanding justice for women and children abused by Irish nuns." [16] The Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Charity, have ignored requests by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee Against Torture to contribute to the compensation fund for victims including 600 still alive in March 2014.[17]
United States[edit]
See also: Magdalen Society of Philadelphia
Asylum records show that in the early history of the Magdalene movement, many women entered and left the institutions of their own accord, sometimes repeatedly. Lu Ann De Cunzo wrote in her book, Reform, Respite, Ritual: An Archaeology of Institutions; The Magdalene Society of Philadelphia, 1800-1850,[18] that the women in Philadelphia's asylum "sought a refuge and a respite from disease, the prison or almshouse, unhappy family situations, abusive men and dire economic circumstances."[citation needed] In its early years, the Magdalen Society Asylum functioned as a refuge for prostitutes. Most of these stayed only a few days or a few weeks, just long enough to get reclothed and recuperated. Attempts at rehabilitation met with little success. In 1877, the asylum was changed into a home for wayward girls, with a rule requiring a stay for twelve months. As the Magdalen Society Asylum became more selective, relaxed its emphasis on personal guilt and salvation, and standardized in some respects the treatment of the inmates, its rate of failure diminished.[19]
The Female Penitent's Refuge Society of Boston was incorporated in 1823.[20]
New York's Magdalen Society was established in 1830 with the purpose of rescuing women from lives of prostitution and vice— sometimes kidnapping them from brothels. In 1907 a new home was established in the Inwood section of Manhattan. This was the second time the Society found it necessary to move to a larger facility. Many of the young women who passed through the doors of the Inwood institution had worked the taverns, brothels and alleyways of lower Manhattan before being "rescued" by the Society. Girls were generally committed for a period of three years. Through the years several girls died or were injured climbing out of windows in failed escape attempts. In 1917 the Magdalen Benevolent Society changed its name to Inwood House. In the early 1920s bichloride of mercury was commonly used to treat new arrivals for venereal disease, resulting in a number of cases of mercury poisoning. The property was later sold and the agency relocated. Inwood House continues to operate, with its main focus on teen pregnancy.[21]
See also[edit]
One of the women who gave witness says she tried to escape but was caught and raped by a priest.
Will this horror never end?
The nuns say they are innocent. But how is that possible? Surely they knew?
Nuns Claim No Role in Irish Laundry Scandal
By Claire Mc Cormack
WeNews correspondent
Thursday, May 30, 2013
When I interviewed two Irish nuns in February it was a big story because it was the first time any nuns had commented on the abusive Magdalene Laundries run by four Catholic orders. Nothing since then makes a reconciliation with victims look likely soon.
Credit: Informatique under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
DUBLIN (WOMENSENEWS)-- The sit-down interview took place over two nights, behind the walls of the convent where they both live.
On the first night, Sister B opened the gates and directed me to her apartment where Sister A was waiting. I didn't meet any other members of their religious order as I walked through the convent.
As I positioned my Dictaphone for my story for The God Slot, a program on Ireland's National Public Service Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio 1, the nuns looked at the recording equipment with suspicion. But they didn't back out.
It was Feb. 11, almost a week after the publication of the McAleese Report, a damning publication linking the Irish State with the incarceration of over 2,500 women between 1922 and 1996 and failing to supervise their care. In reality this number is likely to be much higher but many records did not survive.
I was there so that Irish nuns, for the first time, could comment on a long-simmering scandal over subject matter that has drawn high-profile attention, including the 2002 movie The Magdalene Sisters.
The interview was agreed to on the condition the nuns or their order was not identified because they feared the backlash that would follow if their names became public.
In return for anonymity, the nuns spoke frankly and openly about what they believed has become a "one-sided anti-Catholic forum" about the Magdalene Laundries in the Irish media. During our conversation, both stated that they had nothing personally or directly to do with the orders involved in the scandal. Nothing directly or personally, they emphasized.
They also made clear that they strongly believed the religious orders that operated the laundries had done nothing untoward and perhaps even should be commended.
'Apologize for What?'
"Apologize for what?" demanded Sister A, her voice choked with emotion. "Apologize for providing a service? We provided a free service for the country . . . All the orders involved saw a need in society and they tried to respond to it in the best way that they could and there was a terrible need for a lot of those women because they were on the street, with no social welfare and starving. We provided shelters for them. It was the 'no welfare state' [a term often used to describe the Ireland of that era] and we are looking with today eyes at a totally different era."
Sister B echoed that view. "They were not laundries as such. They were refuges originally. Washing was taking in to fund the running of them and to make a living."
The McAleese Report, recommended by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, confirms the Irish State gave lucrative cleaning contracts to 10 Magdalene Laundries, located across the country and run by four orders of nuns. The contracts included one to clean the uniforms of the Irish Defense Force.
"All the shame of the era is being dumped on the religious orders . . . the sins of society are being placed on us," said Sister B.
"I'm glad the report was written because it kind of takes the lid of an era of Irish society that anybody under 60 years of age hasn't a clue about," said Sister A, as she shifted in her seat. "I think it's great that the women are releasing themselves of the stigma to be able to speak and find their voice. To say I was in the Magdalene home; I survived; I'm here; I made it in life. OK with bad memories; but I made it and that is an achievement."
Magdalene Asylums Began in 1765
The Magdalene Laundries grew out of the Magdalene Asylums, the first of which was set up in 1765 as a short-term reformatory for "fallen" women. In 1829 the Catholic Church appropriated them and they began turning into the longer-term laundries, run by the Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Refuge and the Good Shepard Sisters.
The causes for women to be sent to the laundries expanded to include unmarried mothers, women with "special needs," and women considered as too pretty or tempting to men. Those without families anxious or willing to claim them could stay for a long time, some stayed their whole lives. The inquiry found six months was the average length of stay.
In addition to their work in the laundries, the women were required to endure long periods of prayer and silence for their sins.
"The nuns profited from our labor," said Maureen Sullivan, 61, the youngest known-survivor in an interview. "I often saw big orders coming in with new materials and rosary beads and sweaters for the nuns . . . I saw that they kept money rolled up in rubber bands and hidden in biscuit tins and they were then given up to the bishop."
The McAleese Report concluded that the institutions barely broke even and were not run on a commercial basis.
"We have always lived very frugal lives. The money paid for their food and their keep," said Sister B, referring to the women who worked in the laundries.
Asylum records estimate that 30,000 women were held captive in Ireland's Magdalene Laundries. The youngest was 9 and the oldest was 89. Almost 900 women and children died while living and working in them. Ireland's last such home closed in October 1996.
The oldest known Magdalene survivor, Madge O' Connell, died on May 16, aged 97.
The McAleese report said that 10 percent of Magdalene residents were sent in by their families, almost 9 percent were referred by the Roman Catholic Church and 17 percent entered voluntarily. There is no surviving documentation on the rest. No evidence of sexual abuse was included in the report.
Church Blamed for Stigmatizing Women
The Catholic Church's role was not explored by the McAleese report. However, a crucial argument by survivors, which has gotten wide press attention, is that the church encouraged families and the state to stigmatize "fallen" women and send them away.
Sister B strongly protested that view. "The society those women grew up in encouraged them to be compliant and to conform and all those who ended up in the laundries went against that stereotype," she said.
My second evening with the two nuns came on Feb. 19, hours after Prime Minister Enda Kenny offered an official state apology to the women who suffered and announced plans to set up a compensation fund. Survivors could claim up to $260,000 for unpaid work and for physical, psychological and emotional damage.
Both nuns said the figure was excessive since residents in the Magdalene Laundries "did get their keep."
Said Sister A: "I understand there was a lot of pressure on Kenny to apologize and of course we are all sorry for the society of that time. I think it is very important to remember that he didn't just apologize for the state but he also apologized for the society. Because even if a woman did escape and jump the walls she still wasn't free from the stigma because the stigma was in society. It was a whole society thing. It wasn't just because they were in the Magdalene."
Justice for Magdalenes, a voluntary advocacy group, ended its campaign on May 22. "JFM has achieved its twin objectives of an official State apology and the establishment of a compensation scheme . . . Responsibility to ensure justice is delivered now rests with Irish society, including the Church, State, families and local communities," reads a statement on the voluntary group's website.
The Law Reform Commission of Ireland is currently assessing how the government could provide payment to former residents. These plans have also urged Magdalene survivors in Northern Ireland to seek similar justice from the British government, reported the Washington Post on May. 1.
I told the nuns that I recently interviewed survivor Maureen Sullivan. After her father died she was placed inNew Ross Magdalene Laundry, Co. Wexford, aged 12, in the care of the Good Shepard Sisters.
"By day I would work in the laundry but by night I would sleep in St. Aidan's Industrial School," Sullivan said in a phone interview. "It was long, hard tedious work and because I was small they made a timber box for me to sleep in. I remember being hidden in a tunnel when the school inspectors came. I can only assume that this was due to the fact that I was too young to be working in the laundry."
She went on: "I didn't know why I was put in. I didn't know how long I would be there. I couldn't contact my family. I couldn't speak to anyone except to God when I was forced to pray for penance for sins I didn't commit. I still blame the nuns: the stigma they caused took over my life and forced me to pretend I was a different person with a different past."
I asked the Sisters what they thought of this story.
Sister B sat forward to answer. "I know a lot of abuse cases have been reported in the media and some of these may have been exceptional circumstances but I'm sure they were not everyday events. In terms of abuse, I'd say the residents did work very hard but the nuns would say they worked hard too. Everybody worked hard. Factory work is hard today. It's monotonous. It's tedious. The hours are long."
In a statement to the Irish press, the Magdalene Survivors Together said the group was "shocked, horrified and enormously upset" by how the nuns portrayed the laundries.
"I think they [the nuns] are stopping the women from healing. The women were starting to heal and forgive but now it's going to be very difficult for them," survivor Maureen Sullivan told The Journal, a Dublin based website.
But some who had heard the radio program stood up for what the nuns said in the interview. "I have wanted the nuns to speak out, because those of us who lived through that time know what life was like . . . Those girls were abandoned by their families . . . well done Sister A and Sister B," wrote Elizabeth Murphy in an email to The God Slot.
Claire Mc Cormack is a reporter based in Dublin, Ireland. A regular contributor to The Irish Times and RTÉ Radio 1, she covers religion, women's issues and human interest stories.
No evidence of sexual abuse is present in the report that was published but the victims say that they suffered such abuse. So why don't we have this recorded? Good question.
The McAleese report said that 10 percent of Magdalene residents were sent in by their families, almost 9 percent were referred by the Roman Catholic Church and 17 percent entered voluntarily. There is no surviving documentation on the rest. No evidence of sexual abuse was included in the report.
Seems to me the report is very limited.
And why did so many of these inmates die? Were they worked to death and given poor food?
Asylum records estimate that 30,000 women were held captive in Ireland's Magdalene Laundries. The youngest was 9 and the oldest was 89. Almost 900 women and children died while living and working in them. Ireland's last such home closed in October 1996.
Are the 900 who died part of the mass graves that are being found?
As usual the government takes its time to admit its collusion in this sort of crap.
Ireland finally admits state collusion in Magdalene Laundry system
Taoiseach Enda Kenny fails to formally apologise for involvement over female enslavement causing more outrage
After more than seven decades of exploitation and a 10-year struggle for justice, Ireland on Tuesday admitted its role in the enslavement of thousands of women and girls in the notorious Magdalene Laundry system, but stopped short of issuing a formal apology from the government.
A long-awaited report headed by Senator Martin McAleese said there was "significant state involvement" in how the laundries were run – a reversal of the official state line for years, which insisted the institutions were privately controlled and run by nuns.
But the Irish Premier Enda Kenny's failure to give the women and their supporters a full, formal, public apology in the Dail on Tuesday afternoon has infuriated the victims and their supporters, who said such an approach risked undermining Ireland's attempt to right a historic wrong. Instead Kenny stated his "regret" about the stigma hanging over the women.
"The stigma that the branding together of all the residents, all 10,000, in the Magdalene Laundries, needs to be removed, and should have been removed long before this," Kenny said. "And I really am sorry that that never happened, and I regret that it never happened."
Claire McGetterick of the Justice For Magdalenes group said last night: "Frankly their country has failed them again".
Labelled the "Maggies", the women and girls were stripped of their names and dumped in Irish Catholic church-run laundries where nuns treated them as slaves, simply because they were unmarried mothers, orphans or regarded as somehow morally wayward.
Over 74 years, 10,000 women were put to work in de facto detention, mostly in laundries run by nuns. At least 988 of the women who were buried in laundry grounds are thought to have spent most of their lives inside the institutions.
McAleese and his co-authors said they hoped the report would bring "healing and peace of mind to all concerned, most especially the women whose experience of the Magdalene Laundries had a profound and enduring negative effect on their lives".
"The majority of women who engaged with the committee spoke of the hurt they felt due to loss of freedom. They were not informed why they were there, they had no information on when they could leave and were denied contact with the outside world," said the report, adding that the Gardaí "brought women to the laundries on a more ad hoc or informal basis".
Among the key findings were:
• Over a quarter of the women, at least 2,500, who were held in the Magdalene Laundries for whom records survived were sent in directly by the state.
• The state gave lucrative laundry contracts to these institutions, without complying with Fair Wage Clauses and in the absence of any compliance with Social Insurance obligations.
• The Gardaí pursued and returned girls and women who escaped from the Magdalene institutions.
The report concluded there was no physical or sexual abuse by nuns or others on their charges, some of whom were only girls as young as 12.
Stephen O'Riordain, who made a film about the victims of the laundry system and speaks for Magdalene Survivors Together, said ex-inmates were "completely surprised" by the Taoiseach's stance in the Dail. "I don't think sorry is enough for these women who were seeking a fulsome, public apology. I feel he has let us down as a leader of the country.
"There was also a lot of disappointment that the report said there was no physical abuse which is something our members would completely dispute. Nor should we underestimate the impact of psychological abuse," he said.
O'Riordain said he hoped the government was not trying to "water down" the import of the findings and the Magdalene women's testimony.
The report only deals with the laundries between the foundation of the Irish state, in 1922, and when the last one closed in 1996, although they have a much longer history. Half of the women incarcerated in these institutions, which washed clothes and linen from major hotel groups and even the Irish armed forces, were under the age of 23.
The Justice for the Magdalenes group said it was time for a compensation scheme to include "the provision of pensions, lost wages, health and housing services. Magdalene survivors have waited too long for justice and this should not be now burdened with a complicated legal process or closed-door policy of compensation."
The inquiry into the Magdalene scandal was prompted by a report from the UN Committee Against Torture in June 2011. It called for prosecutions where necessary and compensation to surviving women.
Maureen Sullivan, 60, said: "I feel that they are still in denial, but other parts of this report clearly state that we were telling the truth," she said.
• This article was amended on 13 February 2013. The original said that 30,000 women were sent to the laundries and that they were established in 1922. These errors have been corrected.
The victims
Maureen Sullivan was first sent to the Good Shepherd Magdalene Laundry in New Ross, County Wexford, in 1964. Two years later she was moved to Athy and finally to Dublin. She left in 1969.
"I was 12 years of age and my father had died, my mother had remarried and my home situation was abusive.
"They told me I would have a great education and I went off to New Ross from my primary school, actually in a laundry van. When I arrived there they took my books from me that my mother had bought. That was the last I saw of them; that was the last time I had a decent education. From then on it was laundry every day, where it was horrible, where you were not allowed to talk to anyone. All it was there in the laundry was work, work, work.
"There was physical abuse where they would dig you in the side with a thick cross off the rosary beads, where you got a thump on the side of the head and where there would be constant putting you down, shouting, verbal abuse. You got the cross in the side of the ribs if you slowed down on your way around the laundry.
"[The nuns] ate very well while we were on dripping, tea, bread. I remember another torture – one when we were all hungry – we could smell the likes of roast beef and cooked chicken wafting from where the nuns were eating. That was like another insult."
"I had no education, no means of applying for a job and for several years I was on the streets. It wasn't until I tried to take my own life in the 70s that I went for counselling and then it all came back, all the abuse and exploitation I had suffered in those places."
Mari Steed is a second-generation victim of the Magdalene Laundry system. Her mother, Josie, was transferred from an orphanage to Sundays Well laundry, Co. Cork, when she was 14. She was there from 1947-57. Mari became a third-time victim of the system because she, too, eventually gave up her daughter to a Catholic charity in the US in 1978.
"She lost me to adoption after spending the first two decades or more of her life in these institutions. So when she was released into the world she was vulnerable and susceptible to any man that paid her attention. She was in her mind 10 years old rather than a mature woman. And as fair prey, she found herself pregnant and then got sent down to a home for single mothers and was forced to give me up.
"It was a generational chain reaction and … a cycle we see often in the Magdalene woman. The vicious cycle tends to continue.
"It was slightly less miserable than what my mother experienced, but it was still pretty bad with a lot of stigma, a lot of shame. This was the chain reaction going on.
"I tracked my mother down in the early 1990s and she was open at long last to talk. She had had no other children because she feared having any more. She told me right out: "Mari, I was just so afraid that if the nuns didn't take another baby then God would.' So out of fear she and her husband decided not to have any more children."
Why is it that the most evil in the world seems to be committed by organized religious/spiritual groups? Is it that intrinsically the control of a group that willingly suspends disbelief attracts all sorts of ugly people? Should such groups be further enabled by tax free status and lack of audit?
- LeidenWolf24@nimmir - the church preached a life of good deeds, then (in collusion with the state and state authorities such as the Gardai) took vulnerable abandoned, neglected or orphaned children and enslaved them.
How is that christian ?While these were run by religious institutions, don't forget the role of others - the families who sent or surrendered their children into these places, the Gardai who returned runaways or society which ignored those who disappeared.
- MakeBeerNotWar15@nimmir - 'Why is it that the most evil in the world seems to be committed by organized religious/spiritual groups? Is it that intrinsically the control of a group that willingly suspends disbelief attracts all sorts of ugly people? Should such groups be further enabled by tax free status and lack of audit?'- hence why for years I have strongly supported in most unequivocal terms the complete revocation of the tax exempt status enjoyed by churchs. Hell, a good portion of the larger ones are businesses in all but name like the protestant fundie mega churches that funnel millions in campaign donations to douchebag Christian Taliban far right GOP candidates.
- Dominia0@nimmir - "The bigger the front, the bigger the back."
Listen to Joni Mitchell sing about these laundries and the "bloodless brides of Jesus" who ran them.
Good Grief! I grew up near a Good Shepherd Laundry and never knew it was a slave plantation! This, by the way, was in Northern Ireland (Newry) so the, supposedly anti-catholic, Unionist government seems to have colluded as well. Methinks another enquiry is called for.
By the way, this bit:
The report concluded there was no physical or sexual abuse by nuns or others on their charges, some of whom were only girls as young as 12.
is directly contradicted by Maureen Sullivan's testimony above. Still a bit of denial going on, it seems.
Rubbish. This is hysterical anti-religious claptrap.
You don't get rid of a disease in the body by killing the patient as you propose.
Atheists, too, can be wicked. There is evil in all men and women and in different groups of people from one degree to another.
Whilst all these awful things were going on in Ireland, atheists in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere were murdering millions of people in the 20th centuey, for political reasons, mainly, but for anti religious too. And if they weren't murdering, they were persecuting and trying to stamp out religion. Whilst ordinary people in these countries with atheist regimes were holding onto the faith, and where Christianity would one day help to topple some of these regimes and Christianity openly flourish again.
You don't get rid of a disease in the body by killing the patient as you propose.
Atheists, too, can be wicked. There is evil in all men and women and in different groups of people from one degree to another.
Whilst all these awful things were going on in Ireland, atheists in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere were murdering millions of people in the 20th centuey, for political reasons, mainly, but for anti religious too. And if they weren't murdering, they were persecuting and trying to stamp out religion. Whilst ordinary people in these countries with atheist regimes were holding onto the faith, and where Christianity would one day help to topple some of these regimes and Christianity openly flourish again.
Yes, Christianity has been hijacked by those, like Chaucer's Pardoner, to manipulate religion for their own purposes. And by cultural Christians using Christianity to appear "respectable". Just as Chaucer pointed this out in his day, so Tolstoy did in his day (but except for a brief period, remained deeply religiou).
But one of the terrible injustices in history has been anti religionists, generalizing about Christianity and whipping anti Christian prejudice as a result. This is wrong and must be challenged, along with challenging those who have manipulated religion and hurt others for their own, selfish reasons.
Highly recommend Peter Mullan's critically acclaimed(and a NYT Critics' Pick) debut film on the subject, 2002's 'The Magdalene Sisters' set in 1964 Dublin:
Watch the entire film here online:
- I saw it in the cinema w a good English friend and it made her- proper CoE to her eyebrows- cry and made me want to throw up. Absolute power- whether manifested in the "Maggie Laundries", the Catholic Church itself, the Taliban, the gangster BushCheney Regime and the criminals on Wall $treet it protected- corrupts absolutely. Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney now stands accused by critics and abuse survivors of obstructing justice by shielding paedophile priests fm the police - yeah, I'll hold my breath for His Eminence's indictment. It isn't just my paternal forbear's Eire where the authorities are cowed by the powerful Catholic Church:
The Magdalene sisters
I grew-up beside a Magdalene laundry. There was undoubtedly state collusion - especially evident when one of the girls would escape, as the Gardai would search the local houses. The priests and police were complete bastards. I believe the religious orders involved are intrinsically evil.
Mary Jackson - if anyone is in heaven now it is you.
The author of this piece has obviously not read the report carefull. For example the number of women was 10,000 not 30,000. While one place was still open in the 1990s because the remaining woen had nowhere to go. the rest were closed in thw 1960s. The laundries were not established in 1922, but are a legacy from the Victorian period of enlightened 'do-goodery'. Most woemen were there for less than a year. Contrary to received opinion, the investigation found no evidence of physical or sexual abuse; and they also found that the Orders running these places did not make any money. Similar institutions existed in Britain and all over Northern Europe. The Irish women are at least lucky that they were not incarcerated in some other countries such as Sweden, where up to the 1970s, some 30,000 women in such situations were involuntarily sterilized. The great opponent of such 'eugenics' programmes in the early 20th Century was the the Catholic Church; Unfortunately it did not have much influence in Sweden. Unfortuately for Britain it did have enough influrnce to halt similar eugenics legislation passing throgh parliament.
- MoneyCircus3@GeneCarr - The report is partial."The report found that 10,012 women and girls were detained in the laundries from 1922 to 1996, but this figure excludes two large laundries operated by one Catholic order."The report covers the period from 1922. The Catholic Church took over the Magdalene upon Catholic emancipation in 1829.The report covers only state collusion in the abuse, not the abuse itself.Few laundries kept complete records, as the report states. Thus the figure of 10k is an estimate on the basis of the surviving records.The report's authors interviewed a few dozen survivors, a fraction of those who were available for interview.The investigation proudly and loudly stated that - none of the girls had been prostitutes, none had been sexually abused, although they were not paid the laundries only "broke even" ..Even RTE came close to calling the report a whitewash. I forget the word it used.. tepid or some word of a similar meaning.Whataboutism is not an excuse for Ireland's criminal treatment of its women.The PM was challenged by Sinn Fein and could only mumble: 'Oh you lot better appologise for the IRA before asking me to apologise."Pathetic. Drop dead pathetic.
- willyrobinson0@GeneCarr -The author of this piece has obviously not read the report carefull[y]True. And yet he seems to report the situation more accurately, for instance:After more than seven decades of exploitation and a 10-year struggle for justice, Ireland on Tuesday admitted its role in theenslavement of thousands of women and girls in the notorious Magdalene Laundry systemI wish this language had been used in the report because it seems impossible to refute. If the gulags made no money, does that mean the inmates were not slaves?
But it seems obvious that the authorities would have to be involved in order to get the women there, to keep them there and return them there when they tried to escape.
I am going to bed.
I won't do the mass graves tonight.
The slaves of Magdalene
Click for more photos
Slaves of Magdalene
Religious icons on the Dublin building that housed the Magdalene laundry. Photo: Mark McCall
For decades, "bad" Irish girls were sent away to convent-run laundries, where they worked for no pay in awful conditions for years on end. Now, writes Jane Wheatley, survivors are finally getting compensation.
Martina Keogh was 16, selling newspapers outside a Dublin cinema, when a fight broke out on the street beside her. She was arrested along with the girls involved, sent to court and convicted of disorderly conduct. Her punishment would be two years' incarceration and unpaid labour in a convent laundry run by nuns.
It was 1964, the year the Beatles released A Hard Day's Night, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton married for the first time and 5000 more American troops were sent to fight in Vietnam, but Martina would know nothing of all this. Instead, she would spend her days washing and ironing and her nights in a locked dormitory with bars on the windows.
On a hot, sunny day earlier this northern summer, Keogh takes me back to the convent in Dublin's Sean McDermott Street, an imposing four-storey brick building now silent and empty of life. Set into a panel of the big, wooden, double-entrance doors is a small, eye-level grille. Keogh recalls being escorted there by a garda (policeman): "The shutter across the grille slid back and I could just see eyes looking out," she says. "The garda said, 'Got another one for you here, Sister.' "
At the far end of the building is a set of gates - "That's where the laundry vans came in and out" - topped by an iron arch inset with the words, "Monastery of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge". Some letters are missing. A woman walking along the street towards us stops, curious to know why we are taking photographs. She has lived in the block of flats next to the convent all her life, she says, and remembers as a child standing on a balcony and throwing sweets and cigarettes over the high wall to the inmates walking in the exercise yard below. "They wore uniforms and aprons," she says. "We were told they had been bad girls."
Four religious orders ran the 11 Magdalene laundries for 70 years; the last one closed in 1996. Some 10,000 girls passed through these institutions; they worked for no pay and were known as the Magdalenes - fallen women. A few had been sent after police raids on brothels but most came by different routes: some, like Martina Keogh, sent by the courts, some from orphanages and so-called industrial schools. Still more came from Mother and Baby Homes and had their babies given away for adoption, as in the film Philomena, starring Judi Dench, which opens on Boxing Day. Some were consigned by their own families, others referred by social or psychiatric services, the prettier ones considered a risk to morality.
Martina Keogh's story is a common one. Her unmarried mother was living in Dublin with one son and was pregnant with Martina when she went home to Kerry to ask for support from her family. But in 1950s Ireland, her hopes were doomed. "My grandfather was a schoolteacher," Keogh tells me. "Two of Mam's brothers were garda; they ran her out of town for bringing shame to them. My grandmother kept my brother and Mam came back to Dublin." After Martina was born, her mother went out to work, leaving her with a child-minder, but it was hard to manage and at age two the child was put into an orphanage. "A place in Kilkenny," she says. "Lovely it was. But when I was four, Mam married the oufla [the old fellow, as Keogh called her stepfather] so she could get us kids back. Once you were married, you were an honest woman."
Martina was soon being sexually abused by her stepfather: "I was in and out of orphanages and always running away." By the time she was sent to the laundry she'd been earning for several years: "We needed it - the oufla wouldn't give Mam any. 'I'm not feeding your bastards,' he said.
"From the moment I arrived [in the laundry] we worked [very hard]. Feeding the sheets into the dryer, that was brutal, and ironing - vestments, shirts, nuns' habits - I f...ing hate ironing. I won't have an iron in the house. Once a friend of mine was told off for being slow on the compressor and the nun brought it down on her hand. Oh, it was awful; when it lifted off it brought the skin with it. I ran away, I couldn't look. We were locked in the dormitories from 7.30pm till the nuns came to wake us for Mass at 6am. If there'd been a fire we'd have burnt in our beds."
Keogh got out when her two years were up but many women never left. Institutionalised, uneducated and with no support or contacts in the outside world, some of them didn't even know their real names or where they came from.
Mary Josephine O'Neill spent 17 years with the nuns and had her name changed twice. She was five when she was put in a residential convent school because her mother was considered incapable of looking after her. There was already a little girl with the same name, so Mary became Molly. "After two years my sister arrived. I didn't even know I had a sister but I ran down to get her."
Now 65, Mary Currington (her married name) has vivid memories of her convent years: some have haunted her to this day and caused terrible distress in her marriage. "School was very severe; we were sexually abused by the older girls. We little ones were in a dormitory that was supposed to be supervised by one of the sisters, but it wasn't and the big girls would come in. Oh, the dreadful, disgusting things they made you do, and did to you."
At 16, Mary was sent to work on a farm in west Cork with a relative of one of the nuns. As she left the convent, she was given one piece of advice, "Don't let a man get near you or touch you." She couldn't settle on the farm and was eventually taken away to work in the laundry of another convent run by the same order. "I had my name changed again, this time to Geraldine, even though I cried and said my name was Mary. I was taken upstairs, my clothes taken off me and all my long, black hair cut off. I was 18. We washed everything from sheets to businessmen's shirts. You had to scrub stained things by hand, there was bleach in the soap and your knuckles were raw."
Later she worked in the sewing room. "We made banners for processions, vestments for the clergy and the choir, altar linen, smocked dresses in lovely material and Holy Communion dresses.
"I didn't know it but all the time my sister was living up the road; she came knocking to see me but they never, never told me she'd come. Then she got a letter to me by the priest who heard confessions and that's how we communicated. He was a good man, that priest, he knew I wanted my freedom. He often spoke to [head nun] Mother Mount Carmel for me - 'Geraldine is mature enough to leave us' - but she always refused. It was a shameful thing to be in the Magdalene Asylum, as it was called; the arch over the door said 'Penitentiary' in big, iron letters. At least criminals know their release date. We had no idea and no voice."
But still, says Currington now, for all her longing, getting out of the laundry was the worst day of her life. "It was cold, January 1969, the year the Troubles started in the North. One of the sisters called me and said, 'Quick now, you're leaving.' I asked about saying goodbye, but she said there was no time. I was to go and work as a domestic at Saint John of God Hospital [in Dublin]. I grieved mightily for my friend I'd left behind."
Could she have written letters? "No point, they would have been confiscated. They didn't ever want you to have communication from outside."
Mary saved up her wages from the hospital and eventually joined her sister in England. "I had no worldly knowledge; I was too shy to go out. One day I saw an advert in the paper from soldiers overseas who wanted pen friends. I wrote a bit about myself and got 18 replies! The first one I opened was from the man I married. I was 32 and had never been with a bloke."
Mary and her husband, Norman, have been married for 36 years and have one son. "But I'm afraid I was a failure in the bedroom department. It was all tied up with the abuse as a child. I tried to be a good wife, but every time it felt like rape."
Of her 17 years with the Good Shepherd nuns, Mary says now, "It was a humiliating, degrading, shaming life and it doesn't leave you. I hate shut doors; I always sleep with mine open."
Twenty years ago, in 1993, the Dublin convent that had housed the largest of Ireland's laundries sold some of its grounds to a property developer. When work started, a mass grave was uncovered containing the remains of 155 women - many of whom could not be accounted for in the convent's records.
Until then, those women who, like Martina and Mary, had managed to get out never spoke of their years in the laundries, not even to husbands and families, crippled as they were by shame, insecurity and low self-esteem. They had been fodder for a humiliating system of slavery - the religious orders could rely on income from the laundries free of labour costs - which, astonishingly, still continued into the final years of the 20th century, condoned or at least ignored by government and a supposedly newly enlightened society.
Many, like Mary, had left Ireland for England; some went further afield, to the US, Canada and Australia. But now the scandal prompted a few to raise their heads, cautiously, above the parapet.
A campaign began and networks were formed encouraging women to come forward with their testimonies. But it would prove to be a very long battle. Already under pressure from allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children in its care, the Catholic Church battened down the hatches under this fresh assault. Meanwhile, the Irish government of the time denied any responsibility, claiming that the laundries were entirely the preserve of the religious orders that ran them. This is despite the fact that many girls were delivered to the laundries by government authority, via police, courts, health and social services, and that government institutions sent their dirty linen to be washed by the Magdalenes.
In 2002, as the campaign to win justice for survivors struggled to make headway, the government set up a Redress Board to compensate those who, as children, had been abused in residential institutions such as industrial schools and reformatories that were subject to state regulation. Millions of euros were eventually paid out - much of it to lawyers, who had a field day. Some of it went to women like Mary Currington, who had been in those institutions before they entered the laundries, but their years as Magdalenes went unacknowledged. The majority of laundry survivors did not qualify for compensation under the scheme.
Finally, in 2011, Ireland's government bowed to pressure from the United Nations Committee against Torture and established an inquiry into the laundries headed by a senator, Martin McAleese. His team took evidence from survivors in Ireland and the UK and reported in February this year. Two weeks later, the prime minister, Enda Kenny, met 15 survivors at the Dáil (parliament) in Dublin to listen to their stories and to apologise.
Sally Mulready chairs the UK-based Irish Women Survivors Network and was with the women. "They had never spoken in public before," she tells me in her London office. "The pain and stigma had muzzled them. The apology was so moving and strong; the feeling in the room after Enda Kenny left was palpable. This has liberated them, they can hold up their heads now. One woman said, 'I won't need to hide any more. Ireland is my country and I'm going to show my face there.' " Mary Currington had met Kenny at the Irish Embassy in London - "We'd been treated as individuals and listened to carefully" - and was at the Dáil to hear his apology. "It was fantastic."
After their private meeting, Kenny went on to deliver the public apology to the women in front of members in the Dáil chamber. Kenny then ordered a judicial commission to come up with a compensation package for Magdalene survivors.
Four months later, on that hot june afternoon in Dublin, I leave Martina Keogh at her home and hurry to a press conference to hear what Justice Minister Alan Shatter proposes to do for the Magdalene women. He says that because many of them are elderly - the average age of survivors is 68 - there will not be a statutory inquiry involving lawyers and lengthy procedures that could take years to resolve. Instead, the government will make ex-gratia payments to all the women to express the "sincere nature of the State's reconciliatory intent". Payments will be made on a sliding scale depending on how long a woman worked in a laundry: €11,500 ($17,300) for three months or less, up to a maximum of €100,000 for a period of 10 years or more.
In the bar of Buswells Hotel that evening, I find Sally Mulready and other Magdalene advocates enjoying a quiet celebratory meal. "It's a very fair package," says Mulready. "We've been pushing for this for 15 years, so today is a good day."
Some 17,000 kilometres away in Western Australia, 82-year-old Betty White agrees. She spent more than six years in a Magdalene laundry in Limerick, and on the phone from Perth, where she lives with her son, Teddy, she tells Good Weekend her story. "I was adopted as a baby by a lady from Dublin, but when I was about six the nuns came and took me away. The courts had ordered it, I never knew why. I went to an industrial school, which was a terrible place, then I came to the laundry in Limerick when I was 19.
"At first I was put to making the Limerick lace for wedding dresses and the like; it was very delicate, there was a lot of work. The nuns must have got good money for it. Then I got bad headaches, so they put me to ironing the big, heavy habits.
"We never had a bit of music in there, just prayers. One nun, Sister K, was so good to me. She was in charge of the laundry and sometimes she'd ask me to come and help with a dirty shirt or something so I could listen to the radio for a bit.
"The dormitory was big, maybe 30 or 40 girls. There was a lot of crying at night and we'd get up to one another, but if the nun came in we'd all rush back to our beds. I was there for six or seven years. I thought I'd never get out.
"Then one day, without any warning, I was let go. I asked to see Sister K, she came down and gave me biscuits and sweets to take with me. 'I'll always pray for you,' she said. I cried and cried.
"I went to England to work and met my husband. I did tell him about the dreadful time in the school and laundry and he said, 'Don't worry, forget about it.' We were happy together for 40 years."
Along with other survivors living overseas, Betty White has now received compensation from the Irish government. "I do feel I earned it," she says. "All those years working for nothing."
In July, the four religious orders who ran the laundries announced they would not make any contribution to the compensation fund. Justice Minister Alan Shatter thought the nuns' decision "very disappointing"; Magdalene survivor Phyllis Morgan said, "This is dreadful. I thought they would have done the decent thing."
The nuns have agreed to provide records of the women's time in the laundries and to meet survivors in a spirit of reconciliation. Neither Mary Currington nor Martina Keogh will be taking up the offer. "I wouldn't want to set eyes on any of them," says Keogh.
Australia's child laundries
Australia had eight Magdalene laundries – all at Sisters of the Good Shepherd convents – from the 1940s until the '70s. There is no firm data on how many girls they held but it's estimated to be several thousand.
The convent laundries were in all states. There were three in Melbourne alone, at Abbotsford, Oakleigh and Albert Park, with another in regional Victoria at St Aidan's in Bendigo. Hobart had the Mount Saint Canice Good Shepherd convent in Sandy Bay. Sydney had one in Ashfield, Perth in Leederville, Brisbane in Mitchelton and Adelaide's was the notorious The Pines at North Plympton.
As in Ireland, the convent dormitories and commercial laundries were for girls who were wards of the state or deemed delinquents but often were victims themselves who had committed no crimes. The 2004 Senate report Forgotten Australians – which led to a national apology from then PM Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull in 2009 – described the laundries as prisons for girls forced into labour with poor living conditions and scant education.
"These were lost childhoods," says Leonie Sheedy, executive officer of Care Leavers Australia Network, an advocacy group for former wards of the state. "Churches got wealthy on our labour. It's extremely hard to get this history visible."
Stenna Keys is 57 and lives in Portarlington, near Melbourne. Born Stenna Nemec in Slovenia, she came to Australia with her parents, who were assisted migrants and ended up working long hours in factories in Melbourne's west. Her father was a violent drinker and she was sexually abused from the age of five by neighbours and relatives of neighbours. "We were like the latchkey kids but without a key," she says. "We were left alone a lot."
In one abusive episode, her young adult neighbours used a knitting needle on her – which meant Stenna could never have children. She started running away from home and school at age 11. This was in the late 1960s around Footscray and Sunshine, which even now can be dangerous places. She sometimes slept in bus shelters. "I was starving. No money, no nothing, no one's looking after me and I'm just a kid, maybe 12 or 13 …"
She was made a state ward and put in Winlaton, a juvenile prison in Melbourne. After escaping, she was then sent to the Good Shepherd convent in Abbotsford, which she describes as "a horror place". She worked in the laundry all day – after church – on the steam press, pressing sheets for hospitals. She says she was sexually abused by other, older girls, but that the nuns turned a blind eye. "You'd pretend everything was okay."
Stenna was released after only a few months but the effects are still with her. She has worked in menial jobs (although is now trained as a Bowen therapist), has self-medicated for post-traumatic stress disorder with drugs and alcohol, has health problems and has been through two failed marriages. Only now is she beginning to learn how to trust. "I don't feel like a victim any more. I'm a survivor, not a victim."
She lived in Tasmania in the mid-2000s. After an intervention by her psychologist, two senior Good Shepherd nuns came to hear her story, then sent a letter admitting "the sisters were not able to provide you with the sense of nurture and security which you so desperately needed". Good Shepherd now officially acknowledges past instances of "injustice and harm" and has committed to "healing and reconciliation".
Maureen Cuskelly, 58, of Wodonga, had an entirely different experience. She came from a poor and uneducated Catholic family. Her mother and father had seven kids in quick succession and couldn't look after them properly. Maureen, a middle sibling, went into Abbotsford at the age of seven. A year later she got out because her mother – with her father now vanished – was living in a house in Echuca, on the Murray River, and had convinced the Victorian government to give her children back, which they did. But when Maureen was 12 her mother's health deteriorated and the children were taken once more; Maureen and one of her sisters ended up in St Aidan's Good Shepherd Convent in Bendigo. She was briefly released to a chaotic household, then readmitted for five years, until she was 17. She worked in the laundry folding sheets and on the "mangle" steam press, and also had to polish the floor of the convent concert hall every day. She did school by correspondence.
"Most people there hadn't done anything wrong. I hadn't. My sister hadn't. One girl wagged school for two days to see a boyfriend; she got one year in. Another girl from Benalla was raped by her uncle. Us girls became victims. The nuns thought they were helping the community."
Maureen says the worst cruelty at St Aidan's came from the nuns, particularly the head nun, Mother Rita. During her reign, solitary confinement was in a toilet that was locked from the outside. "Girls came out broken-spirited," Maureen says. "One girl wrote 'I Love Elvis' on her arm and went in for three days. When the girls came out, they were gone. They were cold, isolated, scared, threatened. Mother Rita was an awful woman. A very harsh, very small and very cruel woman."
When Maureen finally got out in the early 1970s, she found she was institutionalised. After trying to live in a hostel and work as a clerk, she readmitted herself to St Aidan's as it was all she knew.
Eventually she left and did year 12 at a school in Bendigo, became a mental health nurse and, after one destructive marriage, got a bachelor's degree, then a master's, in health science. She now works in a senior role in community mental health in Wodonga. She has also recently found and been reunited with her father, Colin, in Ballina, NSW.
Her hands are crippled with arthritis from relentless work on the steam press and from using the electric polisher. She's had surgery but, for a long time, and during her studies, she couldn't hold a pen.
Her hands are crippled with arthritis from relentless work on the steam press and from using the electric polisher. She's had surgery but, for a long time, and during her studies, she couldn't hold a pen.
Chris Johnston
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-slaves-of-magdalene-20131216-2zfwd.html#ixzz3HEUyLK2X


text:
Jason Heyward: MLB's best No. 6 hitter
Mar 31, 2011, 4:10 PM EDT
For the second straight Opening Day, Jason Heyward homered in his first at-bat Thursday, drilling a Livan Hernandez offering barely over the wall in right field in the second inning.
As it turned out, it was the Braves' second and final run of the day. Heyward received just two more plate appearances, walking in one of them. Fortunately, Derek Lowe was sharp and the bullpen was stellar, so Atlanta won 2-0 anyway.
But as we've been wondering all spring, what exactly is Jason Heyward doing batting sixth?
New Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez made it clear over the winter that he wanted to stick Heyward there as long as Chipper Jones was healthy enough to occupy the third spot. And Heyward hitting a ridiculous .356/.508/.511 in 45 at-bats this spring didn't change his mind.
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Houzz is the new way to design your home.
55,885 dark wood fireplace Contemporary Home Design Photos
Heather Stevens
Water's Edge Greely
Can you tell me what the wood floor is, and where I can buy it? Thank you
I only have info for the wood floor. It was from Breeze Wood flooring in Tilsonburg, Ontario. It is white oak, extra wide plank, natural finish with hand
Thanks. The flooring is from Breeze Wood Flooring, in Tilsonberg, Ontario. It is white oak, extra wide plank, natural
color combo. We'd have dark wood but perhaps transition to lighter wood ceramic tile look or grey, like pictured here.
Tile next to wood flooring in a white/grey kitchen
The flooring is from Breeze Wood Flooring, in
floor transition - wood to grey tile
Transition to ceramic — Mahyar Mirkhan
IN Studio & Co. Interiors
Shari Misturak
Shari Misturak of IN Studio & Co. Interiors - Custom walnut wood wall panel installation.
The wood paneling of the walls in this space provide a sense of verticality
Another Unusual Wood Wall InstallationMore Ways With Wood PanelsWarm Up a White Room with WoodModern Shingle Style in Utah5 Innovative Wood Floors
horizontal pieces so it wasn't such a literal interpretation," she says. The wood tones add the necessary warmth without introducing extreme colors. With the
Where are the wood panels from?...What type of wood are the custom panels...so much wood, dark blues nice...I like the light and dark contrast.
Paret guapa — peticris
Passacantando Architects AIA
Can you please tell me what materials were used on the fireplace?
like the charcoal color with the light wood/ warm color on wall
- light wood and grey...Fireplace simplicity...with light wood...fireplace idea...black fireplace. color...douglas fir wood...black fireplace...black tile fireplace...wood ceiling...wood coffee table...wood floor...Fireplace Surround
black with light wood — hollyhansonaustin
Woodworks Design
Valley Road Remodel
the mix of cabinet colors, wood floor colors matching dark cabinet. Overall
top....note wood mullions. Will metal mullions work here?
dark window trim, dark floors, dark island
like the mix of white and dark...Dark window grills...dark frame with...White w/dark....dark trimmed windows
galice — mbakers4
Jeff Luth - Soldano Luth Architects
Mercer Island Residence
wonderful door framed with dark siding and contrasted with a lighter stained area.
mixed use of siding material and wood colors
breaking up exterior with different horizontal wood sizes and colors
dark red-brown shingles...orange door, dark wood...and different woods...dark roof, warm colours...Dark stain...wood siding
Love — eamilcar
Modern Exterior
light wood trim against dark wood
The steel grey and wood is interesting change
love the wooded setting and sun room...Dark siding, natural wood trim...wood siding color...wood "looking" trim?...just plain wood finishing...dark grey for siding color...natural wood trim...wood trim
looks like Pirma sunroom, patio doors, library — lochadrive
Conestoga Valley Custom Kitchens Inc.
Contemporary Kitchen
Tell me about the wood floor please - type of wood, stain, finish. Thank you - all beautiful
Don't like the tile - wood transition much. Okay, but I think continuous wood looks a
great kitchen - dark floors, dark cabinets, glass doors on upper cabinets
good color for dark wood floors...Dark wood table/ different coutertop...tile wood floor transition...Love the dark cabinet color...Nice tile to wood transition....Dark yet light...dark cabinets...dark floor...wood dining table
very good — mbloch
Rhodes Architecture + Light
Beach Drive Residence
love the look of the fireplace. Where does the shine come from?
The Beach Drive fireplace surround is 1.8 inch thick mill finished steel panels sealed with a medium gloss sealer; hence the shine.
dark brown fireplace...wood baseboard...wood bookshelf...wood window...back wall fireplace...cool use of shelving/fireplace
Boston — patyzeiter


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The latest music videos, short movies, tv shows, funny and extreme videos. Upload, share, and embed your videos. Watch official videos free online. Discover our ...
- Thu, 30 Oct 2014 20:35:00 GMT
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October 26, 2014
august 4 2008
Talk Talk: Ben Stiller, Dennis Hopper, Harry Shearer
by Bob Sassone, posted Aug 4th 2008 5:03PM
Here's who's on the late night shows tonight.
- Charlie Rose: Don Keough
- The Daily Show: Dennis Hopper
- The Colbert Report: Lucas Conley and Apples in Stereo
- The Late Show with David Letterman: Seth Rogen and Fleet Foxes
- Jay Leno: Ben Stiller and The Jonas Brothers
- Jimmy Kimmel Live: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mel B., and Does It Offend You Yeah? (repeat)
- Tavis Smiley: Benjamin Bratt
- Late Night with Conan O'Brien: America Ferrera, Judd Apatow, and Dwayne Perkins
- The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Cheryl Hines, Harry Shearer, and Jamie Lidell
- Last Call with Carson Daly: Lonny Ross and Flobots (yes yes yes, repeat repeat repeat)
What's On Tonight: Teen Choice Awards, American Gladiators, The Closer
by Bob Sassone, posted Aug 4th 2008 4:04PM
- At 8, FOX has the Teen Choice Awards.
- ABC has a new High School Musical: Get in the Picture at 8, then a new episodes of Wanna Bet? and The Mole.
- NBC has the season finales of American Gladiators and Nashville Star.
- At 9, Lifetime has the new movie The Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal.
- There's a new Monday Night RAW on USA at 9.
- TNT has a new episode of The Closer at 9, followed by a new Saving Grace.
- VH-1 has the series premiere of I Want To Work For Diddy.
- Also at 9: GSN has a new World Poker Tour.
- At 10, ABC has a new Middleman.
- Food Network has a new Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives at 10.
- Travel Channel has a new Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations at 10.
- Showtime has a new Weeds at 10.
TV Squad Hot Topics
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- 'Grey's Anatomy' Episode 11.6 Photos: A Visit from April's Mom
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- Constantine: Will You Go to Hell and Back for NBC's New Drama?
- Grimm Season 4 Premiere Recap: Trubel-ing Times
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Women's ASICS® Solid Modified Singlet :: The women-specific fit of this competitive tog makes it a must-have for female grapplers. Comes in solid colors, with flatseam stitching, gripper elastic leg openings, and snug nylon/Lycra® engineering.
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Evidence is emerging that platelets are major contributors to innate immune responses in conditions such as acute lung injury (ALI). Platelets form heterotypic aggregates with neutrophils, and we hypothesized that lipoxin mediators regulate formation of neutrophil-platelet aggregates (NPA) and that NPA significantly contribute to ALI. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced lung injury was accompanied by platelet sequestration, activation, intra-alveolar accumulation, and NPA formation within both blood and alveolar compartments. Using lung intravital microscopy, we observed the dynamic formation of NPA during physiologic conditions, which sharply increased with ALI. Aspirin (ASA) treatment significantly reduced lung platelet sequestration and activation, NPA formation, and lung injury. ASA treatment increased levels of ASA-triggered lipoxin (ATL; 15-epi-lipoxin A4), and blocking the lipoxin A4 receptor (ALX) with a peptide antagonist (Boc2) or using ALX knockouts (Fpr2/3–/–) reversed this protection. LPS increased NPA formation in vitro, which was reduced by ATL, and engagement of ALX by ATL on both neutrophils and platelets was necessary to prevent aggregation. In a model of transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), Boc2 also reversed ASA protection, and treatment with ATL in both LPS and TRALI models protected from ALI. We conclude that ATL regulates neutrophil-platelet aggregation and that platelet-neutrophil interactions are a therapeutic target in lung injury.
Myelofibrosis (MF) is a BCR-ABL1–negative myeloproliferative neoplasm characterized by clonal myeloproliferation, dysregulated kinase signaling, and release of abnormal cytokines. In recent years, important progress has been made in the knowledge of the molecular biology and the prognostic assessment of MF. Conventional treatment has limited impact on the patients' survival; it includes a wait-and-see approach for asymptomatic patients, erythropoiesis-stimulating agents, androgens, or immunomodulatory agents for anemia, cytoreductive drugs such as hydroxyurea for the splenomegaly and constitutional symptoms, and splenectomy or radiotherapy in selected patients. The discovery of the Janus kinase (JAK)2 mutation triggered the development of molecular targeted therapy of MF. The JAK inhibitors are effective in both JAK2-positive and JAK2-negative MF; one of them, ruxolitinib, is the current best available therapy for MF splenomegaly and constitutional symptoms. However, although ruxolitinib has changed the therapeutic scenario of MF, there is no clear indication of a disease-modifying effect. Allogeneic stem cell transplantation remains the only curative therapy of MF, but due to its associated morbidity and mortality, it is usually restricted to eligible high- and intermediate-2–risk MF patients. To improve current therapeutic results, the combination of JAK inhibitors with other agents is currently being tested, and newer drugs are being investigated.
Increased hepcidin production is key to the development of anemia of inflammation. We investigated whether lexaptepid, an antihepcidin l-oligoribonucleotide, prevents the decrease in serum iron during experimental human endotoxemia. This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was carried out in 24 healthy males. At T = 0 hours, 2 ng/kg Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide was intravenously administered, followed by an intravenous injection of 1.2 mg/kg lexaptepid or placebo at T = 0.5 hours. The lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammatory response was similar in subjects treated with lexaptepid or placebo regarding clinical and biochemical parameters. At T = 9 hours, serum iron had increased by 15.9 ± 9.8 µmol/L from baseline in lexaptepid-treated subjects compared with a decrease of 8.3 ± 9.0 µmol/L in controls (P < .0001). This study delivers proof of concept that lexaptepid achieves clinically relevant hepcidin inhibition enabling investigations in the treatment of anemia of inflammation. This trial was registered at www.clinicaltrial.gov as #NCT01522794.
The mechanisms controlling the development of dendritic cells (DCs) remain incompletely understood. Using an Mysm1 knockout (Mysm1–/–) mouse model, we identified the histone H2A deubiquitinase Mysm1, as a critical regulator in DC differentiation. Mysm1–/– mice showed a global reduction of DCs in lymphoid organs, whereas development of granulocytes and macrophages were not severely affected. Hematopoietic progenitors and DC precursors were significantly decreased in Mysm1–/– mice and defective in Fms-like tyrosine kinase-3(Flt3) ligand–induced, but not in granulocyte macrophage–colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)-induced DC differentiation in vitro. Molecular studies demonstrated that the developmental defect of DCs from common myeloid progenitor (CMP) in Mysm1–/– mice is associated with decreased Flt3 expression and that Mysm1 derepresses transcription of the Flt3 gene by directing histone modifications at the Flt3 promoter region. Two molecular mechanisms were found to be responsible for the selective role of Mysm1 in lineage determination of DCs from CMPs: the selective expression of Mysm1 in a subset of CMPs and the different requirement of Mysm1 for PU.1 recruitment to the Flt3 locus vs GM-CSF-α and macrophage–colony-stimulating factor receptor loci. In conclusion, this study reveals an essential role of Mysm1 in epigenetic regulation of Flt3 transcription and DC development, and it provides a novel mechanism for lineage determination from CMP.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) displays remarkable ethnic predisposition for whites, with relative sparing of African-American and Asian populations. In addition, CLL displays among the highest familial predispositions of all hematologic malignancies, yet the genetic basis for these differences is not clearly defined. The highly polymorphic HLA genes of the major histocompatibility complex play a central role in immune surveillance and confer risk for autoimmune and infectious diseases and several different cancers, the role for which in the development of CLL has not been extensively investigated. The National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match has collected HLA typing from CLL patients in need of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant and has recruited millions of volunteers to potentially donate hematopoietic stem cells. HLA genotypes for 3491 US white, 397 African-American, and 90 Hispanic CLL patients were compared with 50 000 controls per population from the donor registry. We identified several HLA alleles associated with CLL susceptibility in each population, reconfirming predisposing roles of HLA-A*02:01 and HLA-DRB4*01:01 in whites. Associations for haplotype DRB4*01:01~DRB1*07:01~DQB1*03:03 were replicated across all 3 populations. These findings provide a comprehensive assessment of the role of HLA in the development of severe CLL.
The monoclonal anti-CD20 antibody rituximab (RTX) depletes B cells in the treatment of lymphoma and autoimmune disease, and contributes to alloantibody reduction in transplantation across immunologic barriers. The effects of RTX on T cells are less well described. T-follicular helper (Tfh) cells provide growth and differentiation signals to germinal center (GC) B cells to support antibody production, and suppressive T-follicular regulatory (Tfr) cells regulate this response. In mice, both Tfh and Tfr are absolutely dependent on B cells for their formation and on the GC for their maintenance. In this study, we demonstrate that RTX treatment results in a lack of GC B cells in human lymph nodes without affecting the Tfh or Tfr cell populations. These data demonstrate that human Tfh and Tfr do not require an ongoing GC response for their maintenance. The persistence of Tfh and Tfr following RTX treatment may permit rapid reconstitution of the pathological GC response once the B-cell pool begins to recover. Strategies for maintaining remission after RTX therapy will need to take this persistence of Tfh into account.
Proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 (Pyk2) is a member of the focal adhesion kinase family that has been recently linked to tumor development. However, its role in modulating multiple myeloma (MM) biology and disease progression remains unexplored. We first demonstrated that patients with MM present with higher expression of Pyk2 compared with healthy individuals. By using loss-of-function approaches, we found that Pyk2 inhibition led to reduction of MM tumor growth in vivo as well as decreased cell proliferation, cell-cycle progression, and adhesion ability in vitro. In turn, overexpression of Pyk2 promoted the malignant phenotype, substantiated by enhanced tumor growth and reduced survival. Mechanistically, inhibition of Pyk2 reduced activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling by destabilizing β-catenin, leading to downregulation of c-Myc and Cyclin D1. Furthermore, treatment of MM cells with the FAK/Pyk2 inhibitor VS-4718 effectively inhibited MM cell growth both in vitro and in vivo. Collectively, our findings describe the tumor-promoting role of Pyk2 in MM, thus providing molecular evidence for a novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor as a new therapeutic option in MM.
Bim contributes to resistance to various standard and novel agents. Here we demonstrate that Bim plays a functional role in bortezomib resistance in multiple myeloma (MM) cells and that targeting Bim by combining histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) with BH3 mimetics (eg, ABT-737) overcomes bortezomib resistance. BH3-only protein profiling revealed high Bim levels (Bimhi) in most MM cell lines and primary CD138+ MM samples. Whereas short hairpin RNA Bim knockdown conferred bortezomib resistance in Bimhi cells, adaptive bortezomib-resistant cells displayed marked Bim downregulation. HDACI upregulated Bim and, when combined with ABT-737, which released Bim from Bcl-2/Bcl-xL, potently killed bortezomib-resistant cells. These events were correlated with Bim-associated autophagy attenuation, whereas Bim knockdown sharply increased autophagy in Bimhi cells. In Bimlow cells, autophagy disruption by chloroquine (CQ) was required for HDACI/ABT-737 to induce Bim expression and lethality. CQ also further enhanced HDACI/ABT-737 lethality in bortezomib-resistant cells. Finally, HDACI failed to diminish autophagy or potentiate ABT-737–induced apoptosis in bim–/– mouse embryonic fibroblasts. Thus, Bim deficiency represents a novel mechanism of adaptive bortezomib resistance in MM cells, and Bim-targeting strategies combining HDACIs (which upregulate Bim) and BH3 mimetics (which unleash Bim from antiapoptotic proteins) overcomes such resistance, in part by disabling cytoprotective autophagy.
The distinction between acquired aplastic anemia (AA) and hypocellular myelodysplastic syndrome (hMDS) is often difficult, especially nonsevere AA. We postulated that somatic mutations are present in a subset of AA, and predict malignant transformation. From our database, we identified 150 AA patients with no morphological evidence of MDS, who had stored bone marrow (BM) and constitutional DNA. We excluded Fanconi anemia, mutations of telomere maintenance, and a family history of BM failure (BMF) or cancer. The initial cohort of 57 patients was screened for 835 known genes associated with BMF and myeloid cancer; a second cohort of 93 patients was screened for mutations in ASXL1, DNMT3A, BCOR, TET2, and MPL. Somatic mutations were detected in 19% of AA, and included ASXL1 (n = 12), DNMT3A (n = 8) and BCOR (n = 6). Patients with somatic mutations had a longer disease duration (37 vs 8 months, P < .04), and shorter telomere lengths (median length, 0.9 vs 1.1, P < .001), compared with patients without mutations. Somatic mutations in AA patients with a disease duration of >6 months were associated with a 40% risk of transformation to MDS (P < .0002). Nearly one-fifth of AA patients harbor mutations in genes typically seen in myeloid malignancies that predicted for later transformation to MDS.
Only a minority of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients respond to hypomethylating agents (HMAs), but strong predictors of response are unknown. We sequenced 40 recurrently mutated myeloid malignancy genes in tumor DNA from 213 MDS patients collected before treatment with azacitidine (AZA) or decitabine (DEC). Mutations were examined for association with response and overall survival. The overall response rate of 47% was not different between agents. Clonal TET2 mutations predicted response (odds ratio [OR] 1.99, P = .036) when subclones unlikely to be detected by Sanger sequencing (allele fraction <10%) were treated as wild-type (WT). Response rates were highest in the subset of TET2 mutant patients without clonal ASXL1 mutations (OR 3.65, P = .009). Mutations of TP53 (hazard ratio [HR] 2.01, P = .002) and PTPN11 (HR 3.26, P = .006) were associated with shorter overall survival but not drug response. Murine-competitive bone marrow transplantation followed by treatment with AZA demonstrated that Tet2-null cells have an engraftment advantage over Tet2-WT cells. AZA significantly decreased this advantage for Tet2-null cells (P = .002) but not Tet2-WT cells (P = .212). Overall, Tet2 loss appears to sensitize cells to treatment with AZA in vivo, and TET2 mutations can identify patients more likely to respond to HMAs.
During inflammation, neutrophils are rapidly mobilized from the bone marrow storage pool into peripheral blood (PB) to enter lesional sites, where most rapidly undergo apoptosis. Monocytes constitute a second wave of inflammatory immigrates, giving rise to long-lived macrophages and dendritic cell subsets. According to descriptive immunophenotypic and cell culture studies, neutrophils may directly "transdifferentiate" into monocytes/macrophages. We provide mechanistic data in human and murine models supporting the existence of this cellular pathway. First, the inflammatory signal–induced MKK6-p38MAPK cascade activates a monocyte differentiation program in human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor–dependent neutrophils. Second, adoptively transferred neutrophils isolated from G-CSF–pretreated mice rapidly acquired monocyte characteristics in response to inflammatory signals in vivo. Consistently, inflammatory signals led to the recruitment of osteoclast progenitor cell potential from ex vivo–isolated G-CSF–mobilized human blood neutrophils. Monocytic cell differentiation potential was retained in left-shifted band-stage neutrophils but lost in neutrophils from steady-state PB. MKK6-p38MAPK signaling in HL60 model cells led to diminishment of the transcription factor C/EBPα, which enabled the induction of a monocytic cell differentiation program. Gene profiling confirmed lineage conversion from band-stage neutrophils to monocytic cells. Therefore, inflammatory signals relayed by the MKK6-p38MAPK cascade induce monocytic cell differentiation from band-stage neutrophils.
In this study, we test the assumption that the hematopoietic progenitor/colony-forming cells of the embryonic yolk sac (YS), which are endowed with megakaryocytic potential, differentiate into the first platelet-forming cells in vivo. We demonstrate that from embryonic day (E) 8.5 all megakaryocyte (MK) colony-forming cells belong to the conventional hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) compartment. Although these cells are indeed capable of generating polyploid MKs, they are not the source of the first platelet-forming cells. We show that proplatelet formation first occurs in a unique and previously unrecognized lineage of diploid platelet-forming cells, which develop within the YS in parallel to HPCs but can be specified in the E8.5 Runx1-null embryo despite the absence of the progenitor cell lineage.
Fetal hemoglobin (HbF) induction can ameliorate the clinical severity of sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia. We previously reported that activation of the eukaryotic initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) stress pathway increased HbF through a posttranscriptional mechanism. In this study, we explored the underlying means by which salubrinal, an activator of eIF2α signaling, enhances HbF production in primary human erythroid cells. Initial experiments eliminated changes in globin messenger RNA (mRNA) stability or cellular location and reduction of adult hemoglobin as possible salubrinal mechanisms. We then determined that salubrinal selectively increased the number of actively translating ribosomes on -globin mRNA. This enhanced translation efficiency occurred in the recovery phase of the stress response as phosphorylation of eIF2α and global protein synthesis returned toward baseline. These findings highlight -globin mRNA translation as a novel mechanism for regulating HbF production and as a pharmacologic target for induction of HbF.
We developed an approach of T-cell-replete haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) with low-dose anti-T-lymphocyte globulin and prospectively compared outcomes of all contemporaneous T-cell-replete HSCT performed at our center using matched sibling donors (MSDs), unrelated donors (URDs), and haploidentical related donors (HRDs). From 2008 to 2013, 90 patients underwent MSD-HSCT, 116 underwent URD-HSCT, and 99 underwent HRD-HSCT. HRDs were associated with higher incidences of grades 2 to 4 (42.4%) and severe acute graft-versus-host disease (17.2%) and nonrelapse mortality (30.5%), compared with MSDs (15.6%, 5.6%, and 4.7%, respectively; P < .05), but were similar to URDs, even fully 10/10 HLA-matched URDs. For high-risk patients, a superior graft-versus-leukemia effect was observed in HRD-HSCT, with 5-year relapse rates of 15.4% in HRD-HSCT, 28.2% in URD-HSCT (P = .07), and 49.9% in MSD-HSCT (P = .002). Furthermore, 5-year disease-free survival rates were not significantly different for patients undergoing transplantation using 3 types of donors, with 63.6%, 58.4%, and 58.3% for MSD, URD, and HRD transplantation, respectively (P = .574). Our data indicate that outcomes after HSCT from suitably matched URDs and HRDs with low-dose anti-T-lymphocyte globulin are similar and that HRD improves outcomes of patients with high-risk leukemia. This trial was registered at www.chictr.org (Chinese Clinical Trial Registry) as #ChiCTR-OCH-12002490.
We analyzed the influence of donor killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene haplotypes on the risk for relapse and the probability of event-free survival (EFS) in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who received human leukocyte antigen–haploidentical transplantation of ex vivo T-cell-depleted peripheral blood stem cells. The KIR gene haplotype was evaluated in 85 donors, and the KIR B content score was determined in the 63 KIR haplotype B donors. Patients transplanted from a KIR haplotype B donor had a significantly better EFS than those transplanted from a KIR haplotype A donor (50.6% vs 29.5%, respectively; P = .033). Moreover, a high donor KIR B-content score was associated with a significantly reduced risk for relapse (Log-rank test for trend, P = .026). These data indicate that KIR genotyping should be included in the donor selection algorithm for haploidentical transplantation in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with the aim of choosing, whenever possible, a KIR haplotype B donor with a high KIR B-content score.
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fourtKNOX wrote:Ill go with Cooke
thanks for the A.P.B. my grandfather passed and we were at his bed side all weekend, just wasnt around the computer.
Eh it gives me a challenge now!
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text: Lady Gaga By Tim Lyon November 30, 2010 10:07 AM Share on Facebook Share on Twitter The lady gets around, as evidenced by these recent photos. Category: Music, Photos Share on Facebook Share on Twitter More Leave a comment Send to a friend! Print this page Pin it! Reddit This! Share on Tumblr! More from Mix 94.9 Matt and Brittany's Wedding Captured Through Cell Phones [PICS] Trick or Treating Before Halloween [VIDEO] What I'm Looking Forward to at the Made in Minnesota Expo Suitsy – The Business Suit Onesie Best of the Web


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American Airlines passenger service agents reject unionization
Jan 15 (Reuters) - Passenger service agents at American Airlines voted against unionizing after an election that concluded on Tuesday, the National Mediation Board said.
Of the 5,954 workers who cast a vote, 3,052 voted for no union, compared with 2,891 who voted in favor of the Communications Workers of America, according to results from the National Mediation Board, which conducted the election from Dec. 4 to Jan. 15. There were 7,792 people eligible to vote, a spokeswoman for the U.S. agency said.
The worker group includes airport agents and reservations representatives. They are the only employee group at American not unionized.
American Airlines parent AMR Corp, which has about 80,000 non-management workers, is weighing merging with rival US Airways Group versus exiting Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as a standalone company.
In a statement, the CWA union said it will keep working to give agents a voice.
"The potential merger of American Airlines and US Airways provides another opportunity for American agents to have a union voice, since US Airways agents have union representation," the union said.
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