text:
Although it might look like a manipulated image at first glance, this unusual Pontiac is the real deal. The car was originally built by GM as one of two or three transparent display cars for the 1939 and 1940 World Fairs for $25,000 (an astronomical sum at the time).
Now this Plexiglas bodied Pontiac is now getting ready to hit the auction block at RM's upcoming St John's sale in July. If you have dreams of making this impressive and rare Pontiac your own it shouldn't come as a huge surprise this strange automotive sculpture won't come cheap. RM has released a pre-auction estimate of $275,000 – $475,000.
(Photo Credit: RM Auctions)
[RM via Hemmings]


text:
Homeland - watch tv series with matching subtitles.
Carrie Mathison, a CIA operations officer, is on probation after carrying out an unauthorized operation in Iraq. As a result, she has been reassigned to the Counter terrorism center. Whilst in Iraq, she was warned that an American prisoner had been turned by Al-Qaeda. When Nicholas Brody, a U.S. Marine Sergeant, is rescued after being held hostage since 2003, she suspects that he is the one. While Brody is received home as a war hero, Carrie goes to any lengths necessary to catch him out.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Corrupt Charlie Rangel Temporarily Steps Aside to Save the Democrats
The delightful but sadly incredibly corrupt Harlem Congressman Charlie Rangel announced a 9 a.m. press conference. A couple minutes before 9, he went before cameras to announce that he'll "temporarily" stop being the chair of the Ways and Means Committee.
Last night, Rangel said he would not temporarily step aside, but something changed his mind this morning.
Last week, the House ethics committee officially "admonished" Rangel. That is not a thing that means anything. It doesn't even really exist, this "official House ethics committee admonishment." (One former Admonishment Recipient: Tom DeLay!)
Charlie Rangel won his seat by defeating the legendary Adam Clayton Powell. He's not been in office since 1971. He gives the best quote of the entire New York delegation. He also accepts corporate money to jet down to the fancy conferences in the Caribbean, has a million rent-stabilized New York apartments while living in DC for tax purposes, and then there is this thing with the apartment in the Dominican Republic. (That is the stuff he is in trouble for.)
Democrats began publicly demanding that Rangel step aside this week, because they are big babies about "corruption" and "looking bad" and all that stuff.


text:
Jan-Mar 09
Apr-Jun 09
Jul-Sept 09
Oct-Dec 09
Jan-May 10
Jun-Dec 10
Jan-May 11
Jun-Dec 11
[Dehai-WN] Firstperson.oxfamamerica.org: Reducing the distance traveled for water in East Africa
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: Berhane Habtemariam <
: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:30:31 +0200
Reducing the distance traveled for water in East Africa
Where there was once pasture, there in now only dust.
April 11th, 2012 | by Kenny Rae
Kenny Rae traveled to Ethiopia in March to support relief efforts for
communities in the Bale zone who are struggling to overcome the
> East
Africa drought and food crisis.
Every morning Yenee leaves her two children in the care of her sister and
ventures off to collect water for her family. After walking for two hours
she arrives at the spring-the only source of water for miles around.
She is not alone. In Laga Hidha, a remote district in southeast Ethiopia
which hasn't seen rain for over a year, collecting water for drinking,
cooking and bathing can be an all day affair-every day. At mid-morning at
the spring there can sometimes be more than 100 women, some of whom have
walked for more than seven miles. She will wait patiently in line for
another two hours to fill her jerrycans. She then returns home, carrying 30
liters (66 pounds weight) of water on her back.
It wasn't always like this. Nine years ago a well equipped with a hand pump
was installed in her village which provided water for all. Twice yearly
rains would replenish the open wells and ponds that provided water for
livestock, for bathing and for laundering clothes.
The hand pump has been broken for over a year, and a promise to replace it
by an aid agency has yet to be fulfilled. The prolonged drought has caused
the open wells and ponds to dry up, and the cattle and goats that benefited
from them have been sold off or have perished. Where there was once pasture,
there in now only dust. Those determined to hold on to a couple of animals
for milk must venture further and further from home to find food for their
In Hidha Hunda village, an elder told us that one of the few remaining cows
had, the day before been taken in search of food and water and, miles away,
had collapsed from hunger. Its owner left it where it lay and returned home.
In every village we visited here, and in the neighboring district of Sawena
we learned of the hardships that people are dealing with.
In Gale village all the livestock has been sold. Families were unable to
keep one or two animals for milk as the surrounding pasture is long
depleted. No crops have been cultivated for over a year. Collecting honey
used to provide additional income for the villagers but, without water and
flowers, the bees are gone.
While the first rains will be welcomed, there is a real concern in these
communities that when even when it arrives, their problems will not be over.
As an old man told us "Even if the rain comes now there is no pasture left
to water."
With their animals gone and with their grain stores consumed,
am-is-doing> Oxfam is supporting 1,600 families in Sawena and Laga Hidha
with emergency cash and food distributions. For a few days per month, those
that are physically able, undertake work such as rehabilitating traditional
wells and ponds in preparation for when the rains finally arrive, hopefully
to provide enough water to meet needs for a sustained period. To ease the
burden of collecting water in the short term, Oxfam is rehabilitating water
systems including replacing broken pumps to reduce the distances traveled.
Women walk several miles in Ethiopia to collect water for their families and
In some parts of Ethiopia, women like Yenee walk several miles to collect
water for their families and livestock. Photo by Kenny Rae / Oxfam America.
In the Bale zone of Ethiopia, herders say their cows are collapsing in
hunger. Photo by Kenny Rae / Oxfam America.
In the Bale zone of Ethiopia, herders say their cows are collapsing in
hunger. Photo by Kenny Rae / Oxfam America.
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Dehai Admin
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2012
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12212 138th Avenue NE #8-5
Lake Stevens, WA 98258
3334 sqft | 4 beds | 3.5 baths | #1796086
Acre+ lot backing to treed preserve. This is our new Endeavor II plan, rambler with a daylight basement. Main floor has an open concept living, dining and kitchen with flex space to use as needed. Ten foot ceilings on main floor, 9' in lower level. Three bedrooms and 2.5 baths. Owner's suite features freestanding tub and separate shower. Dual closets. Kitchen boasts a large island, and walk-in pantry. Laundry room with plumbing for a sink. 3 car garage. Main floor has 16' slider out to large large covered deck. Basement level has large rec room with slider out to patio and backyard, 4th bedroom and bath plus a storage room. Personalize your home with selections made in our Pulte Design Studio.
Interior Details
Interior Features
- Interior:Heat Pump, Ceramic Tile, Wall to Wall Carpet, Bath Off Primary, SMART Wired, Double Pane/Storm Window, Dining Room, High
- Fireplaces:1
Heating & Cooling
- Heating:Heat Pump, Wall
Beds & Baths
- Bedrooms:4
- Bathrooms:3.5
- Full Baths:3
- Half Baths:1
Property Details
- Lot description:Cul-De-Sac, Open Space, Paved
- Exterior features:Cable TV, Deck, High Speed Internet, Patio, Propane, RV Parking
- Exterior materials:Cement Planked, Stone
- Acres:1.072
- Square Feet:3334
- Garage spaces:3
Construction Details
Type & Style
- Property type:Purchase
- Style:16 - 1 Story w/Bsmnt.
- Basement:Daylight, Partially Finished
- Year built:2021
Material information
- Foundation:Poured Concrete
Utilities / Energy Details
- Sewer information:Septic Tank
- Utility source:Public
- Utility features:Cable Connected, High Speed Internet, Propane, Septic System, Electricity Available, Common Area Maintenance
Community and Neighborhood Details
- Subdivision:Getchell
- School district:Granite Falls
- Elementary School:Monte Cristo Elem
- Middle School:Granite Falls Mid
- High School:Granite Falls High
- County:Snohomish
Financial Details
Pricing Details
- Original List Price:$953, 965
- Days on Market (Cumulative):380
- Hoa fees:40
- Annual Taxes:$1
Claims of Copyright Infringement & Related Issues
Disclaimer: The information contained in this listing has not been verified by Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) - 21 - WA and should be verified by the buyer.
The database information herein is provided from and copyrighted by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS). NWMLS data may not be reproduced or redistributed and is only for people viewing this site. Listings that feature the "three tree" icon are provided courtesy of NWMLS. All information provided is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed and should be independently verified. All properties are subject to prior sale or withdrawal. All rights are reserved by copyright.
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Last Updated: . Source: NWMLS
Listing Courtesy
Listing Agent: Patti J. Jorgensen (#NWM31662)
Listing Office: Pulte Homes of Washington Inc (#NWM5617)
Listing Courtesy (Buyer)
Buyer's Agent: Patti J. Jorgensen (#NWM31662)
Buyer's Office: Pulte Homes of Washington Inc (#NWM5617)


text:
We knew it was coming.
In fact, emails were being exchanged, bracing ourselves for what was about to occur. Then, sure enough, 1:00pm struck and "the Internet stopped working" . . . at least that's what I overheard others in the building claiming. What happened?
Unless you live in a cave, you're aware that Apple released iOS 7 for their mobile devices yesterday. Certainly the owners of the 51,000+ iOS devices on campus knew this. The moment it was released, the amount of traffic leaving the university (bound for the Internet) increased significantly. After the first 15 minute burst, we began to think that was the worst of it. Then 3:45pm came and boom! EVERYONE wanted the latest Apple goodness.
In order to show you how this looks from our perspective, let me give you a baseline. As of this post, the university has roughly 5Gbps of Internet bandwidth from our provider, OARnet. You can see a week ago on last Wednesday, utilization plateaus right around this cap.
Fast forward a week and you can easily see just how much of an impact Apple's software release had on campus.
Clear as day, right? To be clear, the Internet did not "break". There was just massive contention for the shared amount of bandwidth we have at the university. The same thing occurred last year with iOS 6, and similar events occurred during last year's BigTen basketball tournament. It's no different than everyone jumping onto I-71 at the beginning of a holiday weekend; there's only so much room on the road.
So to all my colleagues, fellow Apple users, and disgruntled Tweeters out there, this is why "the Internet broke". I'm sorry getting iOS 7 took longer than you desired. Download it today . . . it just took me 3 minutes! 🙂


text:
[Page 174]
|Shmuel Kaminski
|Nakhman Rapp
[Page 175]
By Nakhman Rapp (Wroclaw)
Translated by Tina Lunson
The history of suffering, torment and murder in the Grayeve ghetto is, in general, in its scope and contents, similar to the history of every ghetto in Poland. But the fate of the Jews in Grayeve ghetto is distinctive from other ghettos, during its existence and during its complete liquidation.
The following two points must be reckoned first as the distinction for Grayeve:
Even during the outbreak of the Polish-German war in 1939, when the Jewish population was fleeing in chaos from Grayeve to areas deeper in the interior of the country such as Byalistok [Białystok] and further; the direct danger of living close to a border in uncertain times became clear to the Grayeve Jews. It was already becoming apparent a month before the war that hostilities would take place. Not every Jew wanted to separate from his proprietorship, leaving everything to ruin. Only in the last days, when the government agents started fleeing and removing the archives of the administrative and communal institutions, only then did the Jews gradually begin to leave the town. There
[Page 176]
were many and this was the majority who simply would not contemplate such an evacuation. This was the largest part of the town's poor, who barely lived from day- to-day by labor or peddling. For them moving from their place would have meant economic ruin, so indeed they stayed in town and were the first to feel the Nazi order on their skin. Most of those who evacuated to Byalistok and further had agreed amongst themselves not to return to Grayeve, so there would be no need to flee again under similar circumstances. The decision was confirmed when they sensed the relative calm shown by the people in the towns deeper in the country.
However, in two weeks time came a standstill across most of Polish soil. Except for Varshe [Warsaw] and Westerplatte,[1] which defended themselves bravely against the German enemy until the last minute, there was no fighting in the rest of the land. The Red Army took western Ukraine and western White Russia, on whose borders the Byalistok military command also settled, including the border pass for Grayeve, Shtutzin [Szczuczyn], Raigrod [Rajgród] and other towns up to the old border of eastern Prussia.
The entry of the Red Army into those areas produced joy and security among the Jewish population. The Jewish families of Grayeve who a few weeks before had fled the town in chaos, gradually returned. Every month, every week that the Soviet power was in town, reinforced the conviction that there would not be any war, because it was enough to look at the heavy weapons, the two-story tall tanks and heavy canon of the Soviet garrison in Grayeve to be sure that the Germans would not be allowed to attack.
Along with peace came the temporary loss of the constant worry about livelihood that always pressed upon the Grayeve Jews. Every Jew without exception got work from the state and they were not paid badly.
That bound the Grayeve Jews even more to their hometown and made them completely forget the earlier danger of living in a border town and neighboring with Germany.
[Page 177]
Therefore the sudden outbreak of war in 1941 found a compact settlement of Jews in Grayeve. Apart from Grayeve itself, refugees had also come from the Polish areas that the Germans had occupied in their ambush in 1939. The new German attack found them completely abandoned by any protector, because the Soviet forces had withdrawn in great panic to the east, and the Jewish population remained in the teeth of the wolf.
That is how Grayeve, because it was a border town, had Hitler's murdering army from the beginning.
Now we come to the second point: The complete and savage liquidation of the Jewish community in Grayeve was carried out with the most active participation of the anti-Semitic neighbors of the town and countryside.
Grayeve and its region are one of the few places in Poland where almost no Jewish lives were protected or saved by their Polish neighbors (except for Dr. Sheytelman[2] and his wife, about whom we will write). Exactly the opposite: of the local Christian population the underworld, those previously active members of the fascist Polish organizations Nara, and S. N. and ordinary hooligans took part, and they aided and quickened the work of the German murderer.
Since 1933 that is since Hitler's coming to power in Germany a wave of anti-Semitism had begun in the Grayeve area. Already in that first and second year there were organized anti-Jewish attacks, with the quiet consent of the government who generally intervened only after window panes had been broken out of Jewish houses, Jewish businesses had been robbed, and Jewish heads had been split. Every effort to organize the workforce met with extraordinary terror from the Sanacja[3] government. It was as though that government had specially trained the anti-Semitic Valkyries, treating the Jews as enemy number one of their lamentable regime.
True, there were Poles who did not want to make peace with the Hitler politics of murder and predation and who were prepared to actively help the Jews in
[Page 178]
their torment. Those people were gruesomely murdered by the German cutthroats after traitorous denunciations by the fascist Polish underworld.
In our work we will mention some names of Poles of various strata: of the clergy, of laborers and of intellectuals, who literally sacrificed themselves in defending Jewish lives and thus paid with their own lives. May these mentions be a flower on their graves, which have until now remained unknown.[2]
Writing these lines, I see before my eyes my brothers and sisters from my hometown Grayeve, killed in agony and torment and I hear their last wish, before leaving this horrible world:
Tell about our murder! Do not let the memory of us and our suffering be obliterated! Let the mention of our martyrology be, for the few survivors of our town, a gravestone to which they come on keyver-oves [traditional visiting of ancestors' graves], so one may shed a warm tear and mention the tragic past. And for our people may it remain as a point that glows and flares up in a great flame of revenge that will continually awaken and demand its due:
Blot out the memory of Amelek!!!
Wroclaw, April 1948
Nineteen Thirty-Nine
It happened so unexpectedly that one could hardly believe it: The German-friendly Sanacja regime had suddenly, through its press, begun pouring pitch and sulfur on Germany, in its aggressive appetite and demands on Poland for the Danzig corridor.
We read the newspapers and barely believed it. Could it be that such a good life would result in a war between the two good friends?
A patriotic action began in the land. To us in Grayeve came the dramatic ensemble of the 33rd Infantry Regiment in Lomzhe. The patriotic presentation Poland the Heart of Europe was mounted. It made fun of Hitler, of the bent cross [swastika] and of his threatening a quick lightning victory in Poland. I went to that presentation
[Page 179]
with my friend Motl Yavko (Motl Leytshes). The presentation was organized by a civilian sponsor, headed by the regional doctor Shenkievitsh. Suddenly, right before the presentation, the doctor stood up and said to his companion, the big-whiskered German engineer, Come, colleague, it's a shame to sit together with Jews. It was not possible to react, as many other things were not possible to do in pre-war Poland; the only thing we could do was to immediately leave the presentation.
I bring out this fact as an illustration of the relationship of the Polish fascists and half-fascists to Jews, even in such a moment of danger for the country, such as the German aggression.
A week later all the military draftees, including the Jewish ones, received announcements to report to the army, in Sosnovets [Sosnowiec]. It was the first time since Poland had become a state that Jews had received an invitation to serve in the border patrol Kop in Osovyets [Osowiec]. We accepted that as long as the knife was at their throats, the Sanacja regime trusted the Jews to fight against the Germans. The Jewish youth were burning with hatred for fascist Germany and went into the army charged with a lust for fighting in the nearing clash.
Now they did not make any selection in political propriety when taking recruits into the army. Rather, the radically-minded worker was chosen especially for defending the border pass. The border formation Kop in Osovyets took the above-mentioned Motl Yavka (Motl Leytshes), a young worker who had been in prison for six years for communist activity; the left Poalei Tsion and community worker Motl Striev; the brothers Aron and Meyshe Kriskievitsh and others.
The conflict broke out on the first of September. The general mobilization that had been quickly declared three days before, did not appear in Grayeve to have time to be completed. Thursday, the last day before the outbreak of the war, the whole town, Jews and Christians, were at the train station. Heart-rending cries from the mothers, who had accompanied their sons to the front, were mixed with the shouting of the people who had not seen fit to evacuate earlier and
[Page 180]
were now perceiving their last minutes. Drunken, mobilized Poles were jumping back out of the wagons and throwing themselves on Jews, shouting with loud voices that the war was only because of the Jews and that now they would settle accounts with the Jews. Luckily there was no time to settle accounts on the spot, because it was already 6 p.m. and that train was the last one and had to depart immediately. At 4 in the morning that train, coming from Byalistok to Grayeve, fell to the Germans in the train station.
Most of the Jews who succeeded in evacuating were left in Byalistok. From there they thought with horror and concern about the majority of the Jewish population of Grayeve who had stayed in the town. In the space of two weeks since the outbreak of the war, Grayeve had been cut off by the front-line and there was no way to reach it. Only two weeks later, when the Germans were in Byalistok, did skimpy news come out of Grayeve. No Jew had proposed to travel to Grayeve, but peasants from near Grayeve related the sad summation of two weeks of German proprietorship in the town: they had burned all the study-houses, the big beautiful shul [synagogue] and sent dozens of Jewish houses up in smoke.
When the Soviet powers took Grayeve, people gradually began to come back to their homes and also learned about Jews killed and about Jews whom the Germans had captured and sent to Germany.
It made everyone tremble to hear of the case of the woman Elkon, a woman not entirely in her right senses, who the Germans dragged off to near Prostken, poked out her eyes and left her blinded in mortal agony in the Bogushe forest, from where a peasant had brought her back to town in his wagon.
The Germans dragged off many Jewish young people deep into the interior, from where I recall only one came back, Khaym Fridman (a son of Feyge Malke Fridman).
The Germans dragged off the fifteen-year-old high school student Abrasha Baykovski and to this day there is still no news of him. The lonely mother Khaytshe (Helene) Baykovski, who now lives in Bresle [Wroclaw], still believes that her
[Page 181]
son is alive somewhere and each day she lives anew the torment of a mother who cannot find her lost child.
The Germans savagely killed the seventeen-year-old boy Dovid Rapp, a son of Itsik Rapp the baker (a brother of the writer of these lines). The German sadists quartered the young man alive with swords.
A young girl ripped to pieces by a grenade, was the daughter of Khaym Leyzer the baker, who had a bakery on Shul Street. His son, Srolke Antshkovski, disappeared without a trace.
There were no recorded acts against Jews during that time on the part of the Christian population of Grayeve. Rather, there were cases when the German soldiers set fire to Jewish houses where the Polish neighbors helped to put out the fire.[2] Thus was saved the newly-built house of the tailor Itsik Grobgeld and the house of Yoske Gurovski (Yoske the spinner [of tales or procrastination]).
To those who disappeared and no one knows where, were added the former town rabbi Rov [Rabbi] Itsik Ayzik Grosman and the towns' richest man, the owner of a steam-driven mill in Grayeve, Avrom (Avromtshe) Ayzenshtat. Later it became known that the latter were horribly murdered by the Germans for ransom, in the birthplace of the rov, Bendin [Bêdzin].
The fighting in Poland stopped. Warsaw was conquered and in the territory of western Ukraine and western White Russia Soviet life began to take form. Gradually the evacuated Jews began to come to Grayeve, which was now part of White Russia. Besides them came a certain number of Jewish refugees from the Polish areas occupied by the Germans. Jewish Grayeve began once again to recover its Jewish face.
Soviet Rule in Grayeve
That year the autumn ended very early and to our distress, an early and angry winter set in. Such a winter, with such freezing weather as in 19401941 had not been recorded since 1928.
[Page 182]
Life was very hard in Grayeve in the first weeks of Soviet rule. Organized noxious gangs of the former fascist Polish parties went around to the villages and agitated among the peasants not to sell grain to the Bolsheviks. A few Jewish bakers, who had also remained in Grayeve with the Germans, got a little flour from someplace and baked black bread. The bakers were: Moyshe Pinievski (Moyshe smokh), who had fled to Byalistok before the outbreak of the war. After the coming of Soviet rule to Grayeve he baked for himself, getting a little grain from peasants he knew.
Gradually life became easier. Several bakeries were nationalized and the office of town welfare took on bread baking, enough for the town and rural population. And other essential products began to come into the town, so that we lacked nothing.
From the beginning this seemed very strange to the population: Shops were open in town, bakeries were working, we had the mills, the electric station, workshops opened and all this without owners. The people smiled and predicted that they would not be able to succeed in bringing about any order since without a proprietor no one could make anything. But the Jewish youth of Grayeve threw themselves into the work heart and soul. Motl Yavko, after coming back from Polish-German front, threw himself with all his youthful energy into organizing life in the town. On the cold winter days he rambled around among the villages, collecting grain from the peasants. At night he went out to track down the local gangs that did their destructive work at night. When life had stabilized after a short time, Motl Yavko became chairman of the state trade network town welfare in Grayeve.
Several state shops were opened, a haberdashery, knitted fabric, and others. In Etele Mishkovitshe's building in the market square, at the corner of Bogushe Street, was the central cooperative where almost only Jewish women sellers had set up stalls. The sisters Rokhl, Ore and Yehudis Mayek (daughters of Mayek the cabinetmaker) worked there and Rivke and Tshipe Markusfeld and others. The former bakery proprietors were now working in their own bakeries, which the
[Page 183]
state had nationalized. For a time, the manager of the bakeries was the former bakery-owner Shaul Bronervayn.
Jews were employed in every area of economic and cultural life, so too on the town and district councils and in all institutions. A hospital with 60 beds was opened in Grayeve. The administrator of the hospital was the Grayeve doctor, Viner.
In the building of the Talmud-Torah, which was located on Powiatowe Street near the new study-house and after remodeling, a Yiddish not-full middle school was opened. Ten teachers worked there, among them Velvl (Vovak) Zilbershteyn, Dore Vapinska, Shleyme Vrontsberg, (director) and other teachers from outside. The Jewish teachers Fromer and Baykovska worked in the newly opened Polish school.
For the first time the Jewish youth of Grayeve perceived the great opportunities that the Soviet order gave the youth to develop themselves. They enrolled in the middle and high schools of the land. The teacher mentioned and many other youths began to study in various faculties. Others went off to take short and long-term courses to learn a useful specialty.
The Yiddish school in Grayeve developed very nicely. The Jewish children who came from the Polish school and the Talmud-Torah surprised them with their superb Yiddish. A circle for artistic self-realization was created at the state middle school Number Two in Grayeve, which after a short while mounted an exhibition, the likes of which Grayeve had never seen from children. The county division for popular education decided to present the heroic drama Bar Kokhba[4] by Sh. Halkin with the children from the Yiddish school. After going through a three-month course for directors for dramatic self-realization I was designated the leader of the group. I undertook to present the theater piece. I recall myself the great success that this show was.
From the highest balconies in town hung artistic posters, painted on big panels.
[Page 184]
The posters presented episodes from the heroic Bar Kokhba rebellion. On the site of the great shul, which the Germans had burned, had been built a gorgeous theater with 1500 seats. The presentation was performed in this theater. The hall was overflowing with a diverse audience. There were Soviet state officials, Party leaders and a large number from the Grayeve garrison. The latter, in their great appreciation of the children, gave them gifts and kissed them after the performance. (None of those children artists are alive anymore. They were, along with all the children of Grayeve, horribly murdered by the German killers, may their names be blotted out!)
The religious life of the Jews in Grayeve looked very peculiar during that time. The Germans had burned all the study-houses in the town in 1939. Now, after the coming of Soviet rule, a bit of religious life began to get established. True, for a while at the beginning, every pious Jews prayed by himself at home, in private. Later a minyen [prayer quorum of 10 men] was created at the home of Meyshe Pinievski (Meyshe smokh) at Rutske 30 (Shul Street), where people prayed together as a community everyday, to say nothing of Shabes and holidays. When the Germans set fire to the great shul in 1939, the tailor Itsik Grobgeld succeeded in saving one Torah scroll and a small number of holy books such as Talmud volumes and others. And this was of much use in setting up the minyen.
Also in the area of religious education, the ancient Jewish tradition of the Talmud-Torah was not interrupted. True, the building of the former Talmud-Torah had been taken over by the Yiddish school, but a special place was arranged at the minyen where the Hebrew teacher Anshl Kotshak gave holy instruction to all the Jewish children who attended the Yiddish school until afternoon.
But in the darkness of the nights the noxious gangs did not rest. Among the fascists, those driven underground and the not-yet-successful home-grown fascists of the Narodovke the earnest enemy of the Polish people, Hitler-Germany, which had treacherously attacked Poland, was as if forgotten. They now released their entire poison on the Bolsheviks, who had brought in the Judeo-commune. They relayed from ear to ear the rumors that, ostensibly, people would soon be forbidden to teach the Polish language, that all the Poles
[Page 185]
from Grayeve would be sent to labor camps in Siberia and people would be forbidden to go into the churches. Of course, the entire agitation had no basis at all and was just invented as ill will to incite the dark masses against the rulers and turn them into a tool in the hands of the princes and the reaction.
Yet that dark agitation was not successful. The Polish intelligentsia sensed for the first time in its life, that it was an important and useful element in society. And those intellectuals filled all the state and the communal offices in Grayeve and worked conscientiously. The workers, or really the generally unemployed, who had earlier been for Poland, standing behind the magistrate in Grayeve and waiting for support, got work that they could live from and were therefore loyal to the government of workers and peasants. Only the princely sinners, whose great landed estates had been taken and divided up among the landless peasants, only they could not rest and carry out their old, pre-war and well-known agitation against the Judeo-commune.
The Soviet powers turned in a report on the noxious gangs and undertook an action to push those hateful elements away from the border town of Grayeve and send them deeper into the country.
On the 19th of June 1941, several Jewish families were sent out of Grayeve. Those sent out were: the family Baykovski, Yoysef Bialastatsky and his family, Kirshenboym and his family, the nurse Manye Kaplan. Some were ordered to reside 30 kilometers from Grayeve (Aron Leyzerson and others).
Those sent away took the fact of having to part from their old homes very badly. They considered it a tragedy and cried hard when they parted from their friends. But all in all those sent away, thanks to the fact that they had been torn away from the claws of the Hitlerists just two or three days before the war, remained alive and they regard the day of their expulsion from Grayeve as the day on which the greatest miracle in their lives took place.
In March and April 1941, those in Grayeve with military duty, including the Jewish ones, went off the serve in the Russian army. Of those who went into the army
[Page 186]
I remember: Khaym Adamshteyn, Yosl Mayek, Yankl Roymer, Gershon Gringros (a son of Zeyrekh the katsov [butcher]) and Shmay Markus. Those young men then bravely fought in the war against the Germans and were particularly distinguished for their bravery. Their greatest distinction however is that thanks to their going off into the army, they did not fall into the ghetto and remained alive until this day.
The Grayeve youth who served in Osovyets (25 kilometers from Grayeve) shared a worse fate. They were among the first to fall into the hands of the German butchers and be killed. Of those murdered in Osovyets I remember: Yankl Rutski (a son of Falk the painter), Gershon Viernik, Meyshe Viernik (Alterke the Katsov's), Benyumin Kureyvovski, Meyshe Itsik Tobiashora, Khaym Mendl Levin, Khaym Kurzshandkovski, Leybl Zeligzon, Yosl Levin, and the 18 year-old Khaym Epshteyn. A few from the same division managed to get away and come home to Grayeve to their parents. Such was the case with Yankev Shaye Kaminski, who merited being killed in the Grayeve ghetto along with his mother and father.
Relatively, life was so quiet and hopeful that one could not believe that there could be such calamity as occurred, and when on the 22nd of June 1941 the Grayeve residents were suddenly torn from their sleep by powerful explosions and shooting, the first, unspoken question that lay on the lips of the frightened Grayeve Jews:
Is it possible?
Unfortunately it was possible
The Hitler Occupation in Grayeve
The German attack on the Soviet Union occurred on Sunday June 22 at four in the morning.
I had been in Byalistok for a whole week. In the city there had been nothing of note that would indicate a coming storm. Around Tuesday, a few days before the outbreak of war, I met with some Grayeve Jews in Byalistok and they told me that the Soviets had
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expelled some Jewish families from Grayeve. After taking care of my affairs in Byalistok, I left for Grayeve on the night of between the 21st and 22nd of June, at one in the morning.
It was three o'clock in the morning when I came out of the Grayeve train station. The town was sunken in still, pre-dawn sleep. I walked from the train station with a friend of mine, Gershon Gringros, who was traveling from his military division in Osovyets for a few days leave. We talked about the lightening sky of that warm dawn and how today we could go to the beach by the Kosherova River. We agreed to meet by the river and we parted, each to his home.
My home was already on Shul Street number 24 in the building owned by Avreml Daytsh, because the Germans had burned our house on Konopsko Street in 1939. When I came in everyone woke up, father, mother, and sisters. They asked me what was new in Byalistok and why I had not brought my girlfriend back with me, whom I was shortly going to marry. We chattered on until my mother made a bed for me and said that it was time to call it a night.
Suddenly we were deafened by a terrible shriek, like dozens of factory sirens sounding right by our ears. We stood frozen and did not know what it meant. The last thing we expected was a war attack. We knew well that there was a non-aggression pact with Germany and could not imagine that the German would so suddenly, without a reason, attack Russia.
In a few minutes we came to our right senses. Every little while the air was shaken with a fresh explosion. We ran from the steps to see what was going on in the street. But just in going out of the house we soon saw that it was indeed a war in every detail and we took off running to the Byalistok Highway.
Although Grayeve was not a large district city it had barely twelve thousand residents it still had, because of its border with Germany, two divisions of military artillery stationed there. Therefore the war for Grayeve came with a concentrated assault
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from the German forces. Already in the first minutes of the war Grayeve was enveloped in a sea of smoke and fire. All kinds of weapons were trained on the town and deafened the residents with their detonations.
Here is what an eyewitness related about the first minutes of the war in Grayeve:
I ran to the window to see what was going on in the street. A thick smoke was rising to the sky and blocked out the light. If not for the frequent shooting and explosions, one might have thought that it was not an assault on the town but that it had simply been set on fire. Unable to see anything through the window, I went out on the stoop to see what was happening. But stretching my hand in the air I soon encountered a rocket, which tore off these two fingers. I carried my wife, who had fainted, back into the house. (Yozef Kalski, a bricklayer, Rutske Street).
And beneath that same smoke and thunder the Jewish population in Grayeve lay captive and before they could grasp it, the way out was already cut off by the attacking German troops.
Soon it proved to be that the entire Byalistok region had been cut off from its center, Byalistok. The fascist underworld rose up to serve the Germans and cut the telegraph connections every thirty or so kilometers. The officials of the Soviet institutions and of the Party desperately called by telephone for help and clarification, but for naught, they were left to their own fate.
The [presence of the] fort in Osovyets was able to arouse a little hope. From there, it was reckoned, the Germans could be driven back before establishing a front, so people could evacuate deeper into the land. But that hope failed too. It was as though the Germans avoided the fort at Osovyets and gradually, from Lomzhe, surrounded it on all sides.
The German military troops did not come into Grayeve on the first day of the war. Only the German border guards came into Grayeve. They took over the train station, the post office and all the Soviet institutions. Only on the third day, that is the 24th of June, did
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the military establish a command, with quarters on Pilsudskiego Street (Shtutzin Street).
Even on the first day that the German border guards were in Grayeve, they began to murder and violate the Jewish population. A decree was issued to the German troops that Jewish life and property was ownerless and that they could do whatever they wanted with them. Indeed on the first day mass raping of young Jewish women began. The noble German race was especially distinguished for biting their young victims to death and the mother of the tortured child had to stand by in horrible mindless torment and look at what they did to her child.
This is what the Polish woman Helena Nadolna related about an event which she saw with her own eyes:
my neighbor from across the street barged in, in terrible desperation, [saying] that a German had killed her daughter and that she herself (the mother) must watch out that no one intruded on him. When the German came out, he simply said to the mother 'Good mother.' What she saw later when she went into the room, she could not believe her own eyes. She called me to help her save her child, but there was no one there to save. The girl's entire body was torn open, bitten and swollen. Her mouth and breasts were smeared with blood. She was already dead, strangled, her eyes bulging out. The mother wanted to take her own life in her despair. A few days later she lost her mind and Germans killed her. Her name was Henie Shayne Bashes, Rutske Street 34. So they did with many others, whose families I don't know.
In a few days, on Wednesday the 25th of July, at ten o'clock in the morning they drove all the Jews together in the middle of the market square and the town commandant Geis read aloud for them the decree from the high command. Among other things, the decree said:
The Jewish nation is a criminal nation and as such has earned a hard and eternal punishment of hard labor and imprisonment. They are forbidden to live free and together with other peoples, because they do not have pure blood. Sooner or later they must all die.
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They must be obedient to every German, under penalty of death. The Jews will be distinguished by a yellow star, which they must wear on the shoulder and breast as a sign of their shame.
As usual in the German manner, each decree was accompanied by a pointed action. After reading the decree for the Jews they drove the Jews out of the market square under a hail of blows, and arrested the two sisters Yehudis and Rokhl Mayek on the spot, took them to the old Jewish cemetery and shot them there.
An anguished fear befell the Jews gathered in the market after listening to the decree. It was an open confirmation that from today on, Jewish life was up for grabs by any German or Polish hooligan. From that day on Jews sat tense in their houses, afraid of the light of day. A rumor spread that the Polish underworld was preparing for an open pogrom on Jews. It was said that a delegation of Polish hooligans had presented themselves to the commandant of the Gestapo Opper, with the question of whether there was a punishment for killing a Jew and the commandant had answered that killing a Jew was without punishment. That version proved to be right, when in two days the first pogrom of the Polish underworld against the Jews broke out.
Sunday the 29th of July the first organized pogrom against the Jews of Grayeve broke out. Coming out of church, incited hooligans started robbing and killing the Jews. With specially prepared hatchets and wooden poles they set about splitting Jewish heads. The leaders of the pogrom were Aloizi Sentkovski, a young professional thief, a syphilitic, a son of the well-known Grayeve thief Sentkovski (Konopsko Street number 6) and the knife wielders Grin, Mikloshevski, Zegarek and Stanish. The Jews who the bandits met on the street were killed on the spot, and thus Motl Striev was bestially killed by the cutthroat Aloizi Sentkovski. The photographer Efroym Vodovski fell at the hands of the murderer Stanish. The assassins were not sated with that and went into the Jewish houses, where they brought death and ruin. Today, when I happen to speak with the
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Christians of Grayeve about that pogrom, they take pains to avoid the subject. Mostly each of the Christians says that he helped this or that Jew. So it was interesting to get the testimony from the Grayeve Christian Yoyskovski who lived on the market square, next to the house where Yoysef Bialystocki lived. In the same house lived the ironmonger Vaynshteyn and Ukrop's son-in-law Meyshe (whose family name I have not succeeded in establishing).
When the pogrom began those two Jews were out on the street. They immediately started running home to save themselves. The above-mention Christian continues in these words:
When I saw those two little Jews running and frightened, I closed the house door and did not let them in (!) They knocked desperately on the door. But they found an ax and broke the door in and came into the house. But soon the peasants arrived and they beat the Jews. They broke Vaynshteyn's legs and the other one they chopped into his chest.
That Christian in his innocence tells about his own fine action and therewith gives a clear idea about the relationship of most of the Poles to the Jews in Grayeve in that frightful time.
But there were also good Christians, who showed their moral and human face in that bestial atmosphere. Their self-sacrifice in defending Jewish lives and their humane dignity must be mentioned by us with the greatest appreciation. First of all must be mentioned with reverence the progressive Polish worker Henrik Sobolevski[2] , for years a member of the Polish Communist Party, who on the day of that horrible pogrom on Jews, with word and deeds actively resisted the wild hooligans and for that, paid with his life. The Germans held him and another dozen Jews for a day in the shul, where he was horribly tortured, then taken to the old Jewish cemetery and shot.
The second beautiful spirit was the Catholic priest Penza[2] . He did not tire in his morning masses of calling the Christian population to reason, not to collaborate with the Germans and not to let themselves be drawn in by the Germans' provocations against the Jews. But for the hooligans it seemed as though robbery and murder stood higher than Christian
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morals and human love. They reported the Christian father themselves and delivered him into the hands of the German murderers, who unceremoniously shot the noble clergyman.
There were rumors that right after the pogrom a Jewish delegation set out to the German town commandant Geis and requested help from him against the pogromists. Whether that fact is correct or not, we do not know. But it is correct that soon, in the first hours after the pogrom, at three o'clock in the afternoon, German police set out in a chase after the pogromists, caught three of them (Mikloshevski, Zegaret and Grin) and shot them on the spot. That was to say that the Germans were standing by the Jews and protecting them from the incited Christian population. But this was just a cunning trick by the German hangmen, who on one side organized that pogrom and when it happened, pretended not to know. And from the other side they incited the Christian population against the unprotected Jews, showing the Christians, that now they were also standing up for the Jews. This cunning game was calculated so that later, when the Germans would confine the Jews in a ghetto, the Jews would think it was a favor to them that they got to live apart from the Poles from whom they waited in terror for a similar pogrom every day.
In order to mask their true intent, it did not suffice for the Germans just to catch the three mentioned murderers. They took several wounded Jews away to a hospital where they could be healed. From such healing Rivke Bialystocki died three days later. A horrible incident that confirmed the German provocation happened with the wounded Jew Postalski. The pogromists had beaten him so that he was unrecognizable. In the morning, as he laid half-conscious on the hospital bed, the Germans brought to him the young Polish man Lutek Remishevski and demanded from the Jew whether he recognized this young man as his assailant. In his pain and half-conscious state the Jew had the delusion that this young man was indeed the
[Page 193]
one who had beaten him and he said with tears in his voice, Tell me, what do you have against me? Why did you beat me? The young man went white as a sheet and stammered, Pani Postolski, what are you saying to me? Am I capable of such a thing? But the Germans did not allow him to speak out and took him away. That young man was a progressive Polish semi-intellectual and the Germans specially entangled him in that provocation in order to dig even deeper the abyss of hatred and distrust between the Jewish and Polish populations. In a few days the innocent Lucian Remishevski was shot by the Germans.
On that day the Germans arrested, along with Remishevski, the Polish teacher Leon Klodetski, the already mentioned progressive worker Henrik Sobolevski and other progressive Poles and imprisoned them in the building of the shul. The teacher Klodetski managed through a miracle to run away at the last minute. The others were shot the same day.
The intent of the German sadists was clear: to throw the blame for organizing the pogrom onto the progressive elements of the Polish population, and use the opportunity to make a little pogrom on the communists at the same time.
After a week of continual attacks on Jews, the Germans saw that the ground was ripe for the rescue of the Jews in Grayeve. Then the German hangmen, with their murderous precision, got down to their plan.
A special division of the S.S. was mobilized to catch and arrest every Jew between the ages of 15 and 45. All the captured were driven into the theater building, where the great shul had stood before the war. That was not just a regular prison where arrestees were tortured. Jews there suffered such afflictions that would make the tortures of the Inquisition seem like child's play.
They invented various tortures for their victims, but each death had to come slowly and with the greatest agony. Jews with broken arms and legs were made to perform various exercises: jump over tables and benches under the blows of the butchers' sticks.
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|The shul until the war
|The shul building.
Before the time of the Soviet regime, a theater. Now a market hall for vegetables, fish and pork. In the cellar of this building, around 200 Jews were tortured under the Nazis
[Page 195]
After three days of starving they were given salted herring to eat, and after that they were given nothing to drink for three days. The younger and stronger ones were driven to do several kinds of inhumanly difficult and completely useless work, under a hail of blows. They ordered them to carry the stone fence from the study-house back and forth. And after such a day of hard labor and exhaustion they brought them back into the shul and tortured them the whole night. Of course, since no one was able to hold out for long, 15 to 20 people died every day from the great suffering.
Before they died the butchers threw their victims into the deep cellar of the shul and let them die there. When the cellar was already half full of corpses, the German gangsters threw in healthy people and held them there until they choked out their last breath in great agony.
Here is what an eyewitness, the Christian Helene Nadolna, relates; she lived across from the shul and could see everything with her own eyes:
They took the youth and especially the males into the synagogue and tortured them for two weeks. There in the synagogue it was a real hell. Such tortures, it would be better to die rather than suffer so much. They twisted their arms, ripped out their tongues, tore out their nails. They whipped them every day in the morning, 100 lashes each. When one of those tortured fainted, they threw him into water with chlorine and lime, and when he regained consciousness there was another new torture: jumping over various barricades, over benches, tables. After that they stood them all up in rows and each tenth person had to jump through the second-story window. If anyone jumped and lived, the Germans killed him on the spot. They twisted the Jews' hands with barbed wire, and with the same wire they twisted their heads backwards and threw them into the cellar of the shul like that, so that they would die there. The dead bodies of the tortured were only taken out a year later, completely decayed. You could not recognize who anyone was. The workers who were driven together for that work became deathly ill with several diseases. The corpses were thrown into a pit with lime that had been in the cellar.
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At such a pageant, when the Germans made the Jews jump through the window of the shul, the Polish underworld was assembled below so that if someone remained alive and tried to run away, the hooligans killed him on the spot with shovels and pry-bars. So it was with the youth Velvl Piekarevitsh (the son of Stavisk [Stawiski] blacksmith Avrom Shleyme). After the boy jumped through the window he ran to the Jewish cemetery. The hooligans caught him and threw him alive into the full lime pit near the shul.
A horrible incident, told by Grayeve Poles, took place with the young engineer Kirshboym. The engineer was not from Grayeve, but during the outbreak of the war in 1939 he came as a refugee from Warsaw. That physically fit young man was happy to jump from the second story and tried to run away. The Polish underworld, which was standing around and taking pleasure in the Jews' suffering, caught the Jewish engineer and threw him into the big pit near the shul. The pit was a kind of big, provisional garbage pit that the Germans had made near the shul. After they threw him in, the unfortunate engineer swam around and grabbed the boards of the rim with his hands and tried to crawl out of the excrement. The hooligans were standing around and laughing at the zhyd [derogatory term for Jewish person] submerged all the while in the filth. When they saw that the young man was crawling out, the hooligans ran to him and with iron shovels split the unfortunate's head into pieces. (Testimony from Polish bricklayer Yan Kalski, Rudzka Street).
The Grayeve youth Mayer Kletski, the survivor of that bloody massacre in the shul, tells about the first night of torture this way:
we sat down on the earth with our feet tied together and so the night was passed. The night was very terrible. First, because they would not allow us out to urinate, people suffered a lot. Second, at such a time all kinds of thoughts occur. One says, they will set us on fire, another says something else. In the morning the overseers came in and asked with a smile, So, little Jews? How did you sleep?
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text:
Story highlights
The number of U.S. gun owners has declined as more guns are concentrated in fewer hands
CNN analysis shows gun owners in the U.S. own one-third of guns on the planet
Many gun owners live in swing states, key to the fall election
A decreasing number of American gun owners own two-thirds of the nation's guns and as many as one-third of the guns on the planet – even though they account for less than 1% of the world's population, according to a CNN analysis of gun ownership data.
The data, collected by the Injury Prevention Journal, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the General Social Survey and population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, found that the number of U.S. households with guns has declined, but current gun owners are gathering more guns.
The United States tends to have better data on gun numbers than other countries, for instance Somalia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which may account for the high percentage, according to Alan Lizotte, dean and professor at the School of Criminal Justice at The University at Albany.
Gun owners debate in wake of Aurora tragedy
However, within its own borders, the U.S. gun owning population is on the decline and those gun owners are stockpiling more firearms.
"Those who own guns, own more guns," said Josh Sugarmann, the executive director and founder of the Violence Policy Center, a Washington-based gun control advocacy group. Last year the organization released an analysis of figures from the General Social Survey, which found that both the number of households owning guns and the number of people owning guns were decreasing.
Politicians from both parties have tip-toed around gun control after the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater massacre to avoid political implications in the upcoming election. However, studies suggest they are bowing to a smaller number of American gun owners.
Those gun owners tend to live in swing states, explained Lizotte.
"You can see where [the gun debate plays out] in the presidential election," said Lizotte. "Where rural states are swing states and urban states are not."
Candidates show little appetite for new gun control laws
A study published in the Injury Prevention Journal, based on a 2004 National Firearms Survey, found that 20% of the gun owners with the most firearms possessed about 65% of the nation's guns.
A 2007 survey by the U.N's Office on Drugs and Crime found that the United States, which has 5% of the world's population, owns 50% of the world's guns.
The number of households owning guns has declined from almost 50% in 1973 to just over 32% in 2010, according to a 2011 study produced by The University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. The number of gun owners has gone down almost 10% over the same period, the report found
The concentration comes, in part, because guns are "marketed by and large to people who already own guns," Lizotte said.
He also said that guns are specialty items, like tools in a tool box, so those who own guns are more likely to buy additional guns for different hunting purposes, for instance.
"If you use a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot a rabbit, the rabbit won't exist after you shoot it," Lizotte said. Therefore a gun owner who is a hunter will use a different gun for different types of hunting, for instance a small-caliber rifle instead of a high-powered shotgun.
Both studies also found that men were more likely to own guns, though the General Social Survey found that male gun ownership is down almost 20% since 1980. The Violence Policy Center's analysis of the General Social Survey data also found that part of the reason the gun owning population is declining is because those weapons are largely owned by white males, a group whose population is aging.
One in 10 women own a gun, the General Social Survey found.
Opinion: Do guns make us safer?
Still, while it is possible to collect accurate data on the number of guns in the United States using manufacturing, import-export and life-cycle data for the guns, the federal government has little idea of who the guns owners are, gun policy experts said.
"The federal government doesn't have good data on anything on guns and that's been done on purpose," said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and senior author of the Injury Prevention Journal study. "The gun lobby has lots of power … [their] goal is not to have any sort of registration system."
"We asked, 'Where'd the guns go?' The answer – it looked like the people that had lots of guns were buying more guns," Hemenway said.
The false perception that there are more gun owners has helped bolster a political narrative, emboldened the National Rifle Association and left politicians worried about losing support, gun policy experts say.
"…It gives them more power to say they are representing more gun owners and there are more gun owners," said Hemenway.
Sugarmann agreed. "There is a myth pushed by the gun industry, the NRA and the trade associations for gun makers that gun ownership is up," he said. "[That] there are more gun owners, when the opposite is true, gun ownership is declining."
The NRA did not respond to repeated requests from CNN for comment.


text:
- Elizabeth Kemp has served as mentor to many acting students
- Kemp sees her role as helping actors trust themselves
- Through this freedom, she gives them room to grow and be creative
- Kemp credits director Elia Kazan as instrumental to her own development
Editor's note: This is the fifth in a weekly series on characteristics of creativity. Next week's piece will focus on jazz saxophonist Grace Kelly and prodigies.
New York (CNN) -- When Bradley Cooper appeared on Bravo's "Inside the Actors Studio" last year, he couldn't help but be nervous.
He was the first graduate of the studio's master's program to make it on the show. And he was returning in triumph, having starred in such films as "The Hangover" and "Limitless" and appeared on Broadway opposite Julia Roberts in "Three Days of Rain."
But he was also offering thanks to one of his teachers, Elizabeth Kemp.
"I was never able to relax in my life before," he said, acknowledging her in a voice constricted with emotion. "The most sacred experience I ever had was in [her class]. No question about it."
Kemp, the head of the studio's drama department, was equally gracious.
"I had learned a great lesson from a mentor, Elia Kazan: I only want to work with people who give everything they have to give and make their work the most important thing to them in their life," she said on the show.
"[Cooper] gave more than I think even he thought humanly possibly to give."
That's the kind of effort she expects from her students. It may not feel comfortable, and it's probably not glamorous. But it's the truth. And truth forces them to go places they didn't know they could go.
It's a two-way street. She prods them. She challenges them. She gives them an environment where they feel protected, and then she works to break down their defenses.
Mentoring can be instrumental to fostering creativity. We stand on the shoulders of giants, it is said, but those shoulders don't have to belong to innovators and geniuses. Sometimes they belong to unheralded people whose probing questions, thoughtful guidance and unadorned encouragement push us in new directions.
Their impact can be transformative: Kemp recalls one student who'd been typecast as a mousy, desperate character -- because that's how he saw his niche. She gave him an assignment to be a king in a particular scene. He found a new range as an actor -- and a new sense of himself.
"You help them grow into parts of themselves that they didn't even know they had," she says.
Kemp, 60, sits in an empty, dimly lit black-box theater at The Actors Studio's Midtown headquarters. She's a striking woman, with large blue eyes, full lips and a head of blond hair that looks like it has just emerged from the shower. At times her conversation threatens to float off into the mystical, with talk of connections and destinies, but there's a steel in her voice. She knows what she's doing. She's been in the game for more than 40 years.
She was once like her students: young, uncertain, a little scared. She had some moments of acting glory -- part of the original cast of the hit musical "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," roles in "L.A. Law" and "thirtysomething" -- and then hit a wall. It would change her life -- and the lives of other actors.
Good acting requires vulnerability, she observes, and often actors are their own worst critics. Her goal is to allow her students to trust themselves "just enough to take a chance, to be daring, to go into the unknown and discover. It's a very delicate balance."
Cooper can't praise Kemp highly enough.
"She made it safe," he says. "She made us realize that you have to use all of yourself. She just made it OK, OK to be yourself with all your faults and your fears and insecurities -- they were all brought out to the light and she insisted that you be vulnerable and put it all out there; there was no sort of faking."
Zones of comfort
There are subtle differences between teachers and mentors. The entrepreneur Steve Blank perhaps put it best when he observed that teachers and coaches impart knowledge and push students to discover specific lessons on their own, while mentors work in one-on-one relationships and present broader life lessons. In the "Star Wars" films, some management mentors suggest, Yoda is a coach, teaching Luke how to use the Force, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is a mentor, showing him what it means to be a Jedi knight -- and a man. One of Kemp's students prefers the term "mystogogue," an initiator into the sacred mysteries.
When the mentor-student relationship crystallizes, the potential for development is greatest. "By pushing yourself to those limits, you tap into resources unknown," says Kemp. "That's when the real growth occurs."
Craig Tanner, creativity workshop leader
Kemp likes to create a comfort zone. Others -- including one of Kemp's mentors, Elia Kazan -- can be more pointed in their practice.
Kazan was recognized as a brilliant director; a generation of Method actors placed themselves in his hands. But he was also known for poking at their vulnerabilities as much as protecting them. As J.W. Williamson writes in "Hillbillyland," when Kazan directed Andy Griffith in "A Face in the Crowd," he discovered Griffith was sensitive about his poor Southern background. Just before rolling the camera, Kazan would whisper "white trash" to Griffith. Just the words would set him off.
Regardless of approach, good mentors always base their work on passion, says Kemp: "Not anger, not rage, not venom, but passion. And that's something I think that any mentor-guide would always share, is the passion."
Kazan would likely agree. "I am able to ... arouse [actors] to better work," he once wrote. "I have strong, even violent, feelings, and they are assets."
Students have to be willing to trust in their guides, says Craig Tanner, a Savannah, Georgia-based photographer who regularly runs creativity workshops. It's not easy: Many of his students arrive with expertise in one area and are resistant to becoming an apprentice in another.
"For them to become more creative," he says, "they're going to have to let go of being competent. A big part of being creative is putting yourself in a situation where you are a beginner, where you're very prone to fail or make mistakes, or where things you never expect are going to happen can happen. And that's letting go of control."
'Those were the jewels handed me'
Kemp's journey began in high school. A Navy brat, she was set on becoming a painter until a teacher, Donald Cox, inspired her to try acting. She was designing sets and working behind the scenes when Cox suggested she go in front of the audience. A role in "Look Homeward, Angel" as the 60-something Eliza Gant was the turning point.
"It was as if I'd become someone else," she said. She experienced a fundamental shift inside, not just a role on stage, and the emotion was so strong that Kemp says she "came off stage with tears streaming down my face." Cox gave her a copy of the acting bible, "An Actor Prepares," as she left for acting school in New York.
Kemp soon joined The Actors Studio, then as now one of the leading dramatic academies in the country. She says it was the art that drove her, not the limelight: "My inclination was never about myself as a package. ... I wasn't ambitious in that kind of 'I've got to network and schmooze' way."
It was through the Studio she met Kazan, the "Streetcar Named Desire" and "On the Waterfront" director who had co-founded the Studio in 1947. He offered her shrewd counsel -- for life as well as the stage.
In the mid-'70s, Kemp was being considered for a role in the film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Last Tycoon." Kazan would direct, Robert De Niro would star, and Kemp was being considered for a major role. But there was a problem: Sam Spiegel, the film's producer, wanted Kemp to submit to the casting couch.
Kazan, who was already teaching Kemp about acting, stepped in. "Deal with it as a character," he told his nervous student, encouraging her to stand up to Spiegel. Kemp transformed herself into a bolder, more confident woman and turned down Spiegel's advances. The move hurt her professionally -- the role went to someone else -- but the months of working with Kazan to prepare for the film, not to mention the encounter with Spiegel, proved invaluable.
"Those were the jewels handed me," she says. The faith expressed by others, the assurance of mastering her craft and the ability to handle professional setbacks were key to her own blossoming as an actor.
"Now they're able to be translated through whatever guidance I can offer others," she says. "It all counts."
Aside from co-starring with Tom Hanks in his first movie, 1980's "He Knows You're Alone," Kemp spent much of the '80s doing stage work. Toward the end of the decade she moved to Los Angeles, earning steady jobs in TV movies and one-shot guest spots.
Then came a major role on NBC's "L.A. Law" as a love interest of Amanda Donohoe's bisexual character, C.J. Lamb. At a time when female homosexuality was practically unknown on prime-time television, Kemp says there were plans for a multi-episode arc. But the story line was controversial. Kemp's character appeared on just one episode.
The "L.A. Law" incident was "sort of that last thing," says Kemp. After a divorce and a lack of professional fulfillment, she decided she'd had enough of Southern California. She moved back to New York.
"I was just going to go work in a restaurant -- I think I was there for one day busing tables or something -- and I walked into the Strasberg Institute [acting school] and I said, 'Do you think I could teach?' And they said, 'Sure.' "
The same day, she recalls, she saw a license plate on 57th Street: "I TEACH." "Another sign," she says.
One class led to others, and one day she ran into an Actors Studio acquaintance who suggested she teach at the Studio's new graduate program. She had found a new career, for which she's quick to credit others -- Kazan, legendary acting coaches Lee Strasberg and Sandra Seacat, director Arthur Penn, current Actors Studio head Ellen Burstyn -- for her success.
"I loved it. It made me feel whole, and inspired, and connected," she says.
Such mentoring can have long-term payoffs -- both on stage and elsewhere. In a corporate situation, researchers have found that what motivates employees most isn't money or recognition, but a sense of progress being made: that they're learning, growing and moving forward. A mentor can provide the encouragement or experience to foster that.
Which doesn't mean the mentor should be all sunbeams and rainbows.
"Support without BS," photographer Tanner calls the process. Effective mentoring is about what he calls the "feedback sandwich": Genuinely acknowledge the student's investment of time and energy -- sometimes, that means simply the courage to show up -- offer alternatives, and then suggest getting other feedback.
Because the mentor can't do everything. Kemp is fond of quoting an aphorism from author Jeffrey Archer: "If you have talent and energy, you're king. If you have only energy and no talent, you're still a prince. But if you have talent and no energy, you're a pauper."
She's had talented students but knows that nothing takes the place of hard work.
"I think the most exciting thing is when you truly do help," she says. "And you see them grow and open. Cause it isn't about me. It's about helping them grow. That's all I care about. Anything and everything I will do to make that happen, I'll do."


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Senate Democrats and Republicans reached a deal to undo the majority of the so-called "fiscal cliff" by extending most of the Bush tax cuts while levying Clinton-era rates on households with more than $450,000 in income. The sequester cuts agreed to as part of the 2011 deal on the debt ceiling will be delayed for two months and perhaps ultimately replaced by some other package. But the details packed into this deal reveal the real winners and losers:
Rich people: Raising the threshold for higher taxes from $250,000 to $450,000 is a big tax cut for all kinds of rich people, not just those with adjusted gross incomes between the two figures. That's because taxes are assessed on marginal income, meaning that even if you make $600,000 or even $1 million a year you still have a very large share of your income that's taxed at a lower rate thanks to this deal.
Red State Democrats: Democrats currently hold a majority of seats in the Senate thanks to senators from such not-so-liberal states such as Louisiana, Arkansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia. If we went over the cliff, this is the group that would be caught in the Obama-Boehner crossfire. A deal lets them duck partisan controversy, which is right where they want to be.
Unemployed people: The deal includes funding for a one-year extension of supplemental unemployment insurance benefits. It's easy for liberals to dismiss this as a GOP concession on a temporary issue in exchange for permanent tax cuts, but it'll make a big difference in the lives of the unemployed.
Doctors: Neither Democrats nor Republicans favored implementing the large cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates for physicians that were scheduled by law, but there was a partisan dispute about how to orchestrate a so-called "doc fix" for 2013 and cliff diving might have at least temporarily hit doctors in their wallets. This deal completely punts on all kinds of substantive issues related to the reimbursement rate issue, but it guarantees that the money will keep flowing for now.
The elderly: As recently as yesterday morning, it was taken for granted that one of the major provisions of an alternative to the fiscal cliff would be cuts in the federal retirement security programs that are the main long-term drivers of deficits. But ultimately Democrats cared more about avoiding spending cuts than securing tax revenues, and Republicans cared more about low taxes than cutting spending. Old people are the winners.
"Grand Bargaineers": David Weigel has written elegantly for Slate about Pete Peterson's decades-long failure to move the needle on deficit reduction, and this week Peterson has failed yet again. The "fiscal cliff" was his best chance yet to secure a grand bargain of big tax hikes and major spending cuts by creating an artificial political crisis that supposedly could only be defused with a huge deficit reduction package. But the win for the elderly was a catastrophic defeat for the grand bargain.
Fighting Democrats: The Obama administration has gotten a lot done since Inauguration Day 2009, but what it's never done is give strong partisan Democrats the kind of to-the-mattresses battle against the GOP that they crave. Most liberals think—and I agree—that had we simply gone over the cliff and had Obama simply insisted on a new tax cut bill with a $250,000 threshold, he ultimately would have won. But success was by no means guaranteed, and ultimately the White House chose not to risk further re-enforcing a sense that the president is a weak poker player.
Grover Norquist: The leader of Americans for Tax Reform is hardly the key to anti-tax thinking on the right. But his particular gimmick, a "pledge" to never cast an affirmative vote for higher taxes, had become influential on its own terms. The White House and other pro-deal Democrats see breaking this taboo as an important precedent-setter in its own right.
The economy: The deal is being characterized as one aimed at "stopping taxes from going up on middle class families," but in fact the expiration of the payroll tax holiday means that taxes will go up on working people. Obama started the fiscal cliff talks aiming to extend the holiday or replace it with some other new stimulus ideas. That's all fallen by the wayside now and for the next two months, the markets will have the shadow of a debt ceiling standoff lurking over its head.


text: admin 330 Posted October 31, 2012 Join Ku-Ku & Wie-Wie as they celebrate 100 episodes of Who Charted! Recorded LIVE at UCB-LA, our first guest Steve Agee returns to share stories of the origin of Who Charted and gets up on all the latest musical trends with the Music Chart. Director Jason Woliner drops by to tell us about being Kulap's fear buddy and to use his expertise to countdown the Movie Chart. Paul F. Tompkins aka Suit McGoo stops by as well to do what he does best; remix chart themes, earn Comedy Credits, and break records by playing 5 Chart Games. Thanks to chartist Glenn Liebler for taking pictures of this momentous evening! Share this post Link to post


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Hi all
I would like to know your experience with your laptop.
Can you post some information about which laptop are you using and whats are pros and cons of your laptop ?
Is anybody using dell vostro ?
Hi all
I would like to know your experience with your laptop.
Can you post some information about which laptop are you using and whats are pros and cons of your laptop ?
Is anybody using dell vostro ?
I'm using a Samsung R530 and a HP Probook. Both are doing what I want them to do without any problems.
Why do you ask? Are you planning on buying a new laptop? If so, you should tell us what you want to use them for, so people can give you more specific tips.
I am using Dell Inspiron N4030. Well it's 2+ years old but still working well. I am satisfied with her!!! :bouncy3:
About Dell Vostro – Vostro machines are very good in terms of performance.
I use a Macbook Air and it's bloody brilliant.
You say that as if you think two years is old. My Lenovo is coming up for 8 years old and still going strong, running Ubuntu Linux. Admittedly, it's not my "everyday" machine - I usually use a desktop - but it's certainly had plenty of use in that time.
Thumbs up man. I believe desktop is better than laptop because of rock solid performance. I wish good luck for your Lenovo laptop.
I am using "Dell Inspiron 5521". I bought it about 3 months ago and it is working very good.
Emma Inspiron laptops are cool in terms of design but performance is good as well.
I am Samsung laptop and its going fine
I also use a Macbook Air and I have never been more happy with a laptop. You have it all with this laptop: performance, battery, speed and it's light as a feather.
When using laptop, Samsung, Dell and HP are good. I'm not familiar with dell vostri
I am using HP Pavilion g6, with 6GB ram, it 1,5 year old.
Yes I have used dell vostro for 1 year and its working fine. I am a web designer and its working fine for it.
I have a Samsung (can't remember the model right now) Core i5, 6GB RAM. It's about 1 year old. And I'm very happy with it.
I think that what I like the most is that I have a numerical keyboard included. That's so handy for me
I use samsung laptop too for work and play… Still doing good and having no problem at all…
I' using DELL the old one.
I'ved used a dell, company and toshiba. I think its really not in the brand but how you use the laptop and how you install programs on it. Most of the time we just install and uninstall stuff on the laptop, not knowing that it will hurt the operating system and sometimes even crash the pc.
I am using lenevo laptop and it will very handy for me do my personal works. There is no problems facing by me from one year.
Hp core i3, fulfill my all requirements.
Macbook air for the win!


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Diane Van Deren, Ultra Runner
2009 Adventurers of the Year
See the next 2009 Adventurer of the Year >>
Photo Gallery: See images from Diane Van Deren's Yukon Arctic Ultra run >>
On February 15, 2009, a dozen runners toed the starting line of the Yukon Arctic Ultra, a 430-miler across frozen tundra in the dead of winter. With 30-below temperatures and seven-hour windows of daylight, it's said to be the toughest race in the world. Not a single woman had ever completed it. But, then, there is no woman like Diane Van Deren.
Twelve years ago Van Deren, a former pro tennis player, had a kiwi-size chunk of her brain removed to treat epileptic seizures. The lobectomy was successful, but since then she has noticed a strange side effect: She can run without pause for hours.
"When I'm out on the trail, all I have to think about is my body," she says. "That simplicity, compared to the real world, is like medication after a brain injury." Over the past decade, that therapy has propelled Van Deren, now 49, into the uppermost echelons of ultra running.
At the start of the Arctic Ultra, icy winds froze Van Deren's water supplies, forcing her to run the first hundred miles without anything to drink. She kept going by sucking on frozen blocks of gorp. On the 11th day, the ice beneath her feet fissured, and Van Deren plunged up to her shoulders into a freezing river. She managed to climb out but struggled to continue. Her soaked boots had frozen to her feet.
- Nat Geo Expeditions
Yet somehow through it all, Van Deren remained upbeat, perhaps cheered by another curious by-product of her operation. "I have a hard time with short-term memory. I could be out running for two weeks, but if someone told me it was day one of a race," she jokes, "I'd be like, Great, let's get started!"
And then, on February 26, 2009—exactly 12 years from the day of her surgery—Van Deren crossed the finish line of the Arctic Ultra. She was one of eight finishers—and the first and only woman.
Originally published in the December 2009/January 2010 edition of National Geographic Adventure


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Prince Roger Nelson (born June 7, 1958), known by his mononym Prince, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actor. A major figure in popular music for over three decades, Prince is renowned as an innovator and is widely-known for his eclectic work, flamboyant stage presence and wide vocal range. Widely regarded as the pioneer of Minneapolis sound, Prince's music combines rock, R&B, soul, funk, hip hop, disco, psychedelia, jazz, and pop.
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince developed an interest in music at an early age, writing his first song at age seven. After recording songs with his cousin's band 94 East, 19-year-old Prince recorded several unsuccessful demo tapes before releasing his debut album, For You, in 1978 under the guidance of Manager Owen Husney. His 1979 album, Prince, went platinum due to the success of the singles "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover". His next three records, Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981) and 1999 (1982), continued his success, showcasing Prince's trademark of prominently sexual lyrics and incorporation of elements of funk, dance and rock music. In 1984, he began referring to his backup band as the Revolution and released Purple Rain, which served as the soundtrack to his film debut of the same name.
After releasing the albums Around the World in a Day (1985) and Parade (1986), The Revolution disbanded and Prince released the critically acclaimed double album Sign "O" the Times (1987) as a solo artist. He released three more solo albums before debuting The New Power Generation band in 1991. After changing his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol (Prince logo.svg), also known as the "Love Symbol", in 1993, he began releasing new albums at a faster pace to remove himself from contractual obligations to Warner Bros; he released five records between 1994 and 1996 before signing with Arista Records in 1998. In 2000, he began referring to himself as "Prince" once again. He has released fourteen albums since then, including his latest, Art Official Age, released on September 30, 2014.
Prince has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time.He has won seven Grammy Awards,a Golden Globe,and an Academy Award.He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year of his eligibility.Rolling Stone has ranked Prince at number 27 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.


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Traveling With Oxygen
Topic Overview
Traveling while you are on oxygen therapy usually is possible if you plan ahead.
Start by seeing your doctor several weeks to months before your travel date. Ask him or her to:
- Figure out how much oxygen you will need.
- Give you the medical forms that are needed for travel.
- Recommend a doctor in the places where you will travel, in case you need medical care during your trip.
Travel by plane
- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved several models of portable oxygen concentrators that can be brought on an airplane. Whether you rent the device or use your own, it must be FAA-approved. Make sure that you bring enough batteries to power your device before, during, and after your flight. And bring extra batteries in case you have travel delays.
- You cannot take your own oxygen tanks on an airplane. You may be able to pack empty oxygen tanks in your checked luggage. You can get these filled at your destination. The airline will supply oxygen while you are in flight but may charge you for it. You will likely have to pay for oxygen for each leg of a trip. And airlines usually do not supply oxygen during layovers, so try to book a direct flight.
- At least 2 weeks before your flight, notify the airline that you will need oxygen. You will need a medical release from your doctor stating that you are able to fly. You will also need a prescription that lists the flow rate and amount of oxygen you use. If you use a portable oxygen concentrator, you will need to be able to respond to any alarms on the device.
- If you need oxygen during a layover, you should arrange for your oxygen supplier to bring tanks to the airport.
- Think about asking a friend or relative to travel with you. He or she can help you with all the details.
For more information, call the Transportation Security Administration TSA Cares helpline at 1-855-787-2227 (toll-free).
Travel by cruise ship
- You can take your own oxygen tanks or concentrator on a cruise ship. Or you can arrange for a supplier to deliver oxygen to the ship before it leaves the dock. You should take enough oxygen to last the entire cruise.
- About 2 to 3 weeks before you travel, notify the cruise line about your oxygen needs. Bring a medical release from your doctor stating that you are able to take a cruise. You will also need a prescription that lists the flow rate and amount of oxygen you use.
- If you plan to leave the ship to go sightseeing, you may want to have an oxygen supplier bring a tank for you to use while you are onshore.
- If you need to have a supplier deliver oxygen for your cruise, it is best to leave from and return to the same city. If you don't, you may have to pay to ship the oxygen equipment back to the city where the ship originally departed.
Travel by train or bus
- You can take your own oxygen equipment on a bus or train. But there may be a weight limit. You may need to bring extra batteries. Be sure you learn the rules before you travel.
- Notify the train or bus company that you will be traveling with oxygen. Bring a medical release from your doctor stating that you are able to travel. You may also need a prescription that lists the flow rate and amount of oxygen you use.
- Make sure that the bus or train stops at cities where you can get your tanks refilled, if needed.
- You may not always have electricity available, so bring a battery backup with you.
Health Tools
Health Tools help you make wise health decisions or take action to improve your health.
Related Information
Current as of: June 9, 2019
Author: Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:E. Gregory Thompson, MD – Internal Medicine & Adam Husney, MD – Family Medicine & Hasmeena Kathuria, MD – Pulmonology, Critical Care Medicine, Sleep Medicine
This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. Healthwise, Incorporated, disclaims any warranty or liability for your use of this information. Your use of this information means that you agree to the Terms of Use. Learn how we develop our content.


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Giveaway at the bottom of post!
Do you have an Elf on the Shelf? Our Elf is Elephant and is pretty much the best thing since Santa Claus. He buys us a whole month of "Eat your vegetables or Elephant will have to tell Santa" and "I wouldn't want to go have a chat with Elephant about not sharing your blocks with your brother." and also "Great job! I know our Elf will love letting Santa know how good you are being!"
This year was the first time we had a special Elf Breakfast to welcome our little guy back for the holidays.
I first saw the idea at Little Pumpkin Grace and had been planning a little something for my boys when Kelsey at Snowcones and Lollipops sent over a fabulous custom set of North Pole printables!
We received custom invitations to hand out to friends, a banner, milk and water bottle labels, cupcake toppers, straw flags, custom place cards and a template for our letter to Santa!
The printable set definitely made the morning even more magical for my little man.
The first thing he saw was the special North Pole banner...
then the place card with his own name on it...
and then the powdered donuts and snow milk! My little boy was a very happy guy!
Elephant even brought the boys (one was still sleeping away) a new movie to watch.
Instead of using my straw flags as they were intended, I used them to create a scavenger hunt.
1. Santa sent me to watch what you do. I brought you some presents; to find them, let's start at the Loo.
2. You're one step closer, but where to go next? Let's walk to the room where we eat breakfast.
3. The boy who is four makes this room his place. Hop, don't walk, with a smile on your face.
4. We are halfway there, but not yet done. Go to the front door. Are you having fun?
5. Tiptoe to the nursery, where you'll find the last clue. I'm always very quiet. What about you?
6. I hope you enjoyed our little game. Run to the fireplace and pick up your candy cane!
Then we wrote our letter to Santa. I started him off, then he added quite a bit on his own. Can you tell finishing soup was a bit of a conflict the night before?
Really fun memories were made that morning and I have personalized keepsakes and a set of party printables to use next year, too!
Want a set for your littles?
Kelsey is giving away a FREE personalized North Pole set to one lucky family.
To enter, you must be a follower or subscriber of In Between Laundry:
Go to Snowcones and Lollipops and take a look around. Leave a comment saying what you like the best. Leave your email address. Winner announced in one week.


text: Any access or use of the FanficTalk Archive is conditioned upon compliance with our Site Guidelines and Terms of Service and the Copyright Policy and Privacy Policy contained therein. Should you have any questions about them, you are very welcome to contact any of our archive validators. For advanced searching, please click here. Any characters, source code, text, or titles contained herein which are recognizable as copyrighted material are the sole property of their owners.


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Acid-suppressing drugs like Prilosec and Prevacid may not be much help for infants with troublesome acid reflux, and there's too little evidence that they help older children and teenagers, a new research review concludes.
The findings, reported in the journal Pediatrics, question the usefulness of so-called proton-pump inhibitors in children with gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD.
The drugs, which suppress stomach-acid production, have names like omeprazole (Prilosec), lansoprazole (Prevacid) and esomeprazole (Nexium). Prilosec and Prevacid are both available over the counter, and typically cost about 50 cents per pill. Nexium is still only available by prescription, and is more expensive.
In the new study, the researchers reviewed 12 clinical trials that tested the medications for treating GERD in infants, children or teenagers.
They found no good evidence that the drugs eased acid-reflux symptoms in infants -- such as crying and "fussing" after being fed.
For older kids, there was better evidence of a benefit. But there is still too little data on the long-term effectiveness and safety of proton-pump inhibitors for children's GERD, the researchers say.
However, that does not mean a child should never take a proton-pump inhibitor, according to lead researcher Dr. Rachel J. van der Pol, of Emma Children's Hospital in Amsterdam.
In individual infants and children, prescribing one of these medications can be justified, she told Reuters Health in an email.
But parents should also be aware, van der Pol said, that the medications simply may not work.
Healthy infants and children commonly have some acid reflux, where stomach contents back up into the esophagus. Nearly all infants "spit up," and usually that gradually goes away during the first year of life.
GERD may be diagnosed, though, when the acid reflux causes bothersome symptoms, like a sore throat or trouble swallowing, of if a child develops complications. Those include inflammation in the lining of the esophagus, or eating difficulties that affect a child's growth.
One recent study found that in North America, GERD was diagnosed in 12 percent of infants and 1 percent of older children.
Proton-pump inhibitors are one of the common treatments for childhood GERD, according to Dr. Steven J. Czinn at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Czinn, who chairs the American College of Gastroenterology's Pediatric Gastrointestinal Committee and was not involved in the study, told Reuters
Health the new findings don't mean parents should necessarily object to trying the medications.
One reason, Czinn said, is that there is evidence that proton-pump inhibitors can help treat children with an inflamed esophagus lining due to acid reflux.
In addition, he said, "I would caution against drawing conclusions from a review of 12 studies."
He noted that the researchers found hundreds of studies on pediatric GERD treatment, but only a dozen fit their criteria -- that is, being a trial where children were randomly assigned to take a proton-pump inhibitor or a comparison treatment.
According to Czinn, that highlights a big obstacle in pediatrics in general: In the case of most medications, there are few rigorously conducted trials involving children.
"This is a major issue for almost all medications in pediatrics," said Czinn.
In the realm of medical evidence, the "gold standard" is the randomized, placebo-controlled trials -- where people are randomly assigned to take the drug under study or an inactive substance, like sugar pills.
But many question the ethics of doing such trials with children; and few parents seem willing to take the chance that their child will be assigned to a placebo instead of actual treatment.
Even among the 12 studies in the current review, few involved a placebo. All of the studies of older children either tested a proton-pump inhibitor against another heartburn medication -- such as ranitidine (Zantac) -- or tested different doses of a proton-pump inhibitor against each other.
On average, children and teenagers did have improvements in their GERD symptoms. But they had similar improvements with proton-pump inhibitors and the comparison medications, and there were no clear differences with higher or lower doses.
Both van der Pol and Czinn said that further, well-designed trials are needed to see how effective and safe proton-pump inhibitors are for children.
In the studies in this review, the drugs were generally "well-tolerated" in the short-term (generally over a few weeks to a couple months), according to the researchers. The most common side effects included headache, stomach pain and diarrhea.
One study of infants, though, found that babies treated with proton-pump inhibitors had a higher rate of lung infections.
Many babies and children with acid reflux can forgo medication altogether, both van der Pol and Czinn pointed out.
For infants, thickeners added to formula, or changes in feeding position, can work. For older children, changes like eating smaller meals or avoiding specific foods that trigger symptoms can be enough.
If those steps are not enough, there are medication options other than proton-pump inhibitors. Doctors often prescribe acid-suppressing medications called H2 blockers -- which, along with Zantac, include famotidine (Pepcid) and cimetidine (Tagamet).
However, van der Pol pointed out, there isn't much evidence on the effectiveness of any medication for pediatric GERD.
Two of van der Pol's co-researchers on the study have financial ties to AstraZeneca, which makes Prilosec and Nexium.


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The Mutant
The Mutant was a science fiction fanzine published in the late 1940s by Ben Singer in Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.
The first issue was released in October 1946; the second in December 1946. For these issues, the Assistant Editor was Walter A. Coslet (The Scientifictionist), and the Associate Editors were Henry Elsner (The Scientifictionist, Thots), Joe Kennedy (Vampire), Rick Sneary (Moonshine), Tigrina (Hymn To Satan), and Gerry Williams.
In October 1947, Singer started the numbering over again, and the zine became the Official Organ of the Michigan Science Fantasy Society. This second series ran at least eleven issues, with issue #4.4 coming out in August 1949.
Contributors of prose included Norman Ashfield (Alembic), Redd Boggs (Sky Hook, The Lovecraftsman), Donn Brazier (Frontier), Raymond L. Clancy, Bill Groover, Wiiliam James, David H. Keller, Joe Kennedy, C. Stewart Metchette, Radell Nelson, Art Rapp (Spacewarp), Hal Shapiro (Hallucinations), Bill Warren (De Profundis), H.S. Weatherby (Shivers), George H. Young (Tailgate), and the editors.
Contributors of poetry included Richard E. Avery, Redd Boggs (as Theophilus Alvor), Isabelle E. Dinwiddie, E.E. Eischied, Gerald Gordon, Con Pederson (IF!, The Outlander), Arthur H. Rapp, Genevieve K. Stephens (Loki), Tigrina, and Bill Warren.
Cover art was by John Cockroft (Stellarite) (#1.2, first series), Algis Budrys (Slantasy) (#1.1, second series), Norman Kussuth (#2.2), Rick Sneary (#4.4), and others.
Ben Singer also published a zine titled Singeroid. He is probably the most notorious member of the Michigan Science Fiction Society, where antics such as attempting to cross the border to Canada in the 1950s at the height of the "Red Scare" carrying a copy of the book Banish Gods From the Skies and Capitalists from the Earth made him infamous in science fiction fandom.