text:
The new conservative 'Mount Vernon Statement' unveiled last week claims that right-wingers are upholding what the Generation of 1776 held dear. But those right-wingers, history shows, are conveniently overlooking what the Founders truly feared.
A review of James Huston, Securing the Fruits of Labor: The American Concept of Wealth Distribution 1765-1900. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998. 483pp.
By Sam Pizzigati
The pillars of American right-wing thought and action — top officials from over a dozen national groups — assembled along the Potomac last week. At Northern Virginia's historic Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, these luminaries met to "recommit" themselves to the one ideal they believe all conservatives can share. That ideal: small government.
"Through the Constitution," the solemn conservatives declared in a position paper they dubbed the Mount Vernon Statement, "the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law."
That "principle of limited government," the Mount Vernon Statement urges, ought to be applied to "every proposal" that comes before America's lawmakers.
Americans of a more progressive bent tend, of course, to consider all this solemnity around the "principle of limited government" just so much mumbo-jumbo meant to keep the rich and powerful safe and secure from any challenge to their wealth and power.
And progressives also don't much appreciate conservative moves to claim the generation of 1776 as the source of contemporary conservatism. But right-wingers, on this one, have a point. The Founders, the most progressive of them included, did believe in limited government. The question for us today: Why?
Today's conservatives don't bother with that question. For good reason, as historian James Huston explained over a decade ago in his still timely epic, Securing the Fruits of Labor: The American Concept of Wealth Distribution 1765-1900. The Founders believed in "limited government" because they wanted to limit what today's conservatives celebrate: the concentration of wealth.
America's revolutionaries had read their history. Every previous attempt to establish republican rule, they knew from that history, had failed. Athens. Rome. Venice. Florence. The cause of that failure, as the Founders came to see it: a deep and divisive maldistribution of wealth.
The Founders came to believe, notes Huston, that a republic could only endure with "an equal or nearly equal distribution of landed wealth among its citizens."
To the generation of 1776, Huston goes on to add, equity seemed nature's way. Most colonials lived on small, semi-subsistence family farms. In this overwhelmingly agrarian setting, grand fortunes hardly ever accumulated. Some farmers did work harder than others, but the Earth could yield, no matter how much work was performed upon it, only so much wealth.
That reality, observes historian James Huston, kept gaps in colonial income and wealth relatively limited. And those gaps would stay limited, the generation of 1776 devoutly believed, so long as all who labored were guaranteed the "fruits of their labor."
Republican liberty would surely fail, the revolutionaries agreed, if their new nation ever let elites expropriate what average citizens labored so hard to earn. And how did elites expropriate? By manipulating politics to gain economic advantage. The aristocrats of Europe did that manipulating all the time.
If the economy were just let alone, America's original revolutionaries believed, equality would grow naturally. No one could ever become fabulously wealthy in an economy where labor, and labor alone, determined a citizen's worth.
The Founders, in sum, cared deeply about the link between democracy and equality — and worried that vast extremes of wealth and poverty would doom their new republic. You won't find one whit of that worry in last week's Mount Vernon Statement. The Founders would not be pleased.
Interested in reading more about early American attitudes toward economic inequality? Too Much editor Sam Pizzigati's award-winning 2004 book, Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives, traces the history of those attitudes. The book's full text now appears online.
Too Much, the online newsletter on excess and inequality published by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, appears weekly. Read the current issue or sign up to receive Too Much in your inbox.


text:
Like salmon traveling upstream to spawn, sperm cells are extremely efficient at swimming against the current, according to research to be published this week.
The discovery, to be published in the journal eLife by researchers at MIT and Cambridge University, may help us to understand how some sperm travel such long distances, through difficult terrain, to reach and fertilize an egg.
Of the hundreds of millions of sperm cells that begin the journey up the oviducts, only a few hardy travelers will ever reach their destination. Not only do the cells have to swim in the right direction over distances that are around 1,000 times their own length, but they are exposed to different chemicals and currents along the way.
While we know that sperm cells can "smell" chemicals given off by the egg once they get very close to it, this does not explain how they navigate for the majority of their journey, says Jörn Dunkel, an assistant professor of mathematics at MIT, and a member of the research team.
"We wanted to know which physical mechanisms could be responsible for navigation," says Dunkel, who carried out the research alongside Vasily Kantsler of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and the University of Warwick (and currently visiting at MIT); Raymond E. Goldstein of Cambridge; and Martyn Blayney of the Bourn Hall Clinic in the U.K. "If you think of salmon, for example, they can swim against the stream, and the question was whether something similar could really be confirmed for human sperm cells."
Microchannels in lieu of oviducts
However, observing sperm cells swimming within the human body itself is no easy task. So in a bid to understand what the cells are capable of, the researchers instead built a series of artificial microchannels of different sizes and shapes, into which they inserted the sperm. They were then able to modify the flow of fluid through the tubes, to investigate how the cells responded to different current speeds.
They discovered that at certain flow speeds, the sperm cells were able to swim very efficiently upstream. "We found that if you create the right flow velocities, you can observe them swimming upstream for several minutes," Dunkel says. "The mechanism is very robust."
What's more, the researchers were also surprised to observe that the sperm were not swimming in a straight line upstream, but in a spiraling motion, along the walls of the channel. The sperm cells react to the difference in the speed of current near the walls of the chamber — where the fluid is attracted to the surface, and is therefore at its slowest — and the free-flowing center of the tube, Dunkel says.
If biologists are able to observe similar fluid-flow speeds within the oviduct, it could help confirm whether sperm cells are indeed using this mechanism to navigate through the body, he says.
Possible advances in artificial insemination
Not only would this improve our understanding of human reproduction, but it could also one day allow us to design new diagnostic tools and more efficient artificial-insemination techniques, the researchers claim. Reproduction specialists could take sperm samples and artificially recreate the conditions within the body to identify the cells that are the best swimmers, in a bid to preselect those most likely to succeed, Dunkel says.
The researchers can also experiment with different fluid viscosities within the microchannels, to determine which result in the strongest upstream swimming effect, he says. "So the idea would be to fine-tune the properties of the fluid medium that the sperm cells are contained in, before you insert it into the body, so that you know the cells can achieve optimal upstream swimming."
In the meantime, the researchers plan to begin investigating whether sperm cells can work together to reach the egg. "It is a commonly held belief that there is competition between sperm cells, with the fittest reaching the egg first," Dunkel says. "But recent studies by our team and others show that sperm practically always accumulate at the surface of a tube, and you can end up with a high local concentration of sperm cells, so there could actually be cooperation among these cells that allows them to swim faster collectively."
The research was supported by the European Research Council.
Written by Helen Knight, MIT News correspondent

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Visitation Rules
The following provides information to assist you in scheduling non-contact visitation with inmates at the Lake County Adult Correctional Facility. Our goal is to provide family and friends the opportunity to schedule visitation at a time that is convenient to your personal schedule, your family, and life style.
All non-contact visits with inmates will be conducted over a video visitation system. Friends and family may come directly to the visitation center or opt to schedule a remote visit from home on a personal computer or other electronic device. All visits are monitored and recorded.
Terms & Conditions
All non-contact visits with inmates will be conducted over a video visitation system. Friends and family may come directly to the visitation center or opt to schedule a remote visit from home on a personal computer or other electronic device. All visits are monitored and recorded.
Terms & Conditions
- Each inmate can receive 1 non-contact, on-site, 30 minute visit per week free of charge. This visit can occur after the inmate has been classified.
- You may visit the same inmate only once per day.
- The inmate must have the visitor on their approved visitors list in order to visit. Additions to the visitor list must be completed prior to scheduling the visit.
- All visits must be scheduled 24 hours in advance. Walk in visits will not be authorized.
- Visits may be cancelled in the event of a facility emergency.
- All visitors entering the visitation area are subject to search and may be checked for active warrants.
- Visitors are required to show proof of identification using at least 1 of the following:
- State driver's license or identification card.
- Valid military I.D.
- Student I.D.
- Mexican Matricula card
- Passport with attached photo
- Government I.D. card
- Illinois Bar association card or Court Services Identification.
- Persons under the age of 18 are not allowed to visit unless accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Proof of guardianship, birth certificates, or marriage licenses may be required.
- All visits are monitored and recorded.
- Visits may be cancelled at any time for legal proceedings or because of inmate or visitor misconduct or violation of visitation rules.
- There are no refunds for remote visits that are missed or cancelled because of inmate or visitor misconduct.
- All remote visits are subject to charges set by SecurusTech. Charges may fluctuate.
- No smoking, drinking or eating are allowed in the visitation center.
- Two adults and one child or one adult and two children are allowed to visit at one time. Children must be under close adult supervision.
- Visitors must arrive at the visitation center 15 minutes prior to the visit. Visitors arriving late may only receive the balance of their scheduled visit time. There will be no refunds or credits for late or missed visits.
- No nudity, provocative clothing, tight fitting clothing or sleepwear will be allowed during the visit.
- Visitors or inmates exposing sexual organs will have their visit terminated and their visitation privileges permanently barred.
- The visitor must remain at the visitation booth. If the visitor leaves the booth, the visit will be terminated.
- Visitors appearing to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, loud or disorderly in the visitation center or disrespectful to staff will be removed from the center and visitation privileges suspended and may be subject to criminal charges.
- No cell phones or other electronic devices are allowed in the visitation center. All personal property must be secured in the lockers provided in the main lobby.
- Damaging or defacing the equipment or any area of the visitation center will lead to a termination of the visit, permanent suspension of visitation privileges, and criminal charges.
- Visitors may not record visitation sessions for any reason.


text:
Westminster Child Abuse high level child abuse ring exposed
July 20th, 2015.
Missing Pieces.
The Sixty Minutes report "Spies, Lords and Predators" is very strong in many ways but it fell short in several crucial areas.
The principle omission, the really important thing that the 60 Minutes reports skates over is the fact that these crimes against children were being facilitated by the British Security Services and that the underlying intent of operations such as the Kincora operation and Dolphin Square was to leverage control of politicians through the use of shame, vice and blackmail.
That is the story. That is the reason that the police officer is threatening Martin Allen's brother "you keep saying things like that and you might get hurt."
This does not appear to be classic police corruption but the protection of the power of a network.
These crimes are not simply the result of a group of "toffs" getting together to indulgent their sick pathetic lust for children, this is about power and the retention of power and these crimes are lifelong leverage.
The Establishment pedophiles had to be protected so that the Security services could guarantee the continued obedience of all they had ensnared. It was part of the deal, "you take care of us and we will make sure none of this ever gets out."
Sixty Minutes did not manage to mention the connection even between Dolphin Square and British Intelligence. nor the similar connection with Kincora. These are not trivial or secondary parts of the story, they are completely crucial to understanding why this has been allowed to happen. It is the core of the story.
The Faux Inquiry.
The other truly glaring omission from the story was the total failure to mention the ongoing and active cover up from the Cameron government at all. From the childish Wanless Report to the bizarre decision to appoint one of (notorious deceased child abuser) Leon Brittain's pals to chair the inquiry into Historical Abuse, to KenGate and Cameron's role at Carlton Communications nor his long and apparently close association with the Dolphin Square alleged perpetrator Derek Laud.
Platos Cave
Aangirfan: THE CASE OF MARTIN ALLEN – UPDATED
MARTIN-ALLEN: MARTIN ALLEN 5th NOVEMBER 1979
Dolphin Square: MPs threw parties 'for sexual abuse of children' | ExaroNews
Aangirfan: CHILD RAPES AT FLATS LINKED TO MI5 – DOLPHIN SQUARE IN PIMLICO
Leon Brittan, Nick Clegg, Malcolm Rifkind, William Hague, Dolphin Square, Missing Dossiers and the VIP Child-Abuse connection | thecolemanexperience
The murderous VIP paedophile ring at Dolphin Square | thecolemanexperience
Dolphin Square: third witness tells of child sex abuse by MPs | ExaroNews
aangirfan: Child Abuse – Kincora – Colin Wallace
Sex assault Tory MP visited Kincora boys' home, claim retired detectives – BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
Kincora: Army ferried 'top MI5 officer' to two meetings at boys' home – BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
MI5 accused of covering up sexual abuse at boys' home | Society | The Guardian
Aangirfan: SAVILE, JANNER, THOMAS, CHARLES…
Aangirfan: JANNER, POLICE, MOSSAD, CIA, QUEST, CST
Lord Janner re-appointed to law committee despite 'dementia' | ExaroNews
Aangirfan: LORD JANNER; TORTURE, RAPE, MURDER
Aangirfan: THE 'BAD GUYS' – JANNER, CAMERON, HART
Aangirfan: LORD JANNER'S SPOOKY FRIENDS
Ex-MI6 chief Peter Hayman sexually abused boys at Dolphin Square | Daily Mail Online
Call for inquiry into links between senior civil servant Sir Peter Hayman and paedophile network in the 1980's – Crime – UK – The Independent
Senior MP accused of child sex abuse | Daily Mail Online
The Death of Leon Brittan and the British Establishment Child Abuse Cover Up.
The British Establishment Cover Up Must End Right Now.
Oh Dear! British Intelligence Chair Rifkind Caught in Influence Peddling Sting!


text:
BERLIN- Stephen Decatur's men's varsity soccer team will enter a brave, new world tonight when they hit the road to face Northeast High of Anne Arundel county in its first-ever Class 3A-East playoff game.
Like all of the other Decatur sports teams, the Seahawks are playing in a new division in the post season thanks to a move last year from Class 2A to Class 3A because of expanded enrollment figures. As a result, the Decatur is the only school on the Eastern Shore in the higher class and as such will have to travel to sites on the western shore for playoff games against higher seeds.
For example, Decatur is seeded 10th in the Class 3A-East bracket and will go on the road to face Northeast today in the first round of the state playoffs. The winner of that contest will face second-seeded Bel Air early next week in the second round, so if the Seahawks beat Northeast, they will turn around and hit the road again next week.
Decatur finished with an 8-4 record in the regular season including a 5-3 mark in the Bayside Conference. Unlike other years, however, the Seahawks will not face familiar foes such as Parkside, Bennett or Easton, for example, in the post season this year. Those schools remain in Class 2A and garnered three of the top four seeds in the 2A-East region along with first-round byes while Decatur is the 10-seed in the 3A and has to hit the road for a first round game.
The Seahawks finished their regular season last Thursday with a 2-1 overtime loss to county rival Pocomoke. The Warriors scored first to take an early lead, but Decatur knotted the score at 1-1 on a goal by Jim Walls. Pocomoke's Sam Byrd settled the issue once and for all with a goal on a free kick early in the overtime period. Prior to the loss to Pocomoke, Decatur had won three straight including victories over Kent County, Snow Hill and Parkside.


text:
This fun Wildflower sticker is made for tough days to give you a good laugh and is great way to customize your favorite water bottle, laptop, car window and more.
Easy to remove | Printed on Vinyl | Made in the USA | 3" x 2.5"
Get access to promotions, coupons, new products & more.
Online ordering available! Get started on your Advice wholesale order today.


text:
Thanks to Mundie Moms for having us participate in the INNOCENT DARKNESS Blog Tour!
Title: Innocent Darkness
Series: The Aether Chronicles #1
Paperback, 408 pages
Author: Suzanne Lazear
Publisher: Flux
Publication: August 8, 2012
Amazon | Goodreads
Wish. Love. Desire. Live.
Sixteen-year-old Noli Braddock's hoyden ways land her in an abusive reform school far from home. On mid-summer's eve she wishes to be anyplace but that dreadful school. A mysterious man from the Realm of Faerie rescues her and brings her to the Otherworld, only to reveal that she must be sacrificed, otherwise, the entire Otherworld civilization will perish.
A fantastic beginning that sucked me right in.
Noli is an awesome heroine, full of spunk, intelligence and independence. She moves to her own funky beat, and is proud and confident about it. Unfortunately, wonderful V is the only one that appreciates her individuality, which is why she's sent to that God forsaken reform school.
|Makes your insides cringe, doesn't it?
The way this torture chamber—I mean, school is written had my stomach twisting tighter than a balled python. It doesn't get too graphic, but close enough that your imagination doesn't have to work too hard.
Noli toughs it out with incredible strength, and you're absolutely ecstatic when she gets free. Even if she does land in the Realm of Faerie.
Noli toughs it out with incredible strength, and you're absolutely ecstatic when she gets free. Even if she does land in the Realm of Faerie.
Which is where, in comparison to the first half, things start to slow. Still good, but doesn't hold up to that incredibly suspenseful first half.
In the faerie realm, Noli depends on mystery man Kevighn to get her back home. She loses some independence here which is one of the main characteristics that made me want to be BFFs in the first place. *sigh*
But Kevighn does have that seriously dark and dangerous sexy thing going on which had me, and Noli, kicking ourselves for liking him so much. What is it about tortured bad boys that pluck the hormone - uh, I mean, heart strings?
The good news is that when Noli's best friend V shows up to save the day, he turns out to not only be a sweet book nerd, but just as dangerous and even more smokin' than Kevighn.
That's right, you get two bad boys with tortured pasts in one book. I'll wait while digest that delicious news.
That's right, you get two bad boys with tortured pasts in one book. I'll wait while digest that delicious news.
|It's almost like getting 2 Damon Salvatores.
Only not as good because, you know, it's not 2 Damon Salvatores.
The major problem driving the plot seemed to wrap up a little too easily for me, but the final pages do hold an exciting and ghastly twist. Why Noli? Why? It's so not fair.
There was way less steampunk than I expected, so hardcore steampunk fans, consider yourselves warned. However, faerie fans should be thrilled with the abundance of fae drama.
Secondary characters James and Charlotte were delightful and I'm intrigued as to where their story goes.
Secondary characters James and Charlotte were delightful and I'm intrigued as to where their story goes.
Also, just a note, near the end an overly sexy scene blips out of nowhere and had me wondering about the "for 12 and up" rating. It was brief, somewhat vague, but not vague enough for my eyebrows not to shoot up.
|Mom isn't reading over my shoulder, right?
That'd be awkward.
Overall, a fun read with plenty of romance, intrigue, and for most of the book, a pretty tough heroine. I'm definitely picking up the next one to see how she makes it out of that craptastic situation at the end.
If you missed any of stops, be sure to check them all out on the INNOCENT DARKNESS Blog Tour!


text:
Virus As The Cause Of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Shot Down, Again
A theory that a virus is the culprit for the mysterious chronic fatigue syndrome has just suffered another serious blow. But some patient advocates are standing by it, saying more research is needed.
Researchers from nine different labs looked for the XMRV virus in the blood of 15 people with the condition and 15 healthy people. Only two labs found the virus, and even then, they found it at the same rate in the patients as in the healthy folks. The study appears in the online version of the journal Science.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is by all accounts a difficult illness – there's no known cause and consequently no test to detect it. There's also no cure. People can suffer the intermittent bouts of crushing fatigue and pain for a few months or for decades. One woman in Seattle who says she's had it for two decades went 15 months without having a "good" day.
Many causes have been suggested over the years, including the virus that causes mononucleosis, a member of the herpes virus family, and a bacterium or two. All of them were eventually shot down. That it's been so difficult to ferret out the cause is discouraging for patients since finding a culpable microbe would help make a diagnosis and suggest ways to treat the condition.
In 2009, hope came in the form of XMRV, a retrovirus originally found in mice. In a study, researchers looked at 101 people with chronic fatigue syndrome, and 218 healthy people. They found the virus in 67 percent of the patients, compared to 4 percent of the others.
But XMRV's status has been short-lived. This past May, two studies quashed the initial link, and said the virus was a laboratory contaminant.
Now there's the new report, with 23 authors, including some of the original researchers from the hopeful 2009 study. One of the other authors is Anthony Komaroff, professor of medicine at Harvard University.
He says the XMRV claim is on "very shaky ground. There does not appear to be an association between mouse retroviruses and chronic fatigue syndrome."
Also in this week's issue of Science, the authors of the original 2009 study partially retracted their findings, saying one of the three tests they used did not yield accurate results.
And Kim McCleary, head of the CFIDS Association, an advocacy group for people with chronic fatigue syndrome, says it's time to look for something else. "There are many other solid leads that merit the same rigorous follow-up as XMRV has received over the past two years," she says.
But some of the original authors are not backing down. The Whittemore Peterson Institute released a statement saying its initial work "continues to warrant additional investigations." And Judy Mikovits, the lead researcher at the institute, told two reporters from the news section of Science that maybe the virus is hiding in tissue, or maybe it's different from what they thought it was. "I'm not going to stop studying it," she told them.
Meanwhile, a lab at Columbia University is going to give one more go at XMRV. You can follow the studies at Research1st, the research arm of CFIDS.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
Hannah's House in Lansing goes far beyond providing homeless, expectant mothers with food and shelter. We provide them an opportunity to gain the emotional, physical, and spiritual strength to raise children in a loving, supportive, and positive way, or to follow an adoption plan if they so choose. Women live free of charge at Hannah's House through pregnancy and up to six months following the birth of their baby. They leave with a promising new life ahead of them. The goal is that every mother who leaves Hannah's House has a home, as well as the parenting and life skills necessary to be a contributing member of the community.
Thank you for visiting our website! We welcome any suggestions and are willing to answer any questions that you may have!


text:
Last month, Virginia Senate majority leader, Tommy Normant (R) began taking meetings with minority leader Dick Saslaw to see what it would take to get the liberal faction of state government to lay low on the abortion issue and stop repealing some controversial anti-choice laws recently passed by the Virginia General Assembly. In exchange, the GOP will send over one negative vote to the Democrats for every anti-choice bill being discussed. Virginia Republicans are referring to the deal as a "grand bargain."
A Democrat legal aide told HuffPo: "It's about keeping media off the topic. If Democrats came out swinging trying to repeal some of these laws, it's going get media coverage. [Republicans] really just want a state of neutrality." The agreement would be particularly powerful because the GOP vs. Democratic vote in Virginia is 21 to 20.
Some Democratic leaders scoff at the offer, saying that it's hardly enough to keep a low profile and stop fighting the GOP's restrictive abortion laws—the mandatory ultrasound mandate passed in 2012, for instance. Sen. Ralph Northam (D), the only physician in Virgina's Senate, says: "In my mind, the bargain would start with repealing what [Republicans] did last year. It was an embarrassment to Virginia, and I think they realize that."
A rep for Normant says that the rumors of this so-called grand bargain are "balderdash," and nobody from Saslaw's camp even deigned to give a statement.
'Virginia GOP Leader Floated Abortion 'Grand Bargain,' Democrats Say' [HuffPo]


text:
The Philadelphia Phillies have agreed with left-hander Antonio Bastardo on a $1.4 million, one-year contract, avoiding arbitration.
Bastardo was 2-5 with one save and a 4.33 ERA in 65 games last season. He struck out 81 in 52 innings. He ranked third among major league relievers in strikeouts per nine innings (14.02), trailing Atlanta's Craig Kimbrel (16.66) and Cincinnati's Aroldis Chapman (15.32). Bastardo also held opposing batters to a .207 average (40 for 193), including a .169 average (14 for 83) by lefty hitters.
The 27-year-old Bastardo was one of baseball's most dominant pitchers in 2011 until the final month. He had a 1.42 ERA and allowed just 19 hits in 50 2-3 innings through August that year.
Bastardo was the last remaining arbitration-eligible player for the Phillies this offseason.


text:
Shortly after hitting the big screen, legendary pop songstress Janet Jackson will be embarking on her largest world tour yet.
Jackson has announced that she will be celebrating her 35 chart-topping hits in 35 different cities around the globe including Hong Kong—the first stop on the tour as voted by her fans, where she will perform songs exclusively from her greatest hits collection, Number Ones.
The tour kicks off at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on Valentines day (February 14).
The tour dates proceeding can be chosen by her fans by visiting her website, JanetJackson.com.
"The fans really reached out and voted for Hong Kong to be the Valentine's Day city of our Number Ones tour. I am thrilled to receive your votes and I will be performing in Hong Kong Feb 14, 2011!" wrote Janet on her website.
Additionally, Janet will also be celebrating the release of her first book True You, which hits stores February 8.
The book will detail Janet's lifelong battle with weight and exercise, and is intended to uplift those struggling with self-esteem.


text:
Disregarding water safety recommendations and regulations can result in accidents and drowning. "Every day, about 10 people die from unintentional drowning," reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Statistics show that drowning is the second leading cause of death for children younger than 14 and the sixth leading cause of death for all ages.
In the pool. The most important water safety tip, states the American Red Cross, is learning to swim. This is the most important safety measure for pool safety, as well as safety in and around lakes, oceans and other bodies of water. Other important safety tips when in or near a pool include:
- Never leave a child unattended or unobserved in or near a pool.
- Keep a phone nearby in case 911 needs to be called.
- Always keep lifesaving equipment close and know how to use it if needed.
- At a public pool, only swim when a lifeguard is present.
- Do not dive into a pool unless it is in an area that is specified for diving.
- Enforce water safety rules with kids. For example, inexperienced swimmers are not allowed in water deeper than chest height.
- Never swim when tired or impaired by alcohol or other drugs.
- When swimming in an outdoor pool, never swim during storms or bad weather. Lightening and water can be a deadly combination.
In a lake. The best safety tip for lake swimmers is to swim in designated swimming areas that are supervised by a trained lifeguard. Like hiking, lake swimmers always should have a buddy. Never swim alone. In addition, follow these tips for a safe swimming in lakes:
- Avoid swimming under docks and floating rafts.
- Never jump off a dock or raft without looking first. If you land on another swimmer, injuries can occur.
- Like pool swimming, never dive in headfirst in shallow areas or areas where the water depth is unknown. It is safer to jump in feet first.
- Never swim in lakes that seem dirty or polluted, even if there is signage that states swimming is allowed. Be smart and scout the area first before swimming. If the beach or dock area is littered and has unpleasant smells, it's probably not a good place to swim.
- Remember that lakes can have strong currents. Never swim out past the designated safety area.
In the ocean/at the beach. A relaxing day at the beach can turn into a tragedy when basic safety procedures are ignored. When visiting the ocean or your local beach area, only swim in spots designated for swimmers. A lifeguard should be present. Ocean swimmers should swim with a buddy, same as lake swimmers. Remember when swimming out at the beach, you need enough energy to swim back. Be careful how far out into the ocean you swim, always conserving enough strength and energy to get back to shore. If you become caught in a current, swim out of it by swimming across it. Be aware of ocean life. Some creatures such as jellyfish do sting. Watch for seaweed and avoid becoming entangled in it or other plant life.
Most water safety tips can be applied to any body of water. For example, children should never be left unattended or unobserved around any type of water. Swimming alone, even in a backyard pool can be dangerous. Heat and sunstroke can happen at the pool, lake or beach. Be prepared by staying hydrated and cooling your body in the shade as often as possible.


text:
MiGs, Stars & Magic Books: A Brief History of Trespassing in Moscow
An illustrated guide to urban exploration in the Russian capital.
31 August 2016
Sarajevo is extraordinary.
That's the first thing that struck me on arriving in the capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina: walking along cobbled streets squashed between tall, imperial townhouses, at times reminiscent of Vienna, before emerging into fountained plazas where the call to prayer wafts down from Ottoman minarets – reverberating in market squares where stray cats stalk amongst fabrics and spice – and quite suddenly I could have sworn I'd been transported to Istanbul. When travel guidebooks roll out that overplayed line about East-meets-West – usually in reference to somewhere like Prague or Budapest – I'd wager they haven't been to Sarajevo; because this is where it's happening. It is a cultural frontier like no place I've seen in Europe, and yet it is as inclusive, as welcoming, as it is alluring.
The city defied any and all expectations I might have brought with me… though I'll admit, those expectations were mostly negative. Growing up in the 1990s, I, like many others my age, was conditioned with an almost Pavlovian response: whereby even the mention of 'Bosnia' would summon images of blood and smoke. As a child I never pictured the vast and dramatic landscapes that define the country, and I certainly had no concept of the real Sarajevo. Rather, the image in my head had been of nondescript housing blocks – the generic Eastern European city – lit up by mortars and muzzle flash.
Those pictures of violence and tragedy proved true enough, at least; but no one had ever told me what Sarajevo was actually like. The news stories never mentioned that these horrors took place in what might just be the most beautiful city in Europe. I fell in love with Sarajevo in a heartbeat… and that made learning about its history all the more difficult.
It's not just the buildings that make Sarajevo beautiful, though – the minarets, the bridges, the steep streets filled with the smell of fresh pastries – nor even the dramatic landscape that wraps about it from north and south; but there is moreover a feeling of community here, a multiculturalism writ large in crosses and crescents and stars, spelled out in Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic and Hebrew text.
Ironically, it was this same multiculturalism that made Sarajevo such a fertile battlefield for the nationalist factions that would come to dominate the region in the wake of a disintegrating Yugoslavia. In that time of uncertainty, fear of the Other would become the driving force of atrocity… and in Sarajevo, a city that stood for everything nationalism isn't, 11,541 citizens would be murdered over the course of the longest city siege in modern history.
I'll warn you now, this story won't always be an easy read. But I feel I owe the victims (both living and dead) that much – the world media might have stopped talking about the war in Bosnia long ago, but people here are still living with its effects. And besides… with nationalism once again on the rise across the Western world, I believe this might be a conversation worth revisiting.
I rang the bell, and our host answered the door dressed in full UN military uniform. He was solemn as he ushered me into the regular-looking apartment tucked back from a quiet road in the south part of the city. Other than the scribbled address I held in my hand, there was little to suggest that there might have been a hostel inside.
By now it was my third day in Sarajevo and so far, I had made a point of not digging too deep into the history of the war. I had wanted to make my own impressions first, to experience the city as it is now; but with just 18 hours left before our bus to Montenegro, I felt it was time to embark on what I suspected might be quite a challenging tourism experience.
I had read about this place online – the Sarajevo War Hostel – and I'd wondered how I felt about that concept. "Pay to Get Shelled in Your Sleep," read the dubious headline written by one visiting journalist. The hostel promised an authentic recreation of siege conditions, as well as a whole catalogue of tours… and every review I could find for the place was a glowing five-star recommendation. Apprehension aside, this certainly seemed like the place to go if I wanted to learn what happened here.
Our young host preferred to be known as '01,' after his father's wartime call signal – pronounced Nula Jedan in Bosnian. On the staircase a graffito scrawl read, "Welcome to Hell." I recognised the script from newspaper photographs of Sarajevo under siege. "Help Bosnia Now," read another piece.
Following 01 up the stairs to our room we passed guns and bombs that hung from wall fixtures, imitation bullet-holes punched through the plaster and chunks of crumbling masonry suspended on threads of twisted rebar. Our room was made up with camp beds and military issue blankets, a mortar shell embedded in the wall above my pillow.
We dumped our luggage and then two minutes later we were on the building's top floor, stood around a counter in a room decorated with barbed wire, flags, sandbags and newspaper clippings. 01 pulled out a glossy, laminated folder and started flicking through it. Each page detailed a different tour, all of them lasting 2-3 hours and with set start times: one ran at 10am each day. Another was only offered at the weekend. All of them sounded fascinating but as he turned the pages, I realised that we would only have time to fit in one, maybe two, of the tours before our bus at 2pm the following day.
I was wondering if I'd made a terrible mistake, allowing so little time for the War Hostel. I explained my concerns to 01 and he thought for a moment, before answering:
"If you're serious about this, then maybe we can do them all."
And so began a marathon of horror. Five tours, back to back, through most of the night: some of the worst things I've ever heard, the most shocking, upsetting history that I think I've ever encountered, in one relentless barrage of caffeine-fuelled, rapid-fire education.
We'd barely put our bags down, hadn't eaten, but already 01 was ushering us out to the waiting car. "We'll grab a burek to eat on the way," he said, and then we were off.
[Before I delve into the history here, please note: I appreciate that the politics behind the break-up of Yugoslavia are still the subject of heated debate. What I present here is a simplified summary, and one reported from the perspective of Bosnia & Herzegovina; I'm telling this story as it was told to me.]
Slovenia was the first country to break away from Yugoslavia. It was 1991, when Slobodan Milošević was consolidating his power as President of Serbia – and by winning the support of Serbian minorities scattered in communities across the other Balkan countries, Milošević was quickly establishing himself as the most influential leader in all of Yugoslavia.
His politics were toxic though; a nationalist rhetoric that appealed to the very fears and insecurities which Tito had kept in check for so long – under the former leader's policy of 'Brotherhood and Unity.' But Milošević fed those fears, harnessing the anger of dispossessed Serbs to build himself an army of loyalists, sleeper cells positioned all the way across the Balkan peninsula.
Many of Milošević's followers identified as 'Chetniks': a name borrowed from the militant bands who had fought the Ottomans, and later the Nazis, in the cause of Serbian independence. The more extreme of these nationalists subscribed to the idea that Serbia was the one true descendent of the Orthodox Southern Slavic (or Yugoslav) peoples; and that Bosniaks, Croats and Slovenes were merely Serbs who had been tainted by the influence of invaders. Just as those Ottoman-era čete had done back in the 19th century, these new Chetniks were ready to resume the war on foreign infections such as Islam – in the process, 'helping' the other Balkan nations to rediscover their true heritage.
But already, Yugoslavia was slipping between Milošević's fingers. Slovenia broke away after a brief 10-day war for independence (sometimes referred to as the 'Weekend War'). Croatia followed soon after… and then Macedonia surprised everyone by suddenly breaking off from the other end.
Bosnia & Herzegovina would be next, and a 1992 independence referendum confirmed it. It was here though, that Milošević had the highest density of followers: a 1991 census showed the Bosnian population as 32.5% Serb, to a 44% Muslim Bosniak majority. While it's crucial to understand that not all Bosnian Serbs subscribed to the Chetnik philosophy, there were enough who did as to ensure that Bosnia & Herzegovina's independence from Belgrade would not be won so easily.
Later, 01 told us how the nationalists had prepared for war. Under the banner of the Yugoslav People's Army, Milošević's forces spent seven months building fortifications around Sarajevo. It was all "to protect the city," the army would say, when questioned by locals.
These forces, many of them identifying as Chetniks, were initially composed almost entirely of Bosnian Serbs: and though loyal to Belgrade, that put them under the direct leadership of Radovan Karadžić (then President of Republika Srpska, an ethnically Serbian territory within Bosnia & Herzegovina). Despite his assistance in arming and radicalising the nationalists, Milošević himself would consistently deny any accountability for their actions.
In the case of Sarajevo, those actions were simple: the liberal, multicultural Sarajevo could not lead Bosnia out of a Serb-controlled Yugoslavia, if Sarajevo was destroyed. "To kill the snake you cut off its head," said 01.
The War Hostel's 'Urbicide Tour' started virtually the moment we set foot outside – as 01 began pointing out the bullet holes and mortar scars that peppered Sarajevo's streets. He talked us through the city's wounds while his father, Jasmin, drove. In a formerly Serb-controlled district of the city, we saw apartment blocks whose balconies had so many holes they looked like cheese graters. I wondered how they hadn't fallen down already.
The word 'urbicide' means exactly what it sounds like: violence against a city. It first appeared in a work of science fiction (Michael Moorcock, 1963), but later it was adopted by the news media as the best description for what was currently happening in Sarajevo. Between 5th April 1992 and 29th February 1996, the city was hit by an average count of 329 mortar shells per day. Some 35,000 buildings were destroyed, and 11,541 people were killed.
The Bosnian Serb general leading the assault, Radko Mladic, told his troops to aim for Muslim neighbourhoods. "Shell them till they're on the edge of madness," he is heard saying over the radio in a 1995 BBC documentary.
As war raged across the rest of Bosnia – nationalists fighting to drive Muslim families out of 'traditionally' Slavic, Orthodox lands – Sarajevo went into lock-down. The Chetnik forces destroyed the city's post office, seized the airport and cut off phone lines. Snipers and cannons positioned in the surrounding mountains fired on Sarajevo's citizens day and night.
Only Bosnian Serbs were permitted to escape the sieged city. While Muslim women could potentially discard their headscarves and pass as Christians, men fleeing Sarajevo would be told to undress – if they were found to be circumcised, they'd be executed on the spot. Those who passed were given a weapon and ordered to fire it into the city, as proof of their allegiance.
If the Chetniks expected a fast victory however, then they had underestimated Sarajevo's resilience. The city's loyal Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs and Roma began forming defensive brigades. Anyone with access to a weapon joined the resistance – so that police officers, soldiers, hunters and criminals were suddenly all fighting side-by-side in a makeshift militia. They called themselves the 'Defenders of Sarajevo'… and in an unlikely gesture of defiance, they even put out a music video to promote their cause.
As we walked, 01 told us how strange it was for him to visit somewhere like England – where the buildings were smooth, and free from bullet holes. For him, he said, this was just normal. He showed us the 'Rainbow Hotel,' a colourful, modern retirement home that had been utterly decimated before it could ever be put to use; and the badly damaged newspaper building, where Bosnian Serb nationalists had ignored the international rules of war by firing at foreign journalists.
The thing that stuck with me most though, was the roses.
Where mortars had landed in streets and roads, they gouged out craters in the tarmac. Rather than cover them though, the survivors had memorialised them. Painted red, or sometimes filled with a red resin, in time these concrete scars became known as the 'Sarajevo Roses.'
Our tour took us next into the Lion Cemetery; where hundreds upon hundreds of graves were lined up in rank and file. I asked 01 exactly how many citizens had died in the siege, but he stopped me. "They didn't die," he said, "they were killed. It's different."
Sarajevo's Lion Cemetery was originally built for victims of WWI, though as 01 explained, these early interments were later evicted by the communists to make room for political heroes and partisans buried under the red star of Yugoslavia. The politicisation of the dead seemed to be a recurring theme in these places.
I asked 01 how he felt about communism, and more specifically, about the former Yugoslav president, Josip Broz Tito. "He wasn't a bad leader," he replied – noting that under Yugoslav communism, there was no tolerance for extremes, for radicals or nationalists. It wasn't hard to imagine how, at least from Bosnia's perspective, communism might have seemed infinitely preferable to the division and conflict that came after.
As we walked through the lower lawns of the Lion Cemetery, we passed row after row of graves that all ended with the same date. 1992. Hundreds of them. It might have looked like any regular graveyard at first glance, but those carved stone numerals couldn't help but hint at some terrible event.
There were more personal stories to be told here, too. We stopped by a long, shared grave, where six stones rose from a bed of purple blooms. These people had been families and neighbours, 01 told us, killed together in the same blast. The assorted body parts recovered were buried in one mass grave.
Elsewhere he introduced us to Sarajevo's own 'Romeo and Juliet': the Muslim Bosniak Admira Ismić and Bosnian Serb Boško Brkić, a mixed-ethnicity couple trapped in the middle of an ethnic war. The pair were shot by snipers while trying to escape the city in May 1993; they died in each other's arms. Sniper fire prevented anyone else from getting close, and so their bodies lay on that bridge for almost four days. Later, the fate of Admira Ismić and Boško Brkić was picked up by the world's press, and became a powerful human story amidst the tide of unimaginable carnage.
Kurt Schork, the American journalist who'd shared that story with the world, had his own grave nearby.
We visited another cemetery just over the road, where a football stadium had been converted into one colossal burial ground. As we walked, 01 told us about the peace he felt in these places. "I'm at home here," he said. "These are my people."
And that went for Serbs, too – 50,000 Bosnian Serbs had fought on the side of Sarajevo and its people during the siege.
"I love Serbs," said 01. "But Chetniks are not Serbs. They're not even human. How can they be?" he asked. "When a man rapes a child in front of its family, he beats it, pisses on it, cuts off the head and burns the body… he can no longer be called 'human' after this.
"And this actually happened, by the way," 01 added, as he looked at each of us in turn.
Before we left the cemetery, Jasmin showed us a grave that belonged to a friend of his. Jasmin hadn't know his friend's fate until just recently – hadn't known that his friend died in the siege until discovering his name etched onto a stone.
Nearby, a plaque carved in Arabic text commemorated the sacrifice of those who'd fallen on the 'Path of Allah'; or words to that effect.
"It's not right," Jasmin told us, with clear frustration. Despite having a Muslim name, his friend had not been religious – yet here his death had been politicised, and offered to a god he hadn't believed in. The way 01 put it, the people of Sarajevo hadn't been fighting for god; they'd been fighting only for their right to live as they chose. Religion was the cause, not the champion, of this violence.
As we exited through the gates and back onto the road, Jasmin told us that he wouldn't be visiting this place again.
With two tours behind us – and already feeling somewhat shaken – we headed back to the hostel for Round 3. What 01 called his 'Bunker Tour' was a performance of sorts, part lecture, part theatre, and conducted in a converted ground floor room of the hostel. When we were ready, he led us into a small, curtained chamber and switched off the lights.
"Wait here," he instructed. "When you hear the siren, stand up and walk through the curtain."
I won't spoil the effect of that performance by detailing it here (you should visit Sarajevo and experience it for yourself) but what followed was innovative, educational, moving, and featured the most comprehensive – yet clear, convincing – explanation I've yet heard for the rise and fall of Yugoslavia.
Over the course of nearly four hours, 01 untangled the complicated threads of Balkan nationalism; from the 5th century arrival of the Slavs, to the wars of the 1990s. We saw clothing, maps and artefacts. News clips played on a screen, mixed with segments of family home video: one showed 01 as a child, playing in the yard while explosions echoed in the background. Another showed his neighbour's body, lying torn and broken in the street.
There were weapons on display, too: our host showed us a disposable, one-use bazooka from his collection – as well as an example of the kind of homemade shotgun carried by many of the Defenders of Sarajevo. (The latter, though ingenious in design, nevertheless suffered from an alarmingly high risk of exploding on use.)
At the end of the presentation, 01 asked to take a photo with the three of us. Later, he emailed me a copy: there he was in the middle, smiling and making peace signs, while us visitors looked ready to burst into tears.
Once we were finished, I asked 01 if there were any shops still open nearby. "I could do with a drink after all that," I confessed.
"Okay," he said, "I've got something for you upstairs." 01 fetched out a bottle of rakija and a few glasses, then we sat drinking it with him into the early hours. It was harsh stuff, but it helped to settle my nerves – as we talked about travel, families, relationships, and other reassuringly mundane topics.
It was a relief to see him out of his military uniform, out of his sombre tour persona. I asked 01 if it helped him, sharing his story with visitors. "I think so," he nodded, "it's a kind of therapy."
We finally turned in for the night at 3am. I slept badly – my mind still full of awful pictures – so that when Jasmin came to wake us at 7.25am I barely felt I'd rested at all. 01 was still asleep, and wouldn't be joining us that day… but between father and son, the two of them made a formidable tag team.
"Are you ready?" Jasmin asked from the door. We pulled ourselves grudgingly from our beds, and within moments we were back on the road again.
Driving out towards Sarajevo Airport, we hit a speed bump in the road.
"What do you call these?" Jasmin asked. "We call them 'dead policemen' here." I told him how in Britain, they were sometimes referred to as sleeping policemen.
The car hit another bump in the road, and Jasmin said: "Well, he's dead now."
Between March and June 1993, the Bosnian Army dug a tunnel out of Sarajevo. It ran for 800 metres, beneath the enemy-controlled airport and out to (comparative) freedom on the other side; a supply line that could be used for bringing weapons, food and humanitarian aid into the besieged capital. The city-end of the tunnel started in the cellar of a private house near the airport, and today that building is preserved as the 'Sarajevo Tunnel Museum.'
Jasmin would not join us inside the museum. He'd been down there before, during wartime, and had no interest in going back again. Instead, he dropped us at the entrance to the house and waited nearby.
The museum itself was an impressively modern affair. Audioguides were available in a range of languages, accessed by way of an open wi-fi network. We were greeted near the entrance by a smiling young Bosnian man in jeans and aviators – I couldn't tell if it was a costume, reminiscent of clothes worn by the Defenders of Sarajevo, or just his own choice of apparel.
In the garden at the back of the house, now forming the central courtyard of the museum, we were surrounded by other tourists; most of the women wore headscarves, and the language they spoke sounded Arabic. I had a flashback to the large Jewish tour groups that I'd encountered on a visit to Auschwitz, and realised then that for some groups, tourism to Sarajevo was a deeply religious event; a pilgrimage, of sorts.
I was glad to see the place busy – but it didn't quite provide the atmosphere of solemn reflection that I'd expected. I found my way into an exhibition space towards the back of the complex, where newsreel footage was playing to the darkened room in a perpetual loop.
A group of men stood between me and the screen, their shadows interrupting the projector. They were British – three of them dressed in business suits, stood around their Bosnian guide. I felt a certain discomfort as they smiled and joked. The loudest of them, dressed in over-sharp pinstripes, began comparing events in Sarajevo to the plot of a Hollywood film he'd seen. For some reason it made me angry, and I left the room.
The house itself contained museum exhibits: papers, food packages and first aid kits. Mannequins were dressed as refugees or bloodied soldiers. Beneath that, a section of the tunnel had been opened up for visitors, some 20 metres of shaft propped up by wood supports. I walked the length of it, from the house down to the exit point in the courtyard.
It was difficult to move in that confined space; between the low ceiling, and tracks beneath my feet for pushing trolleys loaded with supplies (on the way in) or stretchers (on the return journey). Suddenly the tunnel began ringing with voices – Turkish, I think – and a group of children came thudding down the steps behind me, let off the leash to play while their parents pored through written texts above. It was time to leave.
Back in the car, Jasmin told us how the city had been looted. Under siege, with supply lines cut off, some citizens of Sarajevo began raiding shops for food. Jasmin had not participated, though… and he regretted it.
"It was stupid of me," he told us, "but I couldn't do it." He had believed in maintaining some degree of social order, to the point that he could not bring himself to steal – though over time, he'd come to realise that such sentiments had to be abandoned for the sake of feeding his family. "Things are different in war," he said sadly.
He told us how one day, the market in Sarajevo started selling grass. The city's food had run out, so people were boiling up grass to eat it. (That same market was later shelled on two occasions, killing 68 people and then another 43.)
The tunnel would become a lifeline for the city's residents… though it wasn't long before the operation was taken over by opportunistic smugglers. They'd venture outside, and stock up on supplies – before selling their wares in Sarajevo for extortionate profit. Packs of sugar and oil could be bought for a couple of Deutsche Marks outside the city, but would resell for 40-50 Marks inside the siege lines. People payed as much as 120 Marks for a pack of ground coffee.
Jasmin had run supply trips through the tunnel himself. "We called the other side 'America,'" he said with a smile. At the far end of the tunnel, Chetniks were waiting with .20, .30, .40 calibre guns; an enemy canon was positioned somewhere above. Many people never came back from these supply runs – but Jasmin was one of the lucky ones. The first chocolate 01 ever tasted had come into the city that way, a little treat hidden inside his father's jacket. Jasmin told us to picture him loaded up with a heavy backpack and two rifles, dodging snipers with a tray of 30 eggs cradled in his arms.
But that all came to an end when the government took control over the tunnel. Soldiers like Jasmin were no longer allowed through, as they were needed on the front lines. The incoming supplies were regulated, but the new system was no less corrupt. "People don't know this," said Jasmin, "but 90 per cent of traffic through that tunnel was by pirates."
We were driving now, back into the city along 'Sniper Alley': Sarajevo's main boulevard, which for four years had been lined with enemy sniper positions. The citizens had eventually dug trenches the length of it, in order to get about the city without being shot at. Today, busy traffic flowed between manicured grass verges, under the shadow of towering glass-and-steel shopping centres; the place had certainly changed in 24 years.
For the last stage of our tour, we were heading out of town… up Mount Trebević, to the abandoned Olympic facilities which had marked a frontier between the Chetniks and the Defenders of Sarajevo; and where, for the latter part of the war, Jasmin himself had been stationed on the front lines.
In 1984, Bosnia & Herzegovina had hosted the Winter Olympics. They built ski jumps, stadiums and bobsleigh tracks around the capital, all the way up into the mountains that overlook Sarajevo from north and south. When those same mountains, a decade later, were taken by the Chetniks laying siege to the city, these Olympic sites were caught in the crossfire; they became minefields, bunkers, or improvised sniper positions, and they've mostly lain abandoned ever since.
We had already seen the bobsleigh track on Mount Trebević. Our second day in Sarajevo we hired a car, and it was the first destination on our list – we walked the length of the tube as it twisted and curved through overgrown bushes, a graffitied concrete ribbon winding snake-like down the mountainside. What we hadn't understood then, was the true horror of what happened here; we were naive, too, to the number of unexploded mines that still lurked in long grass only metres from our feet.
Revisiting the place with Jasmin, two days later, would be a sobering experience.
For four years the Chetniks had surrounded Sarajevo, firing on the city day and night from their mountain camps. They'd had unlimited ammo, Jasmin explained – enjoying access to the full reserves of the Yugoslav People's Army, not to mention the Serbian factories where most of those weapons had been produced.
The Chetniks also had a practically unlimited recruitment pool. It had been Bosnian Serb propaganda that painted this as a religious war; the people of Sarajevo were simply fighting for their lives, but their oppressors spread fears of an Islamic state, a rebel nation striving to bring Sharia law back to the Balkans. The call was heard in other Orthodox nations, and soon there were new recruits arriving from Montenegro, Russia, Ukraine, Romania; all travelling to Bosnia to help put down an Islamic threat. As many as forty or fifty thousand nationalists had held the siege lines at a time.
Some stayed for a year, others only for as long as they could take off work (Jasmin called these the Weekend Chetniks). Fresh recruits would be plied with alcohol and given a gun. There would be music, drugs and barbecued meat, a real festival spirit, as Orthodox brothers stepped up and did their part… like the prominent Russian writer who visited the front lines in 1992, and was caught on video taking potshots at the city.
The War Hostel's 'Front Lines Tour' was perhaps the most personal of them all; as Jasmin showed us around the trenches and bunkers where he'd served for the last years of the war. We drove up mountain roads, thick with forests and gutted buildings. A modern hotel, now abandoned; the remains of an Austro-Hungarian fortress: built centuries apart, they all looked the same now. Broken stones and bullet casings.
Every so often, the trees would clear and I'd look out the car window to snatch a glimpse of Sarajevo cradled in the valley below. The view was breathtaking; but the experience soured by the knowledge that these scenic viewpoints would have also made for the most effective sniper positions.
Jasmin stopped the car, and led us into bushes beside the road. Tumbled stone walls topped with beams marked the position of a former Chetnik bunker. The grass around was still littered with rakija bottles, empty tin cans and the grey, standard issue food containers supplied by the Yugoslav People's Army. Nearby, Jasmin gently lifted a rock to show us an undetonated shell beneath.
Over the course of the siege these front lines had been constantly moving; Chetniks advancing with tanks and artillery, while the Defenders of Sarajevo struggled to push them back. Unwary sentries had their throats cut in the night. Grenades were tossed into enemy bunkers, killing a dozen at a time. The forests were scattered with landmines… many of which still sit there to this day.
"Mines are the perfect soldiers," said Jasmin, as we walked the overgrown path. "They don't sleep, don't eat, they wait for you forever."
We stopped at a red sign post, bearing the image of a skull and crossbones along with warnings in English and Bosnian (Pazi Mine!). Beyond, the wooded mountainside rolled on with innocent charm; but Jasmin warned that going past the sign, we'd be dead within five metres. The Chetniks had arranged their mines in groups. The idea was that the first would blow your leg off, then the others would take you apart in pieces as you fell across them. Sometimes, a drunk Chetnik would wander off into the bushes to piss – he told us – triggering their own traps in the process.
There have been efforts to clear up the minefields surrounding Sarajevo, but it isn't easy work; and as Jasmin explained, much of it has been completed by government employees earning a pittance of a wage. They didn't always do a good job of it – clearly evidenced by the live mines now lurking within areas marked with a yellow 'safe' tape. Some of these mines have rusted out, stopped working over the years – but others have only become more temperamental.
Near the foot of the bobsleigh track, no more than five metres from the concrete, Jasmin showed us another landmine sat there quietly waiting to take someone's leg off. Even since the end of the war, he told us, as many as 500 people have been killed by the landmines left behind. They hide in gardens, parks, in children's playgrounds – and only last year, one tourist was critically injured when his paraglider landed in an unswept minefield near the city.
Somewhere near the top of the mountain, Jasmin showed us the concrete entrance to a bunker. During the war, the president of Bosnia's Serbs had hidden inside. Now, on the back of the entry shaft, red lettering spelled out: "Make Burek Not War."
As we stood there another man wandered by – mid forties, perhaps – and watched us with an inquisitive look. Jasmin threw him a curt military salute and the man simply nodded then moved on.
"Maybe he's a Chetnik?" Jasmin muttered to us. "I don't know."
This is the reality now in Bosnia. The perpetrators of these deeds went largely unpunished, and simply melted back into Bosnia's Serb territories. Jasmin told us how one of the former Chetnik leaders now ran a holiday park nearby – Serb nationalists would go there to sleep in tents, drink rakija and sing along to national folk music. The only difference now, was that shooting Muslims had been crossed off the itinerary.
Before we finished, Jasmin showed us a grassy trench that he knew only too well. He had been a factory electrician before the war, and so during the siege his role had been to repair and maintain the telephone lines connecting bunkers. Jasmin had been lucky – 12 of his friends were killed, while doing exactly the same job. He would spend 48 hours on the front line at a time, then go back to the city, dragging all the firewood he could manage, for 24 hours with his family before the next rotation.
Though he wasn't a tall man, Jasmin moved across the hillside in long, leaping strides… and we must have looked ridiculous, the three of us striding in line behind him, mimicking his every move for fear of stepping outside his footprints and landing on a mine.
There wasn't much left of his bunker. It had looked much like the converted room beneath the hostel… only with twenty men squashed inside, all eating gone-off beans from tin cans.
"Everyone had diarrhoea," he said. "The only light was from cigarettes. It was smoky and it smelled of farts."
The men had joked about weaponising their bad guts; launching toxic fart attacks on the enemy. They were eating dog food too, spreading it onto bread with a knife. It tasted awful, so people would eat as much as they could force down and then hide the rest for later. Invariably the mice would find it though, and some of the men decided they were better off eating the mice instead.
Jasmin had us all laughing, and it came as a welcome relief – but it never lasted long. The next moment he'd tell us about the time he saw a baby thrown out the window of an apartment. A Chetnik was trying to rape the mother, but the baby's cries were putting him off. It broke like an egg on the pavement.
He told us about a game of cat-and-mouse he'd played with a Chetnik sniper – dodging bullets until he was safely out of sight, then popping back up just to give the shooter the middle finger. We laughed. Then he told us about a pregnant woman he discovered in the street, belly sliced open to reveal the unborn child inside.
I was still laughing after he said that, before I could really process it, and the noise hung awkwardly in the air. My brain was exhausted – after 18 hours of intense war tourism (with just over four hours of bad sleep in the middle), I no longer knew when to laugh, when to cry. Jasmin and his son, 01, had been two of the kindest, most genuine hosts I'd ever met. They were funny too, great entertainers; but the things they'd lived through were worse than anything I could ever have imagined.
The whole experience left me an emotional wreck, and all I had done was listen… so I wondered what effect all this still had on the Bosnian people now, 20 years after the war had ended.
"We've all got problems now," Jasmin said, with a smile and a shrug. "We're all a little bit crazy."
A few days later I was sat in a restaurant in Podgorica, the capital of neighbouring Montenegro. There was some kind of national festival going on – that afternoon the streets had been filled with dancers in traditional costume, and children had stood on a stage in the city centre to sing folk ballads to the crowd.
Now, sat around long wooden tables in an old-style national restaurant, a troupe of musicians – men in their 40s and 50s, dressed in woollen jackets, caps and knee-high socks – were performing drunken renditions of national folk songs to a cheering hall of diners.
A couple of men in the audience were already on their feet and dancing. Restaurant staff ran this way and that delivering huge trays filled with meat fresh from the barbecue, while the rakija was sloshed into shot glasses with bacchanalian glee.
I'm guessing those popular travel guides I mentioned earlier would have called this The Real Montenegro.
For me though, this atmosphere was impossible to enjoy. I hadn't been sleeping well since leaving Sarajevo: only the night before I'd dreamt my feet got tangled in the tripwire of a landmine – I was just trying to free myself when my roommate coughed and I woke up suddenly, sweating and shouting in the darkness.
Now, as I looked around this Montenegrin restaurant, I found myself thinking about the Chetnik nationalists who'd laid siege to Sarajevo in the 1990s; and I wondered, not for the first time, what they were doing now. Most likely they would have retired home to Republika Srpska, or Serbia itself, or Montenegro, to live out the rest of their lives in comfortable anonymity. By now, most of them would be in their 40s or 50s… they'd probably be sat in some traditional restaurant tonight, drinking rakija and singing old, nationalist folk songs.
Of course, these folk musicians in Podgorica probably had nothing to do with the Siege of Sarajevo; but tens of thousands of people from this region did, and most of them simply retired without ever facing justice. After my long month travelling around the Balkans, it was likely that I had met at least a few of them (tour guides, shopkeepers, grill chefs, petrol station attendants) and the thought made my stomach turn.
Nationalism can sometimes look endearing from the outside – take this Montenegrin restaurant for example, all old-time woollen clothes and booze and accordions. Nationalism celebrates tradition, it seeks to preserve authentic culture; but I couldn't stop thinking how just 25 years ago, people who looked much like this had been butchering babies and executing Muslims in the name of tradition.
As the folk songs kept coming – each one quicker, more frantic than the last – the conversation around our table moved on. We began to talk about Brexit, about division in Britain and the alarmingly rapid rise of Donald Trump in the United States; and I realised that these lessons Sarajevo taught about the dangers of nationalism were as relevant now as they had ever been.
Comments are closed.
Very lucid article….very authentic….I am from India …and loved reading your article…the events in Bosnia were very painful
The thing is, Darmon, you have to realize that this tour is business: mixed are half truth, half fiction, and the stories 01 and Jasmin tell are a compilation of myths and legends acted out to perfection.
If the city had constantly been shelled for five years, you could not find two bricks together.
One thing mentioned in the article needs to be underlined, as Jasmin said, the Muslim government at one point took over control of the tunnel, but that only made things worse. Humanitarian aid donated to Sarajevo was sold to its citizens by its government and some of those families (then in power) made millions of dollars on that. Also, some of the snipers that terrorized Sarajevo citizens were not Serbian. Sarajevo Romeo and Juliet were killed by a member of a special forces unit called "Ševe" which was under direct control of Alija Izetbegović…
The terror over Sarajevo was a product of mainly two things: business greed of Muslim government and stubbornness of Radovan Karadžić to give up on Sarajevo.
You should research about parts of Sarajevo which were in Serbian hands up until February of 1996, having in mind that the war stopped at the end of 1995, especially learn about Grbavica, but not from the movie by Jasmila Žbanić.
Nevertheless, this is a nice article, illustrated with very cool pictures and the picture in the header made me read it, although I came to the blog on another search…
I am a Serb (if I were not, I probably would not explain all those previous points to you 🙂 ), from Banjaluka, and few years ago I had spent four days in Sarajevo on a business call, but with a lot of free time. In those four days, I covered about 100 kilometers on foot, including a descent down the Trebević mountain, near the place shown on the header image. I climbed Trebević via road and went downhill by the bobsled track. I was alone, it was my first time there and I had just barely checked out the track on Google Maps. It was raining and by the time I got to the end of the track I was tired and decided just to go downhill, as I have not had the strength to back the same path I came. I followed some visible paths, trying to avoid mud and not to fall, without knowing where I was going because city – which I could use for orientation – was under a thick layer of fog (visibility was about 40 meters). I was just trying to take a straight line downhill, I was wet from rain and sweat, and in one moment I noticed a yellow ribbon on a bush by the path: "MINES". The path was well-trodden so I was not scared, but in that moment I truly realized where I was. It took me about an hour of walking to get to the first houses and another hour to the old part of town where I ate ćevapi and came back to life.
Only a few days later I found out that I passed some 30 meters by the infamous Kazani pit, where Muslims had thrown bodies of Serbs killed in the city… That would be another topic for you to research, if you find the time and the interest.
Anyway, it is really sad what happened in Sarajevo, because it was and still is the only true CITY in all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and one can just hope that something like that will never have to repeat again.
Keep up the good work, all the best from Banjaluka!
"The terror over Sarajevo was a product of mainly two things: business greed of Muslim government and stubbornness of Radovan Karadžić to give up on Sarajevo."
I wouldn't insult, but your comment is a piece of shit. The terror of Sarajevo was product of just ONE thing: intention of Bosnian Serb's leadership to get political concessions (autonomy or independence for "etnically clean Serb republic") by terorrizing of Sarajevo's citizens. And why didn't you mention that Serb militaries commited 95% of war crimes in Bosnian war, according to all relevant institutions and witnesses? Yes, muslims did that one war crime in Sarajevo (Kazani), but Serbs did hunderdts of war crimes, before and after of that. Should I mention that the commander who did it at Kazani was killed as a criminal by the Bosnian goverment a couple of months later? Should I mention that the Serb's leadership honoured worst war criminals like Arkan, Ratko Mladic (who shelled Sarajevo and commited genocide in Srerbrenica) and so on… Yes, Sarajevo wasn't shelled every day, but ALMOST every day, b but most of the siege was like this: some days 50, some days just 10, some days 1000 grenades exploding in the town, which is a pretty terrible thing if you live there. And why don't you mention how was in your Banja Luka? Without war, but despite of that, all muslim and catholic people were expelled, and all mosques were destroyed – with dinamite. You can ask your older neighbours if you don't know about it. Yes, I am from Bosnia. Have a nice day.
Thank you for this wonderfully moving piece…
It's a sad and dark world we live in. Given what we know today, I am starting to think the 1984 winter olympics were awarded to Sarajevo BECAUSE plans had already been afoot by the global powers that be to wreak this unspeakable cruelty and carnage just a few years later.
As long as there are borders there will be wars. Dog's piss to mark their territory for a reason.
This article is so full of shit, that I had to stop reading before reaching half of it. I rather watch CNN propaganda, it is better made. Dear writer, have a nice "Fuck you liar" greetings from Serbia. For the other readers, if you are interested in how "innocent muslims" were "massacred by Serbian nationalist" just type in Google search "Jihad in Bosnia" and you will see a lot of "innocent muslim victims" cheerfully smiling with cut off christian Serbian heads in their hands. And that is only from the last war. For deeper insight, type: 13. Waffen-Gebirgs-Division der SS Handschar . And there you go, more "innocent muslim victims" in WW2 …. And you can go on this way back in history until ottoman invasion. For the end, another "Fuck you liar, I will be very glad to punch you in the face if I ever meet you" for the author. Have a nice day.
Milošević-Karadzić propaganda still on the rise, but no problem we have cure for that.
Thanks to world judiciary system today we have that part of the history covered quite OK and no need for sharing fake propaganda you did during the history and even today.
Hope you read part of this at least.
Haunting write up. As an American, it was interesting to see the parallel you drew at the end to the rise of Nationalism in Donald Trump. Maybe he isn't quite as murderous with his intentions, but it is very unsettling as he calls for Muslims to register, etc.
Again, great article, not trying to say at all that American's recent election is in any way comparable to this horror, but similar undertones in terms of nationalist xenophobia being used to work up certain groups of people.
See all 13 comments on "After the Siege: What I Learned in 18 Hours of Sarajevo War Tourism"
An illustrated guide to urban exploration in the Russian capital.
Poltergeists, ritual murder & a live-in succubus – the 1000-year-old pub with a ghostly reputation
A month-long monument hunt, and what I learned along the way.


text:
Kentucky farmers adding grain storage
Kentucky farmers adding grain storage
Published on Mar. 28, 2008
Storing grain on the farm gives farmers more harvest and marketing flexibility than transporting it from the field directly to the grain elevator. For the past several years, Kentucky farmers have been adding to their on-farm storage to take advantage of this added flexibility.
"From what I've seen, there are a few completely new systems, but for the most part it's been a bigger bin or two added to an existing facility," said Sam McNeill, extension agricultural engineer with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture.
Kentucky farmers increased on-farm storage capacity by 5 million bushels in 2007, bringing the total storage capacity to 180 million bushels, according to the Kentucky field office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Adding storage means not having to wait in line at the elevators, not needing as many trucks in the fleet and having the flexibility of holding and moving grain at more convenient times when pricing may be more favorable compared to harvest-time prices.
Ethanol production may also be playing a role in added grain storage nationwide, McNeill said. Many of the ethanol plants do not have the storage capacity on site for more than a few weeks' production capacity. That's putting the storage responsibility on the farmer, he said.
High grain prices may also be allowing some farmers to financially afford to update or expand their storage capacity. However, with the high cost of grain production and metal, farmers need to do a cost analysis.
It generally costs between $1.50 and $2 a bushel to put up a bin, he said. Farmers must also consider interest, energy for drying and/or aeration, labor, maintenance and other annual expenses.
Most new bins are larger than they used to be. That's due in part to farmers continuing to farm more acres. Additionally with today's large harvesting equipment, the larger bins are more efficient. Farmers do not have to move from bin to bin as often.
"There's more convenience with bigger bins, but there's more challenges too," McNeill said.
Challenges include managing the different moisture levels from field to field and differing amounts of debris within the fields. Farmers also need to remember not to hold grain in the bin's roof cone very long because this can make proper air flow difficult and potentially reduce grain quality.
McNeill said generally he gets calls around harvest time from producers saying pricing options show they need to store corn, but they don't have enough storage space. Farmers can put up bins in late summer (and save on interest costs), but they can get the biggest discount on bin construction right after harvest; so there are trade-offs to consider for each operation. Of course, there's still plenty of time to add storage for this year's crop, but it's important to plan for potential expansion before pouring concrete.
McNeill said he expects farmers to continue to add storage in 2008 but perhaps at a slower pace.
Crops Livestock


text:
Last night I went to the USC Fashion Week 2012 Student Designer Competition held by the USC Fashion Board. Each year, USC Fashion Week gets better and better. They come up with great programs and events to showcase their students and local boutiques. This year they added something different to the line up. They had their first annual student designer competition with actual fashion industry judges. Hunter Bell from clothing line Hunter Dixon, Emma Mahon (who was also tonight's featured designer with her Emma Graham collection), and fashion stylist Josh Ratliff were the judges. All of the designers did a great job. I loved all of their enthusiasm and their joy for fashion. Jessica Argoe won tonight's competition. Argoe will move onto Thursday's Sponsor Show featuring local boutiques and present the rest of her collection.
James Matthew Teague
Southern Beaus
Meghan Holst
Jessica Argoe-Winner
Amber Rae Engel
Forever Dertermined
Featured Designer:
Emma Graham


text:
"Audios PSEA_AUD-20210126-WA0002_trimmed".
ICVA is a global network of non-governmental organisations whose mission is to make humanitarian action more principled and effective by working collectively and independently to influence policy and practice.
International Council of Voluntary Agencies
NGO Humanitarian Hub,
La Voie-Creuse 16, 1202, Geneva, Switzerland
Email: email@example.com
A curation of monthly updates, latest news, tools, and events around forced migration, coordination, financing, and cross cutting issues all sent straight to your inbox.


text:
Shannon's Fund
In 2008, the Orioles and OriolesREACH established Shannon's Fund, a $50,000 endowment at the University of Maryland Medical Center to provide financial assistance to hospital patients and their families. Created in memory of Shannon Obaker -- the team's Director of Community Outreach who bravely fought cancer for over a year before passing away in 2007 at age 29 -- Shannon's Fund is administered by the University of Maryland Medical Center. Funds are donated to patients and their family members as need arises to assist with the general expenses associated with the treatment process, including hospital parking, alternate housing, food costs and household bills.
People who knew Shannon knew of her passion for helping others, especially children and animals. In her role as Community Outreach Director, Shannon coordinated charitable donation requests, scheduled player appearances in the community and arranged special visits for sick children who wanted to meet their baseball heroes. The Orioles and the Obaker family believe that the most meaningful way to remember Shannon is to reach out to help others because that is what Shannon cared about most.
The Orioles will continue to contribute to the Fund via proceeds collected from future charitable endeavors and OriolesREACH initiatives.Those wishing to make contributions in Shannon's memory can do so online.


text:
We are so excited to announce the lucky winners of the FIVE Bordeaux quilt patterns. So let's get down to business. Last week Rachel of PS I Quilt asked you to choose which modern and traditional collections you would use for Bordeaux.
Our five lucky winners are…
Gabriella said…
Traditional : Chateau Chambray by Renee Nanneman for Andover Fabrics
Modern : Flirt by Sandy Gervais for Moda Fabrics
Love the pattern !!!!
jlk said…
Traditional: Hill Farm
Modern: Flutter
It would look fabulous in so many of the new lines!
Julia said…
I would choose:
Traditional: Harvest Time, A year to crow about! There's something about your pattern that reminds me of fall! Modern: Birds of Paradise Batiks. I haven't worked with Batiks yet, but I love this line and thought it would give an entirely different feel to the quilt.
Cathy said…
Traditional: Audra's Iris Garden by Brannock + Patek
Modern: Aster by Williamsburg
CathyC in Alberta
Judy1522 said…
Traditional- Harvest Moon by Kansas Troubles Quilters for Moda Fabrics
Modern – The Birds and the Bees by Tula Pink for Free spirit
Congratulations, winners! Please email chelsey[at]fatquartershop[dot]com to claim your prize. Have fun creating modern or traditional beauties with Bordeaux. Everyone else, thanks for playing! Grab a Bordeaux pattern right here!


text:
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:25:08 +0100 Subject: Edward Said: Islam and the West are inadequate banners All This was from the CSL list (which I recommend). After a few readings this seems the most intelligent and interesting response I've come across in any of the media - including the material flying around the internet. Worth remembering this is before the USA, secretly but blatently leant on the Israeli's to ensure a move towards silence in Israel... I think today on Thursday that Bush may have been underestimated - perhaps violence is better understood by a 'cowboy' than by his predecessors - regards and yours in hope sdv > The Observer, Londonhttp://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,552764,00.html > > Islam and the West are inadequate banners > The United States may too often have failed to look outside but it is > depressing how little time is spent trying to understand America > > Special report: terrorism in the US > Special report: Israel and the Middle East > > Edward Said > Sunday September 16, 2001 > The Observer > > Spectacular horror of the sort that struck New York (and to a lesser degree > Washington) has ushered in a new world of unseen, unknown assailants, terror > missions without political message, senseless destruction. > > For the residents of this wounded city, the consternation, fear, and > sustained sense of outrage and shock will certainly continue for a long > time, as will the genuine sorrow and affliction that so much carnage has so > cruelly imposed on so many. > > New Yorkers have been fortunate that Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a normally > rebarbative and unpleasantly combative, even retrograde figure, has rapidly > attained Churchillian status. Calmly, unsentimentally, and with > extraordinary compassion, he has marshalled the city's heroic police, fire > and emergency services to admirable effect and, alas, with huge loss of > life. Giuliani's was the first voice of caution against panic and jingoistic > attacks on the city's large Arab and Muslim communities, the first to > express the commonsense of anguish, the first to press everyone to try to > resume life after the shattering blows. > > Would that that were all. The national television reporting has of course > brought the horror of those dreadful winged juggernauts into every > household, unremittingly, insistently, not always edifyingly. Most > commentary has stressed, indeed magnified, the expected and the predictable > in what most Americans feel: terrible loss, anger, outrage, a sense of > violated vulnerability, a desire for vengeance and un-restrained > retribution. Beyond formulaic expressions of grief and patriotism, every > politician and accredited pundit or expert has dutifully repeated how we > shall not be defeated, not be deterred, not stop until terrorism is > exterminated. This is a war against terrorism, everyone says, but where, on > what fronts, for what concrete ends? No answers are provided, except the > vague suggestion that the Middle East and Islam are what 'we' are up > against, and that terrorism must be destroyed. > > What is most depressing, however, is how little time is spent trying to > understand America's role in the world, and its direct involvement in the > complex reality beyond the two coasts that have for so long kept the rest of > the world extremely distant and virtually out of the average American's > mind. You'd think that 'America' was a sleeping giant rather than a > superpower almost constantly at war, or in some sort of conflict, all over > the Islamic domains. Osama bin Laden's name and face have become so > numbingly familiar to Americans as in effect to obliterate any his tory he > and his shadowy followers might have had before they became stock symbols of > everything loathsome and hateful to the collective imagination. Inevitably, > then, collective passions are being funnelled into a drive for war that > uncannily resembles Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick, rather than what > is going on, an imperial power injured at home for the first time, pursuing > its interests systematically in what has become a suddenly reconfigured > geography of conflict, without clear borders, or visible actors. Manichaean > symbols and apocalyptic scenarios are bandied about with future consequences > and rhetorical restraint thrown to the winds. > > Rational understanding of the situation is what is needed now, not more > drum-beating. George Bush and his team clearly want the latter, not the > former. Yet to most people in the Islamic and Arab worlds the official US is > synonymous with arrogant power, known for its sanctimoniously munificent > support not only of Israel but of numerous repressive Arab regimes, and its > inattentiveness even to the possibility of dialogue with secular movements > and people who have real grievances. Anti-Americanism in this context is not > based on a hatred of modernity or technology-envy: it is based on a > narrative of concrete interventions, specific depredations and, in the cases > of the Iraqi people's suffering under US-imposed sanctions and US support > for the 34-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Israel is > now cynically exploiting the American catastrophe by intensifying its > military occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. Political rhetoric > in the US has overridden these things by flinging about words like > 'terrorism' and 'freedom' whereas, of course, such large abstractions have > mostly hidden sordid material interests, the influence of the oil, defence > and Zionist lobbies now consolidating their hold on the entire Middle East, > and an age-old religious hostility to (and ignorance of) 'Islam' that takes > new forms every day. > > Intellectual responsibility, however, requires a still more critical sense > of the actuality. There has been terror of course, and nearly every > struggling modern movement at some stage has relied on terror. This was as > true of Mandela's ANC as it was of all the others, Zionism included. And yet > bombing defenceless civilians with F-16s and helicopter gunships has the > same structure and effect as more conventional nationalist terror. > > What is bad about all terror is when it is attached to religious and > political abstractions and reductive myths that keep veering away from > history and sense. This is where the secular consciousness has to try to > make itself felt, whether in the US or in the Middle East. No cause, no God, > no abstract idea can justify the mass slaughter of innocents, most > particularly when only a small group of people are in charge of such actions > and feel themselves to represent the cause without having a real mandate to > do so. > > Besides, much as it has been quarrelled over by Muslims, there isn't a > single Islam: there are Islams, just as there are Americas. This diversity > is true of all traditions, religions or nations even though some of their > adherents have futiley tried to draw boundaries around themselves and pin > their creeds down neatly. Yet history is far more complex and contradictory > than to be represented by demagogues who are much less representative than > either their followers or opponents claim. The trouble with religious or > moral fundamentalists is that today their primitive ideas of revolution and > resistance, including a willingness to kill and be killed, seem all too > easily attached to technological sophistication and what appear to be > gratifying acts of horrifying retaliation. The New York and Washington > suicide bombers seem to have been middle-class, educated men, not poor > refugees. Instead of getting a wise leadership that stresses education, mass > mobilisation and patient organisation in the service of a cause, the poor > and the desperate are often conned into the magical thinking and quick > bloody solutions that such appalling models pro vide, wrapped in lying > religious claptrap. > > On the other hand, immense military and economic power are no guarantee of > wisdom or moral vision. Sceptical and humane voices have been largely > unheard in the present crisis, as 'America' girds itself for a long war to > be fought somewhere out there, along with allies who have been pressed into > service on very uncertain grounds and for imprecise ends. We need to step > back from the imaginary thresholds that separate people from each other and > re-examine the labels, reconsider the limited resources available, decide to > share our fates with each other as cultures mostly have done, despite the > bellicose cries and creeds. > > 'Islam' and 'the West' are simply inadequate as banners to follow blindly. > Some will run behind them, but for future generations to condemn themselves > to prolonged war and suffering without so much as a critical pause, without > looking at interdependent histories of injustice and oppression, without > trying for common emancipation and mutual enlightenment seems far more > wilful than necessary. Demonisation of the Other is not a sufficient basis > for any kind of decent politics, certainly not now when the roots of terror > in injustice can be addressed, and the terrorists isolated, deterred or put > out of business. It takes patience and education, but is more worth the > investment than still greater levels of large-scale violence and suffering. > > ************************************************************************************ > Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion > list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic > study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit: > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html > *************************************************************************************
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005


text:
BY THE SPIRITS - Visions, DigiCD
BY THE SPIRITS - Visions, DigiCD
More from By the Spirits
BY THE SPIRITS is a folk project hailing from the mystic woods of the Lower Silesian region near the ancient Sleza mountain in Poland. Founded in 2016, the solo-artist Michal Krawczuk created a remarkable catalog and played over 40 shows throughout Europe. The essence of BY THE SPIRITS is to create folk-inspired music and lyrics that tell about the connections between man and nature, the spirituality within, love and death.
"Visions" is a compilation of old and new music that renders the scope of 'By the Spirits' aura thus far. Besides featuring the demo and EP material, the record holds three brand new songs, one cover version of COIL, and two alternate versions of previously published songs. All material was carefully restored from the original sources and newly mixed by Martin van Valkenstijn (Mosaic / House of Inkantation), then mastered by Danijel Zambo (Walden, At Sea Compilations).
Video for 'Secret Trees'
Video for 'Land of Light'(previously unreleased)
Video for 'Fir and Pine'
1. My Sun
2. Secret Trees
3. Serpent's Light
4. Visions
5. Holy Mother
6. Fir and Pine
7. Watch the Stars
8. Land of Light
9. Church
10. Fields
11. Fire of the Mind (Coil Cover)
12. We are Falling (Alternate Version)
13. Watch the Stars (Alternate Version)
Product Info
|CD (album)
|Digipak on rough card stock with inside print with 12 page booklet
|Release date
|August 2nd, 2019