Datasets:

reflex-ai

/

fineweb-ultra-mini

like 1

Follow

Reflex AI 1

... a dehydration prevention system according to this Economist article, http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9719013&CFID=27442206& CFTOKEN=67076189 Borrowing from nature, about biomimetic architecture. It says a similar trick to beetles' use of condensation to collect drinking water is used by camels to prevent them losing moisture as they exhale. 'Moisture secreted through the nostrils evaporates as the camel breathes in, cooling the nostrils in the process'. Moisture secreted through the nostrils? That must be what you are covered in if a camel snorts all over you. Ie, mucus.It continues, 'When the camel breathes out, moisture within the air then condenses on the nostrils.' So, it seems in the breathing cycle, there is a change in the contents of the camel's nose, from mucus before breathing in to moisture after breathing out. Does the camel then swallow the moisture? How is it returned to the body. At the same time as this cycle, there is a cooling and warming cycle. Inside the nostril it must be like a soft air conditioner with lots of protuberant flanges to increase exposure to the air. This is an interesting contrast to dogs which breathe through the mouth to cool off. The cooling from evaporation of saliva through latent heat of fusion (?) they use to regulate body temperature. The camel however is using the cooling to collect moisture from its own lungs, not to stay cool.

<urn:uuid:3907cd6c-ab7c-42e6-bff4-cbfb0cd5ae5c>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://use.perl.org/use.perl.org/_mr_bean/journal/34669.html

2013-05-24T23:33:55Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

The Lake Chilwa is in the Southern Region of Malawi in districts of Machinga, Phalombe and Zomba. The nearest largest town in Zomba which is about 30Km from Kachulu Habour. The wetland is about 230,000 ha in area with an average altitude of 627 m above sea level. An average rainfall of 1042.9mm per annum for the entire Lake Chilwa catchment was calculated for a thirty year period, i.e. 1961 -1990, by Chavula (1999) with rainy season beginning in November and ending in April. Mean annual temperatures range between 21 -24° C. The lake and is surrounded by marshes and floodplains. This area is about 40 Km across from east to west and km from North to South. At times of high water level, open water cover about 1,500 km'. The respective areas at times of low water level are 648 km', 699 km', 300 km' and 430 km'. The lake is a closed system with several inflowing rivers but no outlet. As such, water in the wetland is lost through evaporation, transpiration and seepage, and the remainder is what constitutes Lake Chilwa at the end dry season. Population pressure around the lake is high, with up to 164 people/Km' and an estimated 77,000 people living in the wetland itself. Poverty is high and most people live a subsistence lifestyle growing maize and/or rice. The lake is used extensively for fishing by the local communities throughout the year (Van Zegeren & Wilson, 1997) and during times of food shortage (usually November to March), bird hunting is also carried out to supplement and sustain the food resources of the local population. The birds caught at the lake are either eaten and/or sold for income, As estimated 1,2 million birds are trapped annually by at least 460 trappers, the economic value of which is estimated at US$215,000 (17,2 Million Mk). Currently, there are over 1,300 registered bird hunters who belong to at least 20 bird hunting clubs that form part of the Lake Chilwa Hunters Association which was formed with the aim of sustainably managing the utilisation of sedentary and migratory water birds. The wetland is under customary land tenure. There is however, management plan that was prepared in 200 J. Lake Chilwa was designated on I" November 1997 as a wetland of international importance (Ramsar site No. 869). Justification de la Valeur Universelle Exceptionelle (ix) Birdlife has identified Lake Chilwa as important for the large congregation of water that occur on its floodplain. It supports a waterfowl population of 354,000 estimated for a selected group of important species (Wison & Zegeren, 1996 & 1998; Wilson 1999) which by far exceeds the 20,000 waterfowl Ramsar criteria. The Lake and its associated wetland supports about 164 bird species, 43 of which are seasonal and long term changes in lake level have major impacts on floodplain inundation and consequently on waterbird populations. The six of the wetland habitats vary depending on the level of the lake which fluctuates seasonally; the lake has dried up on seven occasions in the century (Kabwazi & Wison, 1998). (x) The lake covers approximately 2,300km' and comprises 2,077 km' of natural habitats (open water, Typha swamp, marshes and floodplain grassland) and 233 km' of cultivated areas (wetland rice, irrigated rice and dimba). The Typha swamp is extensive, ranging from 5 km2 wide bands along the western margin up to 17 km stretches in the northern marshes. One wetland-dependent bird species of global concern occurs regularly in significant numbers -the African skimmer (Rynchops flavirostris), Birdlife International (2002). The wetland also holds populations of the vulnerable lesser kestrel (Falco naumanii), the locally rare pallid harrier (Circus macrourus) and great snipe (Gallinapo media). Because the wetland is under customary tenure, the government of Malawi with the assistance of the Danish Hunters Association is in the process of creating a Community Conservation Area in Lake Chilwa. The wetland has also been proposed for a biosphere reserve. All these initiatives will ensure conservation in the long term. Comparison with other similar properties There are a number of wetlands outside Malawi that are similar to Lake Chilwa such as iSimangaliso Wetland Park" formerly St Lucia Wetlands of South Africa and Area of Colchis wetlands and forests of Georgia both of which are also Ramsar sites. Whereas iSimangaliso has over 500 different species of marine, wetland and forest birds resident Or pass through the wetland system annually, the park is unique due to its having one of the most diverse variety of frogs and their choruses can often be heard at night and on dull rainy days. The highly endangered gaboon adder and a large variety of other snake species reside in this subtropical coastal dune forest. Area of Colchis wetlands and forests is one of the last remains of the landscape belt, rich in tropical and sub-tropical habitats, which existed some ten million years ago and stretched as an almost unbroken line over the vast Eurasian continent. It is unique territory due to its biodiversity, wetlands and forest ecosystems variety, high endemism, richness in relics of the tertiary period and especial objects of geological and paleontological importance. Lake Chilwa on the other hand is one of the few Wetlands in Africa that supports a waterfowl population of 354,000 estimated for a selected group of important species (Wison & Zegeren, 1996 & 1998; Wilson 1999) which by far exceeds the 20,000 waterfowl Ramsar criteria, wetland dependant bird-species -the Rynchops flaviroslris as well as populations of the vulnerable Falco naumanii the locally rare Circus macrourus and Gallinapo media. It is probably the only one with an estimated 77,000 people living in the wetland itself, 233 km' of cultivated areas (wetland rice, irrigated rice and dimba) and bird hunting to supplement and sustain the food resources of the local population creating a unique interdependence between the environment and human beings.

<urn:uuid:8b4c83cf-b862-4ba7-8ecd-c287688d1602>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://whc.unesco.org/fr/listesindicatives/5604/

2013-05-24T23:46:47Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

What is WIngs? The Wisconsin Humane Society started the Wisconsin Night Guardians for Songbirds (WIngs) program in the spring of 2005 to make our cityscape safe for migrating birds. Hundreds of avian window collision victims are admitted to the Wisconsin Humane Society's wildlife rehabilitation hospital each year and it is estimated that between 100 million and 1 BILLION birds die each year in North America from building collisions! These birds already face a wide variety of threats, including habitat destruction here and on their wintering grounds in Central and South America. But, we can help to make our city safe for the many thousands of migrating birds that pass through our area in the spring and fall. Our efforts include inviting corporate building managers to make their tall buildings bird-safe and encouraging everyone to do their part at work and at home to help protect birds from the hazards of window collisions. Numerous associations endorse WIngs; the Milwaukee and Madison Audubon Societies, Milwaukee's Urban Ecology Center, the Milwaukee Zoological Society, the Wisconsin Audubon Council, the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative, Schlitz Audubon Nature Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin Society for Ornithology and Birder's World Magazine. can help! Click here to learn how!

<urn:uuid:1cc8385a-ada7-4956-95d5-d0219b102778>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://wihumane.org/wildlife/wings/who.aspx

2013-05-24T23:35:03Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Saber-toothed cat was a bit of a wimp The saber-toothed cat, one the fiercest predators to roam the ice age, had a fairly wimpy bite, Australian researchers say. But this powerful killing-machine, also known as the Smilodon, was no pussycat. "Bite strength has long been a contentious issue in Smilodon," says Dr Stephen Wroe of the UNSW in Sydney, whose study appears today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Smilodon was one of the most powerfully built feline predators to prowl the earth. Wroe says early investigators concluded Smilodon's bite was weak. But later investigators believed it was strong. Wroe and colleagues tried to put the matter to the test. They used data from CT scans of lion and Smilodon skulls to build sophisticated programs that could compare the mechanics of each cat's bite. What they hoped to gain was a better understanding of how Smilodon killed its prey. Wroe says lion skulls are built to withstand great forces as they bite animals that "are trying very hard to escape". When the researchers subjected the digital Smilodon skull to these same forces, it showed much higher stress. Like a bear "If Smilodon bit into prey that was struggling wildly, as can a lion, it would have risked serious injury and perhaps even breakage of its own skull and teeth," Wroe says. Smilodon's mechanical performance was so poor compared with a lion that the researchers believe it could only have bitten prey that it had pinned down first. And that was the real source of its might. "Its body was immensely powerful," Wroe says, noting that Smilodon's build was more bear-like than cat-like. "Its huge forearms were equipped with large dew-claws on its thumbs that would have acted like grappling hooks, allowing it to grip and wrestle even bison-sized animals to the ground with relative ease," he says. From that position, Smilodon used its knife-like teeth for the coup de grace, piercing deeply into the prey's neck. "Their function was to open deep wounds in vulnerable soft tissue, most likely the windpipe or major blood vessels of the neck," he says. Roaming the Americas Smilodon prowled North and South America, with many remains of this big cat coming from the famed La Brea Tar Pits in California and elsewhere. Wroe says its highly refined killing style may have contributed to Smilodon's extinction about 10,000 years ago. "Although superbly adapted to taking big prey, Smilodon was massively over-engineered for a life subsisting on medium-sized or small animals," he says. Exactly what reduced the number of big prey is open for debate. But Wroe suspects both climate changes and the arrival of humans played a role.

<urn:uuid:c1cbd436-9888-4e8c-8b22-15943a20671f>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/10/02/2048726.htm?site=science&topic=latest

2013-05-24T23:34:31Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Learn about the "My Pyramid" food guide! This mini-unit features a reading comprehension, Venn diagram, and several short answer and essay writing prompts, designed to promote understanding and creative thinking. Three reading comprehension selections (Your Immune System, Immune System Disease, Keeping Your Immune System Healthy) clearly and simply explain how the immune system works and how to keep it working. Each selection is followed by 5 multiple choice questions and 4 questions that require brief written responses. (11 pages) Three reading comprehensions (Your Respiratory System, Diseases of the Respiratory System, Take Care of your Respiratory System) clearly and simply explain how the respiratory system works and how to keep it working. This unit is a great enhancement to a nutrition lesson, and also works well as a "stand alone". Based on the 2005 food pyramid guide, and featuring imaginative writing prompts, real-life nutrition analysis, graphing, and more.

<urn:uuid:0fa49954-4b52-4bc8-89f4-e172d6cd77e8>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.abcteach.com/directory/subjects-sports-physical-education-health-10200-7-1

2013-05-24T23:48:34Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

|Clinical Guide > Comorbidities and Complications > Kaposi Sarcoma| Guide for HIV/AIDS Clinical Care, HRSA HIV/AIDS Bureau Kaposi sarcoma (KS) is an endothelial neoplasm that usually occurs as skin or oral lesions but may involve the internal organs. It is the most common AIDS-associated neoplasm and is an AIDS-defining disease. AIDS-associated KS is one of four types of KS, along with classic, endemic, and organ transplant-associated KS. Although the types vary in epidemiology and clinical presentation, all are associated with human herpesvirus type 8 (HHV-8), also known as KS-associated herpesvirus. The clinical manifestations of AIDS-associated KS (sometimes called epidemic KS) range in severity from mild to life-threatening. The progression of disease may be rapid or slow, but the overall prognosis is poor in the absence of treatment. The skin lesions of KS, even when they do not cause medical morbidity, may cause significant disfigurement and emotional distress. AIDS-associated KS usually occurs in HIV-infected persons with advanced immunosuppression (CD4 count of <200 cells/µL), but may occur at any CD4 count. In the United States and Europe, KS occurs in all HIV risk groups, but most frequently among men who have sex with men (MSM). Risk factors for MSM include multiple sexual partners and a history of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs); risk factors for other groups have not been clearly identified. The transmission of HHV-8 is not well understood. Although experts believe HHV-8 is transmitted sexually, it apparently also passes from person to person by other routes. The incidence of KS in resource-abundant countries has declined markedly since the early 1990s, in part because of the widespread availability of effective combination antiretroviral therapy (ART). In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where endemic KS has long existed in people with normal immune function, the incidence of KS has risen sharply in people with HIV. ART appears to be effective in reducing the risk of AIDS-associated KS, particularly when initiated before the development of advanced immunosuppression. The cutaneous presentation of KS is the most common, occurring in 95% of cases. Lesions may occur anywhere on the skin. Common sites include the face (particularly under the eyes and on the tip of the nose), behind the ears, and on the extremities and torso. Lesions may be macules, papules, plaques, or nodules. At first, the lesions are small and may be flat. Their color may vary from pink or red to purple or brown-black (the latter particularly in dark-skinned individuals), and they are nonblanching, nonpruritic, and painless (lesions may become painful in the setting of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome [IRIS] associated with KS). Over time, the lesions often increase in size and number, darken, and rise from the surface; they may progress to tumor plaques (e.g., on the thighs or soles of the feet), or to exophytic tumor masses, which can cause bleeding, necrosis, and extreme pain. Oral lesions may be flat or nodular and are red or purplish. They usually appear on the hard palate, but may develop on the soft palate, gums, tongue, and elsewhere. Oral lesions, if extensive, may cause tooth loss, pain, and ulceration. Lymphedema associated with KS usually appears in patients with visible cutaneous lesions, and edema may be out of proportion to the extent of visible lesions. Lymphedema also may occur in patients with no visible skin lesions. Common sites include the face, neck, external genitals, and lower extremities. A contiguous area of skin usually is involved. Lymph nodes may be enlarged. Pulmonary KS may be asymptomatic or cause intractable cough, bronchospasm, hemoptysis, chest pain, and dyspnea. The patient may exhibit difficulty breathing, bronchospasm, cough (sometimes with hemoptysis), and hypoxemia. Gastrointestinal KS may arise anywhere in the gastrointestinal tract. Patients usually are asymptomatic except in cases of intestinal obstruction or bleeding. KS may cause protein-losing enteropathy. Visceral disease is uncommon in the absence of extensive cutaneous disease. During the history, ask about the symptoms noted above and associated characteristics, including the following: Perform a careful physical examination, with particular attention to the following: Examine the lungs, abdomen, rectum, and other systems as indicated. The partial differential diagnosis depends on the type of symptoms present. For cutaneous, oral, and lymph node presentations, consider the following: For pulmonary symptoms, consider the following: For cutaneous or oral KS, a presumptive diagnosis often can be made by the appearance of skin or mucous membrane lesions. Biopsy of a lesion (or a suspect lymph node) is strongly recommended to verify the diagnosis and rule out infectious or other neoplastic causes. Biopsy is particularly important if the lesions are unusual in appearance or if the patient has systemic or atypical symptoms. If respiratory symptoms are present, obtain chest X rays or computed tomography (CT) studies. The chest X ray typically shows diffuse interstitial infiltrates, often accompanied by nodules or pleural effusion. Radiographic findings may be suggestive of KS, but cannot provide a definitive diagnosis. Bronchoscopy with visualization of characteristic endobronchial lesions usually is adequate for diagnosis. For patients with gastrointestinal symptoms and suspected KS, perform endoscopy. If the patient has fever or respiratory, gastrointestinal, or constitutional symptoms, evaluate for other infectious and malignant causes (e.g., by culture or biopsy) as suggested by the history and physical examination. Treatment of KS is not considered curative, and no single therapy is completely efficacious. ART is a key component of the treatment of KS and should be initiated (or optimized to achieve complete HIV RNA suppression) for all persons with KS, unless contraindicated (for further information, see chapter Antiretroviral Therapy). KS often regresses and sometimes resolves in patients treated with effective ART. Some data suggest that protease inhibitors may have an anti-KS effect; however, non-PI-containing regimens also lead to KS regression. The role of specific antiretroviral agents beyond HIV control in KS remains unclear, although some experts prefer to use PIs for patients with active KS. KS-associated IRIS has been described, and patients may experience painful enlarged lesions or progression of KS lesions during the first months of ART; they should be advised of this possibility. Specific treatment of KS depends on various factors such as the number, extent, severity, and location of lesions; cosmetic considerations; and presence of visceral involvement. The goals of therapy may vary according to the clinical presentation and may include controlling symptoms, improving cosmetic appearance, reducing edema, eliminating pain, and clearing lesions. Local treatment (preferably in conjunction with ART) usually is given to patients who have a few small lesions causing only minor symptoms. Systemic therapy (in conjunction with ART) is needed for more extensive or more severe disease, including symptomatic visceral disease, widespread skin involvement, significant edema, and rapidly progressive KS. Consultation with a KS-experienced oncologist or dermatologist is recommended. Options for local treatment of limited disease include the following: Extensive or rapidly progressing disease may include lymphedema, intraoral or pharyngeal disease that interferes with eating, painful or bulky lesions, and symptomatic pulmonary or visceral disease. Options for treatment include the following: Copyright 2013, the AIDS Education & Training Centers National Resource Center, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Email [email protected] with questions, comments, or problems. See disclaimer for usage guidelines.

<urn:uuid:efe50463-ec91-4fab-b6b6-da4aad2e48e4>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.aids-ed.org/aidsetc?page=cg-620_kaposi_sarcoma

2013-05-24T23:12:51Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Mere Irish and Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior to the Nineteenth Century Since its publication in 1986, Mere Irish and Fior-Ghael has acquired cult status as one of the most extensive and incisive studies on the growth of ... Show synopsis Since its publication in 1986, Mere Irish and Fior-Ghael has acquired cult status as one of the most extensive and incisive studies on the growth of an Irish national identity. Spanning five centuries, the sources dealt with are drawn from three linguistic traditions, Irish-Gaelic, Latin, and English, and chart the slow and painful process of cultural confrontation, antagonism, and interaction. Leerssen takes for his central theme the formulation of an ideal or stereotype of "Irishness" -- Mere Irish in English discourse, Fior-Ghael from the native point of view. The author traces the development of this ethnic image in discursive traditions and genres as diverse as Gaelic poetry, English drama, controversial religious writings, political commentary, and historiography, from the Middle Ages until the Act of Union. This is both a prehistory of Irish nationalism and a compendium of Irish cultural history; it addresses not only the interaction between political and literary developments, but also between Ireland's cultural traditions.

<urn:uuid:51fb30d8-0f32-48a9-95f1-435cb9cdd12c>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=4310028&matches=13&qsort=p&cm_sp=1rec-_-RHS-_-p1-0

2013-05-24T23:28:34Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Science Fair Project Encyclopedia Funk is a distinct style of music originated by African-Americans, e.g., James Brown and his band members (especially Maceo and Melvin Parker), and groups like The Meters. Funk best can be recognized by its syncopated rhythms; thick bass line (often based on an "on the one" beat); razor-sharp rhythm guitars; chanted or hollered vocals (as that of Marva Whitney or the Bar-Kays ); strong, rhythm-oriented horn sections; prominent percussion; an upbeat attitude; African tones; danceability; and strong jazz influences (e.g., as in the music of Herbie Hancock, George Duke, Eddie Harris, and others). Compared to funk's predecessor, the soul music of 1960s, funk typically uses more complex rhythms, while song structures are usually simpler. Often, the structure of a funk song consists of just one or two riffs. Sometimes the point at which one riff changes to another becomes the highlight of a song. The soul dance music of its day, the basic idea of funk was to create as intense a groove as possible. One of the most distinctive features of funk music is the role played by bass guitar. Before funk, bass was rarely prominent in popular music. But funk changed all that, with melodic basslines often being the centerpiece of songs. Notable funk bassists include Bootsy Collins and Larry Graham of Sly & the Family Stone. Graham is often credited with inventing the purcussive "slap bass technique," which was further developed by later bassists and became a distictive element of funk. Since funk is strongly rhythm-oriented, many funk songs contain no solos. Those that do often feature skillfully improvised horn solos. Some of the best known and most skillful soloists have jazz backgrounds. Trumpetist Fred Wesley and saxophonist Maceo Parker are among the most notable musicians in the funk music genre, both having worked with James Brown and George Clinton. In funk bands, guitarists typically play in a percussive style. "Dead" notes often are used in riffs to strengthen percussive elements. When playing with a horn section, guitarists usually play no solos; but if a band's style is closer to a "funk rock" approach, then a guitarist may play solos with a distorted sound. Jimi Hendrix was a pioneer of funk rock. Another such guitarist, Eddie Hazel, later worked with George Clinton and is one of the most notable guitar soloists in funk. Jimmy Nolen and Phelps Collins are famous funk rhythm guitarists who both worked with James Brown. Origin of funk The word "funk," once formally defined as the smell of sexual intercourse, commonly was regarded as coarse or indecent. African-American musicians originally applied "funk" to music with a slow, mellow groove, then later with a hard-driving, insistent rhythm because of the word's association with sexual intercourse. This early form of the music set the pattern for later musicians. The music was slow, sexy, loose, riff-oriented and danceable. Funky typically described these qualities. In jam sessions, musicians would encourage one another to "get down" by telling one another, "Now, put some stank ('stink'/funk) on it!" At least as early as the 1930s, jazz songs carried titles such as Mezz Mezzrow's Funky Butt. The word "funk" commonly was regarded as coarse or indecent. As late as the 1950s and early 1960s, when "funk" and "funky" were used increasingly in the context of soul music, the terms still were considered indelicate and inappropriate for use in polite company. The distinctive characteristics of African-American musical expression are rooted in West African musical traditions, and find their earliest expression in spirituals, work chants/songs, praise shouts, gospel and blues. In more contemporary music, gospel, blues and blues extensions often flow together seamlessly. Funky music is an amalgam of soul music soul jazz and R&B. James Brown and funk as a music genre Only with the innovations of James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone in the late 1960s was funk regarded as a distinct genre. In the R&B tradition, these tightly rehearsed bands created an instantly recognizable style, overlaid with catchy, anthemic vocals. Often cueing his band with the command, "On the one!" Brown changed the rhythmic emphasis from the two-four beat of traditional soul music to a one-three emphasis previously associated with white musical forms -- but with a hard-driving, brassy swing. This pumping, one-three beat became a signature of classic funk. James Brown's 1965 Top 10 Mercury Records hit "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" is widely presumed to be the song that paved way for the funk genre; but much of Brown's work of the period, though remarkable, is structured around a series of rhythmic boilerplates. During the late 1960s, Brown's hits, such as "Sex Machine," introduced the tight rhythms, riffs and grooves for which funk music is known. 1970s and P-Funk In the 1970s, a new group of musicians further developed the "funk rock" approach innovated by Jimi Hendrix. George Clinton, with his bands Parliament and, later, Funkadelic, produced a new kind of funk sound heavily influenced by jazz and psychedelic music. The two groups had members in common and often are referred to singly as "Parliament-Funkadelic." The breakout popularity of Parliament-Funkadelic gave rise to the term "P-Funk," which both referred to the music by George Clinton's bands and defined a new subgenre. yup that is correct readers "P-funk" also came to mean something in its quintessence, of superior quality, or sui generis, as in the lyrics from "P-Funk," a hit single from Parliament's album "Mothership Connection": "I want the bomb. I want the P-Funk. I want my funk uncut." The 1970s was probably the era of highest mainstream visibility for funk music. Other prominent funk bands of the period included Bootsy's Rubber Band, The Meters, Ohio Players, The Commodores, War, Kool & the Gang, Confunkshun , Slave, Cameo, Midnight Star , The Bar-Kays , Zapp, and many more. Already, in late 1960s, many jazz musicians — among them Herbie Hancock (with his Headhunters band), Grover Washington, Jr., and Cannonball Adderly, Les McCann and Eddie Harris — had begun to combine jazz and funk. Sometimes this approach is called "jazz-funk". Funk music was exported to Africa in the late 1960s, and melded with African singing and rhythms to form Afrobeat. Disco music owed a great deal to funk. Many early disco songs and performers came directly from funk-oriented backgrounds. In the 1980s, funk lost some of its audience as bands became more commercial and music more electronic, effectively phasing out horn sections which were the core of many funk bands. Today, hip hop artists regularly sample old funk tunes. James Brown is said to be the most sampled artist in the history of hip hop. P-Funk also is sampled frequently—samples of old Parliament and Funkadelic songs formed the basis of West Coast G Funk. The 1980s also saw a wave of funk metal fusion bands, led by Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Note: Despite its name, Grand Funk Railroad is not a funk band; it is a straight rock band. Also the word "funk" is often used too widely to refer to African-American pop music of the 1970s in general. Artists such as Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye actually recorded few straight funk pieces. The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details

<urn:uuid:6f15d201-bdb9-47f1-8931-8166e5f0e98e>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Funk

2013-05-24T23:13:24Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

ARS Scientists Strategize To Save a Desert River Technician Jim Riley (left) and hydraulic engineer Dave Goodrich download water-level data from the Rostrin Basin, a flood detention pond in Sierra Vista, Arizona, which will aid in calculating the recharge rate to the ground-water aquifer. “The landscape is pretty fantastic,” says Agricultural Research Service hydraulic engineer Dave Goodrich, who has been conducting research in Arizona’s upper San Pedro River basin for years. “It starts with sky islands with ponderosa pines at the higher elevations and traverses down and across four major vegetation types to desert shrub land. Then there’s an emerald-green ribbon in the middle of the desert—all within about 15 miles.” In 1988, Congress designated parts of that emerald green ribbon as the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. It’s where around 400 species of birds, 80 species of mammals, and 40 species of reptiles and amphibians make their home. It is also a primary flyway for birds migrating between North, Central, and South America. In 1998, 21 federal, state, and local agencies and groups formed the Upper San Pedro Partnership (USPP) and began looking at ways to meet the region’s long-term water needs. Goodrich and hydrologist Russ Scott, who both work at the ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center in Tucson, Arizona, have been part of the partnership since it started. “The problem is that the ground water that sustains all the riparian vegetation in the upper San Pedro River valley—and all the people and animals who live there—is being pumped out faster than it’s being replenished,” explains Scott. “Fortunately, we haven’t seen any serious harm to the river yet. So there’s still time to translate our improved scientific understanding of the ground-water system into management actions that will ensure the long-term health of the river.” “We want to better measure water uses in the basin,” Goodrich adds. “How much water does the riparian vegetation use? How can we harness the storm-water runoff that comes from urbanization to enhance ground-water recharge?” In the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed near Tombstone, Arizona, hydraulic technicians prepare flume number 6 for monitoring the next flow event to determine runoff from a portion of the watershed. Rural River Meets Urban Demands Managing water resources in the upper San Pedro River valley isn’t just about plants and animals. The primary economic engine of the area is the U.S. Army’s Fort Huachuca, which depends on the same ground water that sustains the river and its diverse ecosystem. In 2004, Congress directed the U.S. Department of the Interior to work with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Defense and the USPP to develop water-use management and conservation measures for restoring and maintaining the sustainable yield of the regional aquifer by and after September 30, 2011. The ARS scientists had a bit of a head start. For more than 50 years, USDA scientists have been monitoring watershed dynamics at the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed, which drains into the San Pedro River. “Our studies in Walnut Gulch were critical in helping us determine that ephemeral streams, which flow for a short time after heavy rains, make significant contributions to ground-water replenishment. This changed our understanding of ground-water recharge mechanisms in arid regions,” Goodrich says. As more rural land is given over to urban ventures—along with the associated construction of impervious areas like parking lots and roads—these findings will help improve estimates of how the increased storm-water runoff contributes to regional ground-water supplies. Goodrich also used a computer program called “KINEROS2,” which models a range of hydrological processes from small agricultural and urban watersheds, to quantify how the switch from rural to urban land use affected runoff. He added calculations for assessing how variations in channel infiltration and detention-pond design affected surface runoff for subsequent ground-water recharge. To obtain data for modeling, Goodrich, U.S. Geological Survey scientists, and University of Arizona graduate students set up stream gauges, rain gauges, and other monitoring equipment in two different basins. One was located on undeveloped land at the edge of Fort Huachuca, and the other was in a newly developed area just outside the military installation. The group was surprised to find that a third of the increase in runoff from the developed site resulted from the compaction of surface soils during construction. “This finding is a little unexpected,” Goodrich says. “We’ve usually looked only at manmade impervious surfaces, like roads and roofs, as the places that generate extra runoff after development.” Spending Down the Water Budget Scott, meanwhile, remains focused on learning more about plant demands on the regional ground water. He ran into some surprises as well. For instance, he found that mesquite thickets use much more water than cottonwood and willow trees growing along the riverbanks. “Even though mesquite woodlands don’t grow right along the riverbank, they have good access to ground water because their roots can go 30 feet deep,” Scott says. “And since they’ve been expanding, there are more of them that can tap into the ground-water supply.” Using this work, Scott and others developed a geographic information system-based riparian evaporation and transpiration tool that regional land managers can use to estimate water savings by replacing mesquite with native desert grasses. Scott also determined that cottonwoods, which flank both perennial and intermittent stream channels, vary their water use according to fluctuations in the water table. “The trees that grow along an intermittent stretch use half as much water as the trees growing along a perennial stretch,” he says. “It’s interesting that even in a riparian environment, they strongly regulate their water use.” Scott and Goodrich are pleased with how their research has gone. And they’re just as pleased at how well they’ve been able to work with other USPP members. A 2003 survey of the USPP members and participants found that 90 percent of them considered scientific studies to be among the most important projects undertaken by the partnership. “We’ve been working directly with elected officials and decisionmakers and helping them understand the uncertainty and variability in our research,” Goodrich says. “And we’ve been able to design research that addresses their planning needs.” “People have become educated about the whole hydrologic cycle in the basin,” Scott agrees. “They know there’s a problem, and they want to know which tools can address the problem. Our work as ARS scientists explains how to fill these gaps in hydrologic understanding.” “This is a great example of how ARS research can be directly used to provide advice on policy decisions,” notes ARS national program leader Mark Walbridge. “It can be a challenge to communicate scientific findings, but we’ve been able to successfully work with groups of people who, even though they have very different goals and values, have become knowledgeable about issues involved in ground-water management.”—By Ann Perry, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff. This research is part of Water Availability and Watershed Management, an ARS national program (#211) described at www.nps.ars.usda.gov. To reach the scientists mentioned in this story, contact Ann Perry, USDA-ARS Information Staff, 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Beltsville, MD 20705-5129; (301) 504-1628. "ARS Scientists Strategize To Save a Desert River" was published in the March 2011 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

<urn:uuid:a7c74dd6-1686-4687-ac10-dbb90b81d8b3>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/2011/mar11/river0311.htm?pf=1

2013-05-24T23:22:35Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

NEW YORK, N.Y.- The rich cultures of ancient Nubia, located in present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan, are the subject of an exhibition on view at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) at New York University from March 11 through June 12, 2011. Entitled Nubia: Ancient Kingdoms of Africa, the exhibition evokes the rise, fall, and re-emergence of Nubian power over the course of some 2,500 years, from the earliest Nubian kingdoms of about 3000 BC through the conquest of Egypt beginning in about 750 BC. With more than 120 objects, ranging from statues portraying kings to military weapons, jewelry, pottery, and more, the exhibition illuminates the culture of ancient Nubiaparticularly its ongoing, complex relationship with Egyptand reveals its remarkable and distinctive aesthetic tradition. Nubia: Ancient Kingdoms of Africa was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and conceived by Jennifer Chi, associate director for exhibitions and public programs at ISAW, and Geoff Emberling, an independent curator, scholar, and archaeologist. In addition to loans from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, supplemental material has been loaned to ISAW by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Dr. Chi states , Ancient Nubia cannot be understood in isolation from its neighbors, particularly Egypt, with whom it was alternately trading partner and fierce enemy. In fact, our understanding of Nubia has long been shaped by ancient Egyptian texts and works of art that portrayed Nubians as stereotyped enemies, using such terms as vile Kush. We hope that the objects on view in the exhibition, which tell the story of Nubia on its own terms, will enlighten visitors to these cultures, whose riches have yet to be fully understood. We are grateful to Geoff Emberling for bringing his knowledge and expertise to this exhibition. Nubia encompassed a diverse population that lived along a 500-mile stretch of the Nile Valley. While the earliest Nubian kingdoms, located in the north of the region, developed by 3000 BC, they were short-lived, as a result of raids by the Egyptian army. Further south, however, a different cultural traditionone that would prove to be wealthy, powerful, and long- lastingbegan to flourish around 3000 BC. The Egyptians came to call this kingdom Kush, and in the years after 2000 BC they erected a series of fortresses along the Nile in an attempt to control trade and protect themselves against the formidable Kushite military power. (Indeed, the kings of Kush frequently formed alliances with distant rulers, and around 1600 BC they nearly captured the Egyptian capital at Thebes.) In about 1550 BC, Egypt succeeded in conquering much of Nubia, and from that point on, the histories of the two kingdoms were increasingly intertwined, with Egypt working to assimilate Nubians into the Egyptian empire, despite the latters longstanding position as an enemy. Egypt maintained control over the territory until about 1100 BC, when its empire in Nubia collapsed, precipitating a dark age in the region that lasted until a Nubian revival in about 900 BC. The new Nubian dynasty, based in Napata, adopted important religious and political practices from Egypt, which it would soon conquer and rule as its 25th Dynasty from about 750 to 650 BC. At this point the Assyrians took control of Egypt. The objects on view in Nubia: Ancient Kingdoms of Africa offer insights into Nubian cultures and history, illustrating such practices as craft production, burial, worship, and warfare, and revealing the ways in which Nubia was affected by ongoing contact with Egypt and other societies, including those to its south. The exhibition begins in the first of ISAWs two galleries, which focuses on pottery and faience, two mediums in which Nubia excelled. Early vessels, dating to about 3000 BC, show the spectacular development of hand-crafted ceramic vessels. Later examples here include a bowl with spiral decoration, a pitcher in the form of a hippopotamus, and a beaker, all dating from 17001550 BC. While these come from the Kushite capital of Kerma, similar vessels have been found along a long stretch of the Nile, suggesting the expansion of the power of Kush, as well as more extensive trade relations. From the same period are numerous early examples of faience, which Nubians learned from Egyptian artisans by about 1700 BC. These include a head of a Nubian shown in profile and large-scale wall inlay in shape of a lion. The objects on view in the second gallery, more clearly expressive of Nubias increasingly complex relationship with Egypt, highlight the selective adoption and modification of Egyptian royal iconography, sophisticated craft techniques, and funerary practices. A stone statue of the Nubian king Senkamanisken (ca. 643623 BC), for example, is carved in an archaizing Egyptian style, but depicts the king wearing rams-head amulets and a cap crown that are distinctively Nubian. In another example of the integration of Egyptian practices into Nubian culture, Nubian kings in later times constructed pyramids for their burials, rather than the mounds that had traditionally covered their burial chambers. The exhibition includes some precious vessels made of gold and silver that were preserved following the collapse of one of the chambers of Nubian King Aspeltas pyramid. Intricate works of ancient artistry, including an exquisite pendant of gold and rock crystal depicting the Egyptian goddess Hathor, were also found in pyramid tombs of some Nubian queens.

<urn:uuid:3b407565-a4d5-4021-9964-62f99f931857>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=45652&int_modo=1

2013-05-24T23:19:23Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Tuna used in school lunch programs had similar levels to grocery store brands. Teach your children to distinguish albacore tuna from light tuna, so they can completely avoid it in tuna salad sold at school or restaurants. Teach them to keep track of how often they eat light tuna, since more than twice a month is bad, or once a month for children under 55 lbs. Children who love to eat tuna fish may be at greater risk of mercury poisoning than anyone has realized, finds the first study on mercury in school lunches published Wednesday by the Mercury Policy Project. Analysis of the research results shows that frequent tuna eaters can be exposed to more than 40 times the current federal definition of safe mercury exposure, which report co-author Dr. Ned Groth calls “way out of date and not protective enough.”Canned tuna is by far the largest source of methylmercury in the U.S. diet and accounts for nearly one-third of Americans’ total exposure to this toxic mercury compound. The report advises schools and parents not to serve any albacore tuna to kids and to limit consumption of light tuna to twice a month for most kids and only once a month for smaller children, under 55 pounds. [emphasis mine] image from tuna... On the subject of mercury poisoning, a study of the most contaminated people the the world, the Inuit of Canada, shows that both mercury (measured from cord blood at birth) and lead (measured in 11 year olds) are associated with ADHD. And while this study only applies conclusively to this remote Inuit population, Muckle said the data show that ill effects from exposure to lead and mercury begin early. "We can estimate from the Canadian Health survey in Canada that there’s about 10 percent of Canadian children between six to 11 years who might be exposed to levels greater than the ones where we saw negative effects," she said. In the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number is probably about five percent of the population. [emphasis mine]

<urn:uuid:796a04da-9a41-4abd-8bc8-46fef8b7f6d1>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/parentinglittleheathens/forum/topics/tuna-loving-kids-risk-mercury-poisoning?commentId=2182797%3AComment%3A2059035&groupId=2182797%3AGroup%3A5777

2013-05-24T23:29:28Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

A net-zero home produces renewable energy equal to or greater than the energy the home consumes from public utilities. Net-zero homes are part of the broader category of “green homes”(though non net-zero homes may still be considered “green” if they incorporate recycled building materials or other green technologies). Net-zero homes are not the same as “carbon neutral” homes. Carbon neutrality can be attained for any home by purchasing carbon credits (often from geographically distant renewable energy sources) to offset the carbon emissions the home produces. Net-zero homes actually generate renewable energy on-site. In regions of the world where homes must be heated or cooled for parts of the year, the design of a net-zero home is crucial. Net-zero homes minimize energy consumption by: - · Taking advantage of natural elements such as sunlight, prevailing breezes, topography (for earth-sheltered building and geothermal systems), and vegetation. - · Incorporating appropriate weatherization, insulation, and ventilation - · Using “daylighting” such as skylights and solar tubes, high-efficiency light fixtures and bulbs, high-efficiency appliances - · Reducing “phantom loads” of electrical power caused by electrical equipment on standby - · Reclaiming and reusing energy whenever possible instead of venting it outside as in conventional homes; for example, in some net-zero homes refrigerator exhaust is used to heat water. Net-zero homes also produce their own renewable power using solar, wind, hydro, and/or geothermal “microgeneration” systems. The type of power generated will depend on climate and topography. Some net-zero homes are autonomous or “energy-autarkic” (i.e. “off-the-grid”) while others are connected to the grid and feed power back to the grid when it is not being used in the home. While true net-zero homes generally must be specifically designed as such, it is possible to move toward net-zero energy usage for a conventional or existing home. - · Make the “envelope” of your home as efficient as possible with appropriate insulation, weatherization, energy-efficient windows, passive solar, and ventilation. - · Reduce energy demand by upgrading to high-efficiency furnaces (or heat pumps), air conditioning, lighting, and plumbing. Also, reduce “ghost load” from appliances on standby. - · Add micro-generation capacity. For most North American homes, solar is the most appropriate choice, though residential wind turbines are also gaining in popularity. Some local utilities even offer assistance and rebates for installing solar. - · If you are building a home, keep it as small as you can while still meeting your space needs. And, the most important part of making your home as close to net-zero as possible: be disciplined about your daily energy use habits!

<urn:uuid:bbe7e168-2cab-4e46-857b-e170ad7e23e7>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.bakerandsonsac.com/blog/energy-savings/net-zero-homes-an-exciting-new-green-trend/

2013-05-24T23:20:44Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

share this story We all do our best to limit the carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions in our daily lives. Many people make New Year’s resolutions to drive less, fly less, walk and bike more, or buy local and green. Still, all of us will inevitably create some emissions and want to do something to counteract our negative impacts. One thing we can do is purchase carbon offsets, which are designed to make up for greenhouse gases produced in everyday life or business. The idea is that offsets contribute to decreasing future emissions in an amount equivalent to the emissions produced. Here’s how they work: organizations apply the money from your purchase toward carbon-reduction projects around the world. The most common types are: renewable energy, forestation, biodigestion and energy efficiency projects. Projects range from anaerobic biodigesters for manure, to wind farms and truck stop electrification projects. Unfortunately, the offset industry is not very well regulated, so identifying reputable organizations with legitimate projects is crucial to ensuring that your money is well spent. One thing to look for is third party certification (some certifiers include: American Carbon Registry; Clean Development Mechanism; Climate Action Reserve; Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance; EcoLogo Program; The Gold Standard Foundation; Joint Implementation, ISO-14064-1:2006; Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative; and Social Carbon). These certification systems verify that the projects are real, additional (they would not have existed otherwise), permanent, verifiable and free of negative impacts to areas surrounding the project. The projects should also be monitored and audited over time. Pages: 1 2

<urn:uuid:d1b5b174-f416-4f23-843b-2f2745109d0f>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.bamboo-magazine.com/whats-the-deal-with-carbon-offsets/

2013-05-24T23:47:02Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

A chronology of key events: 1498 - Christopher Columbus sights the coast of Suriname. 1593 - Spanish explorers visit the area and name it Suriname, after the country's earliest inhabitants, the Surinen. 1600-c.1650 - Settlements attempted by Spanish, Dutch, British, and French during the first half of the 17th century. They all fail, in part because of resistance by the native inhabitants. 1651 - First permanent European settlement in Suriname, established by the British at Paramaribo by Lord Francis Willoughby.Dutch rule 1667 - British cede their part of Suriname to the Netherlands in exchange for New Amsterdam (later called New York City). 1682 - Coffee and sugar cane plantations established and worked by African slaves. 1799-1802, 1804-16 - British rule reimposed. 1863 - Slavery abolished; indentured labourers brought in from India, Java and China to work on plantations. 1916 - Aluminium Company of America (Alcoa) begins mining bauxite - the principal ore of aluminium - which gradually becomes Suriname's main export. 1954 - Suriname given full autonomy, with the Netherlands retaining control over its defence and foreign affairs.Independence, coups and civil war 1975 - Suriname becomes independent with Johan Ferrier as president and Henk Arron, of the Suriname National Party (NPS), as prime minister; more than a third of the population emigrate to the Netherlands. 1980 - Arron's government ousted in military coup, but President Ferrier refuses to recognise the military regime and appoints Henk Chin A Sen of the Nationalist Republican Party (PNR) to lead a civilian administration; army replaces Ferrier with Chin A Sen. 1982 - Armed forces seize power in a coup led by Lieutenant-Colonel Desire (Desi) Bouterse and set up a Revolutionary People's Front; 15 opposition leaders charged with plotting a coup and executed; Netherlands and US respond by cutting off economic aid. 1985 - Ban on political parties lifted. 1986 - Surinamese Liberation Army (SLA), composed mostly of descendants of escaped African slaves, begins guerrilla war with the aim of restoring constitutional order; within months principal bauxite mines and refineries forced to shut down. 1987 - Some 97% of electorate approve new civilian constitution. 1988 - Ramsewak Shankar, a former agriculture minister, elected president. 1989 - Bouterse rejects accord reached by President Shankar with SLA and pledges to continue fighting. 1990 - Shankar ousted in military coup masterminded by Bouterse.Return to civilian rule 1991 - Johan Kraag (NPS) becomes interim president; alliance of opposition parties - the New Front for Democracy and Development - wins majority of seats in parliamentary elections; Ronald Venetiaan elected president. 1992 - Peace accord reached with SLA. 1996 - Jules Wijdenbosch, an ally of Bouterse, elected president. 1997 - Dutch government issues international arrest warrant for Bouterse, claiming that he had smuggled more than two tonnes of cocaine into the Netherlands during 1989-97, but Suriname refuses to extradite him. 1999 - Dutch court convicts Bouterse for drug smuggling after trying him in absentia. 2000 - Ronald Venetiaan becomes president, replacing Wijdenbosch, after winning early elections that followed protests against the former government's handling of the economy. 2002 April - State-owned banana company closes, its financial woes compounded by low market prices. A smaller, restructured company opens in March 2004. 2004 January - Suriname dollar replaces guilder. Government says move aims to restore confidence in economy. 2004 June - UN sets up tribunal to try to resolve long-running maritime border dispute between Suriname and neighbouring Guyana.Venetiaan re-elected 2005 August - President Venetiaan is re-elected after months of deadlock. His New Front coalition won a narrow majority in parliamentary elections in May. 2006 May - Flooding, caused by torrential rain, leaves more than 20,000 people homeless. President Venetiaan says lowland areas are in "total chaos". 2006 July - Government makes official apology to relatives of at least 39 people killed in 1986 massacre during military dictatorship. 2007 September - A UN tribunal rules in the Guyana-Suriname dispute over maritime territory, giving both a share of a potentially oil-rich offshore basin. 2008 July - Trial begins of former military ruler Desi Bouterse and 24 others accused of involvement in 1982 killings of opponents of military regime. Frequent delays in proceedings follow for the next two years. Bouterse accepts "political responsibility" but denies direct responsibility. 2008 October - Following a dispute with the government over the development of a new bauxite mine in the west of the country, the mining giant BHP Billiton announces it is to cease operations in Suriname by 2010. 2009 December - Troops are called in to suppress anti-Brazilian and anti-Chinese riots in a gold-mining area in the northeastern city of Albina.The return of Bouterse 2010 May - The Mega Combination coalition, led by former military ruler Desi Bouterse, wins 23 out of 51 seats in parliamentary elections to emerge as the largest group. 2010 August - Desi Bouterse becomes president. 2012 April - Parliament passes amnesty law for President Desi Bouterse and 24 other defendants on trial for the alleged execution of political opponent during Mr Bouterse's military rule in 1982. Former colonial power the Netherlands recalls ambassador and suspends some of its aid payments in protest.

<urn:uuid:dbe26c11-3301-4785-a2f6-e16aa1823517>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20028418

2013-05-24T23:34:36Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Here we see some important info about VoIP, needed to understand it. To setup a VoIP communication we need: Base architecture Voice )) ADC - Compression Algorithm - Assembling RTP in TCP/IP ----- ----> | <---- | Voice (( DAC - Decompress. Algorithm - Disass. RTP from TCP/IP ----- This is made by hardware, typically by card integrated ADC. Today every sound card allows you convert with 16 bit a band of 22050 Hz (for sampling it you need a freq of 44100 Hz for Nyquist Principle) obtaining a throughput of 2 bytes * 44100 (samples per second) = 88200 Bytes/s, 176.4 kBytes/s for stereo stream. For VoIP we needn't such a throughput (176kBytes/s) to send voice packet: next we'll see other coding used for it. Now that we have digital data we may convert it to a standard format that could be quickly transmitted. PCM, Pulse Code Modulation, Standard ITU-T G.711 ADPCM, Adaptive differential PCM, Standard ITU-T G.726 It converts only the difference between the actual and the previous voice packet requiring 32 kbps (see Standard ITU-T G.726). LD-CELP, Standard ITU-T G.728 CS-ACELP, Standard ITU-T G.729 and G.729a MP-MLQ, Standard ITU-T G.723.1, 6.3kbps, Truespeech ACELP, Standard ITU-T G.723.1, 5.3kbps, Truespeech LPC-10, able to reach 2.5 kbps!! This last protocols are the most important cause can guarantee a very low minimal band using source coding; also G.723.1 codecs have a very high MOS (Mean Opinion Score, used to measure voice fidelity) but attention to elaboration performance required by them, up to 26 MIPS! Now we have the raw data and we want to encapsulate it into TCP/IP stack. We follow the structure: VoIP data packets RTP UDP IP I,II layers VoIP data packets live in RTP (Real-Time Transport Protocol) packets which are inside UDP-IP packets. Firstly, VoIP doesn't use TCP because it is too heavy for real time applications, so instead a UDP (datagram) is used. Secondly, UDP has no control over the order in which packets arrive at the destination or how long it takes them to get there (datagram concept). Both of these are very important to overall voice quality (how well you can understand what the other person is saying) and conversation quality (how easy it is to carry out a conversation). RTP solves the problem enabling the receiver to put the packets back into the correct order and not wait too long for packets that have either lost their way or are taking too long to arrive (we don't need every single voice packet, but we need a continuous flow of many of them and ordered). Real Time Transport Protocol 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |V=2|P|X| CC |M| PT | sequence number | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | timestamp | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | synchronization source (SSRC) identifier | +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ | contributing source (CSRC) identifiers | | .... | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ For a complete description of RTP protocol and all its applications see relative RFCs 1889 and 1890. There are also other protocols used in VoIP, like RSVP, that can manage Quality of Service (QoS). RSVP is a signaling protocol that requests a certain amount of bandwidth and latency in every network hop that supports it. For detailed info about RSVP see the RFC 2205 We said many times that VoIP applications require a real-time data streaming cause we expect an interactive data voice exchange. Unfortunately, TCP/IP cannot guarantee this kind of purpose, it just make a "best effort" to do it. So we need to introduce tricks and policies that could manage the packet flow in EVERY router we cross. So here are: For an exhaustive information about QoS see Differentiated Services at IETF. H323 protocol is used, for example, by Microsoft Netmeeting to make VoIP calls. This protocol allow a variety of elements talking each other: h323 allows not only VoIP but also video and data communications. Concerning VoIP, h323 can carry audio codecs G.711, G.722, G.723, G.728 and G.729 while for video it supports h261 and h263. More info about h323 is available at Openh323 Standards, at this h323 web site and at its standard description: ITU H-series Recommendations. You can find it implemented in various application software like Microsoft Netmeeting, Net2Phone, DialPad, ... and also in freeware products you can find at Openh323 Web Site.

<urn:uuid:72f4ce12-bb0b-4bb8-be8a-b5d8abded609>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.bertolinux.com/voip/english/VoIP-HOWTO-4.html

2013-05-24T23:20:41Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Photography by Richard Barnes November 25, 2004 from DiscoverMagazine Website But that raises an interesting question: To understand what the first animals looked like, Mitchell Sogin, an evolutionary microbiologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, used advanced automated DNA technology and computing power to trace the molecular evolution of dozens of today’s oldest known species - jellyfish, sea anemones, sponges, mollusks, starfish - back to their common point of origin. When he grouped the species in the precise order of their appearance on Earth, from less complex to more complex, he landed on sponges. Even Sogin was taken aback. Perhaps even more intriguing, Sogin uncovered something older in the animal line than sponges that isn’t an animal: fungi. His findings have implications for evolutionary studies and may even shed light on the shape of extraterrestrial life. The discoveries have already made contributions to medicine. Not bad for a Chicago kid who “never expected to become a scientist” and in fact had “no driving career ambitions” when he went to school. Now, sitting in his cluttered Woods Hole office, the soft-spoken biologist says, He opened his lab in 1989 with 5 people (now 10) and eight years later founded the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology, which he directs. Both are funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and NASA. He gazes out the window at icy Eel Pond and Buzzard’s Bay beyond it, then throws a wistful glance at a photo of Woods Hole in summer, when he sails his wife’s 41-foot Beneteau There are 9,000 species growing up to eight feet tall, from the tropics to the Arctic. They don’t visibly move or stalk prey or appear to mate; they just sit there as the world’s oceans pass through their pores, filtering as little as an ounce of food from a ton of seawater. Many even live in freshwater. Sponges are multicellular, but the cells don’t add up to much: But this simplicity can be deceptive. Some sponges come armed with glasslike skeletal spikes, microscopic and as beautiful as snowflakes. Some, like the fire sponge of Hawaii, have surface toxins that can cause excruciating pain to humans - and in which scientists have begun to discover antitumor and anti-inflammatory agents. Sponges survive handsomely on their own and can even shelter other sea creatures: Scientists found a large sponge in the Gulf of Mexico hosting 16,000 snapping shrimp and 1,000 other aquatic animals. The sponge’s cells, its calcium carbonate or glasslike silica spicules, and the mass of collagen that forms its visible body all create a network of tunnels and chambers, with little flailing hairs called cilia on the walls that wave the water through and filter out plankton and waste. No matter how large the sponge, it can eat only what its individual cells can The sperm drift along until they find their way into the tunnels and caves of another sponge. But the sponge has other reproductive options. If you push one through a sieve, breaking free its individual cells, these cells will drift until they find each other, then stick together and create an exact genetic duplicate of the parent. If wounded, a sponge doesn’t need to grow new tissue; it simply moves old cells into the wound to close it. These techniques have helped sponges survive at least 500 million years. A few have remarkable capabilities. One, living in a Mediterranean underwater cave, traps small crustaceans with the sharp, glassy spikes jutting from its body, then surrounds them with its cells and digests them. One sponge, a lavender beauty called Haliclona loosanoffi, moved four millimeters a day. Until recently, neither side had a good way to prove its case. If two organisms shared characteristics - suckers on their arms, opposable thumbs, green feathers, or yellow feet - they were thought to be related. The more characteristics they shared, the closer the relationship. That was simple: But the method was crude, easily supporting ambiguity and error. As scientists went deeper into evolutionary history and closer to the base of the tree of life, the harder it became to know how closely related organisms are. We needed something more sophisticated, something objective, and DNA seemed like the answer. But scientists couldn’t compare the complete genetic makeup of individuals - each has millions of components. Sogin thought he had a better idea. He reasoned that he could examine a limited number of genes that are present in every organism, and by comparing those and counting the differences between them, he could get quantitative measures of the similarities in any two organisms. If the two had similar gene sequences for a gene that conferred the same trait, he could infer a common ancestry. If the gene sequences were very different, he would know they diverged a long time ago because they had evolved away from each other - simple, logical, objective. But which genetic sequence to pick? It had to be one that existed in all organisms and did the same job. It had to have evolved slowly enough so that one could still see genetic similarities but quickly enough to see differences. The sequence had to be easy to isolate but couldn’t jump inexplicably from one organism to another, as some genes do. It so happened that, back in 1977, Carl Woese, Sogin’s mentor, had employed one particular gene sequence to identify a previously unknown form of life, the archaea, a discovery that transformed science’s view of biology. The sequence is called which is used by cells to create protein. It fit Sogin’s criteria At the time Sogin started, 20 years ago, when DNA sequencing was in its infancy, such a project was even more ambitious than it appears now. Today Sogin concedes nonchalantly that it was “a technically difficult problem.” A given genome might contain anywhere from 10 million to 3 billion base pairs, and Sogin was searching for just 2,000 - “a needle in a haystack.” It took a year to isolate and sequence one gene from a red sponge when he began in the early 1980s, all by hand with manual DNA sequencing gels. As he worked, gene technology improved. Within a few years, he was able to sequence 10 to 15 genes a year. Today he can do 1,000 overnight. The answers came in parts, but as he pieced them together, the findings He makes a sketch and points with his pen. The sponge was indeed at the base of animal lineage, and just above it were the cnidarians, such as jellyfish, anemones, and corals. They, like the sponge, have a saclike body form. They developed tentacles and an opening like a mouth at one end. But there were other forms of life lower down the line of descent that scientists might not have expected. Suddenly, they made sense. One of the sponge’s cell types is the distinctively shaped choanocyte, a cell equipped with a tiny long filament, called a flagellum, surrounded by a collar studded with even tinier hairs called microvilli. Thousands of these flagella beat constantly at the water and move it past the sponge’s feeding A few of them even clump loosely together into colonies, bringing evolution to the very brink of the animal age. Scientists had long suspected that the choanoflagellates could have been the nearest things to animals without actually being animals. At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, molecular biologists Nicole King and Sean Carroll recently verified Sogin’s results and took the story a sentence or two further. They analyzed a different genetic sequence and found, In one species, they discovered a particular molecule previously found only in multicelled animals. They concluded that the choanoflagellates appear to contain the “genetic tool kit” from which the first animals were made. Until Sogin was able to prove otherwise, With a pen, he taps his evolutionary tree sketch. Green plants form one branch, and the fungi and animals are farther along on another branch. The latter have become us. Sogin’s findings have more than theoretical importance. Endocarditis, for instance, an inflammation of the heart muscle, can be caused by either a bacterium or a fungus - the yeast Sogin and his colleagues discovered something different. But it’s with the sponge that pre-animals began to take shape, Sogin believes, because the sponge was first to grow different cell types. For all their simplicity, sponges have “a lot of organization.” With their choanoflagellate-like choanocyte cells and a second type of cell, an archaeocyte, that can shift shape and function as needed to absorb food, secrete new skin, or reproduce, they became the first multicellular animals. All the other animals emerged from this simple architecture and are built upon this platform. After the sponges and cnidarians came the worms - the first creatures with bilateral symmetry, after which came an “explosion,” as Sogin calls it, of big-animal phyla. A bilaterally symmetrical animal, different from front to back but a mirror image of itself from side to side, has many subtle and not-so-subtle advantages, among them the ability to move purposefully forward in quest of prey, for instance. Nobody can precisely describe those early sponges, but it’s most likely that they resembled today’s sponges. If it weren’t for Sogin’s work, we might, on the basis of appearance, still think of them as identical. It might even shed light on the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. Any life found in outer space, he speculates, will most likely resemble early, primitive life on Earth - something like a sponge.

<urn:uuid:61d825f2-0158-4e53-a801-6514d24d9230>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_life63.htm

2013-05-24T23:40:11Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. The Third Reich is an Anglicization of the German expression Drittes Reich, and is used as a near-synonym for Nazi Germany, that refers to the government and its agencies rather than the land and its people. The term was first used in 1922, as the title of a book, by conservative writer Arthur Moeller van den Bruck. It was adopted by Nazi propaganda, which counted the Holy Roman Empire as the first Reich, the 1871–1918 German Empire the second, and its own regime as the third. This was done in order to suggest a return to alleged former German glory after the perceived failure of the 1919 Weimar Republic. The disorder and poverty caused in the wake of the Wall Street Crash allowed the Nazis to easily seize power, and take advantage of former foes who had no taste for more bloodshed. The Third Reich was sometimes also referred to as the "Thousand Year Reich," as it was intended by its founder to stand for one thousand years — similar to the Holy Roman Empire. The Nazi Party attempted to combine traditional symbols of Germany with Nazi Party symbols in an effort to reinforce the perception of them as being one and the same. Thus the Nazi Party used the terms "Third Reich" and "Thousand Year Reich" to connect the allegedly glorious past to its supposedly glorious future. Initially Hitler's plans seemed to be well on their way to fruition. At its height, the Third Reich controlled the greater part of Europe. However, due to the defeat by the Allied powers in World War II, the Thousand Year Reich in fact lasted only 12 years (from 1933 through to 1945). During their 12-year rule, the Nazis sent massive armies throughout almost all of continental Europe (with the exception of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Sweden, Portugal and the land near the Ural Mountains). As part of this, the Nazis endorsed the idea of a Greater Germany with Berlin renamed Germania as its capital, and integration of all people of supposed pure Germanic origin. This policy manifested itself in the death of 11 million people of racial minority and other social outcasts, as well as tens of millions of others as a direct or indirect result of combat. Chronology of events Pre-War Politics 1933-1939 On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg after attempts by General Kurt von Schleicher to form a viable government failed and under heavy pressure from former Chancellor Franz von Papen. Even though the Nazi Party had gained the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they had no majority in parliament. Consolidation of power The new government installed dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession (Gleichschaltung for details). On February 27, 1933 Hermann Göring orchestrated the Reichstag building fire, which was followed immediately with the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded Habeas corpus, and other protective laws. The next Reichstag elections on March 5, 1933, yielded 43.9 % of the vote for the NSDAP giving them a slight plurality. The Reichstag drove the final nails in Weimar's coffin by passing the Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz) on March 23, 1933, which formally gave Hitler the power to govern by decree and in effect disbanded the remainders of the Weimar constitution altogether. Further consolidation of power was achieved on January 30, 1934 with the Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reichs (act to rebuild the Reich). The act changed the highly decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferred sovereign rights of the states to the Reich central government and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration. At the death of president Hindenburg on August 2, 1934, the Nazi controlled Reichstag merged the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler and reinstalled Hitler with the new title Führer und Reichskanzler. Only the army remained independent from Nazi control, and the quasi-militant Nazi military organisation SA expected top positions in the new power structure. Wanting to preserve good relations with the army Hitler, on the night of June 30, 1934, initiated what is known as the Night of the Long Knives, which was a purge of the leadership ranks of the SA as well as other political enemies, carried out by another, more elitist, Nazi organisation, the SS. Shortly thereafter the army leaders swore their obedience to Hitler. The institution of the Gestapo, police to act outside of any civil authority, highlighted the Nazi's intention to hold powerful means of directly controlling German society. Soon, mirroring Stalin's terror in the Soviet Union, an estimated army of about 100,000 spies and infiltrants operated throughout Germany, reporting to Nazi officials the activities of any critics or dissenters. Most ordinary Germans, happy with the improving economy and better standard of living remained obedient and quiet, but many political opponents, especially communists and socialists, were reported by omnipresent eavesdropping spies, and put in prison camps where they were severely mistreated, and many tortured and killed. Estimates of political victims range in dozens of thousands dead and disappeared in the first few years of Nazi rule. - For political opposition during this period, see German resistance movement. The Nazi regime was characterized by political control of every aspect of society in a quest for racial (Aryan, Nordic), social and cultural purity. Modern abstract art and avant-garde art was thrown out of museums, and put on special displays of "Degenerate art" where it was ridiculed. However, the crowds attending these displays of "decadent art" frequently eclipsed those attending officially sanctioned displays. In one notable example on March 31, 1937, huge crowds stood in line to view a special display of "degenerate art" in Munich while a concurrently running exhibition of 900 works personally approved by Adolf Hitler attracted a tiny, unenthusiastic gathering. The Nazi Party pursued its aims through persecution of those considered impure, especially against targeted minority groups such as Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. By the Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935, Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and denied government employment. Most Jews employed by Germans lost their jobs at this time, their jobs being taken by unemployed Germans. On November 9, 1938, the Nazi party incited a pogrom against Jewish businesses called the Kristallnacht ("Crystal Night" = Night of Broken Glass); the euphemism was used because the numerous broken windows made the streets look as if covered with crystal. By September 1939, more than 200,000 Jews had left Germany, with the Nazi government seizing any property they left behind. The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" members of their own population as well, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program which killed off tens of thousands of disabled and sickly Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German Master race" (German: Herrenvolk) as described by Nazi propagandists. The techniques of mass-killing developed in these efforts would later be used in the Holocaust. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from mental illness to alcoholism. - See Racial policy of Nazi Germany (history of discrimination policies) The economic management of the state was first given to respected banker Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, a new economic policy to elevate the nation was drafted, limiting imports of consumer goods and focusing on producing exports. Massive loans and credits were issued by the Reichsbank to industries and the individuals who ran them. The Germany economy was later transferred to the leadership of Hermann Göring when, on October 18, 1936, the German Reichstag announced the formation of a Four year plan to shift the German economy towards a war production base. The four year plan technically expired in 1940, but by this time Hermann Göring had built up a power base in the "Office of the Four Year Plan" which effectively controlled all German economic and production matters. Under the leadership of Fritz Todt a massive public works project was started, rivaling the New Deal in both size and scope; its most notable achievement was the Autobahn. Once the war started, the massive organization that Todt founded was used in building bunkers, underground facilities and entrenchments all over Europe. Another part of the new German economy was massive rearmament with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions. World War II - See: Military history of Germany during World War II In 1939 Germany's actions lead to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Poland, France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands were invaded. Initially, the United Kingdom could do little to come to the rescue of its European allies and Germany subjected Britain to heavy bombing during the Battle of Britain. After invading Greece and North Africa, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. It declared war on the United States in December of 1941 after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The persecution of minorities continued both in Germany and the occupied areas, from 1941 Jews were required to wear a yellow star in public and most were transferred to Ghettos, where they remained isolated from the rest of the population. In January 1942, at the Wannsee conference under the supervision of Reinhard Heydrich, a plan for the "Final solution for the Jewish question" (German: "Endlösung der Judenfrage") in Europe was hatched. During this period around 6 million Jews and many others, including homosexuals, Slavs and political prisoners, were systematically killed and more than 10 million people were put in slavery. This genocide is referred to as the Holocaust in English, "Shoah" in Hebrew. (The Nazis used the euphemistic German term "Endlösung" — the "Final Solution".) Thousands were shipped daily to the Death factories, concentration camps, German: Konzentrationslager, KZ; originally detention centers, later mass-murder factories; designed for the killing of their inmates. Parallel to the Holocaust the Nazis conducted a ruthless program of conquest, colonization and exploitation over the captured Soviet and Polish territory and its Slavic population called Generalplan Ost. It is estimated 20 million Soviet civilians, 3 million non-Jewish Poles, 7 million Red Army soldiers died under the Nazi maltreatment in what the Russians call The Great Patriotic War. The Nazi plan was to extend the German Lebensraum "living space" eastward, but their public pretext for launching war on Eastern Europe was "defense from Bolshevism". After losing the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and the Battle of Normandy in 1944, the regime started to disintegrate quickly, losing ground to the Allied forces in the west and south and the Red Army in the east. By spring of 1945 the Allies had invaded German territory. On April 30, 1945 as Berlin was taken by Soviet forces, Hitler committed suicide. On May 4–8, 1945, the Germany armed forces surrendered unconditionally ending the war in Europe and with the creation of the Allied Control Council on June 5 1945, the four powers "assume supreme authority with respect to Germany". The winning allies first split Germany into occupation zones, At the Potsdam conference German borders within the Soviet occupation zone were moved westward, most given to Poland while a half of East Prussia was annexed by Soviet Union. The German exodus from Eastern Europe, that was initiated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was after the war completed when virtually all Germans in Central Europe were evacuated to west of the Oder-Neisse line, with up to about 10 million ethnic Germans affected. The French, US and British zones later became the future West Germany, while the Soviet zone became the communist East Germany. West Germany recovered by the 1960s, but the East remained communist until 1990. After the war, surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial by the Allied tribunal at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. Although a minority were sentenced to execution, most were released by the mid-1950s on account of health and old age. Many continued to live well into the 1970s and '80s. In all non-fascist European countries there were established legal purges to punish the members of the former Nazi and Fascist parties. An uncontrolled punishment hit the Nazi children and the children fathered by German soldiers in occupied territories, including the so-called lebensborn children. - See Nuremberg Trials Organization of the Third Reich The leaders of Nazi Germany created a large number of different organisations for the purpose of helping them in staying in power. They rearmed and strengthened the military, set up an extensive state security apparatus and created their own personal party army, the Waffen SS. Through a bureaucratic staffing of most government positions with Nazi Party members, by 1935 the German federal government and the Nazi Party had become virtually one and the same. By 1938, through the policy of Gleichschaltung, local and state governments lost all legislative power and answered administratively to Nazi party leaders, known as Gauleiters. The organization of the Nazi state, as of 1944, was as follows: Head of State and Chief Executive - Führer und Reichskanzler (Adolf Hitler) Cabinet and Federal authorities - Office of the Four Year Plan (Hermann Göring) - Office of the Reich Master Forester (Hermann Göring) - Office of the Inspector for Highways - Office of the President of the Reich Bank - Reich Youth Office - Reich Treasury Office - General Inspector of the Reich Capitol - Office of the Councillor for the Capitol of the Movement (Munich, Bavaria) — Armed Forces) Reich Central Security Office (RSHA — Reichssicherheitshauptamt) - Deutsche Reichsbahn (State Railway) - Reichspost (State Postal Service) - Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (German Red Cross) - National Socialist German University Teachers League - National Socialist German Students League Prominent persons in Nazi Germany For a listing of Hitlers cabinet see : Hitler's Cabinet, January 1933 - April 1945

<urn:uuid:efcd5df5-a1fd-4f88-a97d-664d087b9768>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/Nazi_Germany

2013-05-24T23:19:20Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

09-02-2007: Wouldn't it be great if we could get computer chips to grow on trees? Or at least use the specific bonds of DNA molecules to get nanostructures to grow themselves right in the test tube? This technology could be used to build everything from tiny electronics components to machines that sequence DNA. This is shown in a dissertation from Mid Sweden University. Building structures as tiny as a few nanometers is a major problem with today's technology. This is an important hurdle, because really tiny things can be extremely useful. Good examples are microelectronics - the smaller you can make the components on a chip, the faster you will be able to carry out calculations on it. "The method we have developed for self-assembling blocks of DNA and gold particles is absolutely unique. The method can be used, for instance, to produce tiny nano carriers for drugs that can be emptied directly in cells on a given chemical signal," says Björn Högberg. Björn Högberg has also taken a close look at a method for building nanostructures with the help of DNA that was invented by a a US researcher in the spring of 2006. The method is called 'DNA origami' and involves, in brief, folding or splicing together a long string of DNA with the aid of a large number of short strings (''staple DNA'). "In my dissertation I propose just how this technology could be used to construct a facility for extremely rapid DNA sequencing, which is a biotechnologist's dream," says Björn Högberg. This is where you can add this news to your personal favourites Researchers at Umeå University in Sweden have shown that the length of telomeres in blood cells in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients is tied to survival rates. The study was carried out by a research team headed by Professor Göran Roos at the Department of Medical Bioscience, Pathology ... more In connection with last year's epidemic, a research team at Umeå University in Sweden has managed for the first time to show that hantavirus exists in human saliva. This raises the question of whether this contagion can spread among humans. In Sweden, a form of hemorrhagic fever with renal ... more Problems with memory and social function in patients with schizophrenia may result from an imbalance in the brain's nitric oxide system. A dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy shows that rats with characteristics of schizophrenia regain normal brain function if they receive drugs that ... more The Swedish Research Council is a government agency funding basic research of the highest scientific quality in all disciplines. The Swedish Research Council has a national responsibility to support and develop basic research and promote research innovation and research communication. The g ... more More about Mid Sweden University Mittuniversitetet (Mid Sweden University) 871 88 Härnösand Wouldn't it be great if we could get computer chips to grow on trees? Or at least use the specific bonds of DNA molecules to get nanostructures to grow themselves right in the test tube? This technology could be used to build everything from tiny electronics components to machines that sequ ... more Mid Sweden University was founded ten years ago through the merging of two smaller universities in the region. It is now one of the larger institutions of higher education in Sweden with approximately 14,000 students. Like all universities we provide higher education of a high standard unde ... more

<urn:uuid:bffb6c78-8020-49bb-91da-28a8ba36ff65>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.bionity.com/en/news/61660/self-assembling-nanostructures-of-dna-a-biotechnologist-s-dream.html

2013-05-24T23:47:42Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

In the subsequent year, 1446, Don Henry sent out a small squadron of three caravels, under the command of Antonio Gonzales, assisted by Diego Alfonso, and by Gomez Perez, the kings pilot. They were directed to proceed for the Rio del Ouro, and were strictly enjoined to cultivate the friendship of the natives by every possible means, to establish peace with them and to use their utmost endeavours to convert them to the Christian religion; among other instructions, they were urged to pass unnoticed the insults or neglect of honour which they might experience from the negroes. The Portuguese endeavoured, but ineffectually, to conciliate the natives, and to remove the angry prejudices which they entertained. They returned to Lagos with no other fruit from their voyage except one negro whom they had received in ransom, and an aged Moor who requested permission to accompany them to Portugal. One of their own companions, Juan Fernandez, from an ardent desire to procure information for the prince, got leave to remain among the Assanhaji Arabs. Next year, 1447, Antonio Mendez was ordered to return in search of Juan Fernandez, from whose inquisitive disposition much information was expected. In this expedition he was accompanied by two other caravels, commanded by Garcia Mendez and Diego Alfonso, but they were separated by a storm in the early part of the voyage. Alfonso was the first who reached the coast at Cape Branco, where he landed, and set up a wooden cross as a signal to his consorts, and then proceeded to the islands of Arguin, which afforded shelter from the tremenduous surf which breaks continually on the coast of Africa. While waiting at Arguin for the other ships, Alfonso paid many visits to the continent, where he made prisoners of twenty-five of the natives. When the other two ships of the squadron had joined, they went to the Rio del Ouro in search of their countryman, Juan Fernandez, who had been several days anxiously looking out for a vessel to carry him off. After experiencing many hardships, Fernandez had succeeded in gaining the friendship of a considerable person among the Moors, and was accompanied to the shore by that mans slaves in a body. The natives exerted themselves to procure the release of some of their countrymen who were prisoners with the Portuguese, to whom they gave nine negroes and a quantity of gold dust by way of ransom. To the place where this transaction took place, the navigators gave the name of Cabo do Resgati, or Cape Ransom; where likewise Fernam Tavares, an aged nobleman, received the honour of knighthood, a distinction he had long been entitled to, but which he would only receive upon the newly discovered coast. During the homeward voyage, Gonzales touched at a village near Cape Branco, where he increased his captives to ninety.

<urn:uuid:8787f085-f521-4156-aac2-856b15449958>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/10803/152.html

2013-05-24T23:15:59Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Ice it UpScience brain teasers require understanding of the physical or biological world and the laws that govern it. Bob, an orange grower new to the industry, heard on the news that there was a forecast of freezing temperature for the low next morning. He hadn't picked his oranges yet because it was too early in the season and he was worried that he would lose everything. It seemed that he was doomed. John, a worker of his who was still in high school, came up with a plan. He told Bob that he learned of a way to protect his crops from freezing. All he needed was access to the watering hose. What did John do? HintWhat is released when water freezes? AnswerJohn sprayed the oranges with water and kept doing it throughout the night. The first thing that would freeze would be the water on the orange's surface. When this happens, it releases latent heat that will keep the orange from freezing. Also the layer of ice would insulate the orange from the atmosphere. The ice would melt as soon as the sun rises and brings the temperatures above freezing. Thus the oranges were saved. See another brain teaser just like this one... Or, just get a random brain teaser If you become a registered user you can vote on this brain teaser, keep track of which ones you have seen, and even make your own. Back to Top

<urn:uuid:b599a9a6-26cd-4867-84c6-056e8d425c73>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.braingle.com/brainteasers/teaser.php?op=2&id=15994&comm=0

2013-05-24T23:27:43Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

axis of symmetry Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article. Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review. Fivefold symmetry axes are forbidden in ordinary crystals, while other axes, such as sixfold axes, are allowed. The reason is that translational periodicity, which is characteristic of crystal lattices, cannot be present in structures with fivefold symmetry. Figures 1 and 2 can be used to illustrate this concept. The triangular array of atoms in Figure 1 has axes of sixfold rotational symmetry... An axis is an imaginary centre line through a symmetrical or near symmetrical volume or group of volumes that suggests the gravitational pivot of the mass. Thus, all the main components of the human body have axes of their own, while an upright figure has a single vertical axis running through its entire length. Volumes may rotate or tilt on their axes. What made you want to look up "axis of symmetry"? Please share what surprised you most...

<urn:uuid:2f0de27d-8ab6-4e1f-ba43-b70b6ddc7a1e>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/46311/axis-of-symmetry

2013-05-24T23:22:53Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Burmese literatureArticle Free Pass Burmese literature, the body of writings in the Burmese language produced in Myanmar (Burma). The stone inscription is the oldest form of Burmese literature; the date of the earliest extant specimen is 1113. During the next 250 years, more than 500 dedicatory inscriptions similar in pattern but more developed in style were engraved on stone. Many of these inscriptions contain eloquent prayers and poems composed by royal ladies. Later inscriptions from the 14th to the 19th century were in a similar vein. Imaginative literature scratched on a palm leaf with a stylus or written on folded paper in steatite pencil originated under the auspices of Buddhist monarchs in Myanmar and flourished from the 14th century until after printing became prevalent in the 19th century. The authors were Buddhist monks, monastery-trained courtiers, and a few court poets. This literature’s most notable features were Buddhist piety and a courtly refinement of language. Historical ballads, panegyric odes, metrical versions of Buddhist stories, and various other types of poetic forms, along with exhortatory letters, constitute this literature. Prose works written in Burmese during this long period are comparatively few. The introduction of printing into southern Myanmar led to a change in Burmese literature. From 1875 onward, under British rule, the owners of printing presses began to publish popular works such as plays, complete with songs and stage directions. The tragic dramas of U Ku were extremely popular and dominated the period between 1875 and 1885. In 1904 the first Burmese novels appeared. The emergence of literary magazines in the 1910s stimulated the popularity of short stories and serialized novels. Nationalist and anticolonial themes were common in literature from the 1920s to the 1940s. Following Burmese independence in 1948, many writers tried to use literature to help create an egalitarian society. After the military coup led by U Ne Win in 1962, however, the government pressured writers to adapt the themes and style of Socialist Realism, and freedom of expression continued to erode through the turn of the 21st century. What made you want to look up "Burmese literature"? Please share what surprised you most...

<urn:uuid:1737ec03-952a-4a7a-9648-6991b283ed12>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/85566/Burmese-literature

2013-05-24T23:33:47Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

The word atom comes from the Greek word atomos, meaning uncuttable. From Wikipedia : An atom is a microscopic structure found in all ordinary matter around us. Atoms are composed of 3 types of subatomic particles: Electrons, which have a negative charge; Protons, which have a positive charge; and Neutrons, which have no charge. Atoms are the fundamental building blocks of chemistry, and are conserved in chemical reactions. An atom is the smallest particle differentiable as a certain chemical element; when an atom of an element is divided, it ceases to be that element. Only 90 elements have been identified as occurring naturally on Earth although some elements (for example, technetium and californium) have been identified in supernovae. Each element is unique by the number of protons in each atom of that element. Every atom has a number of electrons equal to its number of protons; if there is an imbalance, the atom is called an ion. Atoms of the same element can have different numbers of neutrons, as long as the number of protons or electrons does not change. Atoms with different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes of a chemical element. Other elements have been artificially created, but they are usually unstable and spontaneously change into stable natural chemical elements by the processes of radioactive decay. Though only 90 naturally occurring elements exist, atoms of these elements are able to bond into molecules and other types of chemical compounds. Molecules are made up of multiple atoms; For example, a molecule of water is a combination of 2 hydrogen and one oxygen atoms. Because of their ubiquitous nature, atoms have been an important field of study for many centuries. Current research focus on quantum effects, such as in Bose-Einstein condensate. The atomic theory is a theory of the nature of matter. It states that all matter is composed of atoms. The most widely accepted model of an atom is the wave model. It is based on the Bohr model, but takes into account recent developments and discoveries in quantum mechanics. It states that: Atoms are composed of subatomic particles (protons, electrons, and neutrons). However, much of an atom's volume is empty space. At the center of the atom is a tiny, positively charged nucleus composed of protons and neutrons (known as nucleons). The nucleus is more than 100,000 times smaller than the atom. If an atom was expanded to the size of Heathrow Airport, the nucleus would be about the size of a golf ball. The electron orbital wavefunctions of hydrogen: the principal quantum number is at the right of each row and the azimuthal quantum number is denoted by letter at top of each column. Most of the atom's space is taken up by orbitals containing electrons in a certain electron configuration. Each orbital can hold up to two electrons, and is governed by three quantum numbers: the principal, azimuthal, and magnetic. Each electron in an orbital has a unique value for the fourth quantum number, spin. Orbitals are not physical contructs, but are actually probability distributions of where two electrons having equal values for the first three quantum numbers might be. The "edge" of an orbital is generally considered to be where the probability of an electron's presence drops below 90%. As electrons join an atom, they fall into the lowest energy shell; that is, the orbitals closest to the nucleus (the first shell). Only the electrons in the outermost orbital (the valence shell) are available for atomic bonding; see "Valence and bonding" for more information. ATOM SIZES The size of an atom is not easily defined since the electron orbitals just gradually go to zero as the distance from the nucleus increases. For atoms that can form solid crystals, the distance between adjacent nuclei can give an estimate of the atom size. For atoms that do not form solid crystals other techniques are used, including theoretical calculations. As an example, the size of a Hydrogen atom is estimated to be approximately 1.2 10-10m. Compare this to the size of the Proton which is the only particle in the nucleus of the Hydrogen atom which is approximately 0.87 10-15m. Thus the ratio between the sizes of the Hydrogen atom to its nucleus is about 100,000. Atoms of different elements do vary in size, but the sizes are roughly the same to within a factor of 2 or so. The reason for this is that elements with a large positive charge on the nucleus attract the electrons to the center of the atom more strongly. ELEMENTS AND ISOTOPES Atoms are generally classified by their atomic number, which corresponds to the number of protons in the atom. The atomic number defines which element the atom is. For example, carbon atoms are those atoms containing 6 protons. All atoms with the same atomic number share a wide variety of physical properties and exhibit the same chemical behavior. The various kinds of atoms are listed in the periodic table in order of increasing atomic number. The mass number, atomic mass number, or nucleon number of an element is the total number of protons and neutrons in an atom of that element, because each proton or neutron essentially has a mass of 1 amu. The number of neutrons in an atom has no effect on which element it is. Each element can have numerous different atoms with the same number of protons and electrons, but varying numbers of neutrons. Each has the same atomic number but a different mass number. These are called the isotopes of an element. When writing the name of an isotope, the element name is followed by the mass number. For example, carbon-14 contains 6 protons and 8 neutrons in each atom, for a total mass number of 14. The simplest atom is the hydrogen atom, which has atomic number 1 and consists of one proton and one electron. The hydrogen isotope which also contains 1 neutron is called deuterium or hydrogen-2; the hydrogen isotope with 2 neutrons is called tritium or hydrogen-3. The atomic mass listed for each element in the periodic table is an average of the isotope masses found in nature, weighted by their abundance. VALENCE AND BONDING The chemical behavior of atoms is largely due to interactions between electrons. Electrons of an atom must remain within certain, predictable electron configurations. Electrons fall into shells based on their relative distance from the nucleus (see Atomic structure for more details). The electrons in the outermost shell, called the valence electrons, have the greatest influence on chemical behavior. Core electrons (those not in the outer shell) play a role, but it is usually in terms of a secondary effect due to screening of the positive charge in the atomic nucleus. Each shell, numbered from the one closest to the nucleus, can hold up to a limited number of electrons due to its differing number and type of orbitals: Shell 1: 2 electrons Shell 2: 8 electrons Shell 3: 8 or 18 electrons (depending on the element) Electrons fill orbitals and shells from the inside out, beginning with shell one. Higher numbered shells only exist when made necessary by the number of electrons. Whichever extant shell is currently most outward is the valence shell, even if it only has one electron. The reason why shells fill up in order is that the energy levels of electrons in the innermost shells are significantly lower than the energy levels of electrons in outer shells. So if the inner shells were not completely full, the electron in an outer shell would quickly "fall" into the inner shell (with the emission of a photon that would carry away the difference in the energy levels. The number of electrons in an atom's outermost valence shell governs its bonding behavior. Therefore, elements with the same number of valence electrons are grouped together in the periodic table of the elements. Group (i.e. column) 1 elements contain one electron on their outer shell; Group 2, two electrons; Group 3, three electrons; etc. As a general rule, the fewer electrons in an atom's valence shell, the more reactive it is. Group 1 metals are therefore very reactive, with caesium, rubidium, and francium being the most reactive of all elements. Every atom is much more stable (i.e. less energetic) with a full valence shell. This can be achieved one of two ways: an atom can either share electrons with neighboring atoms (a covalent bond), or it can remove electrons from other atoms (an ionic bond). Another form of ionic bonding involves an atom giving some of its electrons to an other atom; this also works because it can end up with a full valence by giving up its entire outer shell. By moving electrons, the two atoms become linked. This is known as chemical bonding and serves to build atoms into molecules. Five major types of bonds exist: ionic bonds; Covalent bonds; Coordinate covalent bonds; Hydrogen bonds; and Metallic bonds. ATOMS IN THE UNIVERSE AND OUR WORLD Using inflation theory, the number of atoms in the observable universe can be estimated to be between 4x1078 and 6x1079. However, because of the possibly infinite nature of the universe, the total number of atoms in the entire universe may be much larger or even infinite. This does not change the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe since that is the number of atoms within about 14 billion light years of us - which is all that we can observe since the universe is only about 14 billion years old.

<urn:uuid:e5b411d9-01bc-4408-b93d-9ba94eb16546>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.cassiopedia.org/glossary/Atom

2013-05-24T23:41:06Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

(Kalandbrüder, Fratres Calendarii.) The name given to religious and charitable associations of priests and laymen especially numerous in Northern and Central Germany, which held regular meetings for religious edification and instruction, and also to encourage works of charity and prayers for the dead. They were originally an extension of the meetings of the clergy of the separate deaneries usually held on the first day of each month ( Kalendæ , hence their title Kaland ). After the thirteenth century these meetings developed in many cases into special, organized societies to which both priests and the laity, men and women, belonged. Special statutes regulated the conduct of the society, its reunions, the duties of the directors in promoting the religious life and Christian discipline, the services to be held, the administration of the general funds, and their application to charitable purposes. A dean was at the head of each association, and a treasurer administered the revenues. The associations were encouraged by the bishops, who assigned them particular churches or at least special altars for Divine Service. The offering of prayers and the Sacrifice of the Mass for deceased members was especially fostered. The oldest known Kaland confraternity is that of Ottberg near Höchster (Westphalia), of whose existence in 1226 we have documentary evidence. The "Calendarii" flourished especially in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but later decayed. A banquet was introduced at the meetings, which subsequently degenerated in many instances into a revel, leading in certain neighbourhoods to abuses. From Germany the Kaland confraternities spread to Denmark, Norway, Hungary, and France. In the sixteenth century the Reformation led to the dissolution of the majority ; the rest gradually disappeared, only one being now known to exist, that of Münster in Westphalia. More Catholic Encyclopedia Browse Encyclopedia by Alphabet The Catholic Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on Catholic teaching, history, and information ever gathered in all of human history. This easy-to-search online version was originally printed in fifteen hardcopy volumes. Designed to present its readers with the full body of Catholic teaching, the Encyclopedia contains not only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional. In the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed, and the results of the latest research in theology, philosophy, history, apologetics, archaeology, and other sciences are given careful consideration. No one who is interested in human history, past and present, can ignore the Catholic Church, either as an institution which has been the central figure in the civilized world for nearly two thousand years, decisively affecting its destinies, religious, literary, scientific, social and political, or as an existing power whose influence and activity extend to every part of the globe. In the past century the Church has grown both extensively and intensively among English-speaking peoples. Their living interests demand that they should have the means of informing themselves about this vast institution, which, whether they are Catholics or not, affects their fortunes and their destiny. Browse the Catholic Encyclopedia by Topic Copyright © Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company New York, NY. Volume 1: 1907; Volume 2: 1907; Volume 3: 1908; Volume 4: 1908; Volume 5: 1909; Volume 6: 1909; Volume 7: 1910; Volume 8: 1910; Volume 9: 1910; Volume 10: 1911; Volume 11: - 1911; Volume 12: - 1911; Volume 13: - 1912; Volume 14: 1912; Volume 15: 1912 Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia Digital version Compiled and Copyright © Catholic Online

<urn:uuid:3b431337-bedb-49e2-a7b8-8397e07f6bd4>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=6573

2013-05-24T23:26:27Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

DHHS (NIOSH) Publication Number 2011-115 Disaster Recommendations for Emergency Worker Safety & Health To protect the safety and health of emergency workers during responses to large-scale disasters, incident commanders and emergency managers must have access to sufficient information, assessment and decision making assets, safety resources, and implementation capability. Most major disaster responses involve multiple, diverse responders and response agencies; include unusual and intense hazard exposures; and occur over large areas and extended time periods. These characteristics complicate the gathering and assessment of information, decision making, safety resource management, and implementation and enforcement of safety and health programs. - National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention TTY: (888) 232-6348 - New Hours of Operation - Contact CDC-INFO

<urn:uuid:73221ec9-680c-4f7c-96cd-ab49ba7781d8>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2011-115/

2013-05-24T23:40:57Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Today IBM researchers published a breakthrough technique in the journal Science that measures how long a single atom can hold information, and giving scientists the ability to record, study and "visualize" extremely fast phenomena inside these atoms. Just as the first motion pictures conveyed movement through high-speed photography, scientists at IBM Research - Almaden are using the Scanning Tunneling Microscope like a high-speed camera to record the behavior of individual atoms at a speed about one million times faster than previously possible. IBM researchers in Zurich invented the Scanning Tunneling Microscope in 1981 and were awarded with the Nobel Prize. For more than two decades IBM scientists have been pushing the boundaries of science using the Scanning Tunneling Microscope to understand the fundamental properties of matter at the atomic scale, with vast potential for game-changing innovation in information storage and computation. The ability to measure nanosecond-fast phenomena opens a new realm of experiments for scientists, since they can now add the dimension of time to experiments in which extremely fast changes occur. To put this into perspective, the difference between one nanosecond and one second is about the same comparison as one second to 30 years. An immense amount of physics happens during that time that scientists previously could not see. "This technique developed by the IBM Research team is a very important new capability for characterizing small structures and understanding what is happening at fast time scales," said Michael Crommie, University of California, Berkeley. "I am particularly excited by the possibility of generalizing it to other systems, such as photovoltaics, where a combination of high spatial and time resolution will help us to better understand various nanoscale processes important for solar energy, including light absorption and separation of charge." In addition to allowing scientists to better understand the nanoscale phenomena in solar cells, this breakthrough could be used to study areas such as quantum computing and information storage technologies. How it works Since the magnetic spin of an atom changes too fast to measure directly using previously available Scanning Tunneling Microscope techniques, time-dependent behavior is recorded stroboscopically, in a manner similar to the techniques first used in creating motion pictures, or like in time lapse photography today. Using a "pump-probe" measurement technique, a fast voltage pulse (the pump pulse) excites the atom and a subsequent weaker voltage pulse (the probe pulse) then measures the orientation of the atom's magnetism at a certain time after excitation. In essence, the time delay between the pump and the probe sets the frame time of each measurement. This delay is then varied step-by-step and the average magnetic motion is recorded in small time increments. For each time increment, the scientists repeat the alternating voltage pulses about 100,000 times, which takes less than one second. In the experiment, iron atoms were deposited onto an insulating layer only one atom thick and supported on a copper crystal. This surface was selected to allow the atoms to be probed electrically while retaining their magnetism. The iron atoms were then positioned with atomic precision next to non-magnetic copper atoms in order to control the interaction of the iron with the local environment of nearby atoms. The resulting structures were then measured in the presence of different magnetic fields to reveal that the speed at which they change their magnetic orientation depends sensitively on the magnetic field. This showed that the atoms relax by means of quantum mechanical tunneling of the atom?s magnetic moment, an intriguing process by which the atom?s magnetism can reverse its direction without passing through intermediate orientations. This knowledge may allow scientists to engineer the magnetic lifetime of the atoms to make them longer (to retain their magnetic state) or shorter (to switch to a new magnetic state) as needed to create future spintronic devices. "This breakthrough allows us - for the first time - to understand how long information can be stored in an individual atom. Beyond this, the technique has great potential because it is applicable to many types of physics happening on the nanoscale," said Sebastian Loth, IBM Research.

<urn:uuid:c87cac2a-f3ae-4b86-8327-faaebeb4b6fe>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Print.aspx?NewsId=28449

2013-05-24T23:41:55Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Hint(s):When drawing the structures, it really helps to use the following shortcuts: 1) To add lone pairs, hold the colon/semi-colon key down, and then click on an atom with your mouse. 2) Don\'t worry about the position of the lone pairs. 3) Change the atoms by double clicking on the atom and typing in the new element symbol. We are first asked to draw the structure for compound A. The Diels–Alder reaction involves the reaction of a diene and an alkene, forming a six-membered ring. In this case, the diene is 2,5-dimethylfuran, and the alkene is supplied by maleic anhydride. The product of the reaction is a six-membered ring with a bridging oxygen. The Diels–Alder reaction results in how many new ? bonds? Where? Of the three involved ? bonds, how many ? bonds result? Where?

<urn:uuid:47c08a0d-43c9-41a0-93db-0cae9d83a3ec>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/hintswhen-drawing-the-structures-it-really-helps-to-use-the-following-shortcuts-1-to-add-l-q3606952

2013-05-24T23:16:13Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

AN ANCIENT LEGACY God is the light of the Heavens and the Earth. His light is as a niche in which is a lamp, The lamp in a glass, The glass, as it were, a glittering star. The Koran The first Chihuly Persians were made in 1986. An eccentric collection of brightly colored and unusually shaped objects - primarily small bottles and vessels - the earliest Persians looked "archaeological" to Chihuly, like excavated ancient treasures. Chihuly sensed that these objects represented a formal direction in his art that was experimental, new, and exotic. Exhibited for the first time in Chihuly's 1986 solo exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs of the Palais du Louvre in Paris, the Persians were described in the exhibition catalogue as "new possibilities from the blowpipe." At the time of the Louvre show, the series was still untitled. "In the beginning, the Persians had to do with the contrast between two colors ... between open and closed forms ... and the intensity of the body wraps," Chihuly has recalled. ("Body wrap" is Chihuly's term for the stripe of color applied to the body of a piece.) Soon, the early Persians' color-saturated, contrasting body wraps were seen by the artist as alternately "Persian," "Byzantine," and "minaret-like," almost "Persian and Roman too." More interested in the East than the West, Chihuly liked the sound of the word "Persian," the associations it inspired, and the series found a name. In discussing Chihuly's work, the artist and art critic Walter Darby Bannard has observed, "There is a popular misconception that great modernist art always makes a radical break with the past. In fact, very good, new art often breaks with the present by going back to the past." While Chihuly's art is undeniably of the present, the presence of the past is manifest. In Chihuly's Persians, I see a profound connection to the past, but it is a subtle and mysterious connection, as complex as the history of Persia itself and as unconscious as the intricate path of its cultural legacy. What is Persian about Chihuly's Persians? Persia's past, the past of glass, and the larger context of the Near East will offer some answers. With their opaque and vivid, contrasting colors, Chihuly's early Persians hint at glass's distant past: the small, dense, and rare core-formed vessels that first appeared in Egypt about 1500 B.C. and in Mesopotamia (Iraq) around 1300 B.C. Several types of core-formed vessels were popular in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, where they functioned, among other things, as cosmetic tubes for kohl, the distinctive black eye makeup worn by Egyptian women. Similar vessels were used by classical Greeks as containers for scented soaps and oils. Core-formed wares were made by carefully winding ribbons of molten glass around a primarily clay core, and then picking out the core after the glass had cooled. Their production in the eastern Mediterranean region peaked from the 6th through the 2nd century B.C. Core-forming and other early techniques, such as casting, were eclipsed around the middle of the 1st century B.C. with the discovery of glassblowing, a technological leap that dramatically affected the ancient glass industry. Blowing glass enabled Roman glass manufacturers to expand the trade from the elite practice that it was in earlier times to a profitable commercial enterprise mass-producing products everyone, citizen or slave, could afford to own. In spite of its transformation from a labor-intensive luxury medium into an inexpensive material, glass was still sought after for finer wares, such as the elaborately decorated glasses that rivaled items made of precious stones, silver, and gold. In the Roman novel The Satyricon one of the characters, a wealthy nobleman named Trimalchio, expounds upon the merits of the versatile new material, claiming that glass vessels would be better than vessels made of bronze, and even vessels made of gold, were glass not so breakable. Some of the most outstanding glass objects to survive antiquity are the cast and cut vessels made by Persian artisans during the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. The powerful Persian empire was centered at the royal Achaemenid complex at Persepolis, located in southwestern Iran, near modern Shiraz. Ancient Persepolis was renowned for its splendid architecture and the opulent lifestyle of its wealthy and learned court, where exquisitely cast-glass bowls, molded in the shape of large rosettes, were among the royal accoutrements presented at official court occasions. The Greek playwright Aristophanes, writing around 425 B.C., relates that rock crystal-like glass bowls were provided to Greek ambassadors attending diplomatic functions at Ecbatana, the former Median capital and Persian stronghold. Persepolis was founded by the Achaemenid Persian king Darius I (reigned 521-486 B.C.), who expanded the empire founded by his predecessor Cyrus the Great (reigned 549-530 B.C.). It is thought that Persepolis served not only as a royal residence and administrative center for the Persian empire but also functioned as the primary locale for the celebration of the New Year each spring, the most important ritual event of the Persian calendar. The famous reliefs showing Persian dignitaries and tribute-bearers lining the double staircase leading to the apadana, or audience hall, at Persepolis are thought to mirror actual events that took place there during the New Year festivities. Ceremonies included the presentation of gifts from the empire's subject peoples: the precious bowls carried by delegates, as shown in the reliefs, may represent works in metal or glass. Alexander the Great, still a relatively young man, died at Babylon in 323 B.C., only seven years after the sack of Persepolis by his armies. The Persian lands, representing a fraction of Alexander's empire, which extended from Greece to India, were passed on to one of his top generals, Seleucus (reigned 312-281 B.C.), the founder of the Seleucid dynasty. The Seleucids ruled Persia for nearly 150 years, until the conquest of Iran by the nomadic Parthians in 141 B.C. The Parthian's hold over Persia gradually declined as the Romans made inroads into Parthian territory, but they were ultimately deposed by the Sasanian Persians in the third century A.D. The Sasanians sought to revive the ancient Achaemenid empire of Cyrus and Darius and the sophistication of their courts. They reinstated many of the early Persian traditions, among them the crafting of thick-walled, spectacularly wheel-cut, luxury glass vessels. Some three hundred years later, the Sasanians were expelled from Persia by invading Muslim Arabs in 651. With this conquest, Persia became one of the many Near Eastern cultures to be subsumed into the powerful and growing empire of Islam and would remain forever under the aegis of the prophet Mohammed. Thus, the concept of "Persia" does not end with the grand and ancient empire but must include the scholarly, courtly world of Islam. BYZANTINE AND ISLAMIC GLASS Considering the momentous advances in glass technology and decorative techniques during the height of the Roman empire - from the 1st century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. - the following thousand years, for glassmaking at least, were relatively quiet. While western Europe fell prey to invasions of marauding tribes after the fall of Rome in the 5th century A.D., what was once the eastern Roman empire, centered at Constantinople (Istanbul), flourished under Byzantine Greeks. Lasting nearly a thousand years, the Christian Byzantine empire was dealt its final blow with the sack of Constantinople in 1453, at the hands of the Muslim Ottoman Turks. Even today, Byzantine glass production remains somewhat mysterious. Ancient tax records reveal that glass was made in Constantinople, and it is said that at Corinth, on mainland Greece, the first pane glass, used for glazing, was made. Although Byzantine art is renowned for outstanding glass mosaics, preserved in Byzantine sacred architecture, the few glass vessels that have survived tell us little about the full range of glass objects that might have been available in Byzantine times. Known examples generally tend to be rudimentary blown and mold-blown wares, or they are the kind of spectacular luxury object - cast, blown, cut, and enameled - belonging to the treasury of the basilica of San Marco in Venice. Glass vessels from classical antiquity have been preserved by the thousands in ancient Roman tombs, but Christian burial customs discouraged the interment of grave gifts with the deceased. As a result, there is not as complete a picture for Byzantine and western Medieval glass, in terms of quantity and available forms and colors, as there is for earlier Greek and Roman cultures. When the Byzantine capital of Constantinople was first taken and plundered during the Fourth Crusade in A.D. 1204, European crusaders absconded with a variety of art treasures, including glasses with enameled and gilt decoration. It was during this raid that the famous glass objects in the treasury of San Marco were brought to Venice by Venetian crusaders returning from the Byzantine capital. Whether those splendid objects were Byzantine, though, is now a matter of debate. Like the exquisite enameled and gilt glasses brought to Europe at that time, it is thought that the San Marco glass vessels may have been of Islamic rather than Byzantine origin. Because of the pervasive Oriental influence on Byzantine decorative arts and textiles of the period, distinctions between purely Byzantine and Islamic design elements have proved difficult to make. In the meantime, Persia and Syria, under Muslim hegemony from the 7th century on, were governed by a succession of Ummayid and Abbasid dynastic rulers. Syria was an important glassmaking region throughout antiquity, and its glass industry continued to be strong after the fall of Rome, although it was rivaled in Islamic times by important centers at Baghdad and Cairo. After the Mongol invasions of Persia and Mesopotamia in the middle of the 13th century, Syrian glass production rose to the fore. The 13th and 14th centuries in Syria - the period of Ayyubid and Mamluk rule - represented the pinnacle of Islamic glass manufacture and remains one of the most important achievements ill the entire history of glass. In addition to their elaborate cut-glass vessels, Islamic glassworkers were known for luster-painting, a decorative technique first practiced in Egypt around the 7th to 8th century and in Persia after the 9th century. Luster-painting, or painting with metallic oxide pigments to create semi-transparent, iridescent colors, was the precursor of the highly regarded Islamic techniques of enameling and gilding on glass, developed, it is thought, sometime between 1170 and 1270 at the Syrian city of Raqqa. The finest enameled and gilt wares for which Islamic glass-makers became famous, however, were produced not at Raqqa but at the Syrian city of Damascus. Most prized of the Islamic luxury wares from Damascus were the richly enameled and gilt mosque lamps - actually lamp-holders or lanterns - which were illuminated by their enclosed oil-lamps. Islamic glass production abruptly ceased when Damascus and Aleppo, in Syria, were overrun in 1400 by the Turco-Mongol armies of Timur, a central Asian Muslim warlord known in the West as Tamerlane. This vacancy was soon filled by the rising Italian industry, centered in Venice, which would grow to dominate European glass manufacture. The demand for Islamic-style glass did not end with the Syrian industry, and Venetian glassmakers carried on Islamic-style productions, in addition to their own celebrated designs, for the next two centuries. The practice of decorative enameling and gilding on glass by Venetian craftsmen, which peaked around 1500, is thought to be inherited from the Islamic glass industry. Certainly, the Venetian republic had maintained close trading contacts with the Near East and was producing Islamic-style glass and textiles. Some historians see Muslim influence in the architecture of Venice, such as the preference for domes decorated with polychrome inlays or the Venetian love of gardens, courtyards, and fountains. But it is more likely that these influences spread to Venice from Byzantine Constantinople. Not only was Venice the "favorite daughter of Byzantium," a title given to the city in 1000 by the Byzantine emperor Basil II, but the Venetian Doge Pietro Ziani went so far as to propose in 1222 that the entire city of Venice be abandoned and moved to Constantinople. Legend has it that Ziani's controversial motion was defeated in the Venetian senate by only one vote. Concerning the origins of Venetian glass, some historians believe that there is no way of establishing whether Venetians acquired the techniques of enameling and gilding on glass from Islamic glasshouses or Byzantine ones, but that because of Venice's long-standing relationship with Byzantium, it was from artisans of that empire whom early Venetian glassmakers sought direction. The most detailed description of glassmaking in the Middle Ages is preserved in a treatise, entitled On Divers Arts, authored by a German Benedictine monk under the pseudonym Theophilus. Writing in the early 12th century, Theophilus recorded the Byzantine Greek practice of making "blue stones [glass mosaic tesserae], and precious goblets for drinking, embellishing them with gold." The monk also carefully described how Byzantine glassmakers prepared their enamels: "White, red and green glass, which are used for enamels, are carefully ground, each one separately, with water on a porphyry stone. With them, the [Greeks] paint small flowers and scrolls." Byzantine traditions abound in the architecture and rich decoration of the Venetian basilica of San Marco, originally the chapel of the Palace of the Doges, the august governors of the Venetian republic. Begun in the 9th century- at which time the relics of the evangelist Mark were "acquired" (that is, stolen) from Alexandria, in Egypt - the great church was built primarily during the 11th century, but not completed until the 13th century. San Marco has been described as an "eloquent memorial" of the Byzantine contribution to Venetian culture, "a living symbol of the close relations between Byzantium and Venice." At the same time, San Marco is said to have unmistakably Islamic features, such as the arch of the Door of the Flowers, but that, for the most part, "the Byzantine and Islamic elements harmonize so perfectly that is difficult to distinguish one from the other." The magnificent bronze horses of San Marco, which dominate the facade above the basilica's main doorway, are another important example of the profound connection between Venice and Byzantium, reflecting the Byzantine fusion of classical Western and Eastern traditions to which the architecture and culture of Venice is indebted. Their source, like much of Venice's own history, is shrouded in mystery, and while many theories abound about their origins, none are provable. The only sure element of the horses' history is that they found their way from Constantinople to Venice, as crusader war booty, in 1204. VENETIAN GLASS AND ART NOUVEAU As the late curator Henry Geldzahler noted, there is a correlation between Dale Chihuly and the champion of American art nouveau, Louis Comfort Tiffany, in their understanding of, and interest in, the history of glass. The New York Times critic Holland Cotter has also seen in Chihuly's work "the painterly, chromatic complexity of Venetian glass and the sensuous curves of art nouveau." Because of Louis Comfort Tiffany, the ephemeral, iridescent colors of ancient Roman glass and ancient combed decoration were revived, becoming central to the aesthetic of American art nouveau glass at the turn of this century. Persian pottery as well as ancient glass were important influences on art nouveau, and of the many stylistic associations to be found in Chihuly's Persian, the art nouveau connection may be the most surprising. Although some of the more obvious art historical parallels for certain of Chihuly's Persians forms are the lily-leaf pitchers and long-necked bottles typical of 17th- and 18th-century Persian glass production, parallels may also be seen in the orientalizing designs produced by Tiffany Studios at the turn of this century, or the Bohemian (Czechoslovakian) art nouveau glass made by the firm of Pallme-Kônig & Habel around 1900-1920. Certain Persian elements are also seen in post-World War II Venetian glass, specifically in the designs made by Swedish artist Tyra Lundgren for Venini Glass in 1948. Lundgren's series, called vetro fenicio, featured an asymmetrical, leaf-shaped lip and stripes of color, alternating with colorless bands, that imitated ancient and art-nouveau-style combed decoration. For Chihuly, the city of Venice has held a continuing fascination. His 1968 residency in Venice, at Venini Fabrica on the island of Murano, introduced him not only to historic Venetian glassblowing techniques but also to a spirit of team-working, a gracious style of living, and an opulent color aesthetic that would become an important influence on his own design philosophy. In the catalogue published in conjunction with the artist's solo exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum in 1992, the curator Patterson Sims noted in his essay, entitled Scuola di Chihuly: Venezia and Seattle, that Chihuly's love of exotic and extravagant color was positively "redolent of Venetian art." All the colors of Venice, from the luminous pinks of its incomparable twilight to the vivid, almost garish golds, reds, and bright stripes of its architectural exteriors and interiors are reflected in Chihuly's remarkably diverse palette. Subtle, intense, simple, complicated, dark, light: Chihuly's colors are his signature. Culturally and aesthetically, Venice can be appreciated as a product of the Persian, Byzantine Greek, and Muslim East, rather than the Latin West, with the basilica of San Marco as an outstanding example of the characteristically Venetian assimilation of classical, Byzantine, and Islamic cultures. When I look at Chihuly's Persians, I imagine all the influences of these great ancient civilizations as well as modern art movements, such as art nouveau. But perhaps more than anything else, I see the riotous color, contrasting textures, and exotic, Eastern cast of Venice as the spiritual source of the Persians, celebrating the mystery and romance of Venice as much as the distant, yet powerful, presence of Persia and Byzantium. Chihuly's Persians, with their expansive vocabulary of forms, multitude of colors, and varied scale, are particularly effective in large-scale contexts. "Ultimately, Dale's work reveals his understanding and continued respect for the vessel," observes James Carpenter, a New York-based artist and architectural designer who collaborated with Chihuly on some of his most experimental work in the early 1970s. However, Carpenter adds, Chihuly approaches the vessel form "not as a container, but as an incredible environment" Nowhere is this more true than in the Persian installations, where Chihuly plays with repetition and scale in his transformation of the hollow object from humble container to lavish environment. Beginning with the small and experimental pieces, Chihuly gradually pushed his Persians into larger, more sophisticated groupings of color and form. The scale of these elegant groupings, in turn, swelled to become room-size installations. The critic David Bourbon, writing for Art in America, has described the irrepressible Persian installations as flamboyant corsages, "commanding attention for both the sheer gorgeousness of their undulating forms and for the spectacular manner in which they spill into the room, [their] ornate edges all but alive with potential movement" The extraordinary vitality of the Persian installations is awe-inspiring, the pieces delicate and aggressive at the same time. The art historian Linda Norden recently touched on this contrast with her comment that the installations had taken on "an aspect of fecundity and self-proliferation which also may account for ... their slightly threatening aura." For Chihuly, each Persian grouping represents an environment, and no matter how big or small, these environments remain conceptually linked to each other through their relationship to the space they inhabit. Chihuly, asserts the curator Sarah Bremser, is "primarily an installation artist ... When he conceives of an artwork, he is thinking not merely about how objects will be placed but how he can deliver a cogent and successful architectural, aesthetic and experiential statement. As the artist himself says, 'I am as interested in the way my art works in a space as in the art itself.'" The genesis of the Persian environments is, in hindsight, a logical progression, illustrating Chihuly's love of change and his desire to push his materials. The first Persians installations were little more than groupings of objects removed from their pedestals and placed on shelves. Next came the wall pieces. The earliest examples, such as the 1988 installation at Chancellor Park in La Jolla, California, combined Persians shelf groupings with wall-mounted pieces placed above the shelf, extending the surface area of the glass. Over time, smaller vessels disappeared from the installations, and the groupings became larger and fuller, turning into a collage on the wall, as in the 1992 installation at Union Bank Center in Seattle, Washington. The Persians then became more site-specific with window collages such as the 16 by 16 foot commission for Little Caesars corporate world headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, in 1993. With the transition from the adornment of space to the interpretation of it, Chihuly's Persians no longer could be regarded as discrete objects but as an environment to be experienced. The Persians are most powerful when their color and form can envelope a space. "Dale's real forte is in sensing the value of an idea," remarks James Carpenter. "He has a very good interior sense of things so that, intuitively, in setting up an idea for a form, he develops an idea for its space as well. He has a sense of the way color changes an environment." From their enclosed wall and window environments, the Persians expanded to the floor for a 1991 installation in Kyoto, Japan - when Chihuly created a special enclosure by placing a collection of Persians beneath large glass plates. Liberated from their vitrines, they freely spread to windows and ceiling for the artists solo exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum in 1992. The first truly "environmental" Persians at SAM showed the window and ceiling installations to be ideal vehicles for the series. A 1994 window piece he created for Tacoma's Union Station was titled "Monarch Window", an association that aptly captures the sense of movement of the bewitching, butterflylike orange and yellow Persians flitting across their airy domain. However, it is in the ceiling installations, called Pergolas, that Chihuly has created an actual architecture for the Persians, an environment where they can be exploited to their fullest potential. Lit from above and viewed from below, each Persian detail appears crisp, each hue sharp. A sweeping area of striated color might have wedged beneath it a tiny, ancient form, while a collection of tumbled vessels can be individually explored in an intimate manner often impossible in the wall installations. In the Pergolas, environment becomes a complete sensory experience, enabling the viewer to gain access into a perfect, self-contained, other world, a garden of light, color, and line. Chihuly's dramatic installations, with their opulent combination of colors and textures, hint at the lavish spectacles and sumptuous pageants so adored by the Byzantines and the Venetians. A primary function of pageantry and ceremonial architecture is to move its participants from one, everyday world into another, marvelous or sublime, one. Western medieval architects effected the transformation of their sacred environments with acres of stained glass and soaring spires. For Muslim architects, the stalactitelike formations of muqarnas were the key to the metamorphosis of interior space. Breaking up the light and space on ceilings, domes, and in corners, muqarnas transformed secular space into a beautiful "dome of heaven." Through their dynamic light, color, and line, the Persian Pergolas, too, transform everyday space into a paradisaic environment of wonder. THE GARDEN OF HEAVEN AND THE PLEASURE DOME Reflecting on what is Persian about Chihuly's Persians, certain themes emerge, such as the historical and cultural references or the stylistic similarities with ancient, Islamic, and art nouveau glasses discussed earlier in this essay. There are other quintessential Persian ideas, however, that can be explored in the context of the Persians. These are the related concepts of the Persian garden and the Persian carpet. In Islam, the perfect world, or paradise, is represented by the garden, a place of marvel, wonder, and other physical and spiritual delights. While Chihuly's Persian installations may be linked conceptually with the idea of the Persian garden of paradise, the most direct, visual comparison for the installations may be the Persian carpet. Carpets are known to have been made in Persia at least since the time of the First Achaemenid ruler, Cyrus the Great. Legend has it that his tomb was covered with the precious textiles. The influence of textiles crops up repeatedly in Chihuly's work - who began his artistic career as a weaver - and is evident in series such as the Navajo Blanket Cylinders or his Baskets which enabled the artist to combine an "early interest in weaving with his passion for glassblowing." Of the many varieties of historic Persian carpets, the most meaningful for this discussion are the medallion-style and garden-style carpets, characterized by their many colors and patterns as well as by the juxtaposition of small and large (medallion) forms. Persian installations use a similarly broad but unified palette of color and pattern expressed through an arrangement of various-sized forms, simultaneously appearing ordered and scattered at random. More thematically related to Chihuly's work, perhaps, are the historic garden carpets. Inspired by the centuries-old Persian love of gardens and their cultivation, these carpets incorporate flowerbeds, paths, fountains, and pools in their designs. The most famous of the carpets was the royal Spring of Khosroe - set with precious stones and pearls - that is said to have adorned the throne room of the 3rd-century Sasanian palace at Ctesiphon, near Baghdad, where it symbolized a paradisaic garden perpetually in flower. Like the garden carpets, the Persian installations can represent perpetual gardens of paradise. While Persian gardens represented the landscape of paradise, it was the pavilions in those gardens, strewn with carpets and adorned with fountains, that represented the architecture of paradise. This important Islamic concept of a paradisaic architecture was also expressed in the plan of the mosque, where the outer courtyard and fountain referred to the garden of paradise, while the mosque itself symbolized the dome of heaven. The Persian installations, however, have an additional component: they may be appreciated in two and three dimensions, both as a patterned wall or ceiling "carpet" of color and form and as a three-dimensional "garden" environment, aspects that are especially successful in the Pergolas. In their aesthetic creation of a perfect, other environment outside of everyday experience, the Persian Pergolas become like the pleasure domes, creating not only a garden of paradise but an architecture of paradise as well, where earthly beauty reflects the perfection of the heavens above. Through Chihuly's evocation of wonder and his invocation of the marvelous - what the French surrealists called "la merveille" - he succeeds in creating a metaphorical portal to an other consciousness. Although the natural beauty of glass is easily exploited, the use of its transfomational properties is rarely attempted by artists who work in the medium. Chihuly is a master in the creation of transformational spaces through the construction of an impressive and persuasive mise-en-scene. The sources of his Persians are classical Greek, Persian, Byzantine, Islamic, Venetian, and art nouveau, together representing an incredibly fertile palimpsest of ideas and influences. Yet for Chihuly, the Persians are only one expression of the underlying, purely abstract and formal objective of his work: the exploration of form and the glass itself as a vehicle for color, and the orchestration of color to create transformational environments. The impetus, however, is the marvelous - la merveille - that other, magical world where the source of wonder and delight reside. - Inscription on a 14th-century Islamic mosque lamp in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. W.B. Honey, Glass, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1946, p.50. - Yvonne Brunhammer, Dale Chihuly Objets de Verre, Mus´e des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France, 1986, p.37. - Dale Chihuly, interview with Patterson Sims, December 12, 1995; and Dale Chihuly, interview with the author, May 9, 1996. Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent quotations by Dale Chihuly are taken from this interview. - Walter Darby Bannard in "Dale Chihuly," Chihuly: Form from Fire (with essays by Walter Darby Bannard and Henry Geldzahler), The Museum of Arts and Sciences, Daytona Beach, FL, in association with the University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1993, p.11. - For the early history of glass, see Sidney M. Goldstein, Pre-Roman and Early Roman Glass. The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, 1979; Donald B. Harden (ed.), Masterpieces of Glass. British Museum, London, 1968; Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd (eds.), The History of Glass (with a foreword by Robert Charleston), Orbis, London, 1984; and Marianne B. Stern, Early Ancient Glass, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, 1991. - William Arrowsmith (trans.), Petronius: The Satyricon, The New American Library, New York, 1959, p.58 (Book V, 50). - Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd, The History of Glass, p.19. - Dominique Collon, Ancient Near Eastern Art, British Museum, London, 1995, pp.177-187; and Ann Farkas, Achaemenid Sculpture, Netherlands Historish Archaeologish Institute in het Nabije Hosten, Istanbul, 1974, p.46. - Illustrations of these reliefs are found in Pierre Amiet, Ancient Near Eastern Art, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1977, pp.426-431 and 558-561. - Dominique Collon, Ancient Near Eastern Art, pp.188-210. - The Roman emperor Constantine exempted vitriarii (glassmakers) and diatretarii (glass decorators) from all public levies in 337, while one hundred years later the emperor Theodosius freed them from personal taxation as well. Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd, The History of Glass, p.53-54, 58. - Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd, The History of Glass, p.55. The famous beaker preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, called the Luck of Edenhall, may be one of these Crusader souvenirs and evidently was prized enough by its owner to have had a special leather traveling case made for it. W.B. Honey, Glass, p.47. - W.B. Honey, Glass, pp.46-47; and Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd, The History of Glass, pp.59, 66. - Dan Klein and Ward Lloyd, The History of Glass, p.62. - Ibid., p.63. British art historian W.B. Honey relates that some Damascan glass sprinklers ( a flask with a constricted neck opening) were historically described as "bombs," or grenade-like containers for "Greek Fire," although he did not believe such "elaborately- wrought vessels" would be used for such a purpose. W.B. Honey, Glass, p.47. - Ibid., p.49. - A Milanese traveler, visiting Jerusalem in 1480, noted in his journal that enameled glass "vases" from the Venetian island of Murano had been commissioned by officials in Damascus. Nearly a century later, Islamic-style Venetian glass was still in demand. Renaissance-period documents record that the Venetian ambassador at Constantinople, Marcantonio Barbaro, received an order for a number of Venetian mosque lamps made in the Islamic style. Ibid., pp.53-54; and Hugh Tait, The Golden Age of Venetian Glass, British Museum, London, 1979, p.12. - David Talbot Rice, Islamic Art, Thames & Hudson, London, 1965, p.137. - Michelangelo Muraro and Andre Grabar, Treasures of Venice (translated by James Emmons), Editions Skira, Geneva, 1963, p. 12. - Massimo Pallottino (ed.), The Horses of San Marco, Venice (translated by John and Valerie Wilton-Ely), Olvetti, Milan, 1979, p.49. - Michelangelo Muraro and Andre Grabar, Treasures of Venice, p.3. This proposition was made less than 20 years after Venetian Crusaders had participated in the sack of the Byzantine capital, which was finally rebuilt by the Byzantine Paleologue dynasty in 1261. - Hugh Tait, The Golden Age of Venetian Glass, p.12; and Attilia Dorigato, Murano Glass Museum (translated by Michael Langley), Electa, Milan, 1986, p.18. - W.B. Honey, Glass, p.37; Ada Plack, Glass: Its Tradition and Its Makers, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1975, p.31; and Donald B. Harden, Masterpieces of Glass, pp.130-131. - Guido Perocco (ed.) The Treasury of San Marco, Venice, Olivetti, Milan, 1984, p.13. - Michelangelo Muraro and Andre Grabar, Treasures of Venice, p.26. - Ibid., pp.10, 26. - Guido Perocco (ed.) The Treasury of San Marco, Venice p.26. - Ibid., pp.129, 134, 49. - Henry Geldzahler, "Dale Chihuly," Chihuly: Form from Fire, p.13. - Ibid., Holland Cotter, quoted, p.73. - For example, see Mario Quesada (ed.), L'arte del vetro, Marsilio, Venice 1992, pp.116,118,146 (in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf, Germany). - See Franco Deboni, I vetri Venini (with an introduction by Dan Klein), Archivi di Arti decorative, Umberto Allemandi & Co., Turin, 1989, catalogue no. 90. - Patterson Sims, Dale Chihuly: Installations 1964-1992, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, 1992, p.14. - James Carpenter quoted in Linda Norden, Chihuly: Baskets, Portland Press, Seattle, 1994, p.21. - David Bourbon quoted in Patterson Sims, Dale Chihuly: Installations 1964-1992, p.62. - Linda Norden, Chihuly: Baskets, p.25. - Tsai-Lang Huang, Chihuly: Glass in Architecture, p.8. - James Carpenter quoted in Linda Norden, Chihuly: Baskets, p.22. - Karen Chambers in "Dale Chihuly," Chihuly: Form from Fire, p.17; and Michael Monroe in Dale Chihuly, Color, Glass and Form, p.36. - Friedrich Spuhler, Islamic Carpets and Textiles in the Keir Collection (translated and with an introduction by George Wingfield Digby), Faber & Faber, London, 1978, pp.100-113. - Ibid., p.134. Published in Chihuly Persians, Portland Press, 1997 Also by Tina Oldknow: Chihuly Over Venice: Dale Chihuly's Shining Legacy, 1996 Dale Chihuly: A Selective Biography, Glass Art Society Journal, 2003

<urn:uuid:aa2724be-d3cb-4ee0-9cfa-8c1001587bfb>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.chihuly.com/an-ancient-legacy_detail.aspx

2013-05-24T23:19:07Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

- Cigna Medicare - Individual & Family Plans - International Plans - Offered Cigna Through Work? - Find a Doctor - Informed on Reform - Health and Wellness » - Cigna Home Delivery Pharmacy Amniocentesis is a test to look at the fluid (amniotic fluid) that surrounds your baby (fetus). Amniotic fluid has cells and other substances that can give clues about the health of your fetus. Amniocentesis is done by gently putting a needle through your belly into your uterus. About 2 Tbsp (30 mL) of the amniotic fluid is taken out and looked at. Amniocentesis is generally done between weeks 15 and 20 (usually around week 16) to look at genetic information. It can also be used later in pregnancy to see how the fetus is doing. Amniocentesis for birth defects testing Amniocentesis is often done around week 16 to see whether a fetus has certain types of birth defects. Amniocentesis can also tell the sex of your fetus. Amniotic fluid has cells that have been shed by your developing fetus. The cells are checked for the number and size of chromosomes (karyotype) to see if there are any problems that put the baby at risk for certain conditions. Testing is most commonly done as early as possible so that women and their families have time to consider their options. But amniocentesis cannot find many common birth defects, such as cleft lip, cleft palate, heart problems, and some types of intellectual disability. Amniocentesis in late pregnancy If you are at risk of having your baby early, amniocentesis may be done during the third trimester to see whether your baby's lungs are developed. Your developing fetus makes substances that can be found and measured in amniotic fluid. The amounts of these substances show how mature the lungs are and if your baby will be able to breathe without help if delivered early. Amniocentesis may also be done later in pregnancy if an infection of the amniotic fluid (chorioamnionitis) is suspected. Health Tools help you make wise health decisions or take action to improve your health. |Decision Points focus on key medical care decisions that are important to many health problems.| |Pregnancy: Should I Have Amniocentesis?| Why It Is Done Amniocentesis may be done during your second trimester of pregnancy to find certain birth defects. You may choose to have this test because: - Of your age. As you get older, you have a greater chance of having a baby with a birth defect. Many doctors use 35 and older as the age for higher risk. - You want to know for sure if your baby has a certain health problem. This may help you decide early whether you want to continue your pregnancy or make plans to care for a sick child. - You or the baby's father carries an abnormal gene that is known to cause a disease, such as Tay-Sachs disease, sickle cell anemia, or cystic fibrosis. - You or the baby's father has a family history of a genetic disorder or birth defect. - Screening tests suggest that your chance of having a baby with a genetic disorder or birth defect is higher than average. Amniocentesis can tell the gender of your fetus. This is important when you or the father may be able to pass on a disease that occurs mainly in one gender (sex-linked), such as hemophilia or Duchenne muscular dystrophy, both of which occur mainly in males. Amniocentesis may be done during your third trimester to: - See if your fetus's lungs are mature. This may be done when you may need to deliver early because of a problem with the pregnancy. - See whether the amniotic fluid is infected (chorioamnionitis). How To Prepare You will be asked to empty your bladder just before the test. You will need to sign a consent form that says you understand the risks of the test and agree to have it done. Talk to your doctor about any concerns you have about the need for the test, its risks, how it will be done, or what the results will mean. To help you understand the importance of this test, fill out the medical test information form(What is a PDF document?). How It Is Done Amniocentesis is done by your obstetrician in his or her office or in the hospital. An overnight stay in the hospital usually is not needed unless problems occur during the test. You will be asked to expose your belly. You will then lie on your back with it slightly raised to relax your belly muscles. Your lower belly will be cleaned with a special soap. Your doctor checks the position of your fetus and the placenta with a fetal ultrasound. Ultrasound uses sound waves to make a picture of the uterus, your fetus, and the placenta on a TV screen. Your fetus's heart rate can also be watched during the test using ultrasound. For more information, see the topic Fetal Ultrasound. With the ultrasound picture as a guide, your doctor gently puts a thin needle through your belly and into your uterus without hurting your fetus or the placenta. If your fetus moves too close to the needle, the needle will be taken out and your doctor will try again in another spot. About 2 Tbsp (30 mL) of amniotic fluid is taken out in a syringe attached to the needle, and then the needle is taken out. The site is covered with a bandage. The whole test takes about 15 minutes. The thin needle is only in your belly for 1 to 2 minutes. Your fetus's heart rate and your blood pressure, pulse, and breathing will be checked before, during, and after the test. How It Feels You will feel a sharp sting or burn in your belly where the needle is inserted. This lasts for only a few seconds. When the needle is put into your uterus, you again will feel a sharp cramp for a few seconds. When the amniotic fluid is taken out, you may get a feeling of pulling or pressure in your belly. To keep yourself comfortable, breathe slowly and relax your belly muscles during the test. Amniocentesis is generally very safe. There is a chance (about 1 out of 400) that this test may cause a miscarriage.1 In some studies, the risk is a little higher, about 2 to 4 out of 400.2 There is also a risk of too much bleeding (hemorrhage), infection of the amniotic fluid (amnionitis), or leakage of amniotic fluid. In very rare cases, a fetus may be poked by the needle during the test. Your doctor does all he or she can to put the needle in a safe spot. Most fetuses float away from the needle tip. Amniocentesis has a very small risk of causing bleeding that could lead to mixing your blood and your fetus's blood. So if you have Rh-negative blood, you will be given the Rh immunoglobulin vaccine (such as RhoGAM) to prevent Rh sensitization, which could harm your fetus if he or she has Rh-positive blood. After the test After the test, you may have some mild cramping. You should not do any strenuous activity for several hours after the test. Also, do not douche, use tampons, or have sex after the test. By the next day, you can do your normal activities, unless your doctor tells you not to. Call your doctor right away if: - You have moderate or severe belly pain or cramping. - You develop a fever. - You become dizzy. - Fluid or blood leaks from your vagina or from the needle site. - Redness or swelling develops at the needle site. Normal amniotic fluid is clear to light yellow in color and does not contain any harmful bacteria. The cells can be tested for problems. - Cells from your fetus are looked at carefully for the proper number and arrangement of the cell parts (chromosomes) that show genetic disease. Normally there are 46 chromosomes in each cell, arranged in 23 pairs. Chromosomes also tell the gender of your fetus. - The amounts of some substances in the amniotic fluid may be measured. These results can find some birth defects, genetic diseases, and the maturity of your fetus. What Affects the Test Reasons you may not be able to have the test or why the results may not be helpful include: - If there is blood from your fetus in the amniotic fluid. This can falsely increase the level of the substances alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) levels, which test for neural tube defects. - If the amniotic fluid is exposed to light. This can falsely lower bilirubin levels. - If there is blood or meconium in the fluid. This may cause an incorrect result for the test that checks to see whether your baby's (fetus's) lungs are mature. What To Think About - Normal results from amniocentesis do not guarantee that your fetus will be healthy. - Amniocentesis can be done to help you prepare if your fetus has a possible birth defect or to help you make a decision about ending the pregnancy if a serious problem is found. - In very rare cases, amniocentesis may be done before 15 weeks of pregnancy. This is rare, because there may be greater risks to your fetus. Talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of early amniocentesis. - Amniocentesis can't be done easily if the amount of amniotic fluid is very small or if the placenta is in front of your fetus. - Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) is another test that can find many fetal problems. CVS can be done earlier in pregnancy than amniocentesis, and results are ready sooner. For more information, see the topic Chorionic Villus Sampling (CVS). - Amniocentesis has a very small chance of causing bleeding that could lead to mixing your blood and your fetus's. So if you have Rh-negative blood, you will be given a vaccine (RhoGAM) to prevent Rh sensitization, which could harm your fetus if he or she has Rh-positive blood. - Amniotic fluid has cells that have been shed by your developing fetus. The cells are checked for the number and size of chromosomes (karyotype) to see if there are any problems. For more information, see the topic Karyotype Test. - If you have abnormal results from amniocentesis, you should ask your doctor or a genetic counselor for help in making decisions about the problems your fetus may have and about continuing the pregnancy. It will also be helpful to understand your possible risks with future pregnancies. Other Works Consulted American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (2007, reaffirmed 2009). Invasive prenatal testing for aneuploidy. ACOG Practice Bulletin No. 88. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 110(6): 1459–1467. Wapner RJ, et al. (2009). Prenatal diagnosis of congenital disorders. In RK Creasy et al., eds., Creasy and Resnik's Maternal-Fetal Medicine: Principles and Practice, 6th ed., pp. 221–274. Philadelphia: Saunders Elsevier. |Primary Medical Reviewer||Sarah Marshall, MD - Family Medicine| |Specialist Medical Reviewer||Siobhan M. Dolan, MD, MPH - Reproductive Genetics| |Last Revised||April 4, 2012| |By:||Healthwise Staff||Last Revised: April 4, 2012| |Medical Review:||Sarah Marshall, MD - Family Medicine| Siobhan M. Dolan, MD, MPH - Reproductive Genetics © 1995-, Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.

<urn:uuid:27033501-fccf-4888-b346-55cd08a8e7d3>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.cigna.com/individualandfamilies/health-and-well-being/hw/medical-tests/amniocentesis-hw1810.html

2013-05-24T23:19:38Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Experiments with magnetic levitation Floating Paper Clips Tying a paper clip to a thread and holding it away from a magnet, as shown in the photo, is a way to use magnetism to levitate an object. Of course, the object needs to be held back. Try "twanging" the thread to see how much force the magnet is pulling the clip with. Does this vary as you allow the clip to get closer to the magnet? This is a way to compare the strengths of magnets you may have around the house: Another experiment would be to see how many paper clips can be hung end-to-end from the magnet. Does it make a difference if there were a ball bearing on the bottom of the magnet and you hung the paperclips to the ball bearing?

<urn:uuid:50c7941c-9161-44bb-a942-659f38d45f8b>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.coolmagnetman.com/magclips.htm

2013-05-24T23:28:03Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Pieter (Petrus) van Musschenbroek (1692-1761) Musschenbroek was born on 14 March 1692 in Leiden, Netherlands, into a family of instrument makers. At the time of Petrus' (Pieter's) birth the family was turning to the making of scientific instruments (air pumps, microscopes, and telescopes) which may explain in part his interest in science. He studied at the University of Leyden (Leiden) and received his degree in medicine in 1715 and later his doctor of philosophy degree in natural philosophy (physics). He then visited England in 1717 and met Isaac Newton. Upon returning to the Netherlands, he became a professor of natural philosophy and mathematics at the University of Duesberg (Duisburg) in 1719. He also introduced Newton's ideas to the Netherlands. He held professorships (from 1721) at the Universities of Duesberg, Utrecht, and Leyden (Leyden from 1740 to 1761). He left the University of Utrecht for the University of Leyden and taught natural philosophy (physics). He provided the first approach to scientific study of electrical charge and its properties. In 1729, he used the word "physics" which had never been used before. In their attempts of November 1745 to produce sparks and flashes by friction that Gilbert, von Guericke, Hauksbee, and Dufay had previously done experimentally, professors Petrus (Pieter) Musschenbroek and Jean Allamand of the University of Leyden and friend Cunaeus experimented with a glass jar connected to an friction electrical machine. Musschenbroek had suspected that a nonconductor vessel (glass) would be helpful to them so on this occasion in January 1746 he partly filled a bottle with water. He knew that water was a conductor of electricity. Musschenbroek, while holding the jar with his right hand and a piece of wire with his left hand had one of his assistants connect it to the friction electrical machine, and then turn its glass globe, but nothing occurred until Cuneus placed one end of the wire into the water while Musschenbroek, grounded, was still holding the wire. A violent shock was felt which Musschenbroek described. The jar device had accumulated the electricity produced by the static machine and then all at once it discharged to Musschenbroek. Musschenbroek was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1734, and member of the French Academy of Sciences in the same year. Musschenbroek authored: - Physicae experimentales et geometricae dissertationes in 1729 - Elementa physicae in 1734 - Introductio ad philosophiam naturalem in 1762 The credit for creation of the Leyden jar has varied. Some writers give credit to Ewald Jurgen von Kleist, a German, while others claim that van Musschenbroek, a Dutch physicist, was the real inventor. A few authors give credit to both personalities as well as to others. If dates could settle this issue (4 Nov 1745 vs. Jan 1746, respectively) then von Kleist would be the inventor, and van Musschenbroek would be the first to develop a working model of the first electrical storage devise. These men, working independently, discovered that electricity produced by an electrostatic machine could be accumulated. Both men were horrified and surprised when their newly created device discharged stunning them with a strong electrical shock.

<urn:uuid:4cf2e297-6374-450b-b843-ea6eebea7787>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.corrosion-doctors.org/Biographies/MusschenbroekBio.htm

2013-05-24T23:40:01Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

The historic district is also significant as the center of Washington's African American community between c.1900 and 1948. While always racially and socio-economically diverse, the area was predominately white and middle class until the turn of the century. As Washington became increasingly segregated, the neighborhood emerged as a "city within a city" for Washington's African American residents. U Street became the city's most important concentration of businesses, entertainment facilities, and fraternal and religious institutions owned and operated by African Americans, while the surrounding neighborhood became home to many of the city's leading African American citizens. This second phase of development is most tangibly evident along U Street, and its immediately adjacent blocks where buildings of significant stature and architectural expression were built by and for the African American community. While the area remained an important commercial and cultural center for the African American community through the 1960s, the neighborhood began to change in character after racially restrictive real estate covenants were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, thus allowing African Americans access to housing throughout the area. Today, the Greater U Street neighborhood is defined by a variety of architectural styles and building types ranging from the 19th-century residential and commercial architecture to the early- to mid-20th-century African American fraternities/societies, theaters, and jazz clubs for which the area gained international acclaim. Between the commercial transportation corridors, the streetscapes are defined by rows of 19th-century dwellings punctuated by churches, corner stores, and schools. There are 12 individually notable landmarks within the historic district which are listed below. The Evans-Tibbs House NR is located at 1910 Vermont Avenue and was the home of Lillian Evans Tibbs, known as Madame Evanti, the first internationally acclaimed African American opera star. It was designed by R.E. Crump and built in 1894. The Lincoln Theatre NR, located at 1215 U Street, was constructed as a first-run house for an African American clientele. Built in 1921, it is a significant collaboration between noted theater designer Reginald Geare and Harry M. Crandall, a leading Washington theater operator. The Prince Hall Masonic Temple NR at 1000 U Street was the home of the first African American Masonic Order in the south. The Neoclassical building was designed by prominent African American architect Albert I. Cassell, and built in 1922-30. The Lincoln Congregational Temple United Church of Christ NR is located at 1701 11th Street. It is an unusual example of Italian Romanesque Revival architecture designed in 1928 by Howard Wright Cutler. It is the home of an influential congregation. The Anthony Bowen YMCA (12th Street Branch) NHL can be found at 1816 12th Street. It is the home of the nation's first African American chapter of the YMCA, and founded by former slave Anthony Bowen in 1853. The present building dates from 1908-1912 and was a major commission of W. Sidney Pittman, one of the nation's first African American architects. The Howard Theater NR at 620 T Street was built in 1910 and designed by J. Edward Storck. It was the city's first legitimate theater for African American audiences and entertainers. The Whitelaw Hotel NR at 1839 13th Street is an apartment hotel, which long served as a unique meeting place and public accommodations for notable African Americans during the era of segregation. It was the work of Isaiah T. Hatton, locally trained as an African American architect, and built in 1919. The Mary Ann Shad Carey House NHL, the home of the first African American female journalist is located at 1421 W Street. After the Civil War, she became the nation's first African American female lawyer. The house was built c.1890. The Manhattan Laundry NR is located at 1326-46 Florida Avenue. It is a complex of vernacular and architect-designed commercial buildings representing more than 50 years of commercial growth. The Greater 14th Street Historic District is roughly bounded by Florida Ave., NW; 12th St., NW; and S and 16th Sts., NW. Unless otherwise noted above all buildings are private and not open to the public. Metro stop: U Street-Cardozo

<urn:uuid:53d646f0-5fd4-44ba-b25a-f2d3f63ddfc4>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/Wash/dc63.htm

2013-05-24T23:40:52Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

- Enter a word for the dictionary definition. From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48: King's Bench \King's Bench\n. (Law) Formerly, the highest court of common law in England; -- so called because the king used to sit there in person. It consisted of a chief justice and four puisne, or junior, justices. During the reign of a queen it was called the Queen's Bench. Its jurisdiction was transferred by the judicature acts of 1873 and 1875 to the high court of justice created by that legislation. [1913 Webster]

<urn:uuid:4a37f8b8-63a6-463d-8f2c-7d9b2a83902c>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.crosswordpuzzlehelp.net/old/dictionary.php?q=King's%20Bench

2013-05-24T23:47:46Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Exceptional Children: Navigating Learning Disabilities and Special Education Navigating Learning Disabilities and Special Education By Ellen Notbohm ART-ful Teaching for Different Learners Art can be a wonderful, expressive medium for all children, but for those who have language, emotional, or neurological challenges, art activities can be especially meaningful. Art can open the lines of communication for children with limited verbal skills and provide opportunities for tactile development, visual organization, fine motor control, and hand-eye coordination. Producing a vibrant, tangible product fosters their self-esteem. And, many children who experience cognitive, emotional, or other learning challenges are highly gifted artistically and even go on to make a living doing so. Teachers and parents can encourage children to explore their art potential in many ways. These creative ideas come from art therapists and paraeducators: Don't assume that a child has any prior experience with art. Some children may relate only to realistic, photographic images and need instruction in working with illustration and abstract images. Begin introducing your child or student to drawing by taping a clear laminate piece over a photograph and having her trace it, using a felt pen that wipes off easily. This helps her learn about edges, shapes, and concrete objects, and she can be successful with the finished tracing. Joint drawings can encourage a child to add detail they might not think of on their own. The adult can start the drawing--say, a house--then the child and adult can take turns adding details like windows, doors, grass, flowers, a weathervane, chimney, birds, mailbox, clouds, or a bike in the driveway. Let it go on as long as the child maintains interest. Then come back to it another day and add yet more details. Pair verbal language with each detail as it's drawn; practice spelling, pronouns, or imagination. The educational options are endless. Provide a model to help the child draw something specific. "When a fabric mural was being created with an artist-in-residence, my student was to choose an animal to depict," says art therapist/paraeducator Lucy Courtney. "He had a picture of the real animal he chose but still his drawing was not a recognizable ant. Then I drew the ant as he watched. I left him alone and he drew an ant that looked very much like mine--a believable ant." Step-by-step drawing is also helpful. This can be a whole class activity with a teacher leading. Offer different mediums. One child may like the control and pressure needed to use colored pencils. Another child may prefer the ease of felt pens--instant color without needing to use pressure. Some may enjoy chalk drawing, particularly if you paint an untextured wall with chalkboard/blackboard paint and provide chalk sticks of varying widths and colors. Crayons may be more difficult; it is harder to control the edges, and pressure is needed to get good color. Paint is even harder to control, and can be messy. Art projects have to be achievable and make sense to the child. Otherwise, the task may get done but with an obvious disconnection, ergo no benefit. Art can segue into writing. Daily journal writing was painstaking for one little second-grade boy. Each day he would draw a train car with the single sentence, "My train is good." When pressed to write a second sentence, he would add something generic like, "It is cool." Courtney noticed that while the writing was static, the drawings were taking on ever more detail: cars became either boxcars or flat cars with added features on the wheels, more cars were added to the train, and people began appearing in them. The drawings continued to progress, even as the writing stayed stagnant--until the following year, when the floodgates opened and the child began writing a screenplay! Art can open the door to communication for children who are nonverbal or otherwise cannot express their feelings. In one heartbreaking example, a paraeducator worked on a clay project for weeks with a nonverbal child. The school suspected the father of child abuse, but couldn't prove anything. Week after week the child worked soundlessly away on a sculpture of a dark, gaunt figure. One day, the silence broke. He noticed another child watching him and said, "My mom is mean to me." Art can provide a visual medium for story creation. Children can be encouraged to create characters and several drawings depicting their characters in various situations. Concepts like sequencing and predicting can be taught using these visual representations. Author and columnist Ellen Notbohm is a three-time ForeWord Book of the Year finalist, and a contributor to numerous publications and websites around the world. To contact Ellen or explore her work, visit www.ellennotbohm.com. Subscribe to Children's Voice Magazine Return to Table of Contents for this issue. Back to Top Printer-friendly Page Read selected articles from previous issues of Children's Voice

<urn:uuid:ba8a7d9f-1b88-4725-83f8-828437567bef>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.cwla.org/voice/0811exceptional.htm

2013-05-24T23:20:08Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

High-tech exploration reveals mysteries of art history UCSD ‘sleuth’ solves preservation puzzles Surrounded by centuries-old paintings, art diagnostician Maurizio Seracini goes to work in the cool vault of the San Diego Museum of Art. “That’s our patient,” Seracini said, pointing to a small 1468 painting by Italian Carlo Crivelli. In a white lab coat, Seracini, who directs the Center for Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archeology at UCSD, looks every part the doctor as he assesses the health of the 540-year-old masterpiece. But instead of a stethoscope, the biological and electronic engineer who graduated from UCSD uses multi-spectral imaging, high-resolution photographs taken at different light wavelengths, which allow him to see much more than what meets the eye. Not what you see Ultraviolet and infrared light penetrates the surface pigments to reveal what lies beneath, such as an ink or charcoal sketch the artist made before putting brush to canvas. “What you see is not always what you get,” said Seracini. “Science provides more in-depth understanding of a work of art.” Mounted on a mechanical arm controlled by a computer, the digital camera captures hundreds of images at precise increments. Seracini also uses microscopes and X-ray to enlarge and expose other details. The massive amounts of data are compiled into an integrated computerized mosaic of the painting, what Seracini calls a digital clinical chart. This chart provides a comprehensive assessment of the painting, from how it was created to its current condition. It tells art historians and preservationists what has happened to it over the years, such as any changes, damages or repairs. While such in-depth analysis of great masterworks is nothing new, Seracini is pioneering the clinical chart methodology. Currently, most preservation work is subjective and piecemeal, Seracini said. Pieces are analyzed when selected for preservation, not the other way around. Seracini likens this to going into surgery without diagnosing the problem. He said he is hoping museums will adopt a more objective process of analyzing their entire collections to better guide conservation efforts. Seracini has advocated such practices as “necessary and indispensable” for decades, but ran into great resistance in the art world – until he teamed up with the San Diego Museum of Art last year. Applied at home Director Derrick Cartwright enthusiastically welcomed him to develop prototype tools analyzing a handful of their prized Italian masterworks, including Giorgione, Fra Angelico and Cosme Tura. “We are going to learn so much about paintings that have been here for decades that we never knew before,” Cartwright said. A few mysteries may be solved. The Giorgione portrait was painted sometime in 1500, but the last two numbers of the date are illegible. Blown-up photographs may help bring those numbers into focus. Light penetrates different types of paint at varying wavelengths, which can help non-invasively identify the pigment’s components. Knowing this could tell art historians if the Crivelli was painted in Venice or the Marches, based on the materials available in different regions. “Such bits of information seem insignificant,” said John Marciari, the museum’s curator of Spanish and Italian paintings, “but over time can be the basis for a whole new body of knowledge of Renaissance art and how it was made.” The nitty-gritty details are not just exciting for the scholarly historians. Applying the technology younger generations use in their everyday lives to art can create a more engaging museum experience. “With old master works of art, it’s not easy to know what to look for,” Marciari said. “Technology can help a new audience, who didn’t grow up learning about Renaissance art, see things that are really interesting in these pictures.” Seracini’s work is supported by the Center for Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archeology. A 1973 graduate of UCSD in bioengineering, the Italian is renowned for his 30-plus-year hunt for Leonardo de Vinci’s “Battle of Anghiari.” He splits his time between San Diego and Florence, where he continues his high-tech search for the fresco, which he believes is hidden in its original location, behind a wall in the Palazzo Vecchio. In his career, Seracini has analyzed thousands of paintings – “I stopped counting after 2,600″ – but each new patient with its unique discoveries to unearth excites him. “Every single time you are trying to connect with that artist, capture the secrets of his creativity,” Seracini said. “It’s very challenging, especially, after centuries and centuries.” - Shark week reveals truth about most misunderstood fish - Self-taught Del Mar songwriter reveals personal beliefs in lyrics - Still lifes hold a humorous touch - Cedros gallery owner captures aquatic life - Art Listings Short URL: http://www.delmartimes.net/?p=4188

<urn:uuid:041082d8-c5fd-4f63-ba21-7f8fc2c5dfa5>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.delmartimes.net/2008/09/18/high-tech-exploration-reveals-mysteries-of-art-history/

2013-05-24T23:42:02Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

|Which Gets Hotter, Land or Water?| This activity illustrates how dark land surfaces, light land surfaces and water all heat at different rates. Students determine whether land or water absorbs heat more quickly and how this difference affects weather and climate. Intended for grade levels: Type of resource: Adobe Acrobat reader Cost / Copyright: Copyright and Other Restrictions is Unknown DLESE Catalog ID: DLESE-000-000-004-574 This resource is referenced by 'The Geological Society of America: Resources for K-12 Earth Science Educators' Resource contact / Creator / Publisher: Author: Ms Christine V McLelland Geological Society of America

<urn:uuid:81fb9e5d-cc4f-46f9-bad5-d4225fd3364d>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.dlese.org/library/catalog_DLESE-000-000-004-574.htm

2013-05-24T23:19:47Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

The drawback of teaching this type of dog is that it may make assumptions that it understands what you are trying to teach it (ie the dog misunderstands what it is being rewarded for) and the dog becomes frustrated when the handler cannot work out how to change the behaviour that it is offering. This frustration builds up the dog's stress levels so that it finds it difficult to think clearly and concentrate - both incompatible when animals or humans are trying to learn something new. Another drawback for this group is that because these dogs seem to learn so quickly it is very tempting for the handler and trainer to rush through the different training elements. However, by rushing the initial training the dog does not build up a firm foundation and understanding of what it has been taught. It soon starts to go wrong (for no apparent reason) when attempting the exercise - often in a competition environment or when distracted. This frustrates the handler as the dog seemed to fully understand what it was supposed to do as it sped through the training, and now the dog seems bewildered and confused about what it thought it should be doing and what the handler wants it to do. Therefore, when training Group A type dogs the training steps of an exercise must be quick but thorough. Introduce generalisation as often as you can with each step so that you can test the dog's understanding of what it is being taught while still making the training interesting by varying the location, position and motivators you give it. GROUP B- This dog seems self reliant and introverted (see Lodgers). It has learnt to cope with living in human society but has very little understanding of what humans are trying to communicate to it. Instead, it learns from observing human behaviour, and other triggers around it, how to gain Life Rewards such as - - Owner puts their coat on and picks up the dog's lead, so dog runs to human for lead to be put on. - Car arrives at a location where the dog remembers it has been exercised before. The dog barks with excitement and impatience, wanting to run free and burn off some of its energy - it assumes that the barking is the correct behaviour to be allowed out of the car as the consequence of barking is the walk afterwards. - Walks mean the freedom to chase other dogs, animals, joggers, bikes, and cars etc. - It smells all the scents left by other dogs, animals and humans etc - Fed scraps at the table when humans are eating - Stealing food left out in the kitchen - Coming into the house when it hears the sound of the food being put in its bowl - Scavenging food while out on walks - Owner sits down so dog can lie on their foot, lap or beside them - Owner leaves the room so dog can lie on furniture, bed etc - If the owner leaves the dog behind in the house and it barks/whines/howls/rips up its environment, the humans will always return (and the owner will "bark" at the dogs!) These dogs see no reason or motivation to do something for their owners - they have all the life rewards they need and see little point in interacting with the humans or playing with any toys. They switch off and ignore human speech as it has little relevance for them - some dog owners speak so much to their dog that it is unable to differentiate between inane human chatter and a specific word or command that it is supposed to obey. Group B's humans often have not been consistent in how they used their commands and training (particularly when to use the dog's name and for what reasons, and whether it is rewarding for the dog to return to the human when it hears the word "come"), or show such stress and emotion when they speak that the dog is confused whether it is being told off or praised (see dogs dictionary). Because of this, great thought and planning must be given in choosing the dog's motivator before starting to train it. The training motivator needs to be a life reward of high enough value that the dog will choose to work for it - see those listed above. Plan to do training just before the dog is allowed a life reward and it will associate the training with something it likes and enjoys. Try not to allow the dog this motivator at any other time unless it has correctly done at least one of the current steps of its training programme. For instance in Bounce - Starters, when the dog is being taught how to jump a hurdle; before the dog is taken for a walk, the handler should put the dog in a room so that it cannot see or hear the preparations they are about to make. The handler should then set the hurdle up in their back garden, put their walking shoes, coat etc in the car (as these are strong triggers to the dog that it is going to be taken on a walk) and leave the car door unlocked so that it can be opened quickly later on. The dog is brought out to the hurdle on the harness and lead and encouraged to jump the obstacle. As soon as the dog jumps over it the handler needs to show their happiness and pleasure (plenty of smiles and happy voice) and immediately take it to the waiting car and drive to the location where the dog is walked. If this routine is done before the commencement of EVERY walk the dog will soon associate the sight and movement of jumping as a very happy and pleasant experience and will actively look for and jump any hurdles, hoping to be given another life reward. Group B dogs may also benefit from being trained with a clicker, as its sound has no previous associations with either human voices or previous attempts at training etc. Clicker training is very popular to these type of dogs as the treat it is given after hearing the click can be thrown on the floor for the dog to hunt with its nose and scavenge for - life rewards that it already appreciates. Please do not attempt to train your dog with a clicker unless an experienced dog trainer has taught you, or you have read suitable books and watched good videos on the subject. CLICKERS SHOULD NEVER BE USED TO ATTRACT A DOG'S ATTENTION - THE SOUND IS USED TO PINPOINT THE BEHAVIOUR THAT THE DOG WILL BE REWARDED FOR GROUP C - Another aspect of dog training is the dog's ability to think while it is moving. Some dogs seem to switch off most of their thought processes when they stand still, yet are highly intelligent and responsive when moving with or around the handler or trainer (particularly some of the sight hounds). These dogs need to learn on the move - literally - so that all the training is done with plenty of variety of location and direction. For instance, in Round - Starters the handler needs to walk slightly towards the traffic cone so that the dog is moving as well. This movement stimulates the dog's thought processes and it is more eager to go towards the target area. These dogs work best for moving motivators - it keeps their minds ticking over, yet the playing with the motivator must not be too stimulating otherwise the dog will not want to do the exercise beforehand. Raggits, balls on ropes, and chasing treat containers are all good motivators for these dogs, compared to hunting for treats on the ground, being given treats from the hand etc.GROUP D - These dogs are the opposite of Group C dogs. They become over excited and stressed when they are moving and need to learn the exercises in quiet low key training sessions, with very little movement of either handler or dog, until the dog has built up confidence about what it is supposed to do. It is very tempting to over face these dogs by asking them to learn too quickly, however, they would become too confused at the changing training steps it had to do in a session. Ideal motivators for these dogs would be the opposite ones to those in Group C - hunting for treats at the handler's feet, treat containers just dropped on the ground waiting for the handler to open them, treats in the hand, quiet games of catch the toy rather than chase it etc. As was stated at the beginning of this section, the above groups are not a definitive list of types of dogs and most dogs fall in to one or more of these groups, depending on the type of training it is doing and the motivator it is using. However, by reading this section it should help you to understand your dog a little better. The Material contained herein may not be reproduced without the prior written approval of Dog Games Ltd. © 2000-2005 All Rights Reserved.

<urn:uuid:7f832d8a-885b-4f46-aeb9-344cc09f68dd>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.dog-games.co.uk/differentwaysoflearning.htm

2013-05-24T23:12:31Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

We have all heard the horrific news by now. At 9:40 this morning, a masked gunman named Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook elementary school and fired a gun around 100 times. He killed 26 people, 6 adults and 20 children under the age of 8 before killing himself. Since then it’s been hard to concentrate on anything else but this story. As a parent of young children, it’s the unimaginable. You send your children off to school hoping that they will be happy but knowing that they will be safe. Typical worries of a friend not being so friendly or a teacher giving a bad grade may cross our minds. But not this. There is no making sense of this tragedy but we do need to be ready for questions. What do we do for and say to our children about this senseless shooting? (1) Limit media exposure: Conversation and information about this tragedy should come from you, not the TV. You know your children best and can limit details as necessary. Information on the news is for you and is not age-appropriate for a child. (2) Underscore safety: Ensure your children that the authorities and people in charge at their schools are doing everything possible to keep everyone safe. Help them to understand that a school shooting in one location does not mean that there will be another one in a different location. These incidents are thankfully very rare and your children and their friends are not at risk because this has happened. In this case, as the gunman is also dead, there is a finality to this devastating rampage. (3) Remain calm and levelheaded: While it is natural to be upset and infuriated about the shooting, it’s important that we don’t overwhelm children with our emotions. They need to know that we are strong and reliable if they have questions—and that we are there for them if they need to talk. If YOU need to talk about it, call a friend or speak to a loved one. (4) Expect some unusual behavior or feelings: Sometimes news of this sort can make the children act in different ways. Some will become withdrawn and quiet while others may become hyper or clingy. Ask them how they are feeling and if they would like to talk. Assure your child that they are OK and give them space to feel anyway that they do—validating their feelings as normal and natural. Help them to expend nervous energy in productive ways without pushing them. (5) Discuss fears: Whether you sit with them and have a conversation or use art, role playing or dolls, allow children to express their fears. What will help them feel safer and more secure? Fears are nothing to be embarrassed about– today or any day. Sometimes just listening and being their can assuage their fears. (6) Do not dismiss or avoid: It’s a tough topic. But if your children are asking about it, talk to them in an age-appropriate way. You don’t need to go into details and if you don’t know an answer, just say you don’t know! Assure them each time that they are OK and the people in charge are working hard to keep everyone safe. Remember, if you aren’t talking about it and they want to hear an answer, they will go to another source. YOU need to be the source. (7) Hug them tight: Nothing says safety and security like being tucked into your parents’ arms. Tell them that you love them and that you and everyone who loves and cares for them are doing everything you can to ensure their safety. The hug, of course, is also for you. At times, having children can feel like a really big, tough and even frustrating job. Everyone has their moments. But today, take time to hold your children and tell them how grateful you are to have them. That your life is enriched by them. That they fill your heart with the most delicious happiness and you thank goodness everyday that they are yours. Do it. Again and again. You’ll be glad you did.

<urn:uuid:eec7c099-0720-407b-94f2-fb15d6e6de7d>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.drrobynsilverman.com/parenting-tips/parents-how-to-talk-to-children-about-the-connecticut-school-shooting/

2013-05-24T23:27:56Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

How to Test Data Proportions with R Let’s look at an example to illustrate the basic R tests for data proportions. The following example is based on real research, published by Robert Rutledge, MD, and his colleagues in the Annals of Surgery (1993). In a hospital in North Carolina, the doctors registered the patients who were involved in a car accident and whether they used seat belts. The following matrix represents the number of survivors and deceased patients in each group: > survivors <- matrix(c(1781,1443,135,47), ncol=2) > colnames(survivors) <- c('survived','died') > rownames(survivors) <- c('no seat belt','seat belt') > survivors survived died no seat belt 1781 135 seat belt 1443 47 To know whether seat belts made a difference in the chances of surviving, you can carry out a proportion test. This test tells how probable it is that both proportions are the same. A low p-value tells you that both proportions probably differ from each other. To test this in R, you can use the prop.test() function on the preceding matrix: > result.prop <- prop.test(survivors) You also can use the prop.test() function on tables or vectors. If you use it with vectors, remember that the first vector has to be the number of successes, and the second number has to be the total number of cases. The prop.test() function then gives you the following output: > result.prop 2-sample test for equality of proportions with continuity correction data: survivors X-squared = 24.3328, df = 1, p-value = 8.105e-07 alternative hypothesis: two.sided 95 percent confidence interval: -0.05400606 -0.02382527 sample estimates: prop 1 prop 2 0.9295407 0.9684564 This test report is almost identical to the one from t.test() and contains essentially the same information. At the bottom, R prints for you the proportion of people who died in each group. The p-value tells you how likely it is that both the proportions are equal. So, you see that the chance of dying in a hospital after a crash is lower if you’re wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash. R also reports the confidence interval of the difference between the proportions.

<urn:uuid:626e480d-457b-44d5-a716-b8283ca66e9d>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-test-data-proportions-with-r.html

2013-05-24T23:35:10Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Using Companion Planting to Deter Pests in Vegetable Gardens Many vegetable gardeners use a technique called companion planting to reduce pest problems. A companion plant is one that provides some sort of benefit to other plants growing nearby. Some plants are grown together because they seem to increase each other's yields. However, the companion plants discussed here repel pests. Is that really possible? Some people swear by it. It is true, that a variety of plants, herbs, and flowers provides a diverse ecosystem so that predatory insects are more likely to hang around and take care of the bad guys. Besides, trying some of these combinations certainly won't hurt your garden. These plants are thought to repel specific pests; plant them near crops where these pests are a common problem: Anise planted among members of the cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and so on) is said to repel imported cabbage worms. Basil is said to repel whiteflies, aphids, and spider mites; it's a good companion to tomatoes because these are insects that feed on tomato plants. Catnip is said to repel some types of aphids, flea beetles, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles. Garlic may repel nematodes and other soil insects. Leeks are thought to repel carrot flies. Marigolds planted around vegetables are said to repel root nematodes, Mexican bean beetles, and Colorado potato beetles. Mustard greens are supposed to repel aphids. Nasturtiums are said to repel Colorado potato beetles. Radishes may repel striped cucumber beetles. Ryegrass may repel root-knot nematodes. Southernwood may repel moths and flea beetles. Tansy is supposed to repel some aphids, squash bugs, and Colorado potato beetles as well as ants. White clover may repel cabbage root flies. Wormwood may repel flea beetles. Many herbs, such as rosemary, oregano, and coriander, also are said to repel pests. Smaller companion plants, such as marigolds, can be interplanted with vegetables. Taller or more vigorous plants, such as ryegrass or wormwood, should be planted nearby — but not among — vegetables. You don't want them to overwhelm your veggie plants.

<urn:uuid:1f389f88-d65d-4102-8176-b9c801ea6cb8>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/using-companion-planting-to-deter-pests-in-vegetab.navId-403805.html

2013-05-24T23:15:29Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Personal information cards were used from 1938 to keep track of who lived where. It is a part of the population registration. Personal index cards are a great source of information for recent research because they cover the period from 1938 onwards. Copies of personal index cards of deceased people can be ordered for a fee. Personal index cards were introduced in 1938 to replace the old family-based registration. The municipalities kept personal index cards for every inhabitant. If a person moved to another municipality, his index card was forwarded there. It can be thought of as an 'administrative twin' that follows you around your entire life. A personal index card includes the following information about a person: - First name(s) - Last name - Date and place of birth - Date and place of death - Information about the parents (full names, dates and places of birth) - Religion (not public) - Addresses (public if person died at least 20 years ago) - Information about spouses (full names, dates and places of birth and marriage, whether the marriage ended by death or divorce) - Information about children (full names, dates and places of birth and death. Sometimes not all children are mentioned, if the children had already moved out before 1938 they are often not listed on their parents' cards). In 1994, the personal index cards were replaced by the municipal basic administration, that registers the same information in digital form. Ordering personal index cards The personal index cards from 1938 onwards are not public to protect the privacy of living people. After a person dies, his or her card or record from the municipal basic administration is sent for processing to the Central Bureau of Statistics. When they are done with it, it is sent on to the Central Bureau of Genealogy (CBG). Usually, it takes around two years for the cards to become available at the CBG. Photocopies can be ordered from the CBG for a fee. To order a photocopy, write a letter (by regular mail only) to Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie 2502 AT Den Haag For each person you're requesting an index card for, list the following information: - First and last names, as accurately and completely as possible - The birth date and place - Year and if possible the date of death - Any other information like information about the spouse (names, birth and death places) If you don't know all of this information that's no problem as long as there is enough the identify the person. If the information is unclear, a research fee might be charged. When ordering more than 1 card, list the people in alphabetical order. Costs are around € 3.30 per index card with a minimum of € 4.90 per order. When ordering from abroad, additional bank transfer costs and postage fees will be incurred. If you have any questions, contact the CBG at , or http://www.cbg.nl. There is no way to order copies of personal index cards of people who are still alive, because that would violate their privacy.

<urn:uuid:080c7079-ca5c-4432-8ad7-8cc64e4281f9>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.dutchgenealogy.nl/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=113

2013-05-24T23:32:54Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

[An updated version of this article can be found at Spatial Economics in the 2nd edition.] Producers and buyers are spread throughout space, and bridging the distances between them is costly. Indeed, much commercial activity is concerned with "space bridging," and much entrepreneurship is aimed at cutting the costs of transport and communication. The study of how space (distance) affects economic behavior is called "spatial" economics. Throughout history, space has often been a hindrance to economic growth. But improvements in transport and communications have been among the main driving forces of economic progress, as Australian economist Colin Clark pointed out. In medieval Europe and China three-quarters of the population never traveled farther than five miles from their birthplaces, and before the advent of book printing, most people knew very little about what happened beyond their narrow horizons. Since then technical and organizational progress has continually reduced the costs of transporting goods and "transporting" ideas (communication). Transport and communication have also become user-friendly. Now fax machines, satellite TV, and global computer networks are revolutionizing the world economy yet again. Businesses locate their plants so as to economize on transport and communication costs (and reduce the risks of transport disruptions) between the locations of their inputs and the locations of their market demand. In the past, firms that depended on heavy inputs, such as steel makers, located near the source of major inputs, such as coal mines. Firms that require intensive and frequent interaction with their customers locate near the demand. Gasoline stations, for example, locate near busy intersections. Transport and communication costs normally give firms a degree of local monopoly. But concern about neighboring competitors entering their market niche tends to keep them from abusing this market power, keeping them in "creative unease" and thus forcing them to control costs and to remain innovative. Falling transport and communication costs threaten such market niches. Producers are now often able to move away from their sources of supply or the neighborhood of their demand. Many firms have become more "footloose." Thus, we now find steel plants in Japan and Korea, far from the iron and coal mines but near ports, because the low cost of sea transport made it possible to ship coal and iron ore to locations with a favorable investment climate. Similarly, the telecommunications revolution has made many service operations footloose. The airline booking clerk one calls on an 800 number from New York, for example, may work in Omaha, and daily accounting services for a business in Chicago may be done by an office at the end of the fax line in Singapore. Businesses combine inputs that are mobile in space, such as know-how and capital, with inputs that cannot be moved at all or only at great cost, such as land or unskilled labor. One immobile factor that must not be forgotten is government. Good government can raise the productivity of the other inputs and make certain locations attractive. Bad government—a hostile government or a confusing, complex set of regulations; high taxes; and poor public infrastructures—can lower productivity and induce the flight of mobile production factors. The nineteenth-century German economist Johann Heinrich von Thünen, the father of spatial economics, laid out a basic principle of spatial economics. Producers who are remote from the market can succeed only if they bear the transport cost to the marketplace. But the mobile production factors have to be paid the same return, wherever they are used. Otherwise they leave. Therefore, pointed out von Thünen, the owners of immobile production factors (like land) must absorb the entire transport-cost disadvantage of remote locations. This "Thünen principle" can be demonstrated at various levels of spatial analysis: a. In a city or region, real estate rents drop as one moves from the center of activity. In the center, enterprises use a lot of capital to build high rises, saving on high land costs, and only space-saving offices, not large production plants, are located there. Cheap land on the periphery is devoted to land-intensive uses, such as for storage and dumps. If landowners on the periphery were to raise rents, they would soon be out of business. b. Within a nation, landowners, workers, and the tax collector can reap high "location rents" if they operate in the central areas of economic activity, like Chicago or Los Angeles. There, mobile factors crowd in, so that intensive use is made of land, labor, and public administration, and high incomes are earned. High rental prices for the immobile inputs determine which goods and services are produced and which production methods are used. If, however, the differentials in land, labor, and tax costs between central regions and more remote locations exceed the transport costs from the remote locations to the central markets, producers migrate. That is how industry has spread out from historic centers like New York and Pittsburgh to new industrial regions. c. On a global scale, as German economist Herbert Giersch recently pointed out, North America, Western Europe, and Japan are the central locations. World-market prices and product standards are determined there, and the highest incomes are earned. Both mobile and immobile inputs are most productive in these centers. Further away in economic space are the new industrial countries, such as Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, and Mexico, where the immobile production factors are earning lower returns. And further still, on the periphery of the global economic system, are the underdeveloped countries with very low incomes. The main production factors that tend to be internationally immobile are labor and government, although some countries have also attracted high legal and illegal labor migration. Because they are internationally immobile, labor and governments in noncentral countries that want to join in intensive world trade must absorb the transport-cost disadvantages. What matters in this context is "economic distance," which cannot necessarily be equated with geographic distance. Places with efficient transport connections, like Hong Kong or Singapore, are closer economically to Los Angeles than, say, a town in southern Mexico. Technical, organizational, and social change has reduced global transport and communications costs (see table 1). This is now leading to an unprecedented degree of mobility of human, financial, and physical capital, of entrepreneurship, and of entire firms. The owners of these mobile production factors, who wish to supply world markets, are increasingly "shopping around" the world for the labor and the style of government administration that promise them a high rate of return (and low risks). Thus, more and more companies are becoming "locational innovators." Internationally, this has led to the phenomenon of globalization, which makes it imperative for the immobile production factors to become internationally competitive. High labor costs, adversarial industrial relations, productivity-inhibiting work practices, a costly legal system, and a high tax burden are conditions that make countries unattractive to globally mobile factors of production. By contrast, low labor-unit costs and efficient administration are market signals with which the new industrial countries (especially in East Asia) have made themselves highly attractive to mobile resources. The influx of mobile Western firms has raised their productivity, which further enhances the attractiveness of these locations even if hourly wage rates are gradually rising there. Producers who are losing their locational advantage of being near the central markets can react in one of two ways. They can be defensive by, for example, "Korea-bashing" in order to obtain political patronage, tariff protection, or "voluntary" import restraints. Or they can be proactive and competitive, raising the productivity in the center and specializing on those goods and services that still incur high transport costs and therefore still enjoy a degree of spatial monopoly. The mature high-income economies at the center of the world economic system tend to have the best innovative potential, and they can use this to remain attractive in the era of globalization. They are more likely to succeed if they abandon political and social regulations that impede innovation, such as a legal system that raises the costs of innovation (see Liability). In time, competitive producers in central locations of the global economy will also discover that the competitive new industrial countries will develop high import demand for many specialties produced by the advanced central economies. Economic theory suggests, and history confirms, that defensive responses are very rarely sustainable over the long term. Indeed, economic openness to trade and factor mobility has been the most powerful antidote to "rent-seeking" (the use of restrictive political influence to secure artificial market niches). In open economies political and bureaucratic power has been channeled in support of mobile producers and to create an investment climate in which footloose production factors can thrive. This explains why modern industrialization took off in Europe, where small, open states were compelled by their citizens to develop institutions of limited government, the rule of law, property rights, and support for commercial competitors, whereas the closed economy of Imperial China stagnated under arbitrary despotism, despite the much more advanced state of Chinese technical know-how. Openness to trade and factor movements (with the help of the transport and communications industries that have made such movements increasingly feasible) have indeed been among the prime movers of economic progress. Wolfgang Kasper is a Senior Fellow with the Centre for Independent Studies in Australia and was previously an economics professor at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He has served on the staff of the German Council of Economic Advisers, the Kiel Institute of World Economics, the Malaysian Finance Ministry, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Blaug, Mark. Economic Theory in Retrospect, 4th ed. Chap. on Thünen. 1985. Clark, Colin. Conditions of Economic Progress, 2d ed. 1957. Giersch, Herbert. "Labor, Wage and Productivity." In Openness for Prosperity. 1993 (forthcoming). Hoover, E. M. The Location of Economic Activity. 1948. Kasper, Wolfgang. "Competition and Economic Growth: The Lessons from East Asia." In Money, Trade and Competition, edited by Herbert Giersch. 1992. McKenzie, Richard B., and Dwight R. Lee. Quicksilver Capital. 1991. Ohlin B. Interregional and International Trade. Rev. ed. 1967.

<urn:uuid:3746aae9-8da3-4c90-ab5e-778a430f56ae>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/SpatialEconomics.html

2013-05-24T23:33:01Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

HONOLULU, Aug. 5 (UPI) — Researchers in Hawaii say the islands may be an ideal spot for future ocean-based energy plants using seawater to produce sustained amounts of renewable energy. A technology called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion uses seawater to drive massive heat engines, an article in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy says. In an OTEC system, a heat engine is placed between warm water from the ocean’s surface and cold water pumped from the deep ocean. Heat flowing from the warm water reservoir to the cool one drives the heat engine to spin a turbine and generate electricity, the article says. The technology is almost 50 years old but cannot compete with the relatively low cost of fossil fuel energy. An OTEC plant would be the most cost-competitive in places on Earth where ocean temperature differentials are the greatest — which includes the western sides of the Hawaiian Islands, a University of Hawaii researcher says. An OTEC plant in this location could produce up to 15 percent more power than in other locations, Gerard Nihous says. Such an improvement could help overcome one of the biggest hurdles to bringing the technology to the mainstream, he says. “Testing that was done in the 1980s clearly demonstrates the feasibility of this technology,” Nihous says. “Now it’s just a matter of paying for it.” Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.

<urn:uuid:7febf7b6-7705-40fe-8e94-f27e4c4f6ca6>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.ecoworld.com/other/hawaii-ideal-ocean-energy-plant.html

2013-05-24T23:48:46Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

The Cerrado spreads across 2,031,990 km2 of the central Brazilian Plateau. The second largest of Brazil's major biomes, after Amazonia, the hotspot accounts for a full 21 percent of the country's land area (it also extends marginally into Paraguay and Bolivia). The most extensive woodland/savanna region in South America, the Cerrado is also the only hotspot that consists largely of savanna, woodland/savanna and dry forest ecosystems. Within the region, there is a mosaic of different vegetation types, including tree and scrub savanna, grassland with scattered trees, and occasional patches of a dry, closed canopy forest called the cerradão. Gallery forests are found throughout the region, although they are technically not considered part of the typical Cerrado formations. The hotspot actually receives abundant rainfall (between 1,100 and 1,600 millimeters per year), although this rainfall is concentrated in a six to seven month period between October and April. The rest of the year is characterized by a pronounced dry season, and many plant species in the hotspot are well adapted to drought conditions as a result. Much of the vegetation is also adapted to fire, which is an important part of the ecology of the Cerrado. The flora displays a number of adaptations to fire, including thick bark, leathery leaves, a rapid regeneration capacity and deep root systems. Adaptation to fire maintains a balance between grasses and woody vegetation and assists in nutrient recycling and germination. Unique and Threatened Biodiversity The Cerrado is one of the richest of all tropical savanna regions and has high levels of endemism. The region is home to an estimated 10,000 plant species, of which about 4,400 are endemic. Herbaceous species, which include herbs rather than woody plants, are almost entirely endemic. Some of the most remarkable plants in the Cerrado include the conspicuous Mauritia flexuosa palms (known locally as buritis) that grow along the swampy headwaters of streams and rivers, and the spectacular trees of the genus Tabebuia (of the family Bignoniaceae, and referred to as ipê), which have brilliant pink, yellow, white and purple flowers. The Cerrado has relatively high bird diversity, with more than 600 regularly occurring species, nearly 20 of which are endemic. The hotspot also contains two of BirdLife International’s Endemic Bird Areas. The endemics include the highly threatened blue-eyed ground dove (Columbina cyanopis, CR), the Minas Gerais tyrannulet (Phylloscartes roquettei, CR), known only from three areas in the São Francisco valley in north and central Minas Gerais, and the Brasília tapaculo (Scytalopus novacapitalis), a passerine that is found only in a few populations in gallery forest remnants near Brasilia, and a few locations in Minas Gerais, including the Serra da Canastra National Park. Some of the most distinctive birds in the hotspot include two very large species, the rhea (Rhea americana) and the red-legged seriema (Cariama cristata), neither of which are endemic. There are nearly 200 species of mammal in the Cerrado, though only 14 are endemic. Four of the endemics are representatives of the three endemic genera in the hotspot: a rodent (Microakodontomys transitorius), known only from a single specimen collected in 1986 in the Brasília National Park; the Candango mouse (Juscelinomys candango), a semi-fossorial rodent first discovered in 1960 on the site of the capital, Brasília, then under construction, and which has never again been collected; and the cerrado mouse (Thalpomys cerradensis) and hairy-eared cerrado mouse (T. lasiotis). Until twenty thousand years ago, giant mammals, the so-called megafauna, were found in the Cerrado. Magnificent species, such as a giant armadillo, a giant sloth and a rhino-type animal lived together with primitive humans. Many large mammals that range widely throughout South America have the Cerrado as one of their principal habitats. One of the best known of these species is the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), a giant, large-eared, long-legged fox-like animal that can grow to 80 centimeters in height and weigh 23 kilograms. The wolf has golden-red fur, with a black stripe running from the top of its head to the middle of its back. Two of the most unusual species are the giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus, EN) and the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla, VU), which as the largest anteater in the world can grow up to 1.9 meters in length from nose to base of tail, with a huge flag-like tail that can be up to a meter long. Other large mammal species found in the Cerrado include the Brazilian tapir (Tapirus terrestris, VU) and the pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarcticus), and several cat species, such as the jaguar (Panthera onca), ocelot (Felis pardalis), and jaguarundi (Felis yagouaroundi). More than 30 of the over 220 species of reptiles in the Cerrado are endemic, including six members of the snake genus Apostolepis. The genus Amphisbaena is well represented, with at least 26 species present. One of the best-known reptiles is the giant worm lizard (Amphisbaena alba), which can grow up to 70 centimeters in length, feeds on beetles, ants, and spiders, and has a clutch size ranging from 8-16 eggs, one of the largest known for the family. Half of the worm lizards are endemic to the region. Nearly 200 species of amphibians have been recorded in the hotspot, more than 25 of which are endemic, including two species restricted to the Serra da Canastra National Park: the Canastra snouted tree frog (Scinax canastrensis) and the Zagaia tree frog (Hyla sazimai). Among the endemics are two highly threatened species: Hyla izecksohni (CR), known only from Rubião Júnior, Botucatu, in the state of São Paulo, and Odontophrynus moratoi (CR), known only from the type locality, Botucatu, also in São Paulo State and not collected since 1990. Freshwater fish diversity is quite high in the Cerrado, with about 800 species, a quarter of which are endemic. The hotspot holds almost 250 genera of fish, nearly 20 of which are endemic. While little is known about the insect diversity of the Cerrado, preliminary data suggests that a quarter of the 40,000 species of Neotropical butterflies and moths, nearly a third of the more than 440 species of Neotropical termites and a quarter of the nearly 550 Neotropical social wasps are found here. In addition, there are more than 800 bee species (out of about 7,000 in the entire Neotropics). The Cerrado has supported human populations for ten thousand years, first hunter-gatherers and later small-scale agricultural societies. Neither of these appears to have had a major impact on the integrity of the ecosystem. Beginning in the 16th century, colonization by Portuguese settlers focused mainly on the Brazilian coast, and the interior was once again spared any major development. Today in Brazil there are still approximately 300,000 indigenous peoples, in more than 200 indigenous societies, the majority of whom reside in the North and Central-West. Of these, 38 ethnic groups still live in the Cerrado region, with a population of approximately 45 thousand people. These groups include the Krahô, Xavante, Xerente, Bororo, Karajá, Kayapó, and Canela. Among these groups the Avá-Canoeiro, Tapuya and Karajá are facing extinction, with less than 300 people remaining. It was not until the 18th century that the first incursions of colonists began into the Cerrado, starting with settlers seeking gold and precious stones. These first settlements and their accompanying roads and railways opened the way for the development of cattle ranches. Ranches were the first major impact on the ecosystem and remained the primary economic activity in the Cerrado until the 1950s. After the 1970s, with the work of Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMBRAPA) in soil restoration, the Cerrado region was transformed into the most productive and competitive area for crop production in Brazil. Along with deep soils enhanced by fertilizers, this was also a result of low land prices and flat landscapes, which are good for mechanized agriculture. In the 1950s, the Brazilian government decided to build a new capital city in the state of Goiás, in the core of the Cerrado. The construction of Brasilia, which was accompanied by large-scale highway development, was specifically designed to encourage movement into the interior of the country. New transportation infrastructure enabled the transport of cattle and agricultural products to markets from the region. The Cerrado became Brazil's new agricultural frontier in the 1970s and 1980s, with the establishment of many agricultural megaprojects like roads and hydropower plants. This was accompanied by an increase in population and trade development based in agricultural production, mainly soy and corn. In 2000, the Cerrado region was responsible for 35 percent of all crop production in Brazil. Currently, 58 percent of Brazil's total soy production comes from the Cerrado. A quarter of all grain produced in Brazil is grown in the Cerrado, and there are nearly 40 million head of cattle, with steady growth projected in both industries, as well as in charcoal production. In total, 37.3 percent of the Cerrado has already been totally converted to human use, while an additional 41.4 percent is used for pasture and charcoal production. The gallery forests in the region have been among the most heavily affected. It is estimated that about 432,814 km2, or 21.3 percent of the original vegetation, remains intact today. Conservation Action and Protected Area Despite its large size and importance for biodiversity, the Cerrado is today poorly represented in Brazil's otherwise extensive protected areas system. The region's image as Brazil's agricultural frontier has meant less political will to establish additional parks and enforce stricter legislation. Only about 111,000 km2, or 5.5 percent of the total land area, is currently protected, and only around 28,500 km2 (1.4 percent) is conserved in protected areas in IUCN categories I to IV. The most important protected areas in the Cerrado are the 7,290-km2 Nascentes do Parnaíba National Park, the 330 km2 Chapada dos Guimarães National Park, the 2,000- km2 Serra da Canastra National Park (although only about 720 km2 are actually protected), the 1,310-km2 Emas National Park and the 840-km2 Grande Sertão Veredas National Park. In 2001, a large and valuable area of the Cerrado in the State of Tocantins was protected as the 1,588- km2 Jalapão State Park. In recent years, private reserves, established under the Private Natural Heritage Reserve system, have become an important component of biodiversity protection in the Cerrado. Emas National Park, which is currently threatened by the effects of large-scale agricultural activities that surround it, is the site of a partnership between Conservation International and the non-governmental organizations Oréades, Fundação Emas (FEMAS), Pró-Carnívoros, PEQUI, IBAMA and EMBRAPA, along with a group of universities including University of São Paulo, University of Brasília, University of São Carlos and the University of Goiás, are also part of the partnership. The neighboring municipalities and farming cooperatives and environmental agencies of Goiás, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul are also involved in the conservation efforts to protect the landscape that includes important biodiversity and the headwaters of the three major Brazilian river systems that converge near the park. In Grande Sertão Veredas, which was established in 1989, FUNATURA is working to better manage the protected area and protect it from growing agricultural threats using funds obtained through the first and only debt-for-nature swap ever approved for Brazil. In March 1998, a Regional Priority Setting Workshop for the Cerrado was held in Brasilia. The meeting participants identified 70 conservation priority areas and offered suggestions for immediate action. Participants indicated the use of legislative incentives for preservation of biodiversity and water sources. The workshop also recommended the consolidation of existing parks and reserves to create new protected areas. In addition, it identified the need for more intensive faunal and floral surveys of the region. - This article is based on contributions from Gustavo Fonseca, Roberto Cavalcanti, Anthony Rylands, and Adriano Paglia. - For a complete list of all contributors to the Biodiversity Hotspot program, see Biodiversity Hotspot Site Credits. - Alho, C. J. R. & Martin, E.S. 1995. De Grão em Grão o Cerrado Perde Espaço. Brasília: WWF, Pró-Cer. - de Azevedo, G. 1995. Vegetação do Cerrado. In Conhecimento Cientifico para Gestão Ambiental. pp. 523-547. Brasilia: Tomo II. Meio Natural. - Barbosa, A.S. & Nascimento, I.V. 1993. Procesos culturais associados à vegetação. In M.N. Pinto. (Ed.), Cerrado: Caracterização, Ocupação e Perspectivas. pp. 155-170. Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília. - Barbosa, A.S., Ribeiro, M.B. & Schmitz, P.I. 1993. Cultura e ambiente em áreas do sudoeste de Goiás. In M.N. Pinto. (Ed.), Cerrado: Caracterização, Ocupação e Perspectivas. pp. 75-108. Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília. - BSP/CI/TNC/WCS/WRI/WWF. 1995. A Regional Analysis of Geographical Priorities for Biodiversity Conservation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington, DC.: Biodiversity Support Program. - Colli, G.R. & Zamboni, D.R. 1999. Ecology of the worm-lizard Amphisbaena alba in the Cerrado of central Brazil. Copeia, 1999:733-742. - Dianese, J.C., Medeiros, R.B. & Santos, L.T.P. 1997. Biodiversity of microfungi found on native plants of the Brazilian Cerrado. In K.D. Hyde. (Ed.), Biodiversity of Tropical Microfungi. pp.367-417. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. ISBN: 9622094228. - Dias, B.F.S. 1992. Cerrados: Uma caracterização. In M. N. Pinto. (Ed.) Alternativas de Desenvolvimento dos Cerrados: Manejo e Conservação dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis. Brasília: Fundação Pró-Natureza – FUNATURA. - Dias, B.F.S. 1993. A conservação da natureza. In M. N. Pinto. (Ed.), Cerrado: Caracterização, Ocupação e Perspectivas. pp.607-663. Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília. - Eiten, G. 1993. Vegetação. In M. N. Pinto. (Ed.), Cerrado: Caracterização, Ocupação e Perspectivas. pp. 17-73. Editora Universidade de Brasília, Brasília. - Filguieras, T. & B. S. Pereira. 1993. Flora. In M. N. Pinto. (Ed.). Cerrado: Caracterização, Ocupação e Perspectivas. Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília. - da Fonseca G.A.B., Hermann, G. & Leite, Y.L.R. 1999. Macrogeography of Brazilian mammals. In J. F. Eisenberg & K. H. Redford. (Eds.), Mammals of the Neotropics: The Central Neotropics. Vol. III. Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil. pp. 549-563. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0226195422 - Fundação Pró-Natureza/Funatura, Conservation International, Fundação Biodiversitas, and Universidade de Brasília. 2000. Avaliação e Ações Prioritárias para a Conservação da Biodiversidade do Cerrado e Pantanal. Brasília. Secretaria de Biodiversidade e Florestas (SBF)/Ministério do Meio Ambiente (MMA). - Goodland, R.J.A. & Irwin, H.S. 1975. Amazon Jungle; Green Hell to Red Desert: An Ecological Discussion of the Environmental Impact of the Highway Construction Program of the Amazon Basin. Amsterdam: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co. - Heringer, E.P., Barroso, G.M., Rizzo, J.A. & Rizzini, C.T. 1977. A flora do Cerrado. In Simpósio sobre o Cerrado, Vol. 4. pp. 211-232. Itaiaia e São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo. - Holanda, S.B. 1936. Raizes do Brasil. Companhia das Letras, 3rd edition (1997). - Mantovani, J.E. & Pereira, L.A. 1998. Estimativa da Integridade da Cobertura Vegetal do Cerrado/Pantanal Através de Dados TM/Landsat. Unpublished report for the Workshop – Ações Prioritárias para a Conservação do Cerrado e Pantanal, Brasília, Brazil. Brasília: Funatura, Conservation International, Universidade de Brasília, Fundação Biodiversitas. - de Mendonça, R.C., Felfili, J.M., Walter, B.M.T., da Silva, M.C. Jr., Rezende, A.V., Filgueiras, T.S. & Oliveira, P.E. 1997. Flora vascular do Cerrado. In S.M. Sano and P. Almeida. (Eds.), Cerrado: Flora, Homem e Ambiente. pp.217-396. Planaltina, Brazil: EMBRAPA - Cerrados. - Mittermeier, R.A., da Fonseca, G.A.B., Rylands, A.B. & Mittermeier, C.G. 1997. Brazil. In R. A. Mittermeier, P. Robles Gil & C. G. Mittermeier. (Eds.), Megadiversity: Earth’s Biologically Wealthiest Nations. pp. 39-49. México: CEMEX - Agrupación Sierra Madre. ISBN 9686397507. - Negret, A., Taylor, J., Soares, R.C., Cavalcanti, R.B. & Johnson, C. 1984. Aves da Região Geopolítica do Distrito Federal (Check List) 429 Espécies. Brasília: Ministerio do Interior, Secretaria do Meio Ambiente. - Pádua, M. T. J. 1992. Conservação in Situ: Unidades de conservação. In Alternativas de Desenvolvimiento dos Cerrados: Manejo e Conservação dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis. Funatura, Brasília. - Raw, A. 1998. Número de Insetos, a Riqueza de Espécies e Aspectos Zoogeográficos nos Cerrados. Unpublished report for the Workshop - Ações Prioritárias para a Conservação do Cerrado e Pantanal. Brasília, Brazil: Funatura, Conservation International, Universidade de Brasília, Fundação Biodiversitas. - Redford, K.H. & da Fonseca., G.A.B. 1986. The role of gallery forests in the zoogeography of the Cerrado’s non-volant mammalian fauna. Biotropica, 18:125-135. - Rocha, I. R. D., Cavalcanti, R.B., Marinho-Filho, J.S., Araújo, A.B. & Kitayama, K. 1990. Fauna do distrito federal. In M. N. Pinto. (Ed.), Cerrado: Caracterização, Ocupação e Perspectivas. pp.185-191. Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília. - Rylands, A.B., da Fonseca, M.T., Machado, R.B. & Cavalcanti, R.B. 2004. Brazil. In M. Spalding, S. Chape & M. Jenkins. (Eds.), The State of the World’s Protected Areas. Cambridge, U.K.: United Nations Environment Programme and World Conservation Monitoring Centre. - Sarmiento, G. 1983. The savannas of Tropical America. In F. Bourlière. (Ed.), Tropical Savannas. Ecosystems of the World Series 13. New York: Elsevier. ISBN: 0444420355 - Schmitz, P.I. 1993. Caçadores e coletores antigos. In M.N. Pinto. (Ed.), Cerrado: Caracterização, ocupação e perspectivas. Editora Universidade de Brasília, Brasília. - Silva, J.M.C. 1997. Endemic bird species and conservation in the Cerrado region, South America. Biodiversity and Conservation, 6:435-450. - Silva, J.M.C. & Bates, J. M. 2002. Biogeographic patterns and conservation in the South American Cerrado: A tropical savanna hotspot. Bioscience, 52:225-233. - WWF. 1997. WWF 2000 - The Living Planet Campaign. Washington, D.C.: World Wildlife Fund. This article is taken wholly from, or contains information that was originally published by, the Conservation International. Topic editors and authors for the Encyclopedia of Earth may have edited its content or added new information. The use of information from the Conservation International should not be construed as support for or endorsement by that organization for any new information added by EoE personnel, or for any editing of the original content. Disclaimer: This article is taken wholly from, or contains information that was originally published by, the Conservation International. Topic editors and authors for the Encyclopedia of Earth may have edited its content or added new information. The use of information from the Conservation International should not be construed as support for or endorsement by that organization for any new information added by EoE personnel, or for any editing of the original content.

<urn:uuid:45eb155a-438b-433a-ace3-b43a806c93eb>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biological_diversity_in_the_Cerrado

2013-05-24T23:19:38Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Contact: Sandra Hines University of Washington Caption: A plume of dust and hitchhiking microbes reached the West Coast and was detected at the Mount Bachelor observatory in April, 2011. It traveled from several Asian locations and at various levels in the troposphere (red and yellow being highest), according to scientists using models to determine the back trajectories. Credit: U of Washington Usage Restrictions: Credit required Related news release: Plumes across the Pacific deliver thousands of microbial species to West Coast

<urn:uuid:9876b0c9-cc3a-4509-a701-4429ef42f72c>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/51072.php?from=228844

2013-05-24T23:14:36Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Lesson summary for: Visualizing life on Earth: Data interpretation in evolution This web-based module leads students through an exploration of the patterns in the diversity of life across planet Earth. Students are scaffolded as they practice data interpretation and scientific reasoning skills. UC Museum of Paleontology To check their understanding, students complete multiple choice questions online. Free response essay items throughout the activity allow the module to be used as a graded assignment. A menu at the bottom of the first page of the module will allow you to assign sections to work on individually. - Biological evolution accounts for diversity over long periods of time. - Background extinctions are a normal occurrence. - Rates of extinction vary. - The fossil record documents the biodiversity of the past. - The fossil record documents patterns of extinction and the appearance of new forms. - A hallmark of science is exposing ideas to testing. - Scientists test their ideas using multiple lines of evidence. - Scientific knowledge is open to question and revision as we come up with new ideas and discover new evidence. - Accepted scientific theories are not tenuous; they must survive rigorous testing and be supported by multiple lines of evidence to be accepted. - Scientists use fossils (including sequences of fossils showing gradual change over time) to learn about past life. - Scientists use the geographic distribution of fossils and living things to learn about the history of life. - Rates of speciation vary. - Scientists may explore many different hypotheses to explain their observations. Comment on this resource Share how you used this resource in your classroom, suggestions for modifying it, and whether you liked using it. << Back to search results

<urn:uuid:4441c7f6-732d-4866-aeba-07b03316abe6>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/search/lessonsummary.php?thisaudience=9-12&resource_id=217

2013-05-24T23:28:07Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

- See also: Innovation Technology is a word with origins in the Greek word technologia (τεχνολογια), techne (τεχνη) "craft" + logia (λογια) "saying". It is an encompassing term dealing with the knowledge of humanity's tools and crafts. Depending on context, technology is: - the tools and machines that help to solve problems; - the techniques (knowledge) that includes methods, materials, tools, and processes for solving a problem (such as building technology or medical technology); - a culture-forming activity (such as manufacturing technology, infrastructure technology, or space-travel technology). (McGinn) - the application of resources to solve a problem (such as knowledge, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials). - an encompasing term to describe the level of achievement in science, mathematics and engineering of a group or culture. - in economics, technology is the current state of our knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products (and our knowledge of what can be produced). Technology is also a cultural activity that predates both science and engineering. It is a far-reaching term that includes both simple tools, such as a wooden spoon, and complex tools, such as the space station. Its scope includes any tool in any discipline. This is not to imply that technology is the only cultural forming activity, nor that it is the primary culture-forming activity. Often, it is dominant in cultural formation; often, it is not. In addition, culture may act to form technology. Due to widespread, and sometime careless, use of technology, several other topics arise in the study of technology, including technological ethics, environmental impacts, technological by-products, and technological risk, among many other philosophical and sociological topics. Several disciplines deal with technology in some form, including crafts and trades, engineering, manufacturing, construction, and technologists. Each discipline has a plethora of unique knowledge about specific technological tools and techniques. Thus, usefulness is the essential feature of technology. Science and technology The lines between science and technology are not always clear. Generally, science is the reasoned investigation or study of nature, aimed at finding out the truth, generally according to the scientific method. Technology is the application of knowledge (scientific, engineering, and/or otherwise) to achieve a practical result (Roussel, et.al.). History of technology - Main article: History of technology - See also: Timeline of invention - See also: History of science and technology The history of technology is as old as the history of humanity, since humans have nearly always used tools to feed and protect themselves. The history of technology, therefore, is the history of natural resources, because our tools come from the earth. The history of technology follows a progression from simple tools and simple energy sources to complex tools and complex energy sources (Smil 1994), as follows: The earliest technologies converted natural resources into simple tools. Processes such as carving, chipping, scraping, rolling (the wheel), and sun-baking are simple means for the conversion of raw materials into usable products. Anthropologists have uncovered many early human houses and tools made from natural resources. The use, and then mastery, of fire was a key turning point in man's technological evolution providing him with simple energy. The use of fire extended the capability for the treatment of natural resources and allowed the use of natural resources that require heat to be useful. Wood and charcoal were among the first materials used as a fuel. Wood, clay, and rock (such as limestone), would be among the earliest materials shaped or treated by fire, for making weapons, pottery, bricks, and cement, among others. Continuing improvements such as the furnace enabled the ability to smelt and forge metal (such as copper, ca. 8000 BC), and eventually to the discovery of alloys, such as brass and bronze (ca. 4000 BC). The first uses of iron alloys, steel, dates to around 1400 BC. Complex tools include such simple machines as the lever (ca. 300 BC), the screw (ca. 400 BC), and the pulley, and such complex machinery as the ocean liner, the engine, the computer, modern communications devices, the electric motor, the jet engine, among many others. As tools increase in complexity, so does the knowledge needed to support them. Modern tools are so complex, that entire technical knowledge-based processes and practices (also complex tools themselves) exist to support them, including engineering, medicine, computer science, etc. Further, complex tools require complex manufacturing and construction techniques and machines. Entire industries have arisen to support and develop complex tools. Complex energy is derived predominately from wind, water, hydrocarbons, and nuclear fusion. Water provides energy through the process of hydropower generation. Wind provides energy by using wind currents using windmills. There are three major sources of hydrocarbons, beside wood and its derivative charcoal: coal and its derivative coke, natural gas, and petroleum. Coal and natural gas are used almost exclusively as an energy source. Coke is used in the manufacture of metals particularly steel. Petroleum is used as an energy source (gasoline and diesel) but is also the natural resource for plastics and many other synthetic. The most recent energy developments includes the ability to use nuclear energy, derived from fuels such as uranium. The nature of technology With all of the technology in use in modern society, it may seem futile to attempt a generalized list of common characteristics. Many authors, such as McGinn (1991) and Winston (2003), list the following: Complexity refers to the characteristic that most modern tools are difficult to understand. Some are easy to use, but difficult to comprehend source and means of make, such as a kitchen knife, or a baseball. Others are both difficult to use and difficult to comprehend, such as a tractor, gasoline, a television, or a computer. Dependency refers to the fact that modern tools depend on other modern tools, which depend on other modern tools, for their make and their use. Cars, as an example, have a huge complex of industry of means and methods. And to use them requires a complex of road, streets, highways, and gasoline stations, waste collection, etc., beyond our comprehension. Valence refers to the many, many different types of the same tool. Imagine the many different types of spoons available today, or scissors, and even complex tools come in many shape as well, like the construction crane, or the automobile. Scale refers to the sheer magnitude, size, and pervasiveness of modern technology. Simply put, technology seems to be everywhere. It dominates modern life. Scale refers also to the magnitude of some modern technological projects, like the cellular telephone network, the Internet, air travel, satellites, etc. Types of Technology - See also: List of technologies One possible classification of technology uses the fields of technological studies, commonly found in academic institutions of higher learning: - Applied Science; - Athletics and recreation; - The Arts and language; - Travel and trade . Relationship with society The relationship between society and technology is quite complex, creating what many characterize as a co-dependence upon the other; society creates and depends upon technology to meet its needs and desires, and technology's very existence arises due to society's needs and desires. However, this "symbiosis" goes further than that: Every advancement in technology influences and eventually changes society. So the needs of society change, creating more needs, and, eventually, creating more technology. (McGinn 1991) Consider the telephone, and its latest sibling the mobile phone. With the invention of the telephone, society began to depend on quicker ways of communication with others. Higher expectations for quicker communications were initially met using short-range radio systems for use in emergency vehicles. However, even higher portability was realized with miniaturization of components. This demand for a new product led to the invention of the mobile phone. The influence of portability is so pervasive now anyone can be accessible to talk in most urban places in the U.S. Funding for technological development Template:Sectstub The government is a major contributor to the development of technology. In the United States, many agencies invest millions of dollars in new technology. In 1980, the UK government invested just over 6 million pounds in a 4 year Programme, later extended to 6 years, called the Microlectronics Education Programme (MEP) which aimed to provide every school in Britain with at least one computer, microprocessor training materials and software, plus extensive teacher training. Technology has frequently been driven by the military, with most modern applications being developed for the military before being taken up for civilian use. However, this trend has recently seen a reversal, with the industry often taking the lead in developing technology which is then adopted by the military. Some government agencies are dedicated specifically to research, such as the American's National Science Foundation, the United Kingdom scientific research institutes, the American's Small Business Innovative Research effort. And many government agencies dedicate a major portion of their budget to research and development. Many foundations and non-profit organizations contribute to the development of technology. Template:Sectstub There are two types of effects from the use of technology, main effects and side effects. Main effects are those intended by the technology, usually to fulfill some desire or need. Side effects are (usually) unintended, and often unknown prior to technology's implementation. This portion of the article deals with those side effects. The most subtle side effects from technological uses are sociological in nature. Subtle because those side effects can go unnoticed without careful observation and contemplation of individual, institutional, and group behaviors. The implementation of technology influence the values (beliefs, ideas, opinions) of society by changing expectations and realities. There are (at least) three major, interrelated, values that are the result of technological innovations: - Mechanistic World View. A set of beliefs that views the universe as a collection of parts, like a machine, that can be individually analyzed and understood. (McGinn) - Efficiency. A value, originally applied only to machines, but now placed upon all aspects of society, whereby each element (organizational structures and human beings) is expected to attain higher and higher performance, output, ability, etc. (McGinn) - Progressivism. The belief that societal progress is good. Winston provides an excellent summary of the ethical implications of technological development and deployment. He states there are four major ethical implications: - Challenges traditional ethical norms. - Creates an aggregation of effects. - Changes the distribution of justice. - Provides great power. In many ways, technology simplifies life. - The rise of leisure - More informed In other ways, technology complicates life. - Too much information - New forms of danger Institutions and groups Technology influences, often enables, organizational and group structures and influence. Example of this include: - The rise of organizations: e.g., health institutions. - The commericalization of leisure: sports events, products, etc. (McGinn) - The advent of large organizational structures. Technology provides a heightened awareness of international issues, values, and cultures. Due mostly to mass transportation and mass media, the world seems to be a much smaller place due to the following, among others: - Globalization of ideas - Embeddedness of values - Population growth and control The effects of technology on the environment is both obvious and subtle. The more obvious effects include the depletion of nonrenewable natural resources (such as petroleum, coal, ores), and the added pollution of air, water, and land. The more subtle effects include debates over long-term impacts (e.g., global warming, deforestation, natural habitat destruction, costal wetland loss) In one line of thought, technology develops autonomously, in other words technology seems to feed on itself, moving forward with a force irresistible by humans. To these individuals, technology is "inherently dynamic and self-augmenting." (McGinn, p. 73) Jacques Ellul is one proponent of the irresistibleness of technology to humans. He espouses the idea that humanity cannot resist the temptation of expanding our knowledge and our technological abilities. He, however, does not believe that these seeming autonomy of technology is inherent. But the perceived autonomy is due to the fact that humans do not adequately consider the responsibility that are inherent to technological processes. Individuals rely on governmental assistance to control the side effects and negative consequences of technology. Government intervenes many through laws. - Supposed independence of government. An assumption commonly made about the government is that their governance role is neutral or independent. Often, if not usually, that assumption is misplaced. Governing is a political process, more so in some countries than in others, therefore government will be influenced by political winds of influence. In addition, government provides much of the funding for technological research and development. Therefore, even government has a vested interest in certain outcomes. - Liability. One means for controlling technology is to place responsibility for the harm with the agent causing the harm. Government can allow more or less legal liability to fall to the organization(s) or individual(s) responsibile for damages. Society also controls technology through the choices that it makes. These choices not only include consumer demands; it includes - the channels of distribution, how do products go from raw materials to consumption to disposal; - the cultural beliefs regarding style, freedom of choice, consumerism, materialism, etc.; - the economic values we place on the environment, individual wealth, government control, capitalism, etc. Technology and philosophy Generally, Technicism is an overreliance or overconfidence in technology as a benefactor of society. Taken to extreme, some argue that technicism is the belief that humanity will ultimately be able to control the entirety of existence using technology. In other words, human beings will eventually be able to master all problems, supply all wants and needs, possibly even control the future. (For a more complete treatment of the topic see the work of Egbert Schuurman, for example at .) Some, such as Monsma, et al., connect these ideas to the abdication of God as a higher moral authority. More commonly, technicism is a criticism of the commonly held belief that newer, more recently-developed technology is "better." For example, more recently-developed computers are faster than older computers, and more recently-developed cars have greater gas efficiency and more features than older cars. Since current technologies are generally accepted as good, future technological developments are not considered circumspectly, resulting in what seems to be a blind acceptance of technological developments. Optimism, pessimism, and appropriate technology On the somewhat pessimistic side, are certain philosophers like Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Ellul, and John Zerzan, who believe that technological societies are inherently flawed a priori. They suggest that the result of such a society is to become evermore technological at the cost of freedom and psychological health (and probably physical health in general as pollution from technological products is dispersed). Perhaps the most poignant criticisms of technology are found in what are now considered to be literary classics, for example Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. On the other hand, the optimistic assumptions are made by proponents of technoprogressivist views or ideologies such as transhumanism and singularitarianism, that view technological development as generally having beneficial effects for the society and the human condition. In these ideologies, technological development is morally good. Some critics see these ideologies as examples of scientism, mathematical fetishism, or techno-utopianism and fear the idea of technological singularity which they support. The notion of appropriate technology, however, was developed in the twentieth century to describe situations where it was not desirable to use very new technologies or those that required access to some centralized infrastructure or parts or skills imported from elsewhere. The eco-village movement emerged in part due to this concern. Theories and concepts in technology There are many theories and concepts that seek to explain the relationship beteen technology and society: - Appropriate technology - Diffusion of innovations - Jacques Ellul's Technological Society, is considered a classic criticism of modern culture's pursuit of technology for its own sake. For more on these ideas see []. - Intermediate technology, more of an economics concern, refers to compromises between central and expensive technologies of developed nations and those which developing nations find most effective to deploy given an excess of labour, and scarcity of cash. In general, a so-called "appropriate" technology will also be "intermediate". - Persuasion technology, in economics, definitions or assumptions of progress or growth are often related to one or more assumptions about technology's economic influence. Challenging prevailing assumptions about technology and its usefulness has led to alternative ideas like uneconomic growth or measuring well-being. These, and economics itself, can often be described as technologies, specifically, as persuasion technology — a concern covered in its own separate article. - Precautionary principle - Strategy of technology - Radovan Richta's theory of technological evolution - Technological determinism - Technological diffusion - Technological singularity - Technology acceptance model - Technology lifecycle - Technology transfer - Adas, Michael. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance, Cornell University Press, 1990. - Nobel, David. Forces of Production: a social history of industrial automation, New York: Knopf 1984, Paperback Edition: Oxford University Press, 1990. - McGinn, Robert E. Science, Technology and Society, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1991. - Monsma, S.V., C. Christians, E.R. Dykema, A. Leegwater, E. Schuurman, and L. VanPoolen. Responsible Technology. Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA): W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986. - Roussel, P.A., K. N. Saad, and T. J. Erickson. Third Generation R&D, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press, 1991. - Winston, M.E. "Children of Invention", in Society, Ethics, and Technology, Second Edition, M.E. Winston and R.D. Edelbach (eds.), Belmont, California (USA): Wadsworth Group/Thomson Learning, 2003. - Smil, Vaclav. Energy in World History, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994, pp. 259-267, as quoted in http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/Technology/Technology.html, maintained by David W. Koeller, Northpark University, Chicago, Illinois (USA), downloaded September 11, 2005. - Golden hammer - History of science and technology - High technology - Knowledge economy - Lewis Mumford - Technology assessment - Timeline of invention - Technological convergence - Technology Tree - List of technologies - List of "ologies" - basic pneumatics - Development Gateway's e-Government Page — Depository of various e-government technology resources. - Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century - The Business of Technology Template:Technology-footeraf:Tegnologie an:Teunolochía ast:Teunoloxía bn:প্রযুক্তি ca:Tecnologia cs:Technologie da:Teknologi de:Technologie et:Tehnoloogia el:Τεχνολογία es:Tecnología eo:Teknologio fa:فناوری fr:Technologie ko:기술 hr:Tehnologija io:Teknologio id:Teknologi iu:ᓴᓇᕐᕈᑏᑦ ᐊᑑᑎᖏᑕᓗ ᖃᐅᔨᒪᔭᐅᓂᖓ it:Tecnologia he:טכנולוגיה ka:ტექნოლოგია sw:Teknolojia la:Technologia hu:Technológia ms:Teknologi nl:Technologie ja:工業 no:Teknologi nn:Teknologi ug:تەخنیلوگیيە pl:Technologia pt:Tecnologia ro:Tehnologie ru:Технология sk:Technológia sl:Tehnologija sr:Технологија su:Téhnologi fi:Tekniikka sv:Teknik tl:Teknolohiya th:เทคโนโลยี vi:Công nghệ uk:Технологія zh:技術

<urn:uuid:57fc90f6-a24d-499b-b51e-1515a6c79932>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.exampleproblems.com/wiki/index.php/Technology

2013-05-24T23:19:46Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Better DNA Tests of the Future Diagnostic tests are vital to detecting disease earlier rather than later but improving upon these tests remains a critical aspect of science and medicine. DNA testing has already had a significant, positive impact on healthcare and with a new DNA test, it appears poised to continue to improve our detection methods for disease. DNA for Virus TestingRecently, a test was devised to detect the virus that causes cervical cancer. While we have current methods in place for this kind of testing, the DNA test is thought to be a major improvement and far more accurate than the traditional Pap smear that is used on women around the world. Replacing a Pap Smear TestIn fact, the test is considered advanced to the extent that some gynaecologists are calling for it to completely replace these traditional Pap smear tests. It is believed that the test for human papillomavirus (HPV) could save the lives of many women. Rather than a woman taking a Pap smear test each year, they could instead have the DNA test done once every three to ten years. The frequency has yet to be established but experts are citing different time spans, which further research would hopefully pinpoint. An Eight-Year StudyThe results are based on a study that lasted eight years and looked at over a hundred thousand women in India. It was found that this one screening via a DNA test was superior to all other kinds of screening for the prevention of cancer and mortality. Whether gynaecologists can comfortably stop using Pap smears will be a social issue in that using the DNA test requires a major medical shift. It can be difficult for health professionals to essentially abandon a test that has been very effective and used for decades to detect cancer in women. Old Testing vs New DNA TestingIn the traditional Pap test, a woman has cells scraped from her cervix, which are then sent to the laboratory to be stained and examined via a microscope. The pathologist conducting the examination will look for abnormal cells under the microscope. The test can also take a number of days to weeks before results are sent back. In the new DNA test, a woman would still require a scraping of cells from her cervix, but these cells would be prepared and read by a machine. The study has major implications for women in poor countries because Pap smears are not performed regularly, sometimes due to a lack of medical professionals who are trained to perform the procedure. Also, women do not always return to the doctor for the results, which means a woman could have cancerous or pre-cancerous cells, but will never know because she doesn't follow up with another doctor's visit. Less ScreeningAs mentioned, the DNA test would not require the annual screening in the United States nor the typical screening every three years here in Britain. This would make it more cost effective as well. The new DNA test takes less than three hours for analysis of the cells, thus providing rapid results for women. DNA Tests for a Better FutureClearly, this is exciting news because Pap smears aren't accessible for all women plus they require quite regular visits and relatively long wait times for results. But with the new DNA test, it's hoped more research is performed to assess a suitable frequency for testing. Also, more work will need to be done in terms of changing the perceptions of physicians about potentially giving up the Pap test that they are so familiar with today. The benefits of this DNA test, however, are simply too significant to ignore.

<urn:uuid:2c1d8e71-443f-4992-aadc-03a7baefc8c9>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.exploredna.co.uk/better-dna-tests-future.html

2013-05-24T23:47:01Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Mizpah or Mizpeh (both: mĭzˈpə) [key], in the Bible. 1 See Galeed. 2 Unidentified place, E of the Jordon River, identical with Ramath-Mizpeh. 3 Place, on the boundary between Israel and Judah, a religious center with a sanctuary in the time of Judges. 4 Town at the foot of Mt. Hermon. 5 Town in the lowland of Judah. 6 Home of Jephthah. 7 David's refuge in Moab. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. More on Mizpah from Fact Monster: See more Encyclopedia articles on: Biblical Proper Names

<urn:uuid:97d2a1cc-62ed-43ec-9e57-81fe98bc3c6c>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/society/mizpah.html

2013-05-24T23:49:48Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Charles Henry Turnerzoologist Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio Although he held a doctorate from the University of Chicago, zoologist Charles Henry Turner chose to teach at high schools so he could devote more time to the observation of insects. His research had lasting impact. Turner published several articles in scientific journals, including "Habits of Mound-Building Ants," "Experiments on the Color Vision of the Honeybee," "Hunting Habits of an American Sand Wasp," and "Psychological Notes on the Gallery Spider." In his research, Turner became the first person to prove that insects can hear and can distinguish pitch. In addition, he first discovered that cockroaches can learn by trial and error.Died: 1923 Fact Monster/Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. More on Charles Henry Turner from Fact Monster:

<urn:uuid:03d74e72-2336-4026-827a-e5d532b2c6e9>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0800431.html

2013-05-24T23:41:31Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

REPORT ON THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS MARCH 6, 1997 U.S. Policy in Central America: 1980-1991: When the Reagan Administration came into office in 1981, one of its top priorities was ending the guerrilla war in El Salvador. A second priority was to aid the contra guerrilla war against the Sandanistas in Nicaragua. Honduras, a small country located between El Salvador and Nicaragua, became the U.S. base for American efforts in Central America, and will be the focus for this section of the Report. In 1980, Colonel Gustavo Alvarez became the head of the police in Honduras. According to a top U.S. official who was in Honduras at the time, who declined to be named, the pattern of human rights abuses was in full swing by February of 1981. In a meeting with Col. Alvarez in 1981, this official was told that U.S. insistence on legality and human rights would not succeed, and that the Argentine model of eliminating subversives should be followed. In 1982, Alvarez was promoted to general and named commander of the army. That same year Battalion 316, a secret army intelligence unit in Honduras trained and supported by the CIA, came into existence. Battalion 316 became notorious for committing human rights abuses. Atrocities committed by Honduran death squads were reported by James LeMoyne, former El Salvador bureau chief for The New York Times, on June 5, 1988. In his article, LeMoyne told the story of Florencio Caballero, a self-confessed interrogator in a Honduran army death squad. Caballero says he was trained in Texas by the Central Intelligence Agency. According to Caballero, who sought exile in Canada, he and 24 others were taken to Texas between 1979 and 1980 to be trained by the army and the CIA. Caballero says that, in Texas, the Americans taught "interrogation in order to end physical torture in Honduras. They taught us psychological methods - to study the fears and weaknesses of a prisoner. Make him stand up, don't let him sleep, keep him naked and isolation, put rats and cockroaches in his cell, give him bad food, serve him dead animals, throw cold water on him, change the temperature." 3 Caballero told LeMoyne that the Americans had trained him not to murder and physically torture people.4 Caballero claimed the interrogations had started out okay, i.e. they just involved psychological "coercion", but somehow everything had gone all wrong, and they began to physically torture and murder people.5 Caballero told LeMoyne that he tortured and murdered about 120 Hondurans and other Latin Americans. And he told LeMoyne about secret jails, murder, and CIA involvement in Honduras.6 Between 1980 and 1984, the Honduran army, with American support, uncovered and then systematically wiped out much of the small Honduran guerrilla movement.7 At that time, no civil justice system existed in Honduras; there were no trial courts or lawyers to defend the accused. Caballero told LeMoyne about the torture of 24 year old Ines Murillo in 1983, which LeMoyne was able to confirm. Murillo was a prisoner in a secret army jail in Honduras, and Caballero interrogated her and watched her get tortured. For 80 days, Murillo was beaten, electrically shocked, burned, starved, exposed, threatened, stripped naked, and sexually molested. To keep her from sleeping, her captors poured water on her head every ten minutes. According to Caballero, an American C.I.A. agent sometimes visited the secret jail where he worked, and where Murillo was being tortured. The agent was given edited interrogation reports on the prisoners there. Caballero did not know how much the Americans knew about the physical torture that was taking place.8 Murillo confirmed that during the months that she was in a secret jail, an American official periodically visited her. He was never present when she was tortured. However, Murillo "does not believe the CIA could fail to know what was going on." 9 While in jail, Mr. Caballero and other interrogators gave her raw dead birds and rats for dinner, threw freezing water on her naked body every half hour for extended periods of time and made her stand for hours without sleep and without being allowed to urinate. Murillo survived her torture experience, mostly due to the intervention of her father, who formerly served in the Honduran military. Her father bribed a soldier to tell him where his daughter was being held. The soldier also revealed the name and phone number of the purported C.I.A. operative. After Murillo's father threatened to publish this information, his daughter was released into a regular jail in Honduras. 13 months later, she was allowed to go into exile. One American official who spoke with LeMoyne told him that "the CIA knew what was going on, and the Ambassador [John D. Negroponte] complained sometimes. But most of the time they'd look the other way."10 Ambassador Jack R. Binns, who was stationed in Honduras before Negroponte, expressed the same sentiments. Ambassador Binns made the point that torture practices in Latin America were used long before Battalion 316 came into existence. However, he also stressed that the United States was complicit in Battalion 316 activities, and complicit in training the individuals who made up Battalion 316, because the United States ignored the human rights violations that were taking place in Honduras. Ambassador Binns felt strongly that USSOUTHCOM should be closed down.11 Ambassador Binns tried to bring the situation to the attention of the Department of State in Washington, D.C. According to Binns, he reported human rights violations to State, and was "begging for them to take some action."12 Not only was State not receptive, but they told Binns to stop reporting human rights violations through regular channels. He was told to use back channels, and take great care that information was not leaked to Congress. Otherwise, he was told, it would be difficult to get Congressional approval for security and economic assistance to Honduras. 13 This attitude undoubtedly sent the message that human rights abuses would not be punished by the United States. It was the same attitude that contributed to the development of training manuals that taught torture, execution and murder in Latin America in the 1980s. Development of the Training Manuals Some follow-up actions were recommended when the different training manuals, outlined below, came to light. Apparently, however, there was little or no follow-up on those recommendations.14 Furthermore, in all instances, no one was held accountable for the fact that the United States was teaching training techniques which violated U.S. army policy. To this day, it appears that the United States is unwilling establish accountability for the development of these manuals, or the fact that the manuals were in use at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (USARSA). 1983 Interrogation Manual In 1983, a manual known as the 1983 CIA Interrogation Manual was put together with material from notes from the Honduran training course, lesson plans used in the course, and the 1963 KUBARK manual.15 The 1983 manual, officially titled the "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual," first surfaced at a classified Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on June 16, 1988. This hearing was prompted by allegations by James LeMoyne in his 1988 New York Times article, "Testifying to Torture," that the United States had taught Honduran military officers who used torture. This manual was declassified on January 24, 1997. It gave detailed information on training methods used against suspected subversives in Latin America in the 1980s. The methods used by Battalion 316 in Honduras, and the methods taught in the interrogation manual, were strikingly similar.16 The CIA confirmed at a hearing before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in 1988 that it provided intelligence and counterintelligence training to Honduran military groups. At the hearing, Richard Stolz, Deputy Director for Operations at the CIA, testified that from February 8 to March 13, 1983, the CIA trained Caballero, Maro Turo Regalatta, and other Hondurans in interrogations. According to Stolz, the courses included practical exercises with actual prisoners, and the presence of a CIA instructor during interrogation. The course's lesson plans or programs of instruction were based on the instructor's personal experience in the U.S. army, on army field manuals (FM) - especially FM 30-15, and on personal experience.17 Stolz also testified that the course emphasized the value of humane treatment and perceptive psychological approaches to questioning. He claimed that physical abuse or other degrading treatment was rejected not only because it was wrong, but because it has historically proven to be ineffective.18 Under questioning, however, Stolz acknowledged that the agency taught the Hondurans that in dealing with prisoners they should deny them sleep, make them stand up, keep them isolated. In terms of teaching to change the room temperature, or, as stated in the manual, to "manipulate the subject's environment, to create unpleasant or intolerable situations," Stolz asserts that "that's not impossible." He denied all other allegations raised by LeMoyne in his 1988 New York Times article. When asked if there were any corrective actions dealing with the person responsible for the manuals, Stolz responded, "Not to my knowledge." The most graphic part of the Interrogation Manual is the section discussing "coercive techniques." This section recommends arresting suspects early in the morning by surprise, blindfolding them, and stripping them naked. Suspects should be held incommunicado and deprived of any kind of normal routine in eating and sleeping. Interrogation rooms should be windowless, soundproof, dark and without toilets. The Manual does advise that torture techniques can backfire, and that the threat of pain is often more effective than the pain itself. It notes that "while [the CIA] does not stress the use of coercive techniques, [they] do want to make you aware of them and the proper way to use them." It states that "illegal detention" and "coercive techniques"19 always require prior headquarters approval.20 It justifies the use of coercive techniques for those subjects "who have been trained or who have developed the ability to resist non-coercive techniques.21 The Manual then goes on to recommend psychological techniques to break an individual's will to resist. The techniques include: prolonged constraint; prolonged exertion; extremes of heat, cold, or moisture; deprivation of food or sleep; disrupting routines; solitary confinement; threats of pain; deprivation of sensory stimuli; hypnosis; and use of drugs or placebos. The U.S. military made a superficial attempt between 1984 and 1985 to correct the inappropriate material contained in the 1983 Interrogation Manual, primarily because of the strong public reaction following the disclosure of the Contra Training Manual, discussed below, which was made public in October, 1994. A page advising against using coercive techniques and discouraging torture was inserted into the Interrogation Manual. In addition, handwritten notes and changes were written haphazardly throughout the text. For example, "Deprivation of sensory stimuli induces stress and anxiety. The more complete the deprivation, the more rapidly and deeply the subject is affected" was altered to read: "Extreme deprivation of sensory stimuli induces unbearable stress and anxiety and is a form of torture. Its use constitutes a serious impropriety and violates policy."22 Despite the handwritten changes, it is still quite easy to read the original text, which was simply crossed out. Both the alterations and the new instructions that appeared in the manual in 1985 indicate that the torture methods taught in the earlier version contradicted U.S. army policy. Senator Cranston made this exact point in the 1988 Select Intelligence Hearing, when he pointed out that the wording in the 1983 manual instructed the reader to "use coercive methods."23 The Contra Training Manual A CIA document instructing Nicaraguan rebels in the techniques of political assassination and guerrilla warfare was leaked to the House Intelligence Committee in October, 1984. The manual, "Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare," instructs how to organize a guerrilla movement and lead it to power by winning popular support and using violence. The manual was compiled in late 1983 by John Kirkpatrick, a CIA adviser to the Contra rebels. The 90-page document recommends the hiring of professional criminals to carry out "selective jobs," creating a "martyr" by arranging a violent demonstration that leads to the death of a rebel supporter, and coercing Nicaraguans into carrying out assignments against their will. The document also states that unpopular government officials can be "neutralized" with the "selective use of violence." These terms are not defined in the text. And according to President Reagan, being "neutralized" simply means being fired from one's position. According to almost everyone else, however, it means something entirely different. When the Contra Manual was publicly released in October 1984, there was a general outcry over the contents of the document. The House Intelligence Committee held hearings on its disclosure, and high level officials spoke out strongly against the document, and called for the resignation of William Casey, then-Director of the CIA. The ultimate outcome, however, was nothing dramatic or decisive. A few American officials got a slap on the wrist. In 1988, the CIA clearly stated U.S. policy for training intelligence and counterintelligence to foreign militaries. According to the CIA: The policy is not to participate directly in nor to encourage interrogation which results in the use of force, mental or physical torture, demeaning indignities or exposure to inhumane treatment of any kind as an aid to interrogation. The policy is to actively discourage the use of these methods during interrogations. Personnel should play a positive role in influencing foreign liaison to respect human rights. 24 Thus at least twice during the 1980s, training materials used by the U.S. army in Latin America came under intense scrutiny.25 As a result of that scrutiny, the Pentagon issued a policy brief which stated that the U.S. would not participate in interrogation techniques that violated U.S. policy, and would actively discourage the use of those methods. It also stated that U.S. personnel should play a positive role in promoting human rights.26 Despite this scrutiny, and previous policy statements,27 a series of training manuals were produced in 1987 which contained objectionable material. These manuals were then used to train MTT's in Latin America, and foreign military personnel in classrooms at USARSA. The fact that the USARSA manuals came into existence indicates that army controls or review procedures established as a result the disclosure of the 1983 Interrogation Manual and the 1984 Contra manual must have been either inadequate or nonexistent. USARSA Training Manuals Just a few years after the Contra Manual was made public, the 470th MIBDE at USSOUTHCOM, in Panama, retrieved from USARSA in 1987 a series of documents that included training material which taught murder, extortion and torture. These training materials were distributed in Latin America and at USARSA, despite the CIA statement on U.S. army policy cited above. The history of the USARSA training manuals begins with Project X. Project X, part of the U.S. Army's Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, was the basis for the training materials taught at the U.S. Army School of the Americas in the 1980s. The program was developed from 1965-66 by the Office of the Assistant of Staff for Intelligence to assist select foreign countries in organizing and developing military intelligence operations. Project X, one of the types of foreign assistance available through the Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, provided U.S. Army Intelligence Publications and Training Materials. It was developed and executed by the U.S. Army Intelligence School, Fort Holabird, Maryland. Virtually no official documentation of the origin or scope of the project exists today.28 During the mid-1970s, after moving to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School (USAICS) began exporting, on request, Project X materials to U.S. military agencies participating in the U.S. advisory-training effort in friendly countries. In addition, instructors at USAICS used Project X material as reference material in preparing lesson plans for the Foreign Officer Course. Sometime between 1975 and 1981, USAICS transferred control of all Project X materials to the Reserve Affairs Office. In 1983, responsibility for Project X was transferred to the Nonresident Training Branch, Unit Training Division, Directorate of Training and Doctrine. In 1990, responsibility was transferred to the Individual and Collective Training Division. Training Materials from U.S. Army School of the Americas: In 1982, the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (OACSI) tasked USAICS to provide unclassified lesson plans to the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. USAICS formed a working group to satisfy this requirement. The working group decided to use Project X materials because they previously had been cleared for foreign disclosure. The working group asked the OACSI whether Project X material was still releasable to foreign students. The OACSI replied that USAICS could release all unclassified Project X material to the School of the Americas after reviewing it to ensure that it was current. The material was reviewed and released for use at the School of the Americas. All Project X material was in English. Lt. Col. Victor Tise was a young captain in a military course at USAICS. In late February, 1982, he was assigned to update the all-source intelligence course for the U.S. Army School of the Americas, Fort Gulick, Panama Canal Zone. Tise worked with Captain John Zindar, who was also at Fort Huachuca. It was the understanding of both of these men that President Carter had stopped intelligence training in Latin America because of the escalating reports of human rights abuses. Carter was reportedly concerned that the training and the abuses were linked. It was also their understanding that it was a top priority for President Reagan to reinstate intelligence training in Latin America immediately.29 Tise and Zindar had until the end of September to design and implement intelligence training at SOA,30 and to update Project X material for use at USARSA.31 They were supervised at Fort Huachuca by Major Richard L. Montgomery, and given a proposed Program of Instruction from SOA that outlined the courses that Tise and Zindar were to develop. According to Tise, the Project X material was approved by Major Montgomery, and also by J.W. Taylor, Department of Human Intelligence, Fort Huachuca. The materials also had to be cleared by "Washington," and were sent through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations for clearance (DCSOPS). Tise recalls that the material came back from Washington approved but unchanged.32 Tise stated that he did not notice that there was inappropriate training material contained in the Project X documents. Tise also noted that although all of the Project X material was unclassified, much of it came word-for-word from FM 30-18, a classified field manual on intelligence tactics.33 Zindar, on the other hand, does recall the inappropriate material, and says that most of it dated back to the Vietnam era, and needed major revisions.34 Both Tise and Zindar worked on revising the material so that it could be taught at SOA. Major Ralph Heinrichs was in the Department of Training Development at SOA during the period that these training manuals were being updated and transferred to SOA. Heinrichs confirmed that Project X material was in use at the School prior to 1982.35 According to Heinrichs, Project X material was used at the School until the mid-1970s.36 Heinrichs stated that his boss, Ramon Quijano, and the Commandant of USARSA, Col. Nicholas A. Andreacchio, travelled to Washington, D.C. to get approval to teach the training materials after they were transferred from Fort Huachuca and updated by Tise and Zindar. According to Heinrichs, Quijano and Andreacchio had a disagreement with the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence at the Pentagon, who ultimately approved the Project X materials to be reintroduced into SOA.37 It was Heinrichs' understanding that a few changes in the training material were needed. For example: the SOA should not use the term insurgent, insurgency, or counter insurgency. Rather, they should use the term guerilla. In addition, some human intelligence terms and agent handling techniques were sanitized. The SOA position was that the materials had been taught for 10 years or longer to thousands of trainees around the world, and did not need to be changed. Ultimately, the Pentagon approved the materials.38 According to Tise, Margarito Cruz, a native Puerto Rican teaching Human Intelligence at SOA in 1982, recognized the materials being taught from the 1970s, when he was also an instructor at SOA. Cruz reportedly recommended revamping some of the materials, after they were approved in DC, and Tise believes that the objectionable wording was removed.39 It is unclear, however, how much of the objectionable material was removed from the training material before the intelligence classes were reinstated at USARSA in the fall of 1982. Both Zindar and Tise say that they personally did not teach any objectionable materials at USARSA. They could not confirm or deny whether someone else taught these materials. Tise left SOA in November, 1982, and returned from 1986-89. Zindar stayed at SOA until mid-1983. No one was interviewed who taught at the School from 1983-1986. The Pentagon claims that the objectionable materials were not taught at USARSA during this period. Development of USARSA Training Manuals: There is broad consensus as to how the existing training manuals were developed. In 1984, the SOA moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. In 1987, the 470th Military Intelligence Brigade (470th MIBDE) of the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), stationed in Panama, asked SOA for help putting together instruction materials for Mobile Training Teams (MTT's) in Latin America. MTT's were used around the world to bolster the efforts of permanently assigned advisors by conducting specialized intelligence training beyond the capabilities of the local advisory and intelligence personnel. The MTT's can be organized to meet a request for almost any type of intelligence and security training and assistance. The training materials obtained by the 470th Military Intelligence Brigade included the original training materials with objectionable wording which had been flagged by Cruz in 1982.40 Apparently this material was not subjected to an independent review by the 470th MIBDE or USSOUTHCOM when it was brought into Panama from USARSA. In 1987 USSOUTHCOM began issuing the training manuals, with the objectionable material, to students and military intelligence schools in Latin America. In 1989, a former member of the 470th Military Intelligence Brigade assumed instructor duties at the USARSA, and used these manuals as student handouts.41 The manuals were issued to students from ten countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. In March 1991, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) discovered the objectionable materials while planning for Mobile Training Team unit to be sent to Columbia to provide training in counterintelligence and foreign intelligence. DIA requested a copy of the proposed Program of Instruction and training manuals from USARSA. The Spanish language manuals that were to be used were translated into English, and DIA discovered the objectionable material.43 The CIA reviewed the manuals, and noted some policy and classification discrepancies. The documents contained several passages which provided training regarding use of truth serum in interrogation, abduction of adversary family members to influence the adversary, prioritization of adversary personalities for abduction, exile, physical beatings and executions. In the summer of 1991, Secretary Cheney was alerted to the existence of the manuals and the objectionable material. An independent inquiry into the documents was conducted, and Congressional Armed Services and Intelligence Committees were informed of the error. According to the Pentagon, copies of the manuals were retrieved. The Inspector General noted in its 1997 review, however, that total retrieval of all of the manuals in circulation was considered doubtful.44 During the first week of August 1991, the Assistant Secretary of Defense notified the Congressional Committees on this matter, and the Assistant to the Secretary for Defense reported the incident to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board. On August 9, in a secret memo to the Secretary of the Army, U.S. Commander in Chief - Southern Command (USCINCSO) and the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, the Assistant Secretary of Defense announced that it completed a study of one of the manuals in question, "Manejo de Fuentes" (or "Handling of Sources"). The study concluded that the manual advocated methods and activities which contradicted U.S. army policy. As a result of these findings, a number of offices were tasked to review U.S. training material and training procedures. USCINSCO was responsible for reviewing all intelligence and counterintelligence training material. It was also responsible for recovering the objectionable materials and educating foreign military groups on acceptable U.S. material. USCINSCO also informed military groups that the recovered manuals were not U.S. policy, and that an error was made by including the objectionable material in the manuals. The Assistant to the Secretary for Defense was responsible for launching a full investigation into the use of the manuals, submitting a report, together with recommendations, to the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary of the Army was tasked to collect all Project X related and training material at USARSA and Fort Huachuca related to the objectionable material, and to put the materials under secret level and wait for instructions for disposal. The ATSD was also tasked with reviewing all intelligence and counterintelligence training material. On June 28, 1996 the Intelligence Oversight Board issued a Report on the Guatemala Review. In that report, there was a short reference to training materials that were used at USARSA which violated U.S. army policy. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy launched an effort to have the manuals released to the public. On September 20, 1996, the Department of Defense made the manuals public. 1997 Inspector General Report After Secretary of Defense Cheney was notified in the summer of 1991 of the training manuals in use at USARSA, he directed the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense - Intelligence Oversight (ATSD-IO) to investigate the use of Spanish language intelligence training manuals, which contained materials considered inconsistent with U.S. and Department of Defense policies. The ATSD-IO issued its report on March 10, 1992. On September 30, 1996, the Deputy Secretary of Defense asked the Inspector General, Department of Defense, to review the 1992 ATSD-IO report to determine whether it was adequate to assess individual responsibility. The Inspector General was also asked to determine whether corrective actions recommended by the March 1992 report were satisfactorily implemented. On February 21, 1997 the Inspector General completed this review and released it to the public. The Inspector General report has a number of inaccuracies. First, the Report claims that army personnel did not realize that the USARSA manuals violated standard army policy. However, this office has spoken with several individuals who indicated that they raised the issue of the content of the manuals to their superiors, and were still told to teach the training materials. Second, according to the IG, neither the army element at the USSOUTHCOM nor the faculty at USARSA followed army policy for doctrinal approval of the manuals. Yet before the material was transferred to USARSA, it was approved by at least two different people at Fort Huachuca and in Washington, D.C.,45 and also by the USARSA. Despite numerous phone calls to the Pentagon, former USARSA instructors, and USAICS officials in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, this office was not able to determine what constituted official army policy for doctrinal approval. However, all of the individuals who were interviewed noted that the manuals did appear to be reviewed extensively before they were taught at USARSA. According to Lt. Col. Tise, the USARSA in Panama fell under the command of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (DCSOPS), which is part of army headquarters at the Pentagon. Tise recalls that the material was sent through DSCOPS by USAICS for clearance and came back approved but unchanged.46 Although Tise does not recall that USARSA fell under the supervision of Training and Doctrine (TRADOC), he claims that the approval it got at Fort Huachuca would have constituted TRADOC approval. Major Heinrichs, at USARSA, recalls that the material was sent by USARSA to Washington, D.C., where it was approved by the Deputy Secretary for Intelligence at the Pentagon. Even if the material did not make its way through the entire approval process, according to our sources it was approved by at least two offices at Fort Huachuca and in Washington, D.C., and at least one office at USARSA. Thus it should be possible to establish accountability for reintroducing the materials to USARSA, whether by a deliberate attempt to violate Department of Defense policy or not.47 Regardless, gross negligence certainly was at play. Third, the IG report states that there was no English language version of the manuals. However, all of the materials used in the manuals originated in English, and were approved in English for use at USARSA before being translated into Spanish. Thus, it is misleading to suggest that the English language training materials approved for use at USARSA are different from the Spanish language materials incorporated into the training manuals. The IG report released February 21, 1997 does analyze whether corrective actions recommended by the March 1992 report were satisfactorily implemented. The IG report concludes that they were not, that the report had only a minimal impact, and that ultimately it was unsuccessful.48 The IG report summarizes why the 1992 investigation and recommendations were unsuccessful. It states that: The army and the Defense Intelligence Agency were the only DoD Components that published documents in support of the memorandum; other action addressees had no record of receipt or considered no action was necessary. The [Assistant Secretary for Defense (ASD(C3I)] had no mechanism in place to monitor compliance with the memorandum. As a result, the issue of DoD policy on intelligence and counterintelligence training of non-U.S. persons evaporated and current ASD(C3I) staff members have little or no recollection of the 1992 memorandum. (emphasis added.)49 We know that previous investigations and subsequent follow- ups were also ineffective. The United States Army School of the Americas - also known as the School of Assassins - has graduated many of Latin America's most notorious foes of democracy and human right violators. In El Salvador, 48 officers cited for human rights violations in a U.N. Truth Commission were trained at the school. This includes Col. Elena Fuentes, one of the country's most notorious hardline officers. Elena Fuentes was in the room when Salvadoran military leaders gave the order to murder to murder the Jesuit priests in 1989. He was an instructor at the school in 1985 and 1996. In fact, 19 of the 26 officers cited by the U.N. Truth Commission for involvement in the Jesuit murders and coverup were SOA graduates. And there are countless victims -- individuals who have suffered so much at the hands of those who were taught to torture and murder by elements within our own government. Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down in cold blood by SOA graduates because he stood up for the powerless against the powerful. Four Ursuline nuns were ravaged and mutilated and thrown into a ditch for the crime of teaching children to read. The children of El Mozote were machine gunned by SOA alumni for the sin of living in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Clinton administration has put the promotion of democracy and human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. Continued operation of the School of the Americas, given its history and tradition, stands in the way of establishing a new U.S. relationship with Latin America based on strengthening civilian, democratic institutions. Fifty years ago, the U.S. Army School of the Americas opened its doors in Panama to a class of Latin American and Caribbean military officers to receive training in the art of war. Half a century later, it is time to shut the School down. ENDNOTES (these begin with #3 as #1 and #2 are part of the Executive Summary which was released as part of the whole report). 3. Caballero, as quoted by LeMoyne, James, "Testifying to Torture," in The New York Times, June 5, 1988, Section 6, p. 45. 4. Caballero does not include psychological methods under the heading of torture. According to LeMoyne, Caballero did not include psychological "coercion" in the same category as physical torture. 5. Conversation with LeMoyne, March 5, 1997. 6. LeMoyne, James, "Testifying to Torture," The New York Times, June 5, 1988, Section 6, p. 45, Column 1. 11. Conversation with Ambassador Binns, Jan. 27, 1997. 14. The sole fact that the USARSA manuals came into existence in the late 1980's, after the Contra Training Manual was publicly revealed and the Honduran Interrogation Manual was edited, proves this fact. 15. The KUBARK manual was written in 1963 for use by U.S. agents against communist subversion. It was not written for use in training foreign military services. 16. Cohn, Gary et al, "Torture was Taught by CIA; Declassified manual details the methods used in Honduras; Agency denials refuted," The Baltimore Sun, January 27, 1997, p. 1A. 17. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Hearing, June 16, 1988. 19. Human Resources Exploitation Manual - 1983, p. A-2. 20. Ibid., p. B-2. 21. Ibid., p. L-4. 22. Human Resources Exploitation Manual - 1983, p. K-7. 23. Senate Select Committee Hearing, 1988. 24. Senate Select Committee Hearing, 1988. 25. Those materials, discussed previously, include: (1) the "1983 Interrogation Manual"; and (2) the "Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare" Manual, also known as the Contra Manual. 26. See page 10 of this report. 27. In December, 1981, President Reagan issued Executive Order 12333, which clarified the authorities, responsibilities, and limitations concerning U.S. intelligence. 28. Department of the Army Memorandum to ATSD-IO, Nov. 4, 1991. 29. Based on conversations with Tise, Zindar. 30. Thus, Tise and Zindar had approximately 6 months to complete a task which, according to Major Ralph Heinrichs at SOA, would ordinarily have taken 12-18 months. 31. Both men remember that when they arrived in Panama, they found some Project X material already there. 32. Conversation between Victor Tise and OASD, August 1, 1991, declassified by OASD on November 22, 1996. 33. Ibid. Tise was unable to explain why the Project X material was unclassified, while training manual FM 30-18 remained classified. 34. Both Tise and Zindar recall that most of the Project X material was not classified, but a portion of it was Top Secret. 35. As Project X documents contained the objectionable material, the fact that the material was in circulation at USARSA prior to 1982 would indicate that the United States was teaching these tactics during the 1960s and 1970s. Heinrichs, Tise and Zindar could not recall if some Project X material was taken from USARSA archives, or if only the Project X materials revised by Tise and Zindar at Fort Huachuca were used. 36. It can be assumed that the materials were put out of circulation in the late 1970's when President Carter called for an end to intelligence training in Latin America. 37. Heinrichs could not recall the nature of the disagreement. 38. Both Tise and Zindar noted there was a great deal of urgency putting together the materials for intelligence training. It was made clear to them that President Reagan wanted it done immediately. Zindar felt that the Army was flexible on restrictions, and that a number of shortcuts were taken. 39. This office was not able to locate Margarito Cruz. 40. According to Tise, objectionable material that was removed by Cruz in 1982 remained in SOA archive files, per SOA policy. Tise believes that material obtained by the 470th MIBDE at USARSA was from current lesson plans as well as archive materials. 41. No one interviewed was able and/or willing to identify the name of this individual. 42. The Pentagon claims that these manuals never existed in English. Although the manuals were assembled with Spanish language material, all of the material used originated in English, and was translated from English into Spanish at USARSA. 43. Point Paper - USSOUTHCOM. 44. Policy and Oversight Report, February 21, 1997, p. 7. 45. It was approved by at least one, and maybe two, offices: DCSOPS and Deputy Secretary for Intelligence. 46. Tise conversation with OASD, August 1, 1991. 47. It is our conclusion that there was no deliberate attempt to violate Department of Defense policies. However, we do believe that there was an unspoken policy coming from the top that the rules could be ignored. 48. Policy and Oversight Report, Feb. 21, 1997, pp. 13-14. 49. Ibid., p. 14. Information in this report is based on documentation and interviews. Staff conducted interviews with former and/or current military personnel, including those in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of the Army, the USSOUTHCOM, the U.S. Army Intelligence School, Fort Holabird, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School, Fort Huachuca, the U.S. Army School of the Americas, Fort Benning, and the 470th Military Brigade. Former U.S. Ambassadors were interviewed, as were representatives from the National Security Archives, the Military Archives, and the press. All those who were interviewed and agreed to be identified in this report are identified. All individuals who were identified by a source, and confirmed by a second source, are also identified, even if they were not available or could not be reached for comment. Any individual who asked not to be identified is not named in this report.

<urn:uuid:b7ac7691-617f-4b79-950e-2a329211e61a>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1997_rpt/soarpt.htm

2013-05-24T23:40:02Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

About this page This page is locked. Want to contribute to this page? Contact bgill Women of the Third Reich The following is a short biographical portrait of some forty women who either gave full support to Hitler, were sympathetic to the Nazi party, or were strongly anti-Nazi and played an active part in the anti-Hitler resistance movements. Many paid the supreme penalty for their actions. The vast majority of German women however were neither pro nor anti-Nazi but nevertheless went along with the system thus providing passive support. EVA BRAUN (1912-1945) At twenty-five minutes past two on the morning of February 7, 1912, Eva Anna Paula Braun was born in Munich. Later in life she was to become the mystery woman of Hitler's Third Reich. Wife of Hitler for one day and his mistress for twelve years, she first met Hitler in 1929 while she was assistant to the beer-loving Heinrich Hoffmann, the Third Reich's official photographer who had his shop at No.50 Schellingstrasse. He had already joined the Nazi party with party card number 427. Eva Braun committed suicide with Hitler on April 30, 1945 in his underground bunker in the Reich Chancellery gardens in Berlin. It was her third attempt, the first having been in November 1932 when she was found, with a bullet in her neck. On May 28, 1935, Eva, who often complained of Hitler's neglect, decided to take thirty-five sleeping pills just to 'make certain'. Late that night she was found unconscious by her sister Ilse who called a doctor just in time to save her life. It is interesting to note that Eva never became a Nazi Party member. Outside of Hitler's close circle of cronies she was completely unknown to the general public until after the war. Eva's mother, Franziska Braun, lived to the ripe old age of 96 and died in Ruhpolding, Bavaria in January,1976. Her father, Fritz Braun, died on January 22, 1964. (1912-1945) Hitler's mistress from 1932 and his wife during the last few hours of his life, Eva Braun was born in Munich, the daughter of a school teacher. Of middle-class Catholic background, she first met Hitler in the studio of his photographer friend, Heinrich Hoffmann (q.v.), in 1929, describing him to her sister, Ilse, as "a gentleman of a certain age with a funny moustache and carrying a big felt hat." At that time Eva Braun still worked for Hoffmann as an office assistant, later becoming a photo laboratory worker, helping to process pictures of Hitler. The blonde, fresh-faced, slim, photographer's assistant was an athletic girl, fond of skiing, mountain climbing and gymnastics as well as dancing. After the death of Geli Raubal, Hitler's niece, she became his mistress, living in his Munich flat, in spite of the opposition of her father who disliked the association on political and personal grounds. In 1935, after an abortive suicide attempt, Hitler bought her a villa in a Munich suburb, near to his own home, providing her with a Mercedes and a chauffeur for personal use. In his first will of 2 May 1938 he put her at the top of his personal bequests - in the event of his death she was to receive the equivalent of £600 a year for the rest of her life. In 1936 she moved to Hitler's Berghof at Berchtesgaden where she acted as his hostess. Reserved, indifferent to politics and keeping her distance from most of the Fuhrer's intimates, Eva Braun led a completely isolated life in the Fuhrer's Alpine retreat and later in Berlin. They rarely appeared in public together and few Germans even knew of her existence. Even the Fuhrer's closest associates were not certain of the exact nature of their relationship, since Hitler preferred to avoid suggestions of intimacy and was never wholly relaxed in her company. Eva Braun spent most of her time exercising, brooding, reading cheap novelettes, watching romantic films or concerning herself with her own appearance. Her loyalty to Hitler never flagged. After he survived the July 1944 plot she wrote Hitler an emotional letter, ending: "From our first meeting I swore to follow you anywhere--even unto death--I live only for your love." In April 1945 she joined Hitler in the Fuhrerbunker, as the Russians closed in on Berlin. She declined to leave in spite of his orders, claiming to others that she was the only person still loyal to him to the bitter end. "Better that ten thousand others die than he be lost to Germany," she would constantly repeat to friends. On 29 April 1945 Hitler and Eva Braun were finally married. The next day she committed suicide by swallowing poison, two minutes before Hitler took his own life. On Hitler's orders, both bodies were cremated with petrol in the Reich Chancellery garden above the bunker. Her charred corpse was later discovered by the Russians. The rest of Eva Braun's family survived the war. Her mother, Franziska, who lived in an old farmhouse in Ruhpolding, Bavaria, died at the age of ninety-six, in January 1976. Youngest of the three daughters of Fritz and Franziska Braun, her real name was Margarethe and was born three years after Eva. They lived in an apartment on the second floor of No. 93 Hohenzollernstrasse (the house still stands). An adventurous and carefree girl, Eva nicknamed her 'Mogerl' because she was often sulking. She spent considerable time with her sister at the Berghof, which Eva loved to call the Grand Hotel. She married Hans Georg Otto Hermann Fegelein (37), a lieutenant general in the Waffen SS, on June 3, 1944 in the Salzburg town hall. The reception was held at the Berghof and later at Hitler's mountain retreat on the Kehlstein (The Eagles Nest), the only real party ever held there. During the last days of the Third Reich, Fegelein tried to escape from Berlin but was discovered and arrested. Next day, Hitler ordered him shot. An effort was made by Eva Braun to save him but to no avail. Gretl survived the war and gave birth to a daughter, Eva, on May 5, 1945. The name Fegelein was never mentioned again in the Braun household. The inner circle celebrates in the Berghof. This photo is usually labeled as showing Hitler's birthday in 1943 or even '44, but several details show it to have been taken much earlier than that, probably 1939 or 1940. Eva's appearance shows this to be an earlier photo; in addition, both Wilhelm Brückner and Max Wünsche had left the Führer's immediate service by the end of 1940. Front row, left-right - Wilhelm Brückner (Hitler's chief personal adjutant), Christa Schroeder (one of Hitler's secretaries), Eva, Hitler, Gretl, Adolf Wagner (Gauleiter of Munich), Otto Dietrich (Press Chief); 2nd Row, left-right - Gerda Daranowski (later Frau Christian, another of Hitler's secretaries), Margarete Speer, Martin Bormann (partially hidden), Dr. Karl Brandt, Heinrich Hoffmann; Remainder, left-right - Dr. Theo Morell (Hitler's personal physician), Hannelore (or Johanna) "Hanni" Morell, Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer (Hitler's naval adjutant), Gerda Bormann, Max Wünsche (one of Hitler's SS aides), Heinrich Heim (from Bormann's staff). Born Winifred Williams in 1894 to an English father and German mother. In 1915 she married Siegfried Wagner, twenty-five years her senior, and son of composer Richard Wagner. She became entranced with Hitler and his Nazi movement in the early 20s. When Siegfried died in 1930, she became a close friend and staunch supporter of Adolf Hitler whom she first met in 1923. It was rumored that a marriage between Adolf and Winifred was in the offing, but nothing came of it. Such an event would have solicited great support from the German people. The Führer himself entertained such thoughts believing that a union of the names Hitler and Wagner would ensure the adulation of the masses for time immemorial. In fact he once proposed marriage to her but on becoming Chancellor in January, 1933, he felt there was no need now for him to marry. He felt himself already 'married' to his adopted country, Deutschland. A frequent visitor to her home, the 'Villa Wahnfried', where her three children knew him by the nickname 'Wolf', Hitler was often seen with her at various performances during the Bayreuth Festival, the last time in the late summer of 1940 when they attended a performance of 'Götterdämmerung'. Winifred Wagner died in Uberlingen on March 5, 1980, unrepentant of her relationship with Hitler. Wagner's music has long been linked to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. Hitler loved Wagner and even as the tide of World War II began to turn against Germany, he kept the Bayreuth Festival running. When things got so bad that no one could afford to attend the Festival (or to even get to the town of Bayreuth), the House was packed with wounded German troops who were given free tickets by the government. Hitler's connection to Bayreuth remained strong in part because of his personal friendship with Winifred Wagner. She was the British orphan who had come to adoptive parents in Germany. The elderly Klindworths were very involved in the world of Wagner and naturally Winifred fell under the spell of the music. Just at the time Winifred reached young-womanhood, there was a desperate need for Richard Wagner's only son Siegfried to wed and thus deflect increasing rumours of his homosexuality. The attractive Winifred, many years Siegfried's junior, was set before him. They married and miraculously managed to produce four children despite stories of Siegfried's continuing same-sex dalliances. The death of Cosima in 1930 finally paved the way for Siegfried to fully take the reins of the Bayreuth Festival but in an odd twist of fate he only survived his mother by a few months. On Siegfried's death, Winifred took over the running of the Festival with the support of the artistic staff and musicians, thus marginalizing Siegfried's sisters. Hitler had visited Bayreuth in 1925 and Winifred had met him and stood with him before Richard Wagner's tomb (above). Later, when Hitler was in jail for fomenting political unrest, she sent him parcels of food. And writing paper - on which he is thought to have written MEIN KAMPF. With Hitler's rise to power, his passion for Wagner and his view of Bayreuth as a world symbol of the superiority of German art assured that the Festival would to continue thru the war years. Winifred and Hitler were in frequent contact and spent much time together; he would come to Bayreuth and stay - whenever he could find the time - in a house (adjoining Wahnfried) known as the Fuhrer Haus. He loved to sit up late at Wahnfried before a blazing fire (even in summer) regaling the Wagners and their guests with long stories; his audience reportedly sometimes had trouble staying awake. Other times Hitler would suddenly call for Winifred and/or her sons Wieland and Wolfgang to come immediately to Berlin or to meet him at some other site. The Fuhrer's wish was their command. (The above photo is from the cover of Hamann's book). As the war escalated, Hitler had less time for Winifred but kept up his interest in the Festival. When Winifred heard of instances of Nazi brutality and the enforcement of harsh anti-Jewish laws, she believed that Hitler's henchmen and goons were acting without his knowledge. She thought of Hitler as a warm and peace-loving man. Her sons called him Uncle Wolf. As Germany teetered on the brink of defeat, supplies exhausted and services non-existent, Winifried clung to the hope that her Wolf had a secret plan up his sleeve to crush the enemies marching on the Fatherland. She was deluded. The book's description of the day the Allied forces entered Bayreuth (April 14, 1945) gives us an unusual perspective of what its like for the ordinary folk of a defeated country when wars end. [One fact the book reveals of which I'd previously been unaware was that there was a 'small' concentration camp right outside the town of Bayreuth; it was more of a way-station where people were held awaiting shipment to the large camps away in the East]. Then began Winifred's long de-Nazification process; at her trial the testimony of several Jews (and their family members) who she had helped get released from the camps via her connection to Hitler helped soften the punishment; she was not imprisoned or (as she dreaded) sent to a work camp, but she was stripped of her position as head of the Festival. Her sons managed to distance themselves from her and to down-play reports of their own involvements with Hitler. To emphasize the brothers' full breaking with the past, Wolfgang banned his mother from entering the Festspielhaus (above). The ban held nearly until her death. Winifred claimed not to have known about the horrible atrocities committed by the Third Reich; she knew that Jews and homosexuals were impounded in camps but not of the gas chambers and the ovens and the mass graves. She viewed the Nazi era simply as a time of strong nationalism, and of pride in all things German - and especially of pride in the Master's music. Over the years she quietly kept contact with others who had passed thru the de-Nazification process. They maintained a coded link by referring to "USA" ("Unser selige Adolf" - "Our Beloved Adolf"). Winifred Wagner might simply have faded quietly out of the world's attention were it not for a filmed interview which took place in 1975. The filmmaker Hans-Jurgen Syberberg requested to interview her, supposedly for a documentary about the Festival and her role in it. His secret agenda seems to have been to talk to a legendary woman who had known Hitler personally and never repented of her friendship with him. Syberberg put Winifred at ease with his chattiness and she was delighted to have an audience for her recollections. He tricked her by leaving an audiotape machine running even when the cameras were off. Among her many reflections on the Nazi era and her friendship with Hitler, this quote caused a sensation: "If Hitler were to walk in through that door now, for instance, I'd be as happy and glad to see and have him here as ever. And that whole dark side of him, I know it exists but it doesn't exist for me because I don't know that part of him. You see, the only thing that exists for me in a relationship with somebody is my personal experience." In 1977, she was finally allowed back into the Festival Theatre where the controversial Patrice Chereau RING Cycle was being presented. She considered the production a desecration. Winifred Wagner died in 1980 at the age of 83. Born in 1896 in Hartfeld, Austria, younger sister of the German Führer and the fifth and last child of Alios and Klara Hitler. At one time she worked as a secretary for a group of doctors in a military hospital but kept her identity a secret. When she would see a small chapel when traveling in the mountains, she would go in and say a silent prayer for her brother. Each year Hitler would send her a ticket to the impressive Nuremberg Rally. In March, 1941, Hitler was staying at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna and it was here that Paula met him for the last time. It was always her opinion that it was a pity her brother had not become the architect he always wanted to be. Paula was seven years younger than her brother, but he never mentioned her in his writings because of his embarrassment at her weak mental state. Until the last weeks of the war, Paula Hitler lived in Vienna where she worked in an arts and craft shop and when the war ended was interviewed by U.S. Intelligence officers in May, 1945. Reluctant to talk she said tearfully, "Please remember, he was my brother." She lived under the name of Frau Wolf (Hitler's nickname) a name he asked her to adopt after the Anschluss with Austria in 1938. After the war, she lived unmarried in a two bedroom flat near Berchtesgaden, her main interest being the Catholic Church. She died on June 1, 1960, without ever being invited to the Berghof. Her grave is in the Bergfriedhof in Berchtesgaden. Two historians yesterday acclaimed the discovery in Germany of a journal written by Adolf Hitler's sister, saying it offers remarkable insights into the dysfunctional nature of the Führer's family. Paula Hitler's journal, unearthed at an undisclosed location in Germany, reveals that her brother was a bully in his teens, and would beat her. Recounting the earliest memories of her childhood, when she was around eight and Adolf was 15, Paula wrote: "Once again I feel my brother's loose hand across my face." The typewritten journal is among an assortment of documents which have been disclosed by historians Timothy Ryback and Florian Beierl. Dr Ryback is the head of Germany's Obersalzberg Institute of Contemporary History, which is dedicated to research into Hitler, while Mr Beierl has written several books about the Nazi party leader and Third Reich chancellor. They said that scientific tests had verified the documents' authenticity. Other insights include the revelation that Paula, always thought of as the innocent bystander of the Hitler family, was engaged to one of the Holocaust's most notorious euthanasia doctors. Dr Ryback told the Guardian: "This is the first time that we have been able to get an insight into the Hitler family from a very young age. "Adolf was the older brother and father figure. He was very strict with Paula and slapped her around. But she justified it in a starry-eyed way, because she believed it was for the good of her education." The two historians have also located a joint memoir by Hitler's half-brother, Alois, and half-sister, Angela. One excerpt describes the violence exercised by Hitler's father, also called Alois, and how Adolf's mother tried to protect her son from regular beatings. "Fearing that the father could no longer control himself in his unbridled rage, she [Adolf's mother] decides to put an end to the beating. "She goes up to the attic, covers Adolf who is lying on the floor, but cannot deflect the father's final blow. Without a sound she absorbs it." Mr Beierl said: "This is a picture of a completely dysfunctional family that the public has never seen before. "The terror of the Third Reich was cultivated in Hitler's own home." Mr Beierl's research also led him to Russian interrogation papers, which exposed the fact that Paula Hitler was engaged to Erwin Jekelius, responsible for gassing 4,000 people during the war. Mr Beierl said: "Until this point, Paula Hitler had a clean slate. But the portrayal of her being a poor little creature has suddenly shifted. "In my opinion, the fact that she was due to marry one of Austria's worst criminals means that she was also connected with death, horror and gas chambers." And Dr Ryback added: "To me, discovering that Paula was going to marry Jekelius is one of the most astonishing revelations of my career. "She bought into the whole thing - hook, line and sinker." Paula, who later lived under the pseudonym Wolf, did not marry Jekelius, as the wedding was forbidden by her brother. Dr Ryback said: "It was like a scene from Monty Python. Jekelius goes to Berlin to ask Hitler for his sister's hand; he is met by the Gestapo, shipped off to the Eastern front, and snapped up by the Russians." Other eye-opening documents that shed light on the Hitler household include a family account book. One entry mentions a loan of 900 Austrian crowns given to Hitler in the spring of 1908, enough for the teenager to live on for one year, and dispels the myth that he existed as a "starving artist" when in Vienna. The historians were asked to carry out their extensive research almost six years ago for the German television station ZDF. Their findings, due to be broadcast in a 45-minute documentary in Germany next week, also include interviews with two of Hitler's relatives. Dr Ryback said: "This is the first time that these people have spoken publicly about living under the shadow of Hitler. They do not romanticise their past. They are very humble and have suffered their whole lives under the curse of Adolf. "It is an incredible closing of a loop: Hitler came from a family of poor farmers. After he rose and fell as a dictator, his family today is back where they started." Hitler's relatives requested to remain anonymous in the documentary and their faces are digitally altered. 1960-Paula Hitler, the younger sister of Adolf Hitler and the last child of Alois Hitler and his third wife, Klara, dies aged 64 in Berchtesgaden. Paula was the only full sibling of Adolf Hitler to survive into adulthood. HANNA REITSCH (1912-1979) Born in Hirschberg, Silesia, (now Jelenia Góra, Poland) she became Germany's leading woman stunt pilot and later chief test pilot for the Luftwaffe. She worshipped Hitler and the Nazi ideology and became the only woman to win the Iron Cross (first and second class). Hanna Reitsch spent three days in the Bunker just before Hitler's suicide on April 28, then flew out with the newly appointed Chief of the Luftwaffe, General Robert Ritter von Greim, who's orders were to mount a bombing attack on the Russian forces who were now approaching the Chancellery and the Führerbunker. Hanna Reitsch survived the war and died on August 24, 1979 in Frankfurt, from a heart attack. Von Greim was arrested and while awaiting trial committed suicide in a Salzburg hospital on the 24th of May, 1945. LENI RIEFENSTAHL (1902-2003) Born Leni Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl on August 22, 1902. Ballet dancer, actress, film director and producer, she was born in Berlin and founded her own film company in 1931 to produce 'The Blue Light'. She was appointed by Hitler to produce films for the Nazi Party such as 'The Triumph of the Will' and her masterpiece 'Olympia', the famous documentary of the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin. She has always insisted that she was never a member of the Nazi party but neither was she an opponent of Hitler. Before the war her films received all the international awards but after the war Lenii was castigated because of it and spent almost four years in Allied prisons. Boycotted and despised, she has never been able to make another feature film. Editing the film she says, 'nearly ruined my health'. In 1952 she was cleared of war-crimes charges by a German court. In 1962 she travelled to Africa and spent eight months living with the Nuba tribe. At the age of 70 she undertook an underwater scuba diving course and for the next 18 years filmed hundreds of undersea documentaries. At age 90, Leni Reifenstahl became a member of Greenpeace. She regrets ever having made 'Triumph of the Will'. Propaganda and Indoctrination provided the population with the satisfaction of belonging to theVolksgemeinschaft. This identification excluded any solidarity, any expression of partiality with those targeted for persecution and murder. To the bitter end, the vast majority of Germans identified themselves with the Nazi Regime and their beloved Führer. “Das haben wir nicht gewußt!” “We knew nothing about it!” That was the widespread claim among the German population before and after 1945. As the German historian Wolfgang Benz states, 'What for many was self-protection turned into the greatest sham of a generation after the collapse of the Hitler state” Leni Riefenstahl and Albert Speer helped to disseminate and cement historical lies and legends and, in so doing, provided many with a most welcome alibi: If Speer and Riefenstahl professed ignorance how could 'ordinary' people have known of the murder of Jews? Within Joseph Goebbels' empire of propaganda and indoctrination Leni Riefenstahl emerged as the favourite filmmaker of the Nazi regime. She was a brilliant artist and skillful propagandist who, from the beginning, aroused considerable debate. She began her career as dancer, actor and film director of the new genre of 'Mountain' films that attracted Hitler's admiration. After the 'seizure of power' in 1933, when her Jewish colleagues and friends were banned from the world of culture and forced into exile, she accepted Hitler’s offer to make films documenting the power, glory, and mission of Nazi Germany. She enjoyed the prestige, popularity and the prizes awarded to her for her films – both in Germany and abroad. She operated in an industry dominated by men. Introducing pioneering camera techniques and using the latest production technologies she created masterpieces of film propaganda that became milestones in the history of cinematography. Some critics argue they are the best propaganda films ever made. Her black-and-white documentaries of the 1934 Nuremberg party rally ('Triumph of the Will') and of the 1936 Berlin Olympics brought her 'pre-war acclaim and post-war infamy'. 'Triumph of the Will’ captured the grandeur and orchestration of Nazi rallies and rituals. At its centre stood the deification of Adolf Hitler and – in all her works and throughout her life –fascination with the concepts and Fascist images of 'Youth', 'Body' and 'Beauty'. After the war Leni Riefenstahl was categorised by a de-nazification tribunal as a Nazi 'sympathizer'. She retreated into a self-imposed exile in an attic of a Munich house. In the 1960's she reinvented herself and reemerged as a photographer who depicted the exotic life of the Nuba tribe in Sudan and then the colourful underwater world of barrier reefs. Haunted by the past, accused of being a Nazi, seducer, liar, denier, anti-semite and mistress of Hitler, Goebbels and other Nazi leaders, she sought to clear her name and to defend her films. She defined her films as 'works of art' and claimed that they had nothing to do with Nazi politics and propaganda. She never offered an apology for her involvement with the Nazis. She insisted that she had never been a member of the Nazi party, let alone an anti-semite or mistress of Nazi leaders. Like many others, she maintained that she had known nothing about the slaughter of 6 million Jewish men, women and children. In her final years she reappeared in public and social life mixing with celebrities of sports and culture including tennis player Boris Becker and actors Madonna and Jodi Foster. She enjoyed the reputation of “feminist pioneer”. Leni Riefenstahl died in Berlin in 2003, at the age of 101. Her death re-ignited the old controversy surrounding her 'Horrible and Beautiful Life'. There are signs that with the passage of time her life and works will be viewed in a more positive and forgiving light.The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (Die Macht der Bilder) This award-winning documentary is a biographical account of the woman best known as Hitler’s official filmmaker and more recently as the controversial photographer of the Nuba tribe of East Africa. Confronted with Ray Müller’s questions about her career, Riefenstahl delivers an emotional defense of her relationship with Hitler and other Nazi leaders, splitting hairs over minute details. Analyzing many sequences from her films in a manner that is both passionate and sophisticated, she attempts to vindicate her infamous past. Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens) Approved by Hitler as the official film record of the sixth Nazi-party Congress held in 1934 at Nuremberg, this infamous film provides a case study of cinema as a means of propaganda that, nonetheless, preserves its integrity as an art form. Defending her role in making this film, the director stated that she "faithfully photographed what existed in reality." Yet Riefenstahl’s camera uncovered the psychological truth of an autocratic society. Conscripted into the Luftwaffe in 1939 and owing to her secretarial skills became personal secretary to Reich Marshal Göring for a period of five weeks during the closing stages of the war. She knew at that time that Göring's art treasures were stolen but was afraid to talk to anybody about it. While at Berchtesgaden she was issued with a pistol and a cyanide pill with instructions to shoot as many Russians as possible before taking the poison pill. (It was believed that the Red Army would reach Berchtesgaden before the Americans). Placed under house arrest by the Gestapo when they came to arrest Göring, she was then arrested again when the Americans arrived. All her belongings were taken from her and placed in a heap, doused with petrol and set alight. She was then interned in a POW camp for the next ten days from which, with the help of an American guard, she escaped and started out on the long walk of around 1,000 kms to her home on the shores of the Baltic Sea, a journey which took her seven weeks. Some years after the war, Lucie Wolf emigrated to Australia and became an Australian citizen. Journalist with the Offenbacher Zeitung in Frankfurt. Because of her Jewish faith she was dismissed from her job in the mid 1930s. Taking up social work she became director of the Centre of German Jewish Children at the Frankfurt Jewish Congregation office. In this capacity she helped thousands of Jewish children to escape to England and other European countries during the Kindertransport period of 1938-39. Martha accompanied many of these transports to England. Back in Frankfurt she helped operate a soup kitchen and eight old peoples homes which cared for 570 elderly Jews. On June 10/11, 1942, a total of 1,042 Jews of Frankfurt and 450 from Wiesbaden were assembled in the Frankfurt Grossmarkthalle prior to boarding trains for deportation to the east. Martha Wertheimer was assigned by the Gestapo to take charge of this transport. A few weeks later, a postcard sent to a friend already in the Lodz ghetto, was the last the Jewish community ever heard of this courageous woman or of the victims on the train. SOPHIE SCHOLL (1921-1943) Martyr of the anti-Nazi movement at Munich University where she studied biology and philosophy. Arrested with her brother Hans, a medical student, both were sentenced to death by the People's Court, and on February 22, 1943, twenty-two year old Sophie and her brother Hans were beheaded by the guillotine. They were instrumental in organizing the resistance group known as the 'White Rose'. In one of their illegally printed pamphlets, she wrote 'Every word that comes from Hitler's mouth is a lie'. The graves of Hans and Sophie Scholl can be seen in the Perlach Forest Cemetery, outside Munich. HILDE MONTE (MEISEL) (1914-1945) Poet and writer for the Berlin paper 'Der Funke', representing the Socialist International. Living In England when Hitler became Chancellor, she joined the campaign of resistance against the Nazis. To carry on the struggle against Hitler she decided to return to her homeland and in 1944 had reached Switzerland via Lisbon. In Vienna, she established a secret intelligence chain with a group of anti-Nazi's. In attempting to cross the border into Germany she stumbled into an SS patrol. A shot was fired that shattered both her legs. As the SS rushed to arrest her, Hilde Monte (Meisel) bit hard into her suicide pill. She died instantly. MARLENE von EXNER In May, 1943, an electrocardiogram revealed no improvement in Hitler's heart condition. A stomach ailment also troubled him and he discussed this at a meeting with Romania's Marshal Antonescu who recommended to him a well known dietitian from Vienna, Frau Marlene von Exner. She took up her duties to cook exclusively for the Führer with an inducement of a 2,000 Reichsmark cash payment and a tax free salary of 800 marks a month. While serving at Hitler's headquarters she became engaged to an SS adjutant and it was through this that Hitler learned that her great grandmother was Jewish. Hitler had no option but to sack her immediately 'I cannot make one rule for myself and another for the rest' he explained. ERIKA MANN (1905-1969) Writer and daughter of Thomas Mann the novelist. Born in Munich, she fled Germany in 1933 in a car given to her by the Ford Motor Company after she won a 6,000 mile race through Europe. In 1935 she married the English poet W.H.Auden. This marriage of convenience was arranged to give her British nationality. She returned to Europe and continued to attack the Nazi regime in her writings. Her 1938 book 'School for Barbarians' described to the world the true nature of Nazism. This was followed by a series of lectures in America titled 'The Other Germany'. In 1950 she returned to Switzerland where she died in Kilchberg, near Zurich, on August 27, 1969 after surgery for a brain tumour. ELIZABETH von THADDEN (1890-1944) Teacher and activist in the anti-Hitler movement. Born in Mohrungen, East Prussia now Morag, Poland, she taught in a Protestant boarding school at Wieblingen Castle near Heidelberg which she founded in 1927. Forced to resign in 1941 by new state regulations, she started working for the Red Cross. She was reported to the Gestapo for things she said during a discussion on the regime at her home on September 10,1943. She was arrested, charged with defeatism and attempted treason and sentenced to death by the Peoples Court. On September 8, 1944, she was executed. Her half brother, Adolf von Thadden, survived the war and became a member of the Bundestag and later chairman of the National Democratic Party (NPD). LAGI COUNTESS BALLESTREM-SOLF Daughter of diplomat Dr.Wilhelm Solf, ex Ambassador to Japan. In 1940, she married Count Hubert Ballestrem, an officer in the German military. At her mother's house a group of anti-Nazi intellectuals met regularly to discuss ways to help Jews and political enemies of the regime. Many Jews were found hiding places by the Countess and her mother, Frau Solf. Documents and forged passports were obtained to help them emigrate to safety. At a birthday party given by their friend, Elizabeth von Thadden, a new member was introduced to the circle. It later turned out that the new member, Dr.Reckzeh, was a Gestapo agent and all members of the Solf Circle had to flee for their lives. The Countess and her mother went to Bavaria but the Gestapo soon caught up with them. Incarcerated in the Ravensbruck concentration camp the Countess only saw her husband once when he came on leave from the Russian front. In December, 1944, they were sent to the Moabit Remand Prison to await their trial before the People's Court. On February 3, 1945, Berlin was subjected to one of the heaviest air raids of the war. Next morning the word got around that the notorious Judge Freisler was killed in his own court-room by a falling beam during the raid. The trial was postponed to April 27 but a few days before, all prisoners were discharged as Judges and SS guards fled the city as the Soviet Army approached. Frau Solf went to England after the war and her daughter was reunited with her husband and lived in Berlin. All told, seventy-six friends and acquaintances of the Countess and her mother were killed during the last few months of the war. Countess Ballestrem-Solf died while in her mid forties through trauma caused by her husband's imprisonment by the Soviet authorities. LILO GLOEDEN (1903-1944) Elizabeth Charlotte Lilo Gloeden was a Berlin housewife, who, with her mother and husband, helped shelter those who were persecuted by the Nazis, by sheltering them for weeks at a time in their flat. Among those sheltered was Dr. Carl Goerdeler, resistance leader and Lord Mayor of Leipzig. Lilo Gloeden, her mother and husband, were all arrested by the Gestapo, and Lilo and her mother subjected to torture under interrogation. On November 30, 1944, all three were beheaded at two minute intervals by guillotine in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin. LILO HERMANN (1909-1938) German student who became involved in anti-Nazi activities. She was arrested and sentenced to death for high treason, becoming the first woman to be executed in Hitler's Third Reich. CHARLOTTE SALOMON (1917-1943) Born in Berlin, daughter of surgeon Professor Albert Solomon. In 1933, being Jewish, he was deprived of his right to practice medicine. Charlotte was admitted to the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts in 1935 (some Jewish students were admitted whose fathers had fought in World War 1) After Kristallnacht, father and daughter were given permission to leave Germany. They settled in Villefranche in the South of France. After Italy signed the surrender, German troops marched into Villefranche and on 21 September, 1943, the Gestapo arrested Charlotte and her husband, Alexander Nagler. Deported by train to Auschwitz both were gassed on arrival. Professor Solomon survived the war and in 1971 presented to the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam a total of 1,300 paintings done by Charlotte in the three years before her arrest. Resident of Hamburg, married Captain Julius Wohlauf on June 29, 1942. Captain Wohlauf was the commanding officer of First Company, Police Battalion 101, at that time conducting mass executions of Jews in eastern Poland. After the first major killing action in the town of Józefów, Frau Wohlauf joined her husband for a delayed honeymoon. During the next few weeks, Vera Wohlauf, now pregnant, witnessed several killing operations at her husband's side. Accompanied by Frau Lucia Brandt, wife of Lieutenant Paul Brandt, also of Police Battalion 101, they were witnesses to the day-long massacre and deportation of the Jews in Miedzyrec on August 25. Other wives of officers were party to all this as were a group of Red Cross nurses. After the killings, the wives and their husbands sat outdoors at their billets, drinking, singing and laughing and discussing the day's activities. This was how Frau Vera Wohlauf spent her honeymoon. Born in Manchester, England, and at age 26 married William Joyce, the leader of the British National Socialist League and became the League's assistant secretary. In August, 1939, she accompanied her husband to Germany and made her first broadcast from Berlin on November 10, 1940 under the name 'Lady Haw Haw' (Her husband was already well known as Lord Haw Haw) In 1942 she appeared under her real name with weekly talks about women's economic problems. Both were arrested on May 28, 1945 and taken to London for trial on charges of treason. William Joyce was found guilty and hanged in 1946. Margaret Joyce was spared a trial on the basis that she was a German citizen (her husband having become a naturalized German citizen in 1940). She was deported to Germany and interned as a security suspect for a short while. After her release she returned to London where she died in 1972. ODETTE SANSOM (1912-1995) Born Odette Marie Celine in Amiens, France, in 1912. She married Roy Sansom, an Englishman, to whom she had three daughters and made her home in England in 1932. When war broke out she joined the First Aid Yeomanry (F.A.N.Y) and was later recruited into the French Section of the SOE. (Special Operations Executive) Given the code name 'Lise' she was sent to France and joined up with a resistance circle headed by British agent Peter Churchill. Arrested by the Gestapo on April 16, 1943, Odette, posing as Peter Churchill's wife, was taken to Fresnes Prison near Paris. Tortured and badly treated during fourteen interrogations, she refused to give away her friends. She was then sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp north of Berlin on July 18, 1944 to be executed, but the camp commandant, Fritz Sühren, believing her to be a relation of Winston Churchill, used her as a hostage to reach the Allied lines to give himself up. On August 20, 1946, Odette Sansom was awarded the George Cross by the King and the Legion d'Honneur from France. When her first husband died she married Peter Churchill and in 1956 when that marriage was dissolved she later married wine importer Geoffrey Hallowes who had also served in the SOE in France. In 1994, the year before she died, she paid an emotional visit to the concentration camp at Ravensbruck (now a memorial site) her first visit since since she left the camp in 1945. One of the most outstanding female German secret agents of the war. Born 1914 in Kiev to Jewish parents, and after the Bolshevik Revolution the family settled in Copenhagen. She trained as a dancer and took up night club work in Paris.We next hear of Vera in Hamburg, as the mistress of Major Hilmar Dierks, the naval intelligence expert of the Hamburg Abwehr (the counter-intelligence department of the German High Command). Recruited by Dierks into the Abwehr she soon made a name for herself as Germany's top female spy. In September, 1940, she and two other agents were landed on the north-east coast of Scotland (Operation Lena). Under her code-name Vera Erikson, she soon caught the attention of the Scottish police and she and her two companions were arrested at Portgordon as they tried to buy a train ticket to London. Her two companions, Karl Druegge and Werner Walti, were both hanged as spies in Wandsworth Prison but Vera was never brought to trial, she simply disappeared. It is assumed that she 'turned' and worked for British Intelligence until the end of the war. Military Intelligence (MI5) files on Vera Chalbur, or Chalburg, have still to be released. CLARA ZETKIN (1857-1944) Born Clara Eissner in Weiderau, Saxony in 1857. A strong campaigner for women's suffrage she married the marxist Ossip Zetkin. Clara became a member of the Reichstag from 1920 to 1933, she was leader of the political movement against the Nazi Party. An early member of the German Communist Party she visited Moscow in 1920. In 1932, after a slashing attack on Hitler and the National Socialists in the Reichstag, she was denounced as a Fascist menace. She died on the 20th of June, 1933, at age seventy-six, a few months after Hitler became Chancellor. Her ashes were laid to rest in the wall of the Kremlin. IRMA GRESE (1921-1945) Irma Ilse Ida Grese, twenty-one year old concentration camp guard, after initial training at Ravensbrück, served at Auschwitz and later at Belsen where she was arrested by the British. Condemned to death at the Belsen Trial, held at No.30 Lindenstrasse, Lüneberg, she was hanged at Hameln Goal on Friday the 13th of December, 1945, by the British executioner, Albert Perrepoint. As she stood composed on the gallows, she spoke one last word as the white hood was pulled down over her head, 'Schnell' (Quick) she whispered. Once when home on a short leave from Auschwitz, she was beaten and turned out of the house by her father for proudly wearing her SS uniform. A cruel sadist, she was said to have had love affairs with Dr.Josef Mengele and the Belsen camp commandant, Josef Kramer. During World War II Irma Grese was the most notorious of the female Nazi war criminals. She was born on October 7, 1923, to a agricultural family and left school in 1938 at the age of 15. She worked on a farm for six months, then in a shop and later for two years in a hospital. Then she was sent to work at the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. She became a camp guard at the age of 19, and, in March 1943, she was transferred to Auschwitz. She rose to the rank of Senior SS-Supervisor in the autumn of 1943, in charge of approximately 30,000 women prisoners, mainly Polish and Hungarian Jews. This was the second highest rank that SS female concentration camp pesonnel could attain. After the war, survivors provided extensive details of murders, tortures, cruelties and sexual excesses engaged in by Irma Grese during her years at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. They testified to her acts of pure sadism, beatings and arbitrary shooting of prisoners, savaging of prisoners by her trained and half starved dogs, to her selecting prisoners for the gas chambers. She habitually wore heavy boots and carried a whip and a pistol. She used both physical and emotional methods to torture the camp's inmates and enjoyed shooting prisoners in cold blood. She beat some of the women to death and whipped others mercilessly using a plaited whip. The skins of three inmates that she had had made into lamp shades were found in her hut. After the Kommandant of Bergen-Belsen, Josef Kramer, Irma Grese was the most notorious defendant in the Belsen Trial, held between September 17 and November 17, 1945. Grese was convicted and sentenced to be hanged. She was executed on December 13, 1945. ILSE KOCH (1906-1967) Called the "Bitch of Buchenwald' she was married to SS-Standartenführer Karl Koch, the camp commandant of Sachsenhausen and later of Buchenwald. Sentenced to life imprisonment the sentence was reduced to four years. On her release she was re-arrested in 1949 and tried by a German court, this time again sentenced to life. On September 1, 1967, when she was sixty one years old, she committed suicide by hanging herself in her cell in Aichach Prison in Bavaria. Her son, Uwe, born in prison in 1947, received her last letter, in it she wrote "I cannot do otherwise. Death is the only deliverance". Ilse Koch was born in Dresden, Germany in 1906. A secretary by profession, Koch joined the Nazi party in 1932. Four years later, she married Karl Otto Koch (1897-1945), head of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, who in 1937 was assigned to build a new concentration camp in Buchenwald. Ilsa went with him and became a SS-Aufseherin (overseer) at the camp. While Karl Otto was known for his personal greed in the camps he worked in, Ilse was known as the “Bitch of Buchenwald” for her bestial cruelty and sadistic behavior. She was especially fond of riding her horse through the camp, whipping any prisoner who attracted her attention. Her hobby was collecting lampshades, book covers, and gloves made from the skins of specially murdered concentration camp inmates, and shrunken human skulls. Prisoners' Tattooed Skin Ilse Koch would specially select prisoners with distinctive tattoos on her rides around the camp. These prisoners would be killed and their skin tanned and stored for later use by the SS guards. Her taste for collecting lampshades made from the tattooed skins was described by a witness at The Nuremberg Trials after the war: "The finished products (i.e. tattooed skin detached from corpses) were turned over to Koch's wife, who had them fashioned into lampshades and other ornamental household articles .." In the book Sidelights on the Koch Affair by Stefan Heymann, the author pointed out that the fact that the Kochs had lamps made of human skin did not distinguish them from the other SS officers. They had the same artworks made for their family homes: "It is more interesting that Frau Koch had a lady's handbag made out of the same material. She was just as proud of it as a South Sea island woman would have been about her cannibal trophies .. " In 1942, the Kochs received a punative transfer to Majdanek. In August 1943, Karl Koch was arrested by the Gestapo at the request ofSS judge Josias Prince of Waldeck-Pyrmont. Karl Otto was charged with the unauthorized murder of three prisoners, while Ilse was accused of the embezzlement of more than 700,000RM. Though Ilse was acquitted, Karl Otto was convicted and shot in April 1945. At the end of the war, Koch was arrested and charged with "participating in a common criminal plan for encouraging, aiding, abetting and participating in the atrocities at Buchenwald." In 1947, an American military tribunal found Koch found guilty and sentenced her to life-imprisonment. A German national, at one time married to a Russian and formally a teacher in Russia. In 1944, she was appointed to the post of matron at a newly established children's home in Velpke, a village near Helmstedt, Germany. She had no previous experience whatever in running a children's clinic. Assisted by four Polish and Russian girls, the health of the infants soon deteriorated to the extent that within months more than eighty children died through gross negligence. The infants had been forcibly removed from their Polish mothers (who were working on farms as slave labour) at four months old. At a British Military Court, held at Brunswick in March/April, 1946, Frau Valentina Bilien was found guilty of a war crime and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Female guard in various camps, and one-time supervisor of the Ravensbrück concentration camp and later served in the extermination camp of Maidanek in Poland. In 1949, she served three years in prison in Austria for infanticide. After her release she was granted an amnesty from further prosecution in that country. In 1959 she married an American engineer named Russell Ryan and settled in New York. Granted US citizenship in 1963, this was revoked in 1973 when a warrant for her arrest was issued in Dusseldorf. At her trial in Germany she was sentenced to life imprisonment, the first US citizen to be extradited for war crimes. UNITY MITFORD (1914-1948) 'Bobo' to her friends, and one of seven children of the second Baron Redesdale (David Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford). She was introduced to Hitler in 1935 while studying art in Munich. This 21-year-old British aristocrat became his frequent companion and supporter and together with Eva Braun, often stayed at Winifred Wagner's house during the Bayreuth Festival. When Britain declared war on Germany, Unity's dreams were shattered and she tried to commit suicide by shooting herself in the head. Found severely wounded in the Englisher Garten, she was hospitalized on Hitler's orders and for months lay in a state of coma. Hitler visited her twice in room 202 in the Nussbaumstrasse Clinic but she showed no sign of recognition. On April 16,1940, she was sent back to England in a special railway carriage via Switzerland. Back in England she was subsequently operated on but nothing more was heard of Unity Valkyrie Mitford till the end of the war. She died on May 19, 1948, never having fully recovered from the wound. She is buried in the graveyard of St.Mary's Church in the village of Swinbrook. Unity's sister, Diana, married Brian Guiness of the Irish brewing family. When later they divorced, Diana studied fascism and joined the British Union of Fascists. There she met and married its leader, Sir Oswold Mosley. ANNE FRANK (1929-1945) German-Jewish girl who hid from the Gestapo in a loft in Amsterdam for two years. Born in Frankfurt on June 12, 1929, daughter of businessman Otto Frank. The Frank family, Otto, his wife, daughters Margot and Anne, left Frankfurt for Amsterdam in 1933. When the German army invaded Holland in May, 1940, they went into hiding until August 4, 1944 when their hiding place was betrayed by a friend. Anne and her family were arrested and imprisoned in Westerbork. On September 3, 1944, they embarked on a three day journey, along with 1,019 other Jews, to Auschwitz in Poland. On arrival, 549 of the deportees were immediately gassed. Some weeks later, Anne and her sister Margot were sent back to Germany to the Belsen concentration camp where Margot died of typus at the beginning of March 1945. Anne died a few days later. Anne's mother died in Auschwitz on January 6, 1945. Anne's diary was found a year later by her father, Otto Frank, who survived the war and when published, caused a sensation. Translated into thirty two languages it became a successful stage play and film. Today, the secret hiding place in the house at 263 Prinsengracht by the Prinsengracht Canal, is visited by thousands each year. EDITH STEIN (1891-1942) Born in Breslau, daughter of a Jewish timber merchant. She rejected Judaism and became a Catholic nun in 1922 and in 1932 she was appointed lecturer at the German Institute of Scientific Pedagogy, a post from which she was dismissed because of her Jewish parents. She then entered the Carmelite Convent in Cologne as Sister Teresa Benedicta. In the elections of 1933 she refused to vote and was prohibited from voting in the elections of 1938. Transferred to a convent in Holland, she was arrested by the Gestapo when Germany invaded that country. With many other Jews she was sent to Auschwitz where on August 9, 1942, she was put to death in the recently built gas chambers. Edith Stein was later proclaimed a saint by Pope John Paul 11, an act which infuriated many Jews who think that she is not an appropriate representative of Jewish victims. MILDRED ELIZABETH GILLARS (1901-1988) An American citizen born in Portland, Maine, she studied music in Germany in the 1920s and taught English at the Berlitz Language School. During World War 11 she broadcast Nazi propaganda from a Berlin radio station. Aimed at American GIs, she was soon nicknamed 'Axis Sally' by the Allied troops. Arrested after the war by the US Counter-Intelligence Corps, she was sentenced to twelve years in prison in the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, West Virginia where she converted to Catholicism. Paroled in 1961, she started teaching German, French and Music in a Roman Catholic school in Columbus, Ohio. In 1973 she completed her bachelor's degree in speech at the age of seventy-two. Five years later she died of colon cancer. MAGDA GOEBBELS (1901-1945) First Lady of the Third Reich and wife of Propaganda Minister and Gauleiter of Berlin, Joseph Goebbels. In 1930 she divorced her first husband, millionaire Gunter Quandt, from whom she was granted the custody of their son, Harald, four thousand marks monthly allowance and fifty-thousand marks to purchase a house. She eventually leased a seven room luxury top floor apartment at No 2 Adolf Hitler Platz (now Theodore Heuss Platz) in Charlottenburg, West Berlin. She became secretary to Goebbels whom she married on December 12, 1931. In the Bunker with Hitler during the last days of the war, she poisoned her six children, Helga, Hilda, Helmut, Holde, Hedda and Heide. She and her husband then committed suicide in the garden of the Reich Chancellery. A great admirer of Hitler, she decided to name all her children with a name beginning with H. Earlier, Magda had confided to her trusted friend, her sister-in-law, Ello Quandt, "In the days to come Joseph will be regarded as one of the greatest criminals Germany has ever produced. The children will hear that daily, people would torment them, despise and humiliate them. We will take them with us, they are too good, too lovely for the world which lies ahead". Madga's stepfather, Richard Friedlaender, who her mother, Auguste Behrend, had divorced when she was young, was Jewish. He was arrested and imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp where he died a year later, in 1939. EMMY GÖRING (1893-1973) Born in Hamburg as Emmy Sonneman she became a well known actress at the National Theatre in Weimar. She divorced her first husband, actor Karl Köstlin, and became Hermann Göring's second wife on April 10, 1935. Adolf Hitler acted as best man. In 1937 she gave birth to a daughter and named her Edda, believed to be after Mussolini's daughter, Countess Ciano, who had spent some time at their home Karinhall. In 1948, a German denazification court convicted her of being a Nazi and sentenced her to one year in jail. When she was released, thirty percent of her property was confiscated and she was banned from the stage for five years. She was unable to revive her acting career so she moved to Munich with her daughter Edda and lived in a small apartment until she died on June 8, 1973. Edda, believing that her father was wrongly judged by the Allies, became active in the Neo-Nazi movement and attends many of their reunions. The Göring Wedding Only Christians perform Christian weddings, and the Nazis were no exception. Hermann Göring married Emmy Sonnemann, a famous Opera star. Adolf Hitler stands in the front row as "Best Man" during the ceremony in the Cathedral by Reichbishop Müller. EMILIE SCHINDLER (1907-2001) Wife of Czech-born German industrialist, Oskar Schindler, who, together with her husband, saved over 1,200 Jewish workers from theHolocaust. Born in a German speaking village in what is now the Czech Republic, she married Oskar in 1928 and in 1942 moved to Krakow in Poland. There they established a factory producing domestic kitchen utensils and employing Jews who they planned to save. In 1949 they moved to Argentina where she was abandoned by her husband who returned to Germany with his mistress in 1957 and died there in 1974. Emilie returned to Germany in July, 2001, with the intention of settling down in a retirement home in Bavaria but suffered a stroke and died in a hospital near Berlin. She was 94 years old. In 1993, Emilie Schlinder was awarded the honour of 'Righteous Gentile' by the Yad Vashen Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Born in the industrial town of Hamm in 1922 she joined the BDM at age sixteen and soon became one of its principle organizers in the town of Monschau. She trained at Hülchrath Castle for her part in 'Operation Carnival', the assassination of the American appointed Burgermeister of Aachen, the first German city to fall to the Allies. Dropped by parachute near the outskirts, the five man and one woman team made their way into the city guided by Hirsch who knew the area well. At No 251, Eupener Strasse, lived Franz Oppenhoff, a forty-one year old lawyer, his wife Irmgard and their three children. Oppenhoff had recently been appointed chief Burgomeister by the Americans and by accepting this appointment he had signed his own death warrant. Regarded as a traitor by the Nazi resistance movement, the so-called Werewolves, he was a prime candidate for assassination. Guided by Hirsch to the house, the actual murder was carried out by the leader of the team, SS Lt. Wenzel and their radio operator, Sepp Leitgeb, who fired the fatal shot as Oppenhoff stood on the steps of his residence. Ilse Hirsch took no part in the actual assassination but acted only as guide and lookout. Making their escape from the city, Hirsch caught her foot on a trip-wire attached to a buried mine which severely injured her knee and killed her companion, Sepp Leitgeb. Spending a long time in hospital she eventually returned to her home in Euskirchen. After the war, the survivors of the assassination team, with the exception of SS Lt. Wenzel, were tracked down and arrested. At the Aachen 'Werewolf Trial' in October, 1949, all were found guilty and sentenced to from one to four years in prison. Ilse and one other team member were set free. In 1972, Ilse Hirsch was happily married, the mother of two teenage boys and living only a score of miles from the scene of the most momentous event in her life. KITTY SCHMIDT (1882-1945) Owner of Berlin's top brothel the 'Pension Schmidt' located at No.11, Giesebrecht Strasse. It was later renamed 'Salon Kitty' when taken over by the S.D.(Secret Service). It became the very epitome of relaxation for high ranking officers and visiting diplomats. Fitted out with hidden microphones, this sophisticated surveillance system became the main source of Gestapo intelligence. Twenty women were specially trained for work in Salon Kitty. During a bombing raid in 1944, the 'Salon Kitty' was badly damaged and was moved down to the ground floor. Kitty Schmidt died in Berlin in 1954 at the age of seventy two. Next door, at No.12, was the apartment of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of the SD. (In 1988, the former 'Salon Kitty' was in use as a Guitar Studio!). Wife of Martin Bormann, head of Party Chancellery. A fanatical adherent to Nazi ideology, she bore her husband ten children, the first being named Adolf, after his god-father. Of her husbands mistress, Manja Behrens, she wrote 'See to it that one year she has a child and next year I have a child, so that you will always have a wife who is serviceable'. After the war, the search for Gerda Borman ended when she was located in the village of Wolkenstein, twenty kilometres north east of Bolzano. With her were fourteen children, nine of her own and five who were kidnapped by her husband in order that his wife could travel posing as the director of a children's home. In her final days Gerda converted to the Catholic faith and when found was ill from cancer and was operated on in Bolzano Civil Hospital. She died in March 1946. The five kidnapped children were returned to their parents and her own children placed in Roman Catholic homes. Her husband, Martin Borman, committed suicide during his attempt to escape the bunker and his remains were discovered in 1972. His family refused to have anything to do with the bones so they lay in a cardboard box in the cellar of the District Prosecutor in Frankfurt for years. In 1999 the remains (still unclaimed) were cremated and scattered in the Baltic Sea outside German territorial limits. The cremation and burial cost the German Government $4,700. GERTRUD von HEIMERDINGER Daughter of a Prussian aristocrat, she was employed in the German Foreign Office as assistant Chief of the Diplomatic Courier Section. An anti-Nazi, she secretly arranged for special passes to enable diplomat Fritz Kolbe (the main Allied source of intelligence) to make frequent trips to Switzerland to pass on information to Allen Dulles, head of American O.S.S. Trained in England as a secret agent, she travelled to Switzerland disguised as a Red Cross nurse to serve as a courier for her husband Jupp Kappius, a German national who worked for the American O.S.S. Anne travelled twice from Switzerland deep into the heart of the Reich to bring back valuable intelligence collected by her husband. They returned to Germany after the war to settle. Wife of the Nazi Reichskommissar for Holland, Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart. She fled Holland on the 3rd.September, 1944, a day before her husband made it an offence for anyone to leave. She was last seen leaving The Hague with five suitcases, bound for Salzburg in Austria. Born in Frankfurt-on-Main, a member of the Socialist Young Workers movement. In 1933 she helped many Jews and others to flee the Reich. In 1935, she aided those engaged in resistance work, from her home in Alsace. After the capitulation of France in 1940, she was arrested by the Vichy Government and handed over to the Gestapo. Brought before the People's Court in Berlin in 1943, she was sentenced to death, and on June 9, 1944, executed in Plötzensee Prison. In her last letter she wrote 'Be cheerful and brave, a better future lies before you'. A shorthand typist with the Reich Egg Marketing Board, she married Hitler's Minister of War, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg. The Fuhrer and Goering were witnesses at the wedding on January 12, 1938. When the police reported that Erna had worked as a prostitute and had posed for pornographic pictures, Hitler flew into a rage and sacked von Blomberg on the spot. The disgraced Field Marshal and his wife retired to the Bavarian village of Weissee where they lived out the war and where the Field Marshal now lies buried in the local cemetery. A bookseller, she worked for the Schutze-Boysen-Harnack resistance group (The Red Orchestra) Arrested on October 10, 1942 for passing messages to French slave workers in factories. On February 3, 1943, she was sentenced to death by the People's Court and hanged in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, on August 5. Daughter of a West Prussian landowner, blonde and blue eyed, Marga, as she was called, worked as a nurse in the first World War, then went to live in Berlin. There she met and married Heinrich Himmler on July 3, 1928 and set up a chicken farm at Waldtrudering, near Munich. Eight years older then Himmler, their marriage ran into financial problems and they started to live apart. They had one child, a daughter named Gudrun. Attractive daughter of a Cologne businessman, she became secretary to Himmler and later his mistress when he lost all affection for Marga, his wife. In 1942, Hedwig gave birth to her first child, her second was born in 1944, another daughter. Himmler, not wishing the scandal of a divorce, borrowed 80,000 marks from the Party Chancellery and built a house for Hedwig at Schonau, near Berchtesgaden. They called it 'Haus Schneewinkellehen'. There she became friends with Bormann's wife Greda, who lived nearby. A ravishing blonde and much admired by Hitler. Wife of the drunkard Robert Ley, head of the Arbeitsfront, with whom she was very unhappy. An actress and ballerina by profession, she once took refuge from her husband in the Obersalzberg. After writing a letter to Hitler, which left him very depressed, she attempted suicide in 1943 by jumping out of a window. On October 24, 1945, her husband committed suicide in his cell while awaiting trial at Nuremberg. His suicide note stated that he could "no longer bear the shame". The villa of Robert and Inge Ley still stands on the Mehringdamm in Berlin's suburb of Templehof. Born in Aelsheim in 1902, married three times she bore eleven children. She became Leader of the Nazi Women's Group, responsible for directing all women's organizations during the Nazi era including the Frauenwerk (a federal organization of women), Women's League of the Red Cross and the Women's Labour Front. When she visited the United Kingdom in 1939, she was billed as the 'Perfect Nazi Woman'. Arrested in 1948 by the French, she served eighteen months in prison for working under an assumed name. In 1950 the German Government banned her from public office. Her book 'Women in the Third Reich' was published in 1978. Daughter of physician Dr. Ludwig Mayer of Offenbach. In 1930, she became Germany's woman fencing champion. Soon after Hitler came to power, his Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, portrayed Helena Mayer, now a national heroine, as the perfect specimen of German womanhood. Tall, blonde and blue eyed, she was described as the apotheosis of German racial purity. The campaign was abruptly abandoned when it was discovered that Helene had a Jewish father and grandparents. She went to the USA to study international law but was invited to take part in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin where she won a silver medal. After the Olympics she settled in the US and became an American citizen winning the US Women's National Fencing Championship eight times. In 1952 she returned to Germany and married an engineer from Stuttgart. She died after a long illness on October 15, 1953. Czech film actress, born Ludmila Babkova in Prague in 1910 and mistress to Goebbels during the late thirties. The affair ended in 1938 when his wife Magda demanded a divorce and Hitler ordered that he give up the actress. A reconciliation between Goebbels and Magda took place when Lida returned to Czechoslovakia under 'advice' from the Gestapo. In later years Lida lived in Salzburg, Austria, under the name Lida Lundwall. She died in Salzburg at the age of 86 on October 27, 2000, from Parkinson's disease. (for a 'then and now' photo of Lida go to..www.blesk.cz/9044/ Born in Berlin in 1905, this German novelist had her books banned by the Nazi's when she criticized them for their defamation of German womanhood. In 1933 her books were confiscated and burned and newspapers were forbidden to publish her short stories. Forced to emigrate to Holland so she could continue her writing, she again went back to Germany in secret when the Nazi's invaded the Netherlands. In Cologne she went underground and began writing again making no secret of her opposition to the Nazi's. After the war nothing was heard of her till 1976 when she was discovered living in poverty in an attic room in Bonn. She had spent six years in a Bonn hospital and four and a half months in the state hospital for alcoholism. In 1972 her books were republished and she died of a lung tumor on May 5, 1982. A film actress and one of Hitler's earlier infatuations. The relationship did not last long. After spending an evening in the Chancellery where, as Renata confided to her director Adolf Zeissler, Hitler threw himself on the floor and begged her to kick him and inflict pain. Shortly after this experience, Renata Mueller was found unconscious on the pavement in front of her hotel, forty feet below the window of her room. Renate's sister, Gabriel, maintains that she did not commit suicide but that she died from complications following an operation to her leg at the Augsburger Strasse Clinic. Wife of wealthy piano manufacturer Carl Bechstein. Hitler was often invited to their Berlin home where she lavished maternal affection on him. The Bechstein's donated large sums of money to the Party and to help Hitler's career by introducing him to influential people. It was Helene who introduced him to Berchtesgaden where they had a villa. It was always her expectation that Hitler would marry her daughter, Lotte. MARIA (MITZI) REITER Born in 1911, the youngest of four daughters of the co-founder of the Social Democratic Party in Berchtesgaden. She met Hitler while exercising her sister's dog in the Kurpark in 1926. She later visited him in his Munich apartment and the friendship developed. But in 1927, when she heard that Hitler was courting another girl, his niece Geli Raubal, blind jealousy drove her to attempt suicide. The attempt failed. In 1930, she married an innkeeper in Innsbruck and divorced him some years later. Her second marriage was to SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Georg Kubisch. In 1938 she met Hitler again, and when Kubisch was killed at Dunkirk during the French campaign, he sent her one hundred red roses. There was no further contact between them. After the war, Maria Reiter Kubisch lived for a while with Hitler's sister Paula, and found work as a maid in a hotel. In 1977 she was living in Munich. Daughter of the US Ambassador in Berlin (1933-1937) Professor William E. Dodd. She was very much attracted to Hitler and was invited to have tea with him at the Kaiserhof Hotel on a number of occasions. She once declared that she was in love with him and wanted to organize a tour of the US for him. This did not meet with the approval of Goering, who spread the rumour that Martha was a Soviet agent. (she had visited Moscow and Leningrad July,1934) Hitler refused to see her again and banned her from all future diplomatic receptions. Soon after, reports circulated that Martha Eccles Dodd had attempted suicide by slashing her wrists. No details of this has survived, it is possible that the affair has been hushed up 'diplomatically'. In 1938 she married American millionaire investment broker, Alfred Kaufman Stern and became active in left wing politics working closely with Vassili Zubilin, second secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Attracting the attention of the McCarthy House un-American Activities Committee, the Sterns fled to Cuba and then to Prague, Czechoslovakia. Alfred Stern died in Prague in 1986 and Martha Dodd Stern died in August 1990 at the age of 82. Born in Milwaukee, USA, on September 16th. 1902, daughter of merchant William Cooke Fish. In 1926, she married the German Rockefeller scholar Arvid Harnack whom she met while studying literature at Wisconsin University. She insisted on keeping her maiden name. In 1929 she and her husband moved to Germany where she taught American literature history at the University of Berlin. In Berlin, she became friends with Martha Dodd and through this friendship, she and her husband were often invited to receptions at the American Embassy where she met many influential Germans. When the war started, Arvid and Mildred supported the resistance movement against the Nazi regime through their friendship with Harro Schulze-Boysen and the spy ring the Nazis dubbed 'The Red Orchestra'. On September 7th, 1942, she and her husband were arrested while on a short vacation in Priel, a seaside town near Königsberg and taken to Gestapo headquarters at No. 8, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. At their trial on December 15-19, 1942, Mildred was sentenced to six years in prison for 'helping to prepare high treason and espionage'. Arvid and eight others were given the death sentence and on December 22 Arvid and three others were hanged from meat hooks suspended from a T-bar across the ceiling of the execution chamber at Plötzensee Prison. The others were beheaded by the guillotine. On December 21, Hitler reversed the sentence on Mildred and at her second trial on January13/16, 1943, she was given the ultimate penalty, death. At 6.57 pm on February 16, 1943, Mildred Elizabeth Harnack nee Fish was beheaded by guillotine in Plötzensee, the only American woman to be executed for treason in World War 11. Her last words were reported to be "And I loved Germany so much". (By September, 1943, all fifty one members of the 'Red Orchestra' had died, two by suicide, eight by hanging and forty-one beheaded by guillotine). In January, 1970, the Russians posthumously awarded Arvid Harnack the Order of the Red Banner, and Mildred, the Order of the Fatherland War, First Class, the highest civilian award. Sadly, in the US the Harnacks were forgotten. Born Maria Magdalena Dietrich in the Schoneberg district of Berlin on December 27, 1901. Started a career in minor films, her big break came in October,1929 when she screen tested for the part of Lola in 'The Blue Angel'. The film premiered at the Gloria Palast in Berlin on April 1, 1930. When Hitler came to power she was asked to broadcast Nazi propaganda. She refused and fled to the USA where on January 4, 1941, she became a naturalized American citizen. During WWII she spent much of her time entertaining US troops around the world and selling war bonds as well as doing anti-Nazi propaganda broadcasts aimed at German soldiers. In 1960 she returned to Germany for a series of concerts, one at which she was pelted with rotted tomatoes and called a traitor. She vowed never to return. In her later years she moved to Paris and became a recluse. She died on May 6, 1992, aged 90. Her last wish was to be buried beside her mother in Friedhof 111 at Friedenau, Berlin. She married Rudolpf 'Rudy' Seber in 1924, a marriage which lasted until her husband's death in 1979 and with whom she had a daughter, Maria Riva. Born in Berlin in 1913, she became one of Hitler's secretaries from 1933 to 1945. She was married to General Eckard Christian, Chief of Staff to the Luftwaffe whom she divorced in 1946. Gerda was previously married to Erich Kempka, Hitler's private chauffeur. (Her maiden name was Daranowsky) After the war she settled in Düsseldorf but has remained noncommittal about her time in the court of the German Führer. GERTRUD SEELE (1917-1945) Nurse and social worker she was born in Berlin and served for a time in the Nazi Labour Corps. Arrested in 1944 for helping Jews to escape Nazi persecution, and for 'defeatist statements designed to undermine the moral of the people'. She was tried before the People's Court in Potsdam and executed in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, on January 12, 1945. A Dutch national who, when hearing of the German threat to refuse permission for the refugee Children's Transports to cross the border into Holland, went to Vienna and confronted Adolf Eichmann, head of the Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration. She persuaded him to issue a collective exit visa for 600 Austrian Jewish children. The children eventually arrived in England. In all, Gertrud Wijsmuller organized a total of forty-nine transports to Britain. Another transport she organized, her 50th, was from the port of Danzig on August 24, 1939. On September 1 Germany invaded Poland and occupied Danzig. Back in Holland, Gertrud continued to help in the transfer of Jewish children to England until May 10, 1940, when Germany invaded the Netherlands. After Kristallnacht, over 9,000 German, Austrian and Czech Jewish children were brought to Britain by these Kindertransports. The first transport arrived in Harwich on December 1, 1938. Source: George Duncan's Women of the Third Reich Gertrud Scholtz-Klink nee Gertrud Scholtz-Klink nee Treusch (February 9, 1902 - March 24, 1999), fFervent Nazi Party member and Reichs Women's Leader, was the opposite of the women mentioned in this chapter. In 1948, she was sentenced by a French military court to eighteen months in prison. She died in 1999 still a nazi. Women After the Fall of the Third Reich After the collapse of the Third Reich, many German women nicknamed the Women of the Ruins participated in the rebuilding of Germany en déblayant les ruines issues des destructions dues à la guerre. In the Soviet occupation zone, more than two million women were victims of rape. One of them would publish a memoir recalling this experience: Eine Frau in Berlin (A Woman In Berlin).Herta Oberheuser at the trial for doctors, August 20, 1947. Inge Viermetz at the trial for RuSHA, January 28, 1948. Although they were not judged as severely as the men driving the regime, some women were prosecuted after the war. Thus, Herta Oberheuser, a doctor who participated in Nazi medical experiments at the Ravensbrück camp from 1940 to 1943, was the only woman in the dock at the doctors' trial at Nuremberg. She was held responsible for infecting 86 women with viruses and killing children. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. For her part, Inge Viermetz, was acquitted at the RuSHA trial. The denazification court was prohibited was prohibited from targeting Winifred Wagner of the Bayreuth Festival. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was brought to appear in court in 1948, accused of having not paid Roma and Sinti for participating in her film "Tiefland", and for having falsely promised to save them from camps, and is finally discharged. Some German women interviewed long after the Third Reich, influential or not, confessed that they had not denied the Nazi regime, nor the person of Adolf Hitler, refusing, or not, to acknowledge the crimes committed during those years. Others, like Henriette von Schirach in her book "Der Preis der Herrlichkeit. Erfahren Zeitgeschichte", remained ambiguous, this last challenging a system that passed through "the triumph of vanity".German women, accountable? Debriefing of the Aufseherin of theBuchenwald concentration camp, Ilse Koch, after her arrest. The question of the culpability of the German people in their support of Nazism has long overshadowed the women, who had little political power under the regime. Thus, as explained by the German historian Gisela Block, who was involved with the first historians to highlight this issue, by asking women at the time of the Third Reich. In 1984, in "When Biology Became Destiny, Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany", she wrote that women who are enslaved economically and morally, cannot exercise their freedom by being confined in the home and placed under the rule of their husbands. Thus, we associate studies on the subject during the 1980s mainly with perceptions that women were victims of "machismo" and a "misogynist" fascism. However, the simplicity of this analysis tends to disappear with recent studies. In 1987, historian Claudia Koonz, in "Mothers in in Fatherland, Women, the Family and Nazi Politics" questioned this statement and acknowledged some guilt. Many women admired Adolf Hitler and in fact enabled his electoral successes in the early 1930s. She states as follows: "Far from being impressionable or innocent, women made possible State murder in the name of interests that they defined as maternal." For her, the containing of housewives just allowed them to assert themselves and grasp an identity, especially through women's associations led by Nazi Gertrud Scholtz-Klink. They therefore helped to stabilize the system. The women took pleasure in politics and eugenics of the state, which promised financial assistance if the birth rate was high, so they would help to stabilize the system. by preserving the illusion of love in an environment of hate. In addition, if Gisela Block denounced the work of her colleague as "anti-feminist", others asAdelheid von Saldern refuse to stop at a strict choice between complicity and oppression and are more interested in how the Third Reich included women in their project for Germany.[44Neo-Nazism There are many militant neo-Nazis or defenders of former Nazis, such as the Germans Helene Elisabeth von Isenburg or Gudrun Himmler (daughter of Heinrich Himmler), who are active through the organization Stille Hilfe, and the French citizens Françoise Dior and Savitri Devi. High Society and Circles of Power Although under the Third Reich women did not have political power, a circle of influence did exist around Adolf Hitler. Within this circle, Hitler became acquainted with the British Unity Mitford and Magda Goebbels, wife of the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Magda Goebbels became known by the nickname "First Lady of the Third Reich": she represented the regime during State visits and official events. Her marriage to Goebbels on December 19, 1931 was considered a society event, where Leni Riefenstahl was a notable guest. She posed as the model German mother for Mothers Day. Eleonore Baur, a friend of Hitler since 1920 (she had participated in the Beer Hall putsch) was the only woman to receive the Blood Order; she also participated in official receptions and was close to Heinrich Himmler, who even named her a colonel of the SS and permitted her free access to the concentration camps, which she went to regularly, particularly Dachau. Hitler did not forget that he owed part of his political ascension to women integrated in the society world (aristocrats or industrialists), like Elsa Bruckmann. Women were also able to distinguish themselves in certain domains, but they were the exceptions that proved the rule. Thus Leni Riefenstahlwas the official film director of the regime and was given enormous funding for her cinematic productions (Triumph of the Will, and Olympia (1938 film)). Winifred Wagner directed the highly publicized Bayreuth Festival, and soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was promoted as the "Nazi diva", as noted by an American newspaper. Hanna Reitsch, an aviator, distinguished herself with her handling of test aircraft and military projects of the regime, notably the V1 flying bomb.Gallery of wives and daughters of officials Wives Eva Braun, companion and then wife of Adolf Hitler. The Goebbels childrenwith Joseph and Magda Goebbels: Helga, Hildegard, Heldwig, Holdine and Heidrun. The daughters of Heinrich Himmler, Margaret andGudrun Himmler. Screenwriter Thea von Harbou. Aviator Hanna Reitsch. Opera singer Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Women Against the Third Reich In addition to the resistors forced into their commitment because of their risk of being deported and exterminated because of their race, some were also committed against the German Nazi regime. Women represented approximately 15% of the Resistance. Monique Moser-Verrey notes however: If we can say that, among the persecuted minorities, women are more often spared than men, it is their low status in a society dominated by men that did not make them sizeable enemies of the regime, however, it is they who understood the need to hide or flee before their misled spouses, whose social inclusion was more complete. The student Communist Liselotte Herrmann protested in 1933 against the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor and managed to get information to foreign governments about the rearmament of Germany. In 1935 she was arrested, sentenced to death two years later and executed in 1938. She was the first German mother to suffer the death penalty since the beginning of the regime. Twenty women from Düsseldorf, who saw their fathers, brothers and son deported to the campBörgermoor, managed to smuggle out the famous The Song of the deportees and make it known.Freya von Moltke, Mildred Harnack-Fish and Libertas Schulze-Boysen participated in theResistance group Kreisau Circle and Red Orchestra; the last two were arrested and executed. The 20 year old student Sophie Scholl, a member of The White Rose was executed February 22, 1943 with her brother Hans Scholl and Christopher Probst, for posting leaflets. The resistor Maria Terwielhelped to spread knowledge of the famous sermon condemning the mentally ill given by Clemens von Galen, Bishop of Munster, as well as helping Jews escape to abroad. She was executed on 5 August 1943. We can also note the successful protests of women, called the Rosenstraße, racially "Aryan" women married to Jews who, in February 1943, obtained the release of their husbands. Women also fought for the Resistance from abroad, like Dora Schaul, a Communist who had left Germany in 1934 and involved from July 1942 with clandestine networks, Deutsch Arbeit (German Labour) and Deutsche-Feldpost (My German countryside), from the School of Military Health in Lyon. Hilde Meisel attempted in 1933 to galvanize British public opinion against the Nazi regime. She returned to Germany during the war but was executed at the bend of a road. Female Members of Discriminated Minorities Under the same threats as men who were Jews or Romani, women belonging to these communities were equally discriminated against, then deported and for some exterminated. In many concentration camps there were sections for female detainees (notably at Auschwitzand Bergen-Belsen) but the camp at Ravensbrück, opened in May 1939, distinguished itself as a camp solely for women, by 1945 numbering about 100,000 prisoners. The first women's concentration camp had been opened in 1933 in Moringen, before being transferred to Lichtenburg in 1938. In concentration camps, considered more vulnerable than men, they were generally sent to the gas chambers more quickly, while the strength of men was used to work them to exhaustion. Some were subjected to medical experiments. Some took the path of the Resistance, such as the Polish member Haïka Grosman, who participated in the organization for aid for the ghetto of Bia?ystok, during the night of August 15 to 16, 1943. On October 7, 1944, members of the Sonderkommando, 250 prisoners responsible for the bodies of persons after gassing, rose up ; they had procured explosives stolen by a Kommando of young Jewish women (Ella Gartner, Regina Safir, Estera Wajsblum andRoza Robota) who worked in the armament factories of the Union Werke. They succeeded in partially destroying Crematorium IV. LESBIANS AND THE THIRD REICH Although homosexual acts among men had traditionally been a criminal offense throughout much of Germany, lesbianism (homosexual acts among women) was not criminalized. This was true in large part because of the subordinate role of women in German state and society. Unlike malehomosexuals, lesbians were not generally regarded as a social or political threat. Even after the Nazi rise to power in 1933, most lesbians in Germany were able to live relatively quiet lives, generally undisturbed by the police. Although they were hampered by the inferior roles ascribed to women in Imperial Germany, lesbians had been part of the homosexual emancipation movement in Germany since the 1890s. German law prohibited women from joining political organizations until 1908. Even after the easing of this restriction women were discouraged from political activity, so lesbians turned to more informal gatherings in bars and clubs. This trend coincided with a general easing of sexual morality in Germany after World War I. The Weimar Republic brought with it new social and political freedoms. For most homosexual men and lesbian women in Germany, the Weimar era was a time of relative openness. Berlin and other major cities became centers of homosexual life in Germany. In Berlin, clubs like the "Dorian Gray" and "The Magic Flute Dance Palace" helped create a lesbian social network, making it easier for urban lesbians to live openly than for those in more rural areas of Germany. The easing of censorship restrictions led to a variety of lesbian literature including the journals Frauenliebe (Female Love) and Die Freundin (Girlfriend). Traditional political and social conservatives harshly criticized this new openness for homosexuals in Germany. The resurgence of political conservatism in the later years of the Weimar Republic led to a new series of repressive measures against homosexuals. In 1928, for example, the police bannedDie Freundin and other lesbian literature based on the Protection of Youth from Obscene Publications Act. Many conservatives demanded the enactment of criminal statutes against lesbian sexual acts. Pamphleteers such as Erhard Eberhard wrote tracts against homosexuals, feminists, Republicans, and Jews, groups that were often linked by conservatives to a conspiracy to destroy Germany. In particular they denounced the movement for women's rights, claiming it was really a front for seducing German women into lesbianism. With the rise of the Nazis to power in 1933, this conservative backlash was replaced with state repression. The Nazis believed women were not only inferior to men but also by nature dependent on them; therefore, they considered lesbians to be less threatening than male homosexuals. The Nazis regarded women as passive, especially in sexual matters, and in need of men to fulfill their lives and participate in sex. Many Nazis also worried that the more explicit social affection between individual women blurred the lines between friendship and lesbianism, making more difficult the task of ferreting out "true" lesbians. Finally, the Nazis dismissed lesbianism as a state and social problem because they believed lesbians could still carry out a German woman's primary role: to be a mother of as many "Aryan" babies as possible. Every woman, regardless of her sexuality, could serve the Nazi state as wife and mother. The Nazis nonetheless persecuted lesbians, albeit less severely than they persecuted male homosexuals. Soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor, the police systematically raided and closed down homosexual meeting bars and clubs, forcing lesbians to meet in secret. The Nazis created a climate of fear by encouraging police raids and denunciations against lesbians. Many lesbians broke off contacts with their circles of friends, some moving to new cities where they would be unknown. Others even sought the protection of marriage, entering into marriages of convenience with male homosexual friends. While the police regarded lesbians as "asocials"--people who did not conform to Nazi norms and therefore could be arrested or sent to concentration camps--few were imprisoned because of their sexuality alone. The Nazis did not classify lesbians as homosexual prisoners, and only male homosexual prisoners had to wear the pink triangle. Though police arrests of lesbians were comparatively rare, the threat of persecution made living openly as a lesbian dangerous. Lesbians also suffered discrimination because of the Nazis' policy toward German women in general. Since the Nazis believed women should serve primarily as wives and mothers, they forced women out of prestigious careers. Paradoxically, labor demands brought on by rearmament and the war actually increased the number of working women, though they were relegated to work in low-paying jobs. The low wages set for women particularly affected lesbians, since lesbians were generally unmarried and could not rely on a husband's job for support. Economic hardships combined with ever-increasing social pressures and fear of arrest to make the lives of lesbians difficult even though sexual acts between females were not illegal in Nazi Germany. Though many lesbians experienced hardships during the Third Reich, the Nazis did not systematically persecute them. Those who were willing to be discreet and inconspicuous, marry male friends, or otherwise seem to conform to the expectations of society were often left alone and survived.http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005478 LESBIANS AND THE THIRD REICH — PERSONAL HISTORY Born: Frankfurt am Main, Germany February 19, 1912 Henny's parents met soon after her father emigrated from Russia. Henny was the first of the Jewish couple's three children. Frankfurt was an important center of commerce, banking, industry and the arts. 1933-39: After the Nazis came to power, they began to persecute a large number of "undesirable" groups, including Jews, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, the handicapped, and left-wing politicians. After 1938, as one way of identifying Jews, a Nazi ordinance decreed that "Sara" was to be added in official papers to the first name of all Jewish women. Twenty-four-year-old Henny was working as a shop assistant, and was living with her family in Frankfurt. 1940-44: In early 1940 Henny was arrested in Frankfurt and deported to the Ravensbrueck concentration camp for women. On the back of her prisoner photo was written: "Jenny (sic) Sara Schermann, born February 19, 1912, Frankfurt am Main. Unmarried shopgirl in Frankfurt am Main. Licentious lesbian, only visited such [lesbian] bars. Avoided the name 'Sara.' Stateless Jew." Henny was among a number of Ravensbrueck prisoners selected for extermination. In 1942 Henny was gassed at the Bernburg killing facility. Who Was Who at Hitler's Berghof Hitler's Berghof was the scene of many visits, both formal and informal, and hundreds of photos were taken there. Heinrich Hoffmann made many photos to publish in his books and as postcards, and Eva Braun and her sister Gretl were avid amateur photographers. Walter Frentz, on the staff of the Nazi Press Organization, made many color photos. All of these photo sets have many shots showing visitors to the Berghof, along with the regulars of Hitler's inner circle. Unfortunately, most of these photos were not labeled, or their identifications were lost at the end of the war, and the identities of many of the people seen around the Berghof have been lost over time. In addition, several of these people have been misidentified as these photos have been published in numerous books since 1945, and these misidentifications tend to be perpetuated as more photo books are published. This page corrects some of these misidentifications, based on photos in Eva and Gretl Braun's photo albums in the U.S. National Archives, and also the Heinrich Hoffmann photo archive copies in the same collection (National Archives, Record Groups 242-EB and 242-H, College Park, MD; 242-EB also contains copies of several photo albums belonging to Eva's friend Herta Schneider). Some other photos are presented here with identifications of some of the people who are regularly seen in these photos, but rarely identified in books. Some of my identifications are admittedly tentative, and I would be happy to receive documented corrections or any further info. Click here to read a guide to Eva Braun's movies in the National Archives. Most of the post-war misidentifications found in these photo groups involve Eva Braun and her sisters and friends. Eva and her younger sister Gretl (Margarethe) looked very much alike, and their older sister Ilse resembled both (although Ilse rarely visited the Berghof). Eva herself tended to change her appearance regularly (her hair, especially), and Eva can look quite different in photos taken at different times (so can Gretl). In fact, it can sometimes be very hard to tell Eva and Gretl apart. One misidentification that is quite common in modern books is the photo on the left above. This studio portrait is invariably labeled as showing Gretl and Eva, with Eva on the right (note Eva's brooch showing her personal monogram - see below). This photo is sometimes printed reversed, but I show it here as it appears in Eva's photo albums (Album 26, No. 7, NA RG 242-EB). In fact, this is not Gretl at all, but Eva's best friend Herta Schneider. Eva and Herta had been friends from childhood, and even after Herta married (her maiden name was Ostermeyer), she and her children spent a great deal of time with Eva, living with her at the Berghof, because Herta's husband was away in military service. The photo on the right above shows Eva and Herta at the Königssee lake in July 1941, with one of Eva's Scottish terriers. Eva herself labeled the album page on which this photo appears, removing any doubt that this woman is Herta Schneider, not Gretl (NA RG 242-EB-27-39D; in addition, many photos in the albums that originally belonged to Frau Schneider confirm her identity in Eva's photos). Eva Braun's personal monogram showed her initials forming a four-leaf clover (Kleeblatt), and was designed for her by Dr. Karl Brandt (this symbol is sometimes incorrectly identified as a butterfly). On the right are two examples of the EB Kleeblatt monogram, from some of her silver pieces. (See Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, p. 574; Christa Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, p. 216; and Pierre Galante and Eugène Silianoff, Voices from the Bunker, p. 21) Herta is often misidentified as Gretl in these photos as well. Herta is seated beside Eva in both photos. The photo on the left is often grouped with photos of Eva and Gretl taken at the Kehlsteinhaus (see below), but this photo was actually taken on the Berghof terrace. The photo on the right was taken at the side of the Berghof "wintergarten" sunroom. I have been unable to identify the woman on the right, who appears in many Berghof photos as well as Eva Braun's home movies (see more below). (NA RG 242-EB, Album 14) The photo on the left above shows Herta and Eva on the side steps of the Berghof. On the right above, Eva plays with Herta's daughter "Uschi" (Ursula), who was one of Adolf Hitler's most welcomed guests. So many photos were taken of Eva and Hitler with Uschi, that many people in the post-war years thought this was their child. Two of the most common of these photos are shown below, when Uschi was a couple years older. (NA RG 242-EB) These photos of Eva and Gretl were taken at the Kehlsteinhaus. Also seen is one of Eva's omnipresent dogs. She had two Scottish terriers, named Negus and Stasi (in her photo albums, the dogs are labeled Negus and Katuschka - perhaps "Stasi" was a nickname, or there were, in fact, three dogs (although no more than two are ever seen together). Although they looked very much alike, it seems clear that Eva is on the left, and Gretl on the right ... but compare to the two photos below. (NA RG 242-EB, Album 14, Nos. 17A and 17B) These photos (and others taken at the same time) are almost always labeled in books as showing Eva Braun, but the details of the dress and hair show that this is really Gretl, taken on the same day as the photos above. (NA RG 242-EB, Album 14, Page 17) The photo on the left is invariably labeled as Gretl and Eva on the Berghof terrace, but the woman on the right is not Eva. This woman appears in other Berghof photos and films taken on the same day (see below, and photo above, where Eva appears with her in a photo). The photo on the right is invariably labeled as Eva, but this photo appears in her albums on a page with two photos showing Gretl, and the page is labeled "Gretl - Greta." (NA RG 242-EB, Album 2, Page 43 - the Finding Aid in the National Archives says Album 2 actually belonged to Gretl) The woman in the photo on the left (part of a larger photo) is sometimes labeled as Eva, but this is Gretl on her wedding day. On 3 June 1944, Gretl Braun married Hermann Fegelein, an SS-Obergruppenführer on the staff of SS chief Heinrich Himmler. The reception took place in the Berghof (see photo on right above - the group is in front of the fireplace in the Great Room), and a party followed at the Kehlsteinhaus. Gretl is dancing with SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lt. Col.) Waldemar Fegelein, her new brother-in-law (see note below). On the right can be seen - 1st row, left-right - Fegelein, Gretl, Hitler, Eva, Fransiska "Fanny" Braun (Eva and Gretl's mother); 2nd-3rd rows - Georg Alexander, rest unknown to me (although the woman just behind Hitler's right shoulder may be Ilse Braun); 4th row - Himmler, unknown, Anni Brandt (?), Hanni Morell, Dr. Theo Morell (Hitler's personal physician, and a regular of the inner circle, along with his wife); Otto Dietrich (Press Chief - another Berghof regular); standing in the rear - Nicolaus von Below (Hitler's Luftwaffe adjutant), unknown. There are several other photos in this series, showing Fegelein, Gretl, and Eva in the Berghof and Kehlsteinhaus, celebrating the wedding. (NA RG 242-HL) NOTE - When I first put this page up, I did not know the identity of the man with whom Gretl was dancing. My thanks to E. Reid for identifying him as Fegelein's brother Waldemar - see the Axis History Factbook Gallery, http://www.skalman.nu/third-reich/gallery-wss-persons.htm . These photos and the following two were taken in the Berghof on the occasion of Hitler's 55th birthday, 20 April 1944. The woman in the center is often labeled as Eva, but Eva is third from the left. The woman in the center appears in many photos taken at the Berghof, but I have been unable to identify her (on her album page, Eva gave only the men's names). Left-right - Herta Schneider, Martin Bormann, Eva Braun, Otto Dietrich, unknown, Dr. Hans von Hasselbach, Gretl Braun, Dr. Karl Brandt (Hitler's personal surgeon, a regular in Berghof group photos), Anni Brandt. On the far right in the second photo is Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's official photographer and resident Berghof "clown." (NA RG 242-EB) The inner circle examines Hitler's birthday presents in the Berghof dining hall. On the left, Heinrich Hoffmann shows off a newly acquired painting for Hitler's art collection, as many of the same people in the photos above look on. The tall officer is Walter Frentz, a staff photographer (Frentz took most of the color photos now seen in Hitler photo collections). On the right, AH and EB look over the presents, with Herta Schneider in the background. (NA RG 242-EB) The inner circle celebrates in the Berghof. This photo is usually labeled as showing Hitler's birthday in 1943 or even '44, but several details show it to have been taken much earlier than that, probably 1939 or 1940. Eva's appearance shows this to be an earlier photo; in addition, both Wilhelm Brückner and Max Wünsche had left the Führer's immediate service by the end of 1940. Front row, left-right - Wilhelm Brückner (Hitler's chief personal adjutant), Christa Schroeder (one of Hitler's secretaries), Eva, Hitler, Gretl, Adolf Wagner (Gauleiter of Munich), Otto Dietrich (Press Chief); 2nd Row, left-right - Gerda Daranowski (later Frau Christian, another of Hitler's secretaries), Margarete Speer, Martin Bormann (partially hidden), Dr. Karl Brandt, Heinrich Hoffmann; Remainder, left-right - Dr. Theo Morell (Hitler's personal physician), Hannelore (or Johanna) "Hanni" Morell, Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer (Hitler's naval adjutant), Gerda Bormann, Max Wünsche (one of Hitler's SS aides), Heinrich Heim (from Bormann's staff). (NA RG 242-EB, Album 8, No. 3A) NOTE: Warren Thompson's research indicates that the style of uniform Hitler is wearing is the one he assumed after the beginning of World War II. Therefore, and considering that uniforms were rare among Hitler's inner circle at the Berghof prior to WWII, I would suggest this photo was probably taken during New Years 1939/40. Other possible dates were Christmas 1939 and Hitler's birthday in 1940, but he was apparently not at the Berghof on either of those occasions. However, Dr. Karl Brandt's rank in this photo is SS-Sturmbannführer (Major), and he was promoted to SS-Obersturmbannführer in April 1939 ... so the 1940 date may be incorrect. (Thanks to Max History for the info on Dr. Brandt's dates of rank.) Then again ... Christa Schroeder's book "Er war mein Chef" says this photo was taken on New Year's Eve 1940. Another of the well-known Berghof group photos, this one taken on New Years Eve 1938/39. Front row, left-right - Heinrich Hoffmann, Gretl Braun, Dr. Theo Morell, Frau Bouhler, Phillip Bouhler, Gerda Bormann, Hitler, Eva Braun, Martin Bormann, Anni Brandt; 2nd row - Christa Schroeder, Freda Kannenberg, Albert Speer, Margarete Speer, Hanni Morell, Frau Schmundt, Ilse Braun, Heinz Lorenz; 3rd row - Ludwig Bahls (SS Aide), Gerda Daranowski, Albert Bormann, Jacob Werlin (managing director of Daimler-Benz), Sofie Stork, Fritz Schönmann, Gen. Rudolf Schmundt (Hitler's Wehrmacht adjutant), Marianne Schönmann, Dr. Karl Brandt, Arthur ("Willi") Kannenberg. (NA RG 242-EB-6-7) Marianne (Marion) Petzl (friend of Hitler, Eva, and the Hoffmanns) marries Fritz Schönmann, 7 August 1937, with the reception held afterwards in Munich (the photo above is sometimes identified as having been taken in the Berghof). Seated, left-right - Sofie Stork, Marianne and Fritz Schönmann, Gretl Braun. Standing - Heinrich Hoffmann, Hanni Morell, Erna Hoffmann, Eva Braun, Frau Diesbach, Dr. Morell, Herta Schneider, unknown, Dr. Helmut Scheiber, Hitler, unknown, Maria Almas-Dietrich. (NA RG 242-EB, Album 10, No. 93C) This group was gathered at the Berghof on 20 April 1943, for Hitler's birthday celebration. Front row, left-right - Heinrich Hoffmann, Eva Braun, Hitler, Marianne Schönmann (?), Martin Bormann; 2nd row - Dr. Karl Brandt, Gerda Bormann, Anni Brandt, Herta Schneider; 3rd row - Albert and Margarete Speer, unknown, Hanni Morell, Gretl Braun, Gerhard Engel; top row - Walter Frentz, Dr. Theo Morell, Nicolaus von Below. (NA RG 242) Albert Speer and his wife Margarete were frequent visitors at the Berghof ... they had their own house a short distance down the road to Berchtesgaden. On the left, the Speers and Gretl and Eva Braun (with Frau Engel between - wife of Hitler's Heer (Army) adjutant Gerhard Engel) relax on the lounge chairs outside the old Haus Wachenfeld part of the Berghof. On the right, Margarete Speer with four of her children, in the same location (the Berghof Adjutancy appears in the background). The Speer and Bormann children are frequently seen visiting "Uncle Führer" at the Berghof, in Eva Braun's photo albums and movies. (NA RG 242-EB-11-10B) On the left, Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, the commander of Hitler's bodyguard unit the Leibstandarte-SS, visits the Berghof with Margarete Speer and Anni Brandt. On the right, Anni Brandt sits with Hitler's secretaries Johanna Wolf (center) and Traudl (Humps) Junge (right). Since Traudl Junge's first visit to the Berghof was in March 1943, these are wartime photos. (NA RG 242-EB, Album 13, Nos. 33b, 33a) Although closely associated with Hitler's inner circle, Reichs Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach and his wife Henriette were infrequent visitors to the Berghof. Henriette was the daughter of photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, so she had known both Hitler and Eva Braun for years. However, in April 1943 the von Schirachs were forbidden to visit the Berghof again, after Henriette enraged Hitler by relating that she had witnessed Jewish women being deported from Amsterdam. The photo on the left, taken at the side of Haus Wachenfeld, shows Hitler, Erna Hoffmann, Henriette von Schirach, Angela Raubal (Hitler's half-sister and housekeeper), and Baldur von Schirach. The photo on the right, taken on the Berghof terrace, shows Henriette and Baldur von Schirach, photographer Walter Frentz, and Heinrich Hoffmann. Left - U.S. National Archives, RG242HB; right - courtesy Harry von Gebhardt) The couple on the left, seen in several of the photos above, are Dr. Theo Morell, Hitler's personal physician, and his wife Hannelore (or Johanna), called "Hanni." On the right, seen with Hitler on the Berghof steps, are Nazi Party Treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz and his wife - long time friends of Hitler and Eva Braun. (U.S. National Archives, RG242EB) Who are the women pictured here? In the view on the left, Herta Schneider is seated at the right, and Gerda Bormann is in the middle (wearing the hobnailed Bavarian country shoes), but who is the woman on the left? She appears to be the woman shown on the Berghof terrace in a photo above, and she appears in other Berghof photos taken this same day (and also in Eva Braun's films - see photos below), but I have been unable to conclusively identify her (she is sometimes labeled as Ilse Braun in some of these photos, but she doesn't look like Ilse to me). The laughing lady in the photo on the right, seen in several photos with Hitler in the Mooslahnerkopf Teehaus, is sometimes labeled as Herta Schneider, sometimes as Maria "Mitzi" Reiter, and sometimes even as Eva Braun, but she was actually Gertrud Deetz, wife of Albert Forster, Gauleiter of Danzig. (NA RG 242-EB and 242-2512; thanks to Jason Bulkeley and Harry von Gebhardt for info.) Here is the "mystery woman" posing on the Berghof terrace, as seen in Eva Braun's 16mm films. This film was taken on the same day as the photo shown just above, and others shown earlier on this page. Not Eva, not Gretl, but evidently a frequent Berghof guest ... but who was she? (NA RG 242.2, Reel 1) Note: This woman somewhat resembles a woman photographed with Walter Hewel, Hitler's liaison to the Foreign Office, who may have become his wife. Her name has variously been given as Elizabeth Blanda or Blanda-Elizabeth Benteler (or Renteler - the latter was apparently her postwar name after she remarried). Called "Blondie," this woman was reportedly present at Berghof parties, and was a friend of Hermann Fegelein before his marriage to Gretl Braun. She married Hewel in late 1944. Such a person could certainly be a good candidate for this "mystery woman." (Thanks to Lyndon Crist for this info!) She may also have been a woman named Erika Lehmann, who was an operative for Canaris and the Abwehr (code-name "Lorelei"). Her father was an old acquaintance of some of Hitler's inner circle; Erika became friends with Eva Braun and visited the Eagles Nest on occasion up until the summer of 1942. (Thanks to Mike Whicker for this info!) Anyone having more info is invited to write the author at walden01(at)comcast.net. Another member of the Berghof "inner circle," but not usually identified in post-war photo books, was an artist friend of Hitler's named Sofie Stork (she also appears in some of the group photos above). She was a friend of Hitler's adjutant Wilhelm Brückner, and since Hitler was a friend to artists she was introduced into his circle. Sofie Stork painted the scenes on the elaborate porcelainKachelofen heater in the living room of the Haus Wachenfeld part of the Berghof. In the photo on the left, she is seen sitting by the Kachelofen. Others not usually identified in photos were the house managers Wilhelm and Margarete "Gretl" Mitlstrasser. On the right, Frau Mitlstrasser appears with Hitler at the Great Room window. (NA RG 242-EB-3-14B) Some members of the general public even became special visitors to Hitler's house. Hitler loved being photographed with children, and it seems that he genuinely enjoyed their company. One of his favorites among those who visited the Obersalzberg with their parents, hoping to see or even meet their Führer, was a young girl named Rosa Berneli (or Bernile) Nienau, from Munich. She visited on her birthday in the summer of 1933, and Hitler invited her out of the crowd and up to Haus Wachenfeld for strawberries and whipped cream. Hoffmann made maximum use of propaganda photos taken of the two together during this and other visits - the one seen here on the right below was published as a postcard with the caption "Thanks for the Birthday Invitation." Unfortunately, some meddling member of Hitler's staff investigated Berneli's background and discovered that her ancestry was not 100 percent Aryan (her maternal grandmother was Jewish), and Martin Bormann eventually forbade her to visit again. (This story is related in Heinrich Hoffmann's books "Hitler Was My Friend" (London, 1955, pages 193-194) and "Jugend um Hitler," (Berlin, 1934, in the introduction by Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach), also information from the Dokumentation Obersalzberg; photos from "Jugend um Hitler;" bottom right from a 1937-dated colorized postcard.) These photos also appear to show Berneli/Bernile, but as a younger child (at least six different photos were taken on this day, as compared to at least seven taken of Berneli on the occasion shown above - this number of photos may also indicate this is Berneli). If this identification is correct, these photos were taken at an earlier date, and may show her first visit to Haus Wachenfeld. Records indicate that even though Hitler was aware of her ancestry, she was still allowed to visit until late 1938. ("Illustrierter Beobachter," Special Edition, "Adolf Hitler - Ein Mann und sein Volk," 1936; lower left - Heinrich Hoffmann, "Hitler in seinen Bergen," 1938) These photos may also show Berneli - they certainly appear to show the same girl as those just above. At least seven photos of this girl, taken on two different occasions, are known. (Note: The Bavarian State Library guide to their Heinrich Hoffmann photo collection identifies this girl as Helga Goebbels, but I believe that identification is an error.) (above - from period postcards; below left - Hoffmann, "Jugend um Hitler;" below right and bottom - NA RG 242-EB) Two more photos of the same girl, taken on two different occasions (but the same occasions as the four photos in the group above). On the left, the girl (Berneli?) visits with a group of BDM girls, as Hitler's adjutant Wilhelm Brückner looks on. The image on the left was taken at Haus Wachenfeld, while that on the right was taken at the Berghof. Does this mean that this girl is not Berneli, since the images of an obviously older Berneli, at the beginning of this section, were taken at Haus Wachenfeld? (period postcards) Regularly seen in Berghof photos, but not always identified, is Hitler's SS aide Otto Günsche. On the left, Hitler shakes hands with SS-Leibstandarte commander Sepp Dietrich on the Berghof terrace, with SS-Untersturmführer (2nd Lt.) Günsche behind. On the right, Günsche has been promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer (Capt.); he ended the war as an SS-Sturmbannführer (Major), and was one of the key personnel present during the last days in Hitler's Berlin bunker. Günsche and his comrades Max Wünsche, Hansgeorg Schultze ("Frettchen"), and Richard Schultze are often called Hitler's "Ordnance Officers," but this is a mistranslation of their title "Ordonnanzoffizier" - the term actually means orderly officer or aide-de-camp. All were later promoted to Adjutant, in which position they still functioned as aides. (autographed photos courtesy Herr Otto Günsche, author's collection) (Click here to read a short biography of Otto Günsche, by someone who knew him.) RIP Herr Otto Günsche - died 2 October 2003. Some more of the many Berghof visitors ... on the left, officers of the 1st SS Panzer Corps visit the Berghof ca. April 1944. From left-right: SS-Brigadeführer Theodor "Teddy" Wisch (commander, 1st SS Panzer Division LSSAH), SS-Obersturmbannführer Max Wünsche (commander, SS-Panzerregiment 12), SS-Obergruppenführer Josef "Sepp" Dietrich (Corps commander), SS-Oberführer Fritz Witt (commander, 12th SS Panzer Division HJ) - all holders of the Ritterkreuz - Knights Cross of the Iron Cross. (NA RG 242-EB, 16-20A) On the right, Eva clowns around with a man who looks like Gauleiter Adolf Wagner, and who appears to be holding something representing a mock "Hitler" mustache in front of Eva (Robert Payne's The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973) says this is Dr. Wilhelm Frick). (NA RG 242-EB, 30-10B) The final photo shown here could serve as a commentary on Eva Braun's life as Hitler's mistress. The man looking up to the left is Count Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and Italian Foreign Minister. Ciano is standing with Hitler's interpreter Paul Schmidt. Eva admired Ciano's looks and dashing style, but she was forbidden to meet him. So she sometimes secretly photographed his visits from the upper windows of the Berghof. In this photo, apparently taken by Heinrich Hoffmann (many of the photos in Eva's albums were actually taken by others), Ciano appears to be glancing up at a window of one of the guest rooms above the Berghof dining hall. Eva labeled this album page "Da oben gibt es Verbotenes zu sehen - mich!" (up there is something forbidden to see - me). (NA RG 242-EB, Album 6, No. 30A)http://www.thirdreichruins.com/berghofvisitors.htm Nazi Women Exposed Nazi women exposed as every bit as bad as Hitler's deranged male followers By ALLAN HALL Portrayed in soft tones and pastels, their beatific gaze stared from billboards and freesheets across the land. Blonde, fresh-faced and pure, these were the women of Hitler’s Third Reich. They were prolific mothers, skilful homemakers, hard-working secretaries and dedicated auxiliaries. They supported their men at war and devoted themselves to the cause of their Fuhrer. And their Fuhrer treated them with all the delicacy of a courting lover. When war began, Hitler forbade them to work in the munitions factories for fear they would lose their femininity under the stress of hard physical labour. Family income benefits were dispensed for every new child, ‘childrich’ families were publicly honoured and the gold Cross of Honour of the German Mother was bestowed on women bearing four or more babies. Hitler needed a docile and devoted female population to breed the supermen he needed to populate his dream of the 1,000-year Reich. Even as Allied bombers turned Germany into brick dust, Hitler gave orders that industries which logically should have been transformed into armaments plants continue to pump out lipsticks, nylons and fashion accessories ‘for the gracious ladies’. In Nazi art, films and magazines, women were always the fairer sex, defending the home-front as their menfolk fought on the battlefields. Sinister: Female auxiliary guards at Auschwitz smile as they take a break But what did Hitler get in return for his dutiful attentions? Until recently, the role of the Nazi woman in the construction of the brutal state machinery of the Reich has never been truly revealed. Now a new book in Germany called Perpetrators: Women Under National Socialism explodes the myth behind the propaganda. In the first German post-war analysis of the role of women in the crimes of the Nazis, historian Kathrin Kompisch documents the shameful truth about her sex in the war, which until now has been a taboo subject in her homeland. ‘The participation of women in the crimes of the Nazis has been blended out of the collective conscious of the Germans for a long time,’ she writes. The fairer sex venerated by the propaganda machine of Josef Goebbels was, according to Kompisch, every bit as eager to turn the thumbscrews on the victims held in Gestapo cellars across Europe; every bit as fanatical as the male when it came to crushing resistance to the state. They became assistants to the doctors who first sterilised, and later murdered, the ‘useless’ handicapped. They became head guards in the gulag of concentration camps — like Herta Bothe, known as the Sadist of Stutthof for her merciless beatings. And they were handmaidens to the SS as they staffed the ‘baby farms’ where ‘supermen’ children were born. In these ghoulish clinics, women were the managers and nurses. And, Kompisch points out: ‘One should never forget the legions of women who stood by their menfolk as they killed people by the tens of thousands in Russia, in Poland, in places like Auschwitz and Treblinka.’ This was the supreme corruption of the old maxim about a woman standing behind every successful man. In the Third Reich, it often meant a massmurderer being silently supported by a woman who would not dream of raising a hand to her child or kicking the family dog. ‘The history of National Socialism has long been reduced to one that blamed men for everything,’ says Kompisch. ‘The fact is women were involved at all levels of the Third Reich’s most infamous and brutal crimes . . . There were always choices, even within the Third Reich, and women often made their own choices as much as men. ‘They typed the statistics of the murdered victims of the SS Action Squads in the east, operated the radios which called up for more bullets, were invariably the secretaries — and sometimes much more — in all the Gestapo posts. ‘And at the end of the war these women tried to diminish their responsibility by saying they were just cogs in the all-male machine which gave the orders.’ Kompisch says women under Hitler — pushed though they were towards a cliched ideal of hearth and home — actually found opportunities for advancement in the regime that normal peacetime would have denied them. Just as the ‘ordinary Joe’ could become an extraordinary killer, so could the ‘weaker sex’ prove itself strong under the swastika. Analysing pre and post-war statistics, Kompisch found there were more government, private sector and military jobs to be had for women under Hitler than in peacetime. But those who who stayed at home — and had the babies the regime craved — also bloodied their hands. Influential: Some women had very close access to the Fuhrer After all, it was largely women who queued up at government warehouses to buy the furniture, jewels, household appliances and clothes of their Jewish neighbours who had disappeared in the night without a word. The high-testosterone, all-male hierarchy of the Nazi state blocked out women from leadership positions from the very start — but the regime actively encouraged female participation in enforcing the Nazi terror at grassroots levels. Most Blockwaerts — apartment house snoops who reported on un-Nazi activities to the party — were female. Women also made unofficial denunciations to the Gestapo of suspicious neighbours, Jews and other enemies of the state at a rate of three-to-one compared to men. Women also undermined the sacredmarriage illusion which Nazism tried to promote, for they were avid denunciators of their spouses. The surviving files of the Gestapo in the city of Dusseldorf noted they ‘try to change the power balance of the household by denouncing their husbands as spies or Communists or anti-Nazis’. Kompisch agrees: ‘The cliche of Gold Mother Cross-wearing women having 10 babies and baking bread was a myth. Women could and did advance themselves massively through the Third Reich.’ One only has to see old newsreels of women fainting, crying, screaming with adulation at the feet of Hitler to see what a Messianic effect he had on them in the days before Elvis and The Beatles. So what made the caring sex morph into servants of evil on such a massive scale? On one level, the women who served helping the SS in the death camps — like Hermine Braunsteiner, the ‘Mare of Majdanek’, who killed her victims by stamping on them and Irma Grese, the ‘Angel of Death’ at Belsen and Auschwitz — were poorly educated, dysfunctional misfits who would have faced permanent rejection in ordinary society. Some 3,200 women served in the concentration camps. Female guards were generally low-to-middle class and had little or no work experience, although SS records show some were matrons, hairdressers, tram conductors or retired teachers. Dorothea Binz, head training overseer at the all-female camp of Ravensbruck after 1942, trained her female students in the finer points of ‘malicious pleasure’. One survivor stated after the war that the Germans brought a group of 50 women to the camp to undergo training. The women were then separated and brought before the inmates. Each woman was then told to beat a prisoner. Of the 50 women, three had asked for a reason and only one had refused. She was later imprisoned. Dr Eugen Kogan, a Nazi expert, wrote after 1945 in a report for the Allies about female guards: ‘They were quite simply attracted to the SS ideology as the mode of life that appealed to them and agreed with them . . . Here their “inner son of a bitch” could be projected to someone else and kicked with an enthusiasm that ranged all the way to sadism.’ But not all women were like Binz or Grese. Cruel: Female SS guards after Belsen was liberated by Allied forces Even fewer were like Ilsa Koch, the wife of the Buchenwald camp commandant who gave up her hobby of needlepoint for the ‘ entertainment’ of mounting the heads of executed prisoners on wooden blocks as mantelpiece ornaments. Kompisch draws on several case histories of other more outwardly civilised woman to try to get to the core of the corruption of their sex by the Nazi regime. Karin Magnussen, 20, born in 1908 in Bremen, was a brilliant biologist and physicist. Here was a woman venerated by her profession, unaffected by the financial and political upheavals that propelled Hitler to power — and who ended up using the eyeballs taken from still-living prisoners at Auschwitz by the demented Dr Josef Mengele for experiments on the pigmentation of the human iris. She became a fanatical Nazi out of choice and belief, not for any advancement of social or fiscal standing that such a step offered the less intelligent or less fortunate in society. At the end of the war she was one of the legions who claimed to be ‘dragged along in things’. ‘I was a Nazi fellow traveller, that’s all,’ said Magnussen in 1945. She was allowed to teach for another 20 years before dying peacefully in her bed aged 89 in 1997. Dr Ruth Kellermann, born in 1913, was another female intellectual who willingly joined the Nazi crusade. A gifted scientist, she worked at the sinister Race Hygiene and Peoples’ Biology Research Institute in Berlin where she experimented on the cadavers of gipsies killed in Ravensbruck. She moved to Hamburg, where she was ‘instrumental’ in the round-ups of local gipsies to extermination camps. After the war, there was no longer any call for eugenics and she satisfied herself with a research job as a social historian. Her past was forgotten until the 1980s, when one of her lectures at Hamburg University about the history of housekeeping turned into a melee as protestors stormed the building accusing her of war crimes. ‘You sent my family to Auschwitz!’ screamed one woman into her face. After a lawsuit brought by Romany groups in 1986, a German court judged that ‘at the very least you must have known what you were doing would lead to the eventual extermination of the Roma and Sinti gipsies’. A higher court later watered down the verdict, but it was immaterial; Kellermann never served any prison time and she never apologised. Misfit: Irma Grese was known as the 'Angel of Death' at Belsen and Auschwitz And take Dr Herta Oberheuser. Although happy, talented and a woman of independent means, she joined Ravensbruck concentration camp. Oberheuser killed healthy children with injections made from oil, mixed with the barbiturate evipan, and then removed their limbs and vital organs. The time from injection to death was around five minutes, with the person being fully conscious until the last moment. Oberheuser also performed gruesome and painful medical experiments, focusing on deliberately inflicting wounds on the subjects. In order to simulate the combat wounds of German soldiers fighting in the war and identify ready cures, Oberheuser rubbed foreign objects, such as wood, rusty nails, slivers of glass, dirt, or sawdust, into the wounds of prisoners. Oberheuser was the only female defendant in the Nuremberg Medical Trial, where she was sentenced to 20 years in jail. She was released in April 1952 for good behaviour and became a family doctor at Stocksee in Germany, only to lose her position in 1956 after a Ravensbruck survivor recognised her. Her licence to practise medicine was revoked in 1958. She said of her service: ‘Being a woman didn’t stop me being a good National Socialist. I think female National Socialists were every bit as valuable as men in keeping what we believed in alive.’ Kompisch’s compelling book shows that women were as drawn to, and degraded by, Nazism as all its male proponents. In contrast to the tenderhued posters of women serving hearth and home, it seems the docile feminine ideal propounded by Hitler concealed a truly deadly core. Kompisch concludes: ‘The fact is that women allowed their female characteristics to be suppressed to bind themselves to the Nazi state and its agencies. ‘To say, as most did at the end of the war, that they knew nothing of the terror and torture is absolutely unbelievable. They supported and underwrote such terror and torture.’ Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1142824/Nazi-women-exposed-bit-bad-Hitlers-deranged-male-followers.html#ixzz1ah7i8xlb It is a big ,mistake to think that all German women fell for Hitler like ambitious professionals Leni Riefenstahl, socialites like Winifred Wagner or nuts like Inge Ley A lot who had deep Socialist convictions or simply refused to buy the Hitlerite crap tried in a way or in other to fight the Nazis. Many to lose their life in this combat, some to be totally forgotten by posterity. In a sense they were Hitler's femmes fatales. Here are some bios and portraits of the most notorious : Sophie Scholl, Erika Mann, Charlotte Salomon, Odette Samson, Eva-Marie Buch, Milfred Fosh-Harnack. They all sacrificed their life to their ideas while others like Gertrud Scholtz-Klink served their nazis masters for their greatest profit. SOPHIE SCHOLL (1921-1943) Martyr of the anti-Nazi movement at Munich University where she studied biology and philosophy. Arrested with her brother Hans, a medical student, both were sentenced to death by the People's Court, and on February 22, 1943, twenty-two year old Sophie and her brother Hans were beheaded by the guillotine. They were instrumental in organizing the resistance group known as the 'White Rose'. In one of their illegally printed pamphlets, she wrote 'Every word that comes from Hitler's mouth is a lie'. The graves of Hans and Sophie Scholl can be seen in the Perlach Forest Cemetery, outside Munich. ELIZABETH von THADDEN (1890-1944) Teacher and activist in the anti-Hitler movement. Born in Mohrungen, East Prussia now Morag, Poland, she taught in a Protestant boarding school at Wieblingen Castle near Heidelberg which she founded in 1927. Forced to resign in 1941 by new state regulations, she started working for the Red Cross. She was reported to the Gestapo for things she said during a discussion on the regime at her home on September 10,1943. She was arrested, charged with defeatism and attempted treason and sentenced to death by the Peoples Court. On September 8, 1944, she was executed. Her half brother, Adolf von Thadden, survived the war and became a member of the Bundestag and later chairman of the National Democratic Party (NPD). Daughter of diplomat Dr.Wilhelm Solf, ex Ambassador to Japan. In 1940, she married Count Hubert Ballestrem, an officer in the German military. At her mother's house a group of anti-Nazi intellectuals met regularly to discuss ways to help Jews and political enemies of the regime. Many Jews were found hiding places by the Countess and her mother, Frau Solf. Documents and forged passports were obtained to help them emigrate to safety. At a birthday party given by their friend, Elizabeth von Thadden, a new member was introduced to the circle. It later turned out that the new member, Dr.Reckzeh, was a Gestapo agent and all members of the Solf Circle had to flee for their lives. The Countess and her mother went to Bavaria but the Gestapo soon caught up with them. Incarcerated in the Ravensbruck concentration camp the Countess only saw her husband once when he came on leave from the Russian front. In December, 1944, they were sent to the Moabit Remand Prison to await their trial before the People's Court. On February 3, 1945, Berlin was subjected to one of the heaviest air raids of the war. Next morning the word got around that the notorious Judge Freisler was killed in his own court-room by a falling beam during the raid. The trial was postponed to April 27 but a few days before, all prisoners were discharged as Judges and SS guards fled the city as the Soviet Army approached. Frau Solf went to England after the war and her daughter was reunited with her husband and lived in Berlin. All told, seventy-six friends and acquaintances of the Countess and her mother were killed during the last few months of the war. Countess Ballestrem-Solf died while in her mid forties through trauma caused by her husband's imprisonment by the Soviet authorities. LILO GLOEDEN (1903-1944) Elizabeth Charlotte Lilo Gloeden was a Berlin housewife, who, with her mother and husband, helped shelter those who were persecuted by the Nazis, by sheltering them for weeks at a time in their flat. Among those sheltered was Dr. Carl Goerdeler, resistance leader and Lord Mayor of Leipzig. Lilo Gloeden, her mother and husband, were all arrested by the Gestapo, and Lilo and her mother subjected to torture under interrogation. On November 30, 1944, all three were beheaded at two minute intervals by guillotine in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin. LILO HERMANN (1909-1938) German student who became involved in anti-Nazi activities. She was arrested and sentenced to death for high treason, becoming the first woman to be executed in Hitler's EDITH STEIN (1891-1942) Born in Breslau, daughter of a Jewish timber merchant. She rejected Judaism and became a Catholic nun in 1922 and in 1932 she was appointed lecturer at the German Institute of Scientific Pedagogy, a post from which she was dismissed because of her Jewish parents. She then entered the Carmelite Convent in Cologne as Sister Teresa Benedicta. In the elections of 1933 she refused to vote and was prohibited from voting in the elections of 1938. Transferred to a convent in Holland, she was arrested by the Gestapo when Germany invaded that country. With many other Jews she was sent to Auschwitz where on August 9, 1942, she was put to death in the recently built gas chambers. Edith Stein was later proclaimed a saint by Pope John Paul 11, an act which infuriated many Jews who think that she is not an appropriate representative of Jewish victims. So what ? She was a Catholic by choice and Pope had all right to make her a Born in Frankfurt-on-Main, a member of the Socialist Young Workers movement. In 1933 she helped many Jews and others to flee the Reich. In 1935, she aided those engaged in resistance work, from her home in Alsace. After the capitulation of France in 1940, she was arrested by the Vichy Government and handed over to the Gestapo. Brought before the People's Court in Berlin in 1943, she was sentenced to death, and on June 9, 1944, executed in Plötzensee Prison. In her last letter she wrote 'Be cheerful and brave, a better future lies before you'. Born in Berlin in 1905, this German novelist had her books banned by the Nazi's when she criticized them for their defamation of German womanhood. In 1933 her books were confiscated and burned and newspapers were forbidden to publish her short stories. Forced to emigrate to Holland so she could continue her writing, she again went back to Germany in secret when the Nazi's invaded the Netherlands. In Cologne she went underground and began writing again making no secret of her opposition to the Nazi's. After the war nothing was heard of her till 1976 when she was discovered living in poverty in an attic room in Bonn. She had spent six years in a Bonn hospital and four and a half months in the state hospital for alcoholism. In 1972 her books were republished and she died of a lung tumor on May 5, 1982. Born in Milwaukee, USA, on September 16th. 1902, daughter of merchant William Cooke Fish. In 1926, she married the German Rockefeller scholar Arvid Harnack whom she met while studying literature at Wisconsin University. She insisted on keeping her maiden name. In 1929 she and her husband moved to Germany where she taught American literature history at the University of Berlin. In Berlin, she became friends with Martha Dodd and through this friendship, she and her husband were often invited to receptions at the American Embassy where she met many influential Germans. When the war started, Arvid and Mildred supported the resistance movement against the Nazi regime through their friendship with Harro Schulze-Boysen and the spy ring the Nazis dubbed 'The Red Orchestra'. On September 7th, 1942, she and her husband were arrested while on a short vacation in Priel, a seaside town near Königsberg and taken to Gestapo headquarters at No. 8, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. At their trial on December 15-19, 1942, Mildred was sentenced to six years in prison for 'helping to prepare high treason and espionage'. Arvid and eight others were given the death sentence and on December 22 Arvid and three others were hanged from meat hooks suspended from a T-bar across the ceiling of the execution chamber at Plötzensee Prison. The others were beheaded by the guillotine. On December 21, Hitler reversed the sentence on Mildred and at her second trial on January 13/16, 1943, she was given the ultimate penalty, death. At 6.57 pm on February 16, 1943, Mildred Elizabeth Harnack nee Fish was beheaded by guillotine in Plötzensee, the only American woman to be executed for treason in World War2. Her last words were reported to be "And I loved Germany so much". (By September, 1943, all fifty one members of the 'Red Orchestra' had died, two by suicide, eight by hanging and forty-one beheaded by guillotine). In January, 1970, the Russians posthumously awarded Arvid Harnack the Order of the Red Banner, and Mildred, the Order of the Fatherland War, First Class, the highest civilian award. Sadly, in the US the Harnacks were forgotten. A Dutch national who, when hearing of the German threat to refuse permission for the refugee Children's Transports to cross the border into Holland, went to Vienna and confronted Adolf Eichmann, head of the Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration. She persuaded him to issue a collective exit visa for 600 Austrian Jewish children. The children eventually arrived in England. In all, Gertrud Wijsmuller organized a total of forty-nine transports to Britain. Another transport she organized, her 50th, was from the port of Danzig on August 24, 1939. On September 1 Germany invaded Poland and occupied Danzig. Back in Holland, Gertrud continued to help in the transfer of Jewish children to England until May 10, 1940, when Germany invaded the Netherlands. After Kristallnacht, over 9,000 German, Austrian and Czech Jewish children were brought to Britain by these Kindertransports. The first transport arrived in Harwich on December 1, CHARLOTTE SALOMON (1917-1943) Born in Berlin, daughter of surgeon Professor Albert Solomon. In 1933, being Jewish, he was deprived of his right to practice medicine. Charlotte was admitted to the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts in 1935 (some Jewish students were admitted whose fathers had fought in World War 1) After Kristallnacht, father and daughter were given permission to leave Germany. They settled in Villefranche in the South of France. After Italy signed the surrender, German troops marched into Villefranche and on 21 September, 1943, the Gestapo arrested Charlotte and her husband, Alexander Nagler. Deported by train to Auschwitz both were gassed on arrival. Professor Solomon survived the war and in 1971 presented to the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam a total of 1,300 paintings done by Charlotte in the three years before her arrest. The closest woman that Hitler was ever emotionally attached to was his niece, Geli Raubal. Geli was an attractive young, blond woman with whom Hitler had the only true love affair of his life (Shirer 26). Hitler met Geli in 1928. After falling in love with her, he took her everywhere with him, to meetings and conferences, on long walks in the mountains and to cafés and theaters in Munich. It was probable that Hitler intended to marry Geli. It is unknown if she reciprocated his feelings, but they were both jealous of each other. When she decided to continue her voice studies and pursue an operatic career, Hitler forbade it. He wanted her for himself alone. It is unknown why, but the relationship began falling apart and they argued constantly. Again, she demanded to go to Vienna to study voice. It was overheard that Geli cried to her uncle, "Then you won't let me go to Vienna?" and he was heard to respond, "No!" The next morning Geli Raubal was found shot dead in her room. She had shot herself in the chest. Hitler was devastated. Gregor Strasser, a close friend of Hitler's, recounted that he had to remain for the following two days and nights at Hitler's side to prevent him from taking his own life (Shirer 186-7) Perfect German Woman~German Mother It is possible that Hitler's love, Geli, influenced his opinion of women. The description of a perfect German woman fits Geli's description. It is also not surprising that like Geli, Eva had suicidal feelings, but unlike Geli, Eva did not have a strong intelligence. Perhaps because of Geli's death and the constant arguments at the end that Hitler had with her, Hitler preferred a woman who was pretty but rarely thought. It is clear that Hitler had formed a repressed view of the perfect German woman. In his Mein Kampf, Hitler states that "the German girl is a subject and only becomes a citizen when she marries. But the right of citizenship can also be granted to female German subjects active in economic life"(Hitler). Soon, women were trying to clone themselves to fit one image, that of the perfect German woman: a striking blonde with big hips and hair tied back at the nape of the neck or plaited on top of her head with no make-up (Henry and Hillel 35). According to Hitler, a woman's duty was to be "attractive and bear children for the Führer. They were to follow their dedication to Hitler with the hopes of giving him at least one child (Henry and Hillel 34). According to the Nazis, women were only able to make decisions emotionally and were thus unqualified to hand down justice, among other things. At a time when German women had been given the vote and were struggling for liberation from male domination, the Nazi Party published in January 1921 a statement in which they undertook to exclude women permanently from all important positions in politics. In one fell swoop, the rights that women had fought for were abolished. Hitler in particular spoke of the emancipation of women as an "unnatural symptom like parliamentary democracy." According to party leaders, such tendencies were evidence of frustration due to inadequate functioning of the sex glands. Hitler and his party immediately made use of the media to further their goals. "Aryan" women were exalted as childbearers and keepers of near-sacred hearths, well away from desks and decisions. "The German woman doesn't smoke." "The German woman brings children into the world" and other such messages appeared. Propaganda directed at women, though, of course, it varied according to circumstances, was always inspired by two distinct aims: numerical quantity and racial quality. The former led directly to the campaign on the "birthfront," to meet the growing population needs of the country; the latter was restricted to the élite of the German nation, the blonde blue-eyed Nordics, and led to what was later known as the SS human stud-farms, part of the Lebensborn project. New marriage laws were under consideration, as well. Hitler put his trusted comrade, Himmler, in charge of the plans. Details included the ability to divorce if after five years a couple remained childless. Whether the couple was happy or not did not matter; the good of the Reich came before the happiness of individuals (Padfield 318). Sterile marriages led to the 1938 divorce law under which, among other things, a wife's sterility or refusal to have children became valid reasons for divorce. The results were not long in coming. Divorces leapt from 42,000 in 1932 to 62,000 in 1938. There were many negative affects of the propaganda to become the perfect German woman. Make-up was not even left untouched by the effect of the Reich. Make-up was "un-German" and only for faces "marked by the eroticism of eastern females". In Berlin, women wearing make-up were insulted on buses; they were called whores, and sometimes even traitors. Slimness was also condemned. It was taken for granted that women who were too slim could not have many children, just as those excessively devoted to their dogs were robbing their future children of the love to which they were entitled. Amid the contradictions, Nazi Man somehow managed to put "Aryan" Woman on a pedestal, then surround her by attentive armed guards, much like the "protective custody" accorded enemies of the state. They were lucky they had wombs. Nuns, who didn't use theirs, were treated worse. Another plan was to establish an Academy for Wisdom and Culture to educate women specially selected for intellect, quick wit, grace of body, complete political reliability and Germanic appearance. The plan was to make a school that was a cross between a finishing school and a training college for the diplomatic service, a training ground for "proper" wives of party leaders, second wives. The young women's intellect "would be honed by studying history, foreign languages and daily games of chess, their physical grace by sport, especially fencing, riding, swimming and pistol practice; they would also have special courses in cookery and housekeeping" (Padfield 319). Requirements to gain entrance to this elite school would be that the woman have blonde hair and blue eyes. Plans to allow brunettes were to be considered later, but the first goal was to raise the view of the Nordic woman. The women's primary duty afterwards, of course, was to marry Party and SS leaders. The problem, as Himmler saw it, was that too many of the top men in the Reich had married during the "time of struggle" and the women who had been perfectly appropriate to conditions then had failed to rise with their menfolk and fill their new station in life. On public occasions they made the wrong impression; the men took mistresses; scandal was the result. The "Chosen Women" on the other hand would set an example and be a permanent ideal for the whole nation. The present leaders' wives would be granted a respectable pension, he concluded. Later the word Domina was spoken of as a title for the first or senior wife. The Chosen Women would have the right of refusal to a chosen husband for her, provided that she chose a partner from the appropriate circle of rank and position within a given time limit; if she failed to do so within the time limit, the right of choice would revert to the men. Final decisions in marriage would rest with Himmler since the Führer had placed him in charge of the project. In the SS, promotion to the higher ranks would be made dependent on marriage to a "Chosen Woman," making the woman a trophy, or medal to be obtained. As early as 1933, changes were made in school curricula with a view to preparing girls for home life instead of university. For German girls especially, the economic situation meant a lessening of even marginal educational possibilities. Free public education had ended after the equivalent of the fourth grade. Until the turn of the century, most German girls had been denied a good high school education, for few schools existed to teach them, particularly for free. And rich young women in private academies were taught "insipid pablum". German women could not even enroll in universities until 1908. The Third Reich sought to influence the youth early, to train the children into their proper roles. One of these methods of raining was the Hitler Jugend. The feminine auxiliary of the Hitler Jugend, the Bund deutscher Mädel (BDM), was led by Elizabeth Grieff-Walden. The younger girls were placed in the group, the Jungmädel. The youth were so brainwashed that it was not unusual for young girls to come home pregnant from Hitler Jugend week-ends. If the parents complained, the response was that the girls had learned their lessons well, to provide a child for the Führer. Not all women enjoyed being pushed back into the kitchen. Margarete Fischer, a woman in her youth during the Third Reich, remembered that the extensive membership of the BDM, helped women stay out of the kitchen. For the first time, women's groups were being led by their female peers. She said: That all really happened in spite of Hitler's wanting the woman to stay with her saucepan. That on the one hand they should return to what was thought feminine, but on the other hand, through this leadership of women by women, emancipation can be spoken of in the larger breadth. Among other activities, the Bund deutscher Mädel created a sense of camaraderie by song, not just National Socialist songs, but folk songs, again raising the country's morale. Ursula Meyer, another former member of the BDM recounts that one of the things she enjoyed most about work camp, where girls were conscripted to labor, was that people from all classes bonded. The cohesion that formed was unlike anything she had experienced before. "We had girls from all levels of people, from teachers down to factory workers." As has been shown before, German women's change in status was primarily to aide in the Reich's plan to re-populate Germany. The campaign against childlessness in which the Nazis engaged immediately after their accession to power was first concentrated on the emancipated woman. She was to be eliminated at all costs from public life, forced back into the home in accordance with the old principle of the three Ks ñ Küche, Kinder, Kirche ("kitchen, children, church"). In spite of all the discrimination and the attendant disadvantages, most women, surprisingly considered the maternity cult a good thing, a necessity in the national interest (Henry and Hillel 35). So great was the preoccupation with fertility that of the eighteen million German mothers who were expected to devote themselves exclusively to the bringing up of their children, not one was sent to a factory before 1943. Of sixteen million married women at the end of 1938, 22 percent were childless; in Berlin the percentage was 34.5. This was in spite of the "marriage loan" being offered. Each couple was lent 1000 marks, a quarter of which was converted into a gift from the State on the birth of a child. Thus, the birth of the fourth child wiped out the loan completely (Henry and Hillel 36). Another influence to raise the position of "mother" was the establishment of a holiday. August 12, the birthday of Hitler's own mother, became the Day of the German Mother. Public ceremonies took place at which mothers of large families were decorated with the German Mother's Cross (bronze for four to six children, silver for six to eight, and gold for eight or more). Women in possession of this award were entitled to the public respect enjoyed by front-line soldiers. The official view of the matter was that the dangers to which a mother's health and life were exposed in thus serving her people and her country (in childbirth) were equivalent to those to which the soldier was exposed in battle (Henry and Hillel 36). By August 1939, three million German mothers had been decorated and belonged to what the man in the street called the "Order of the Rabbit" (Kaninchenorden). When wearing their decoration these women were entitled to the Hitler salute from members of the party youth organizations, as well as to all sorts of special allocations, allowances and other privileges. During the war these often took the unexpected form of entitlement to a housemaid chosen from the millions of girls and women from Eastern Europe who were sent to forced labor in Germany. Polish, Russian, Czech and other female deportees were distributed among deserving families "so that the fertility of the German mother should not be diminished by physical work." The party leaders never tired of reiterating that war was less harmful to a nation than a decline in the fertility of its women. Even though women were urged to the kitchen, the female work force still flourished out of necessity. At first, married women doctors were deprived of their jobs "in view of the necessity of devoting themselves to childbearing." Women were expected to get married and then give up their profession. There was great unemployment when Hitler came, and it was often said that if the women married, they had to give up their career so that the men could get work first. This usually wasn't looked upon badly because of the high unemployment rate when Hitler came to power (Owings 58). However, women doctors returned to work when the shortage of male doctors made it necessary to re-employ them. (Henry and Hillel 34). The mobilization of women for the war economy started as early as 1936. When war broke out, over eight million women worked in Germany, as compared with four million in 1933. For this reason, only few additional women, probably not more than half a million, had been added to the workforce since the outbreak of the first world war. Because of the economy of the middle thirties, nearly all women that could be considered employable were already at work. Women held positions as streetcar conductors, post office clerks, railway clerks, and in other types of work in which they were employed in the first world war (Ebenstein 289). The reserve of women for additional employment was very small. The increase of the compulsory labor service from six months to a year meant that every girl or woman had been subject to labor conscription for a year when she reached the age of eighteen. According to German statistics, 91% of their work had been in agriculture. These girls received only about fifteen cents a day, but the regular year of labor service was not only in the form of compulsory labor. There were many other types ordered from time to time. Thus, it had been decreed at the end of the spring semester in 1941 that all female students would be conscripted for work in munitions factories during their vacations (Ebenstein 289). As a result, women became self-sufficient because of the war and because of the women's groups that had been established. This even had repercussions after the war. When the men came home and tried to reestablish their authoritarian presence, if it didn't lead to divorce, it caused a heavy burden on the marriages. Women had been restored to the ideal condition of wife and mother, unmarried mother or fiancée. However, just as the married, fertile women were honored, hatred fell upon those who were childless. Childless couples, sterile women and even women "too old for childbearing" were made a target of the Nazi breeding experts. There were special concentration camps for women. Many of the inmates were kept there not because of personal activities, but as punishment for alleged misdeeds of their husbands. For example, in the spring of 1934, Gerhart Seger, former member of the Reichstag, managed to escape to Czechoslovakia from the notorious Orenienburg concentration camp. His young wife and nineteen month old baby were at once seized and sent to a concentration camp. Women lost the right to vote. They were not allowed to join political organizations or labor unions, or to help run any aspect of government, or to be on equal legal footing with their husbands, brothers, or sons. Over the years, especially in the 1940's, when the war did not proceed as Hitler wished, German women were encouraged to extend their hearthdoms after all, even to such sites as bomb factories. Hitler did not believe, however, that women should be drafted for such work any more than for the front lines. As the Reich rolled on, democratic institutions like voting, a free press, fair trials, were so long gone that most younger women might not have known what they were missing. After a full shift making tank parts, standing in line to shop, cooking for and caring for one's children, and dragging them down to the bomb shelter several times a night, the climb back up above the chiseled letters of Motherhood must have been arduous. But the Führer always was there with a last helpful push, and an honorary Mother's Cross for the really procreative. A putative majority of German women not only accepted the elevated imprisonment but clambered up the pedestal themselves. It looked safer than feminism. And the elevated attention, the first in their lives for some women, was flattering. The cynical homage disguised the truth. German women were treated with such misogynistic manipulation, such disregard for any mental acuity, for not even Nazi women were allowed in the Nazi "parliament" or at the top of their own organization, it is clear that if women were not childbearers they would not have been accorded even second-class status. After the second world war, German women would have to climb the arduous trek to gain their civil rights once again. Hitler's mother's grave Klara Hitler was a pious Catholic mother who raised Hitler according to her beliefs. Hitler felt grief-stricken over his mother's death. She was buried alongside her husband in Linz, Austria. German soldiers here pay their respects to the grave in 1938. Note the Christian cross on her monument. Freya von Moltke Looks Back on the Kreisau Circle bibliographic citation: Freudenburg, Rachel, et al. “‘You see it too simply:’ Freya von Moltke Looks Back on the Kreisau Circle.” Confront! Resistance in Nazi Germany. Ed. John Michalczyk. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. 127-149. During the Third Reich, Freya and Helmuth von Moltke’s home in Kreisau served as a gathering place for a group of Germans who actively resisted Hitler. These friends, who later became known collectively as the Kreisau Circle, began making plans for a democratic German government to be put into place after Hitler’s demise. At the time of the group’s founding, however, the mere suggestion of the Führer’s downfall was considered an act of treason. On 17 March 2002, Andreas Thomas, Jenny Gesualdo, and I, Rachel Freudenburg, interviewed Freya von Moltke at her home in Four Wells, Vermont in order to learn more about the Kreisau Circle. Throughout the interview, Countess von Moltke returned again and again to the phrase, “you see it too simply,” a mantra that directed our attention to the incredible complexity of the materials—the lives, events, relationships, objects, governments, institutions, and places—that are the object of historians’ curiosity. Is not every historical summary, to some degree, an oversimplification? And must we not be wary of judging and interpreting the past through the ideals, values and beliefs of the present, even though these are, to be sure, our only means of approaching history? Freya von Moltke was born in Cologne in 1911 to Ada and Carl Theodor Deichmann. Her father was the director of the Deichmann Bank until 1931, when the institution went under. She had two brothers, Carl and Hans Deichmann, who were “good anti-Nazis” just like their sister. In 1930, Freya passed the Abitur, the German university entrance exam, and began studying law. While vacationing in Austria, she met Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, a fellow law student and heir to Kreisau, the Moltke family estate in Silesia. In 1931, Freya and Helmuth married and, after spending some time in Berlin where she finished up her law degree (Dr. jur., 1935) at the Humboldt University, the newlyweds moved east to Kreisau.I had not much inkling of what was to come,” von Moltke explains. By the end of 1945, the unimaginable had come to pass. Freya had joined the fight against Hitler, she had risked her own safety, had lost her husband, and had been evacuated from her home. Her postwar accomplishments are equally impressive: Freya von Moltke has authored several books on her life in Kreisau, the Kreisau Circle, and Helmuth James von Moltke. Von Moltke has received numerous awards for both her role in the resistance to Hitler and her important work as a chronicler of the Kreisau Circle. Today, through her involvement with the Kreisau Foundation, she continues to champion the cause of intercultural understanding in Europe. We did not know what to expect at her home, but the person who greeted us offered homemade applesauce and the best beet soup we had ever tasted. Was this grandmotherly figure the same woman who had stood up to Hitler and fought ferociously for her husband’s life? Or had we been seeing things too simply? Freya von Moltke, whose encounter with Kreisau has lasted the better part of a lifetime, always describes the place with more than a hint of fondness in her voice: “Kreisau is a small village in Silesia which used to be East Germany, and as a consequence of the Second World War, is now Polish. It was what one used to call an estate of the family von Moltke, but it was also a beautiful, big, running farm.” She was immediately enchanted with the place, for reasons that had little to do with its landscape and innate charm: “Well, I was very much in love, and therefore I didn’t care where I was going. I wanted to be near that person, Helmuth James von Moltke, and anything that was around him and of importance to him was important to me. So my change-over from western Germany to eastern Germany was very quick—although the people in West Germany said, ‘Oh, that poor child is going so far East.’ It didn’t seem that way to me.” She adds that, “it was a different life because I was a city girl,” yet as she reflects upon the place and its beauty, one realizes that nothing suited this city girl more than the rural lifestyle. The first few years of her marriage were spent in Berlin witnessing the events leading to the Third Reich and soon, “the political situation in Germany became very difficult. It was practically civil war before the Nazis came to power because there were not only the Nazis’ semi-military groups, but there were also military groups from the Left. It was generally really chaotic in Germany, and so we saw the rise, and we witnessed the ups and downs because the National Socialists won in the elections and also lost in the elections, and so it was a long, downward path that led to National Socialism.” The von Moltkes often appear as some of the few upper-class people who, right from the start, opposed Nazism, with most active resisters only turning against the regime quite late in the war.According to Freya von Moltke, this is a much too heroic view of historical reality: “There were quite a lot of people who were opposed, but of course the methods of the Nazis pushed them into the underground, or killed them, or put them into concentration camps.” Indeed, the von Moltkes merely belonged to what remained of the opposition to Nazism after the Nazis were through murdering, imprisoning, torturing and ostracizing those who did not share their views. There was ample opportunity to leave Germany, but the von Moltkes chose to stay instead. Helmuth’s mother hailed from South Africa, and in 1934, Helmuth and Freya visited family there. “Actually we went to South Africa and of course there they said don’t go back but we wanted to go back. First of all because of the farm. Second because Helmuth was the eldest in a group of five and his parents had died or were dying. And last, and that was the most important reason, Helmuth went back as an opponent. He wanted to be an opponent of National Socialism in Germany.” Even as opponents of German fascism, the von Moltkes were, at first, unprepared for what would eventually happen, “because we were not victims. We were actually treated extremely well because the Nazis honored very much one of the ancestors of my husband.” This ancestor was the Field Marshall von Moltke whose efforts on the battlefield during the Bismarck era (1866, 1867, 1870) had earned the family not only the right to use the titles “count” and “countess,” but also a prominent place in German history. “Helmuth was not a direct ancestor but we were the next in line to him [the field marshal], and he had won two wars for Germany, and the Nazis admired him greatly. My husband was the legal heir and therefore they treated us with respect. No doubt about it.” Partially as a result of his family’s heritage, Helmuth von Moltke was promoted into the Nazi government’s High Command—a position that he exploited as much as possible to undermine Nazi lawlessness. One of the many paradoxes of the German resistance movement is that those who were most firmly established in the bureaucracy of the Third Reich were in the best position to dismantle it. As time went on, though, Helmuth von Moltke’s opportunities for on-the-job resistance diminished drastically. He was no longer able to assist Jewish colleagues or to work for Jewish clients, and his repeated attempts to urge the government to abide by the rule of law and humanitarian standards were, increasingly, an exercise in futility. When it became clear that clandestine activity was in order, Freya backed her husband unconditionally. “Well, he told me once that he was going to seriously involve himself and said more or less, ‘this you have to know, and I can only do it if you are with me.’ Of course I was with him, so I said, yes, I thought we should do it.” And so, in 1940, Helmuth and Peter von Yorck, another Count from the Eastern regions, began laying the groundwork for what was to become the Kreisau Circle. Carefully and cautiously, the two made contacts and found people who shared their vision of a non-fascist Germany. The Kreisau Circle Freya von Moltke describes the process of assembling what was to become the Kreisau Circle as nothing short of arduous. Peter von Yorck and Helmuth von Moltke carefully sought out “people who objected, who were opposed to National Socialism and were trying to envisage a better Germany beyond National Socialism, which at the time seemed completely impossible. It all started when Hitler had his greatest successes in France in 1940; it was a way of keeping one’s own integrity intact and finding something to oppose at this time of frustration and despair, because opposition—I have to make this quite clear—was absolutely illegal and impossible. There was nothing in Nazi Germany like free speech. […] To bring together such a group was in itself a big undertaking. It took a lot of time, but also a lot of confidence, a lot of trust. People who would go in for such things were in danger, and so it was a very demanding question to ask somebody to join.” The Kreisau Circle’s agenda was to prepare for X-day, the day after Hitler’s complete military defeat, by having a plan for a new nation in place and ready to be implemented. Freya von Moltke explains: “the goal of the Kreisau Circle was to think through what a better Germany would have to be organized like. After all, the one attempt to practice democracy had failed. The Nazis had been able to overcome the Weimar Republic. So the big question was: ‘How can I make democrats out of Germans who had not been able, really, to run a democracy properly?’ And they had very diverse ideas, and some of these ideas, if you read what was written down, seem inappropriate today but the questions they asked were all the right questions. Questions such as how to build a new democracy that has many sides to it. How to build a new economy and whether it should be free or not free. What should the universities be like? There were thousands of questions, of course. And the group itself had to be like a democracy. It had to have opposing opponents. They were all opponents of National Socialism, but within the group itself, they had different political views. We had capitalists and socialists. We had Catholics and Protestants. We had younger people and older people. This was a carefully brought together group.” Even the group’s two main leaders, Peter von Yorck and Helmuth von Moltke, who were both members of the Eastern German aristocracy, were on opposite sides of the political spectrum: “Helmuth was interested in socialism, to put it mildly. And Peter von Yorckwas much more conservative and his friends were much more conservative. So the two between them brought really an interesting lot of people together.” At the center were the von Moltkes, Helmuth and Freya, and the Yorck von Wartenburgs, Peter and Marion, but the group was actually a loosely connected network of friends, rather than an actual association with a set membership list. Even so, a review of its “members” does reflect the political diversity for which Yorck and von Moltke strove. Jesuit priests (Alfred Delp and Lothar König) were brought into dialogue with representatives from the Protestant Churches (Harald Poelchau and Eugen Gerstenmeier); Communists (Julius Leber) faced off with Nazis (Fritz-Dietlof Graf von der Schulenburg); members of the aristocracy (Hans-Bernd von Haeften and Adam von Trott zu Solz) worked with union organizers (Hermann Maass and Wilhelm Leuschner). The group also included individuals from several different areas of expertise including economists (Carl Dietrich von Trotha and Margrit von Trotha) and educators (Adolf Reichwein). Finally, a list of participants would be incomplete without the names Carlo Mierendorff, Theo Haubach, Gustav Dahrendorf, Paulus van Husen, and Theodor Steltzer. Interestingly, the friends never called themselves the “Kreisau Circle.” The name, which came into use during the Nazis’ investigations into the groups’ activities, was derived from the three large meetings held at the Moltke family estate in 1941–1942. As with any label, “Kreisau Circle” both is and is not accurate. Freya von Moltke explains that prior to these three large gatherings, there were actually “hundreds of small meetings that took place in Berlin, and in Munich but mostly in Berlin, and mostly in the apartment of our friends the Yorcks.” Because of the dangers associated with their work, it was only possible to meet in twos and threes, and even then, fears of being discovered were incessant. Eventually, larger assemblies became necessary, for “it was important to have a chance to integrate what the different smaller circles had worked on. So these bigger meetings were organized in order to formulate what had been done and to get agreement on what had been done, and Kreisau was a very good place to do it because we people in the country were used to having big weekend visits and nobody much cared or paid attention. So when Helmuth said he wanted to have big weekends with his coworkers, it seemed quite natural. And so we had these three meetings, but only three. And it’s quite extraordinary that the group should have the name it does because it should really be named after the small house of the Yorcks in Berlin, but on the other hand these integrative meetings were important. And also the big driver in that group was always my husband, Helmuth. He could get them all to work, so to speak. He complained when there was no progress made in the smaller groups. He pushed them and got us all together in Kreisau.” As early as the 1940s, the Kreisauers were criticized for being long on idealism and short on pragmatism; however, it must be kept in mind that there was very little one could actually accomplish as a resister in the Third Reich. As Hans Mommsen points out, a good measure of idealism and otherworldliness was perhaps an intellectual prerequisite for the decision to join the resistance.Today, historians speculate that ideological differences between the group’s members would have made taking any concrete step nearly impossible. Nevertheless, one admires the seriousness with which the Kreisau Circle, within a nation that sought to eradicate difference by the most violent means possible, thought about ways to include people of different backgrounds in governmental and social institutions. Freya von Moltke explains that as time went on, the utopianism that inspired the members of the Kreisau Circle became more and more strongly rooted in European Christianity: “The majority of the people had not gone into this question of Christianity. One took it for granted, learned it in school, and went on with it into life. But the question became much more important with the fact that they really put everything of their lives into [the resistance] and had to face death and were thinking about why they were undertaking such an endeavor. The answers to all these questions brought them much closer to a Christianity they already sort of vaguely belonged to. Even the Socialists, who were the farthest away from thinking on Christian terms, became much more involved with Christianity while all this was going on. So the group decided that the past of Western Europe had been built on Christianity, and felt that the future should also be built on Christianity.” Again, we should not interpret Christianity—a broad term if ever there was one—too simply. The connections between Germany’s Churches and the Nazi government have become notorious indeed. What did Christianity mean for the members of the Kreisau Circle? What was the link between their spiritual lives and the ideals that guided their plans for Germany’s future? One obvious connection is their agreement that religious freedom (including the “freedom” to be Jewish) should be protected by the state. Additionally, the Kreisau Circle based its plans for Germany’s future on principles such as individual liberty, the rule of law, and the state’s obligation to protect the individual’s rights to peace, property, family, work, and education. Interestingly, though, individual rights did not come without some duties. The members of the Kreisau circle believed that each person should be involved in political processes at the grass roots level. (If we fantasize, for a brief moment, that we live in a world where everyone is ensnared in the bickering and backbiting of local politics, it is not difficult to see why the group was often castigated for its social utopianism.) The government imagined by the Kreisau Circle featured strong centralization with numerous well-developed, smaller political units. Because of the failures of the Weimar Republic, the members of the Kreisau Circle were reluctant to embrace democracy wholeheartedly. Nonetheless, they did believe that people should be politically active and needed to be trained to think beyond their own immediate interests. Involvement in self-government, they proposed, was one way to achieve this end. They theorized that a government based on small, local groups would encourage the political integration of individuals into their communities. Perhaps the encouragement of a certain communal mentality, whereby persons are taught to empathize with and take responsibility for others without giving up their own individuality, reflects the Kreisau Circle’s version of Christianity. Throughout the interview, we returned again and again to the theme of Christianity, and as we did so, the various meanings this word had for the people of the Kreisau Circle came into sharper focus. Interestingly, our conversation on Helmuth’s attitudes toward children fed into thoughts on the way he, and others, began to understand their activities as a specifically Christian pursuit. Freya von Moltke explained that Helmuth had not wanted any children, but that she had. In the end, she prevailed and had two sons, Helmuth Caspar, who was born in 1937, and Konrad, born in 1941. I had trouble imagining Helmuth being against the idea of children because in the photos that survive, he looks like such a doting father. “Oh, but you see it too simply,” Freya von Moltke began; “he loved children, but he found life a difficult thing and he didn’t want personally to be responsible for life on this earth. But he changed his mind on that, too, and that’s quite a good example to show you how the question of Christianity became important. He was not thinking in the same terms anymore; he no longer thought he was the one who did everything. So later on before he died he was very grateful and happy that he left me with two very nice little boys.” For Helmuth, coming closer to Christianity meant acknowledging individual limitations and accepting the idea that some higher power was perhaps in control. Paradoxically, the recognition of limitations enabled oppositional activity. At other points, Mrs. von Moltke spoke of how her own political attitudes, and those of her friends, changed dramatically during the Third Reich. “We became more public-minded, so to speak, although we could not be public. But our interests became wider and more ambitious. We really wanted to change Germany and for that you needed to have many friends, of course.” The resisters of the Kreisau Circle saw themselves as friends first, and political activists second; their friendships were founded on the absolute trust that was necessary in the resistance, and their group was unified through their shared idealistic beliefs. Perhaps the analogy of a religious community is not entirely far-fetched. Women in the Kreisau Circle Although I had been seeing things too simply throughout most of our conversation, once we turned to the subject of women’s lives, I felt I had seen things in too complicated a fashion. Outfitted with the typical preconceptions of a middle-class, working woman at the beginning of the twenty-first century, I asked the Silesian Countess how she had managed, back in the 1930s and 1940s, to juggle her many different duties, roles, and obligations. After all, she had been a mother of two young children, a political activist, and the de facto manager of a farm with over 60 employees all at the same time. She answered, “Oh, that was very easy. You know there was a big background,” by which she meant a support staff that assisted in all aspects of her work in Kreisau. “My role was easily defined and quite easily filled,too. I had no difficulties whatsoever, since the context of Kreisau was a very peaceful one. We were busy producing food, and children were busy growing up, and visitors went and came and went, and it was just keeping all these friends together, which was a very female task. And now tasks for females have widened enormously but it's still a very attractive female task to be on the farm and, well, not entirely running it, by no means, there were people who understood much more, but to keep it all together somehow. And that's what I did, and I had no trouble; it was not difficult to do it, not even in the Nazi time.” Accounts and opinions of the roles played by women in the German resistance as a whole vary greatly. In some retellings of history, women’s names are conspicuously absent, even from the indexes of books that are otherwise full to overflowing with detailed information. On the other extreme, feminist journalists and historians claim that the entire German resistance rested on the unique efforts of women. The truth, however, seems to contain much more variety than these two extremes might indicate. Vera Laska, in her book on Women in the Resistance and in the Holocaust, points out that in many resistance groups, women operated on an equal footing with men, and even that some essential tasks were entrusted to women because it would have been impossible for men to carry them out. Intelligence missions, for example, were frequently performed by women because they aroused less suspicion. But this is a pattern that may not hold true for all resistance groups. Another way women participated was in their largely invisible work as supporters, as people who “kept the friends together,” as Freya von Moltke put it, or who made sure that the men of the resistance had food to eat during times of war and scarcity! The degree of participation by women in the Kreisau Circle runs the gamut from actively contributing to the plans being laid for the future of Germany on the one hand, to the wife’s relatively apolitical role on the other. In general, Mrs. von Moltke sees the women of Kreisau as wives who “supported their husbands” but for the most part stayed out of the limelight. When asked whether she believed that the resistance could have existed without the contributions of women, Freya von Moltke responded, once again, “that is too simply put. I don't think [the men] could have done what they did without women supporting them, and the support from us was very good.” Her point is well taken: support should not necessarily be confused with actual political activity, though both were essential to the functioning of the resistance. “Most of the women, the wives, did not know what was going on; some of them were somewhere else. They were not together with their husbands at that time because of the war so they could not take part in [the resistance work]. And as far as they did take part, as Marion Yorck did, and as I myself did, they still could not do the planning. I myself felt completely incompetent. How could I dare to make statements about how parliament should work in the future Germany after the end of Nazism; these were questions that I was not able to answer.” Von Moltke’s self-effacing demeanor causes her to undervalue her own accomplishments, but who can objectively judge him- or herself? Admirably, though, her sense of modesty does not prevent her from appreciating the achievements of other women resisters. She is one of the few chroniclers of the Kreisau Circle to list Margrit von Trotha, Irene Yorck von Wartenburg, and Marion Yorck von Wartenburg as members. She also mentioned von Trotha during the interview: “One of us, Margrit von Trotha, was a trained economist, and she actually did plan with her husband in the group, in one of the small get-togethers in Berlin, but she never came to Kreisau.” As these remarks show, it is difficult to make generalizations regarding women’s participation, even in a group as small as the Kreisau Circle. Indeed, most of the women associated with this circle were wives of its more active and more visible male members; however, even von Moltke must correct her initial conclusion that women were not involved in the planning by mentioning Margrit von Trotha, the economist. Additionally, Marion Yorck von Wartenburg’s memoirs demonstrate that she, too, was intimately involved in the Kreisau Circle’s planning at almost every level. Today, some feminists seem frustrated with Freya von Moltke’s adherence to more traditional feminine roles, but can she really be faulted for choosing a life that was, for her, both exciting and fulfilling? However, it is not merely her obvious enthusiasm for her career as wife, mother, and farm manager that raises the hackles of today’s urban, career-oriented women. Alison Owings, for example, calls von Moltke “humble to the point of inaccuracy” (Owings 245). Indeed, perhaps Owings has a point: “He [Helmuth] was very wise in not telling me everything,” Freya remarks. “I didn’t know many details [while] living in Kreisau. I couldn’t know everything that was going on. Although if you read his letters, he did report very exactly whom he was meeting. But, also, maybe he did it because he himself wanted to keep a diary on what he was doing, and his diary was writing to me everyday. But I never interfered in the details of what he was doing in his anti-Nazi work.” Surely there is a significant difference between keeping a diary and desiring to share the details, the very fabric of one’s day-to-day existence, with the person one loves. Taken as a whole, the letters, written while Helmuth was working in Berlin and Freya was running operations in Kreisau, bear touching testimony to his deep commitment to her and to their marriage. Unfortunately, Freya only considered his letters worthy of being saved for posterity and did not preserve the missives she wrote to him. On the other hand, perhaps this explanation, which attributes von Moltke’s modesty to the stereotypically feminine tendency to downplay one’s own accomplishments, is not entirely to the point. Perhaps Freya von Moltke’s “modesty” has more to do with her completely sobering view of history than anything else: “You have to realize how little the German resistance could do anyway,” Freya protests, “and that’s why it’s not recognized very much, neither in Germany nor anywhere else. You can’t ask me what women could do, because we women couldn’t do anything, and the men couldn’t really do very much either. That’s the trouble.” The End of the Kreisau Circle? On 19 January 1944, Hemluth von Moltke was arrested because he warned an acquaintance that he was on the Nazis’ wanted list. “Then the acquaintance was arrested (because getting away was very difficult in Germany), and he gave Helmuth’s name as the one who warned him; and so the Gestapo took Helmuth, too.” After this, Freya recalls, “I was cut out completely, that was of course absolutely necessary. I heard nothing anymore about what was going on. I didn’t know if anything was still going on because I was in much too dangerous a position, and I could be interrogated, and then how would I stand up to that? I heard, I knew nothing anymore.” She continued living at Kreisau, and she was allowed to visit Helmuth once a month and to write to him three times per week. Although this was not much, she recalls, “it seemed helpful to me. I said that I needed to talk about the farm and that we needed his advice and I would come with books to show him and to work. They gave us two hours to sit next to each other and I brought the books, but we never actually dealt with them. We talked of other things.” Six months after Helmuth was arrested, on 20 July 1944, Colonel von Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate Hitler with a briefcase bomb, but failed. Freya von Moltke first learned about it “through the newspaper,” and recalls that her initial reaction was one of shock, “because I knew we were involved. I knew at once! There was the name of Peter von Yorck immediately, who was at the headquarters, and some [others] of our group were at the headquarters, too. So I knew we were involved. Then the question only was, how much did they find out? It took a while,” she explains, but eventually, the Nazis did find out that Helmuth “was very closely allied to [the conspiracy] and after that I heard nothing anymore, no more letters. So then I knew. Also Helmuth had, at the last meeting, said to me that he would let me know how bad the situation was by saying a certain piece of land should be ploughed one hundred percent, that would be very bad. Fifty percent would show the position and its seriousness. And then he wrote to me in a letter that three quarters should be ploughed. So I knew already it was very dangerous. And then the letters stopped entirely.” Amidst all of this darkness, there were “wonderful miracles that happened during those times.” Freya and Helmuth were granted one such miracle when he was transferred to a new prison. Of all the penitentiaries in the Third Reich, Helmuth was placed in the one where Harald Poelchau, a member of the Kreisau Circle, was chaplain. “So he [Poelchau] started carrying our letters in and out, as if we were writing everyday. I spent most of those last months in Berlin, because again my background allowed this. My sister-in-law, Asta, looked after my children when I was gone, and of course we still had the cook. All those things were different, and so I could be away, and I spent all those months in Berlin.” During these months, she corresponded with Helmuth and worked tirelessly on his defense. One day, she went to Poelchau’s apartment to write to Helmuth, as she did practically every day. But this day was different, for at around three o’clock, Poelchau came home and told her that Helmuth was dead. The date was 23 January 1945. Five decades later, it is not necessarily easy for Freya von Moltke to talk about these events. “But, oh, that is so detailed,” she protests, when I encourage her to tell us more about this fateful day. Helmuth was put to death for knowing the people who had attempted to assassinate Hitler. Since he was in jail while plans for the dictator’s elimination were being hatched, he himself was not directly involved. Throughout the early 1940s, his own position on the question—should Hitler be terminated?—was complicated. “Of course he wanted Hitler dead,” Freya explains, “but he also wanted him dead at the right time. He thought if he gets killed before the waris over then the same thing [as happened] at the end of the First World War might happen again. Back then, the Germans said, ‘we were never defeated. It was the politicians who did it, who put a dagger into the back of the troops. The military were all really mistreated by the politicians and we could have won the war.’ So he thought the only chance for the future of Germany was for Hitler to really destroy himself and for the Allies to win the war.” If theDolchstosslegende, or “Stab in the Back Legend,” were resurrected, Germany as a nation would not be inclined to reform itself and critique its fascist elements. Instead, it would more likely present itself as a nation that had been “right all along” in following the Nazis. Of course, this was only one of many considerations that had to be pondered carefully before any action could be taken. There were more practical matters, as well, and everyone feared that “they would probably not succeed, because they had to have somebody armed to do it and how do you get at Hitler? And the generals who could have done it were, as my husband called them, hopeless. They would never do it. And so it was actually [Stauffenberg], a colonel and a cousin of Peter von Yorck, who in the end did it.” Even after the doomed assassination attempt, Helmuth’s position on the issue remained “difficult, and it stayed so to the end. In prison, where two or three of the group were together, they would talk about such matters on their daily walks in the courtyard. They still discussed this question: was it right to have tried it? Would it have been better to let the war run its course and wait for the very end? But [even before that] the group always discussed whether to get rid of him, and how to get rid of him. And they said, ‘the sooner we get him killed, the fewer have to die.’ And as matter of fact, most of the losses in human life came after the attempt on 20 July 1944; the greatest number of people had to die after July 1944 and throughout 1945. It was really all very tragic.” Just as women participated in the resistance in many different capacities, they also experienced Nazi persecution and the demise of the Third Reich in a variety of ways. As Freya von Moltke explains, “the Communists suffered the most bloody persecution, and there also the women were killed.” After the attempt on Hitler’s life, many women of the Kreisau Circle lost their husbands and were imprisoned themselves. “Women were put into jail but were released after three, four months, and I think it had to do with the fact that it wasn't popular for these women to be in jail. They probably all were known as fairly normal creatures and why should they be made into criminals? It was toward the end of the war, and the Nazis could not risk that, so all came free.” The story of women in the resistance is also often a story of widowhood, but as Mrs. von Moltke points out, “you have to realize that not only did the resisters die but millions of ordinary soldiers died. So the life of Germany after the end of the war was very much in the hands of single women; their predicament played a big role. In that respect we were no different from other women. Everybody had to try and make their way again. We were all challenged to lead more independent lives.” Since the women of the Kreisau Circle survived the end of the Third Reich in greater numbers than did their male counterparts, they were entrusted with telling their group’s history, and their contributions in this area are impressive to say the least. Freya von Moltke, Rosemarie Reichwein, and Marion Yorck von Wartenburg all published their experiences of the resistance in memoir form, and have given historians valuable insights into the Kreisau Circle. In addition to these memoirs, Annedore Leber published a two-volume set of biographical portraits of resistance fighters from the Kreisau Circle and many other resistance groups. Finally, it was often women who had the foresight to preserve actual documents and letters that, today, bear witness to the extraordinary work accomplished by those who opposed Hitler. This was not always an easy task. Freya von Moltke, for example, moved Helmuth’s letters from one building to another during the war’s chaotic last weeks. At one point, they were even hidden in a beehive. “I got stung a little bit,” she admits, “but as every beekeeper knows, beehives have two compartments. The bees retire into one compartment during the winter. You hang up frames in the upper part and these are ready for them to use. Then they start building; they build comb up into them, and some are filled up with honey. But that’s all empty in the wintertime because they only use the lower part, so I could put Helmuth’s letters in the upper part.” Many years after they emerged from the beehive, von Moltke began the task of transcribing and publishing these letters. The resulting book,Briefe an Freya (Letters to Freya), was honored with the Geschwister-Scholl prize. For those most intimately involved in resistance activities, it is difficult to name the date when it was all over; indeed for many, the resistance will never end. In one of his many essays on the topic, David Clay Large describes the resistance as an ongoing project that did not end, or even become unnecessary, after Germany’s defeat in 1945. Surely, for resisters who lived to see the summer of 1945, their involvement in the opposition during the Third Reich shaped their lives in the postwar era. Some members of the Kreisau Circle, such as Eugen Gerstenmaier, remained politically active and later ascended to top positions in government. Women, too, embarked on postwar careers: The lawyer Marion Yorck (a.k.a. Yorck von Wartenburg) became a judge in the Juvenile Court of Berlin after the war ended. Rosemarie Reichwein opened a physical therapy clinic in Germany where she treated children and trained a new generation of therapists. Both of these women brought the ideals of the Kreisau Circle—a belief in value of individual freedom and the respect for personal dignity—to bear in their professional lives after 1945. None of the plans laid out by the Kreisau Circle was ever put into practice. In part, this had to do with the fact that “the Allies set up German democracy according to their own pattern, and maybe also some of the suggestions of the plans [of the Kreisau circle] wouldn’t have worked.” Still, one asks if the resisters were nothing more than suicidal idealists? Freya von Moltke responds: “I personally have always felt that what Helmuth did was worth doing, even though it was a complete failure. Of course, you don’t believe in the futility, you always have hope, or faith, or whatever you call it, in what you are doing. And I think this kind of activity—to object and then to stand for what you believe in—is one of the most important human activities to this day. It takes different shapes in different parts of society. In the Nazi times it took the shape of resistance, of wanting to do something because you couldn’t bear just doing nothing. After a while, my husband wasn’t even allowed to help Jewish people anymore. No, it was illegal to do that after a while. I mean, what you could do was so narrowly limited. But that you stand up, that is still as important as it ever was.” Lest we interpret these remarks too simply, Mrs. von Moltke explained that this human quality, this “interest in more than oneself and this readiness to stand for what one believes in,” was not the exclusive possession of resistance fighters. It was also very much a part of the Nazi movement. “It’s a human quality and that human quality is distributed in very different quantities in different people, and wherever in the world it is, it will be put to work. It will always have results of some kind because it’s this human quality that really moves the world on, for better or for worse. Also history sometimes uses awful actions of human beings to further mankind. And I think mankind has to learn. I still believe that we can learn to live more peacefully together on this earth, although it seems completely hopeless, at times. And I think that’s what keeps us human beings going on.” Here, we begin to tread on discomfiting terrain where the lines dividing good from evil begin to vanish. Countess von Moltke touches on issues that can inspire both hope and despair. Her theory that human history can, in some instances, progress through “awful” actions was a mainstay of the Nazis’ own ideology—a fact that makes us, today, reluctant to embrace it uncritically in any context. On the other hand, where would we be without at least a scrap of hope for the betterment of humanity? And—more to the point—would there have been any resistance at all without the conviction that oppositional activity would bring some good into the world, even if it did not enjoy immediate success? The fact that there was a resistance at all was not without future political consequences, even if, in the first few years after World War II, resisters were still considered traitors by many Germans. David Clay Large’s work explores how this attitude gradually changed and how postwar German governments eventually embraced the resistance, and even used it to shape a national past upon which a more sanguine German future could be built. The relationship between Germany’s ongoing process ofVergangenheitsbewältigung, or coming to terms with its past, and the German resistance is a complicated one. What position should the history of the German resistance occupy in Germany’s present national identity? One cannot condone a history that would falsify reality and present Germans in general as opponents to Hitler; factual evidence shows that, in every social class, active resisters comprised a small minority of the German population. However, it would also be a mistake for historians, and those who fashion Germany’s identity as a nation, to omit from the picture the small group of people who opposed Nazism. Today, the history of the Kreisau Circle also contributes to the formation of European identity. After the Iron Curtain was drawn back, in the early 1990s, Freya von Moltke relinquished her ownership claims on Kreisau and on 10 July 1990, the “Kreisau Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe” was formed. Monetary contributions from Germany, Poland, and other countries paid for the transformation of the Freya’s former home into a conference center and international meeting place for young and old. Von Moltke is pleased with the remodeling: “Our farmyard was generously laid out with a field and around it the most attractive farm buildings. But that field was filled with untidiness when it was a farm yard. It had wagons and it had a silo and it had a huge dung heap, and the cows were in a building that had beautifully vaulted pillars so that we always said it’s such a pity to have the cows in this beautiful building. Well, that’s the cafeteria now.” The mission statement of the new Kreisau clearly makes connections with the past: “The Krzyzowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding is a Polish nongovernmental organization dedicated to raising the level of social and political understanding between people from different countries. The Foundation bases its work on the tradition of a German resistance movement against the Nazis, the Kreisau Circle.” Indeed, the members of the Kreisau Circle had always been anti-racist and internationally savvy: “I was very much opposed to racism. We had Jewish friends whom we cherished. We thought nationalism was much overdone. We did not like the imperialistic claims that Germany had,” Freya explains. “We were standing up for people, and for cooperation between nations. That’s what the Kreisau people did; we were completely European in our outlook.” When it was suggested that this internationalism was surely not viewed as patriotic during Hitler’s time, she answered, “well, patriotism was not to bepatriotic.” Today, there is still much work to be done before Europe becomes comfortable with its multinational and multicultural identity. As Freya von Moltke points out, “the devil is in the details. To bring it [European integration] about is a very difficult thing. All the old differences between the European units are still there, and this makes Europe so attractive, but it also makes it hard for the Europeans to get together.” As Europe continues along this arduous path toward integration, the effects of the German resistance are finally being felt. Mrs. von Moltke explains that without knowing that there was a German resistance, “the Poles really could never have made friends with the people in Germany after all the dreadful things that the Germans did to the Poles.” Currently, all generations of the von Moltke family are dedicated to carrying on the legacy of Kreisau. In 1999, Mrs. von Moltke was distinguished for her efforts on behalf of German-Polish understanding with the “Bridge Prize of the city of Gölitz/Zgorzelec.” She and her sons and grandchildren are all still involved in running the Kreisau Center and preserving the legacy of the Kreisau Circle. One of the most chilling lessons taught by the history of Nazism is that the desire and ability to resist, and to act independently, can be eliminated—or very nearly eliminated—from a vast population. But do the lessons learned here apply beyond Germany’s shifting borders? During the Historians’ Debate of the 1990s, the keepers of the past argued vehemently over the status of the Holocaust in global history. The debate’s central questions revolved around the use of the comparative and the superlative: was this the worst thing ever to have happened? And, were the Nazis really the worst people ever to have lived? Or were they just as evil as, less evil, or more evil than mass murderers from other times and places? Is it right, scholars asked themselves, to compare other genocides to the Holocaust? Is not every event unique, and is not this uniqueness lost as soon as comparisons are made? To grant the Nazis a special status would be to see the situation too simply, or would it?. Throughout her life, Freya von Moltke has energetically devoted herself to educating others about the resistance, and the new Kreisau Center is an important component of her pedagogical mission. At the Kreisau Center, she explains, “we have an exhibition on resistance. It not only shows the Kreisau Circle, which is of course very well documented there, but it also shows resistance in the Eastern world, in Poland, in Russia, and in Czechoslovakia. All these countries have had resistance. Sometimes it was directed against the Russian occupation and not against their own administration, but of course it was also often against their own government, too. And people said, ‘how can you compare these resistances? They are completely different in content and in time.’ And so they are. How do you compare them? But you can very well compare them, you find out, in the way people resisted, and in why they resisted. Lots of people resisted, and the human element in it is everywhere the same. That is very gratifying, and it is something we are trying to show that to the young people who come to Kreisau, to see how necessary it was, and still is.” Ravensbrück Concentration Camp Ravensbrück Concentration Camp was the largest camp purpose-built for women in the Third Reich. Construction on the site began in 1938 at an area near Ravensbrück, fifty miles north of Berlin, by 500 male prisoners transferred from Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. From 1938 to 1945 over 132,000 women passed through its gates – of these, only 40,000 survived their experiences. Inmates came from over thirty countries. The majority of prisoners came from Poland (30%), with significant numbers arriving from the Soviet Union (21%), Germany (18%), Hungary (8%) and France (6%). By 1942, its prisoner population had grown to roughly 10,000, as inmates were transferred from around the Reich and its conquered territories. Inmates originated from varied social and political backgrounds, ranging from Jews, political inmates, ‘asocials’, Jehova’s Witnesses, criminals and the ‘work shy’. Significant numbers of children accompanied their mothers (mostly Jews and Roma Gypsies) to the camp, though almost all perished of starvation. The composition of these different groups varied wildly through the camp’s existence. In its early years, the majority of inmates were politicals and criminals, while in 1945 – when occupancy had swelled to 50,000 – Jews and asocials accounted for the bulk of the camp’s population. Famous inmates included Margarete Buber-Neumann, Wanda Poltawska, Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Corrie ten Boom and Maria Skobtsova. Camp life was very similar to most other concentration camps in the Third Reich. Inmates were routinely cramped into small shacks, starved to the point of famine and forced to perform physical labor under appalling conditions. Those too weak or chosen for other reasons were executed by gassing chambers and euthanasia programs, while doctors performed horrific human experiments on living subjects. While the camp administrators were largely men, the guards responsible for overseeing the inmates were almost exclusively female, and were no less sadistic and inhumane than their male counterparts at other camps. As the Soviet Army approached in 1945, the SS released 7,000 prisoners - mostly political - to the Danish and Swedish Red Cross. Subsequently, the remaining 20,000 prisoners still fit enough to walk WERE FORCED TO TAKE a death march towards Mecklenburg, where many more were killed. Only a few thousand inmates who were far too weak for physical exercise were left behind in the camp. The camp was finally liberated on April 30th, 1945. Those who survived the death march were discovered by a Russian scout unit several hours after. - ↑ United States Holocaust Museum (2010). “Ravensbruck”. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005180. Margarete Buber-Neumann (21 October 1901 - 6 November 1989) was a prominent member of the German Communist Party who was imprisoned in both the Soviet Union and Nazi German during World War II. Though initially a devoted communist, her arrest during Stalin's purges significantly changed her political and social opinions. She survived both the Karlag Gulag and Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, and drew on her experiences in publishing her memoirs entitled Under Two Dictators: Prisoner of Stalin and Hitler. Two of her most relevant observations are written in her autobiography: First, she compared the Nazi and Communist systems and denounced them equally. Secondly, she revealed that the social differences of inmates outside these complexes were still relevant and significantly influenced their interactions as prisoners. Imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp of Ravensbrück from 1941 to 1945, Wanda Poltawska was one of the many female prisoners forced by German physicians to endure inhumane and criminal medical experiments. The strong-minded and unyielding Wanda Poltawska rose above her title of a mere “guinea pig” in the concentration camp system by becoming an ardent fighter for freedom and life within and beyond the bounds of the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her memoir written in June and July of 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, reveals the triumph of the human spirit when faced with war and genocide. The memoir, which was eventually titled And I Am Afraid of My Dreams, was not published until 1961, as it originally served as Poltawska’s personal liberation from the nightmares she survived and relived in her dreams. As she states in her memoir, “But the point is not the actual experience so much as my own response to it. I need to sort it out and get a proper perspective on it.” In writing this personal diary of recollections, Wanda Poltawska was not focused on condemning or regretting the experiences she faced in Ravensbrück. By examining her struggle to survive, her resistance of mental destruction, and her quest for freedom, Poltawska also presented what she was able to gain and come to understand by living through such a dark time in human history. The experiences from World War II, particularly those in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, indisputably influenced and guided Wanda Poltawska in formulating her ideologies, values, and basis to life. Starting from her participation in the resistance movement and continuing with her efforts to survive jointly with others in the concentration camp system, Wanda Poltawska came to a much different reading of history as well as a varying outlook on gender roles than those commonly subscribed to by Western society. Unlike the gender competition offered by Western feminists, Wanda Poltawska used core values of Catholicism to formulate her vision on human solidarity and gender roles. Her first hand encounters with the loss of ethical norms as well as mass genocide during World War II motivated her to focus her attention on defending human rights, dignity, and life, with which she formulated her influential pro-life and pro-family agenda.Before Ravensbrück Wanda Poltawska, the daughter of a post-office clerk in Lublin, Poland, was a teenager when World War II erupted in Europe. Before the start of World War II she was still in high school, planning to continue her study of Polish Language and Literature at a university in hopes of becoming a writer. Unfortunately, her normal teenage years drastically changed with the German invasion of Poland on the first of September 1939. Her educational goals were instantly destroyed in the now occupied Poland, in which formal education on all levels was prohibited. The Nazi occupiers saw no need for a higher education for Poles and other Slavs alike. According to their racial and political mentality, the people of Poland were to work for the Third Reich, therefore only trade schools were allowed to function. Underground education was considered a serious offense and therefore punishable with death. Although her education had been terminated by the outburst of the war, Wanda Poltawska dedicated her passions and focused her full attention to an equally crucial and growing cause, her Fatherland of Poland. As a member of the Girl Guide, a youth organization similar to Girl Scouts, Wanda Poltawska began her active participation in the Polish war effort by assisting the wounded with first aid and other supplies. Polish women, just like women all over the war stricken world, took on an active role in the war effort, which often went outside their traditional gender expectations. Poltawska's involvement became that much more pronounced and serious by taking part in resistance activity, in which she completed the task of carrying various letters, documents, and orders for resistance groups. Although seemingly trivial, such an undertaking of carrying messages was not only vital to the progress of the movement but also considered a serious crime by the Nazi regime. In addition, women had an expanded role of extracting information directly from the Germans by transplanting themselves into the lives of the enemy by working as servants and in other cases becoming part of their social circle. Young girls and women were especially favored and used for these jobs due to a perceived gender advantage. Compared to men, women seemed to pose no real threat and were less suspicious to German soldiers. However, when discovered for their resistance efforts, women were in no way treated differently from men. Many were executed for their efforts while others were sent to camps as prisoners of war since the Germans recognized them as full members of the resistance groups and armed forces. Being only nineteen at the time yet fully aware of the grave consequences involved, the bold, persistent, and highly patriotic Poltawska did not shy away from the efforts. In February 1941, the Gestapo promptly arrested the young Wanda for her involvement in the resistance movement. Even when subjected to the Gestapo’s grueling interrogations and tortures, Poltawska’s loyalty and allegiance to the resistance effort relentlessly endured. Even though she disclosed no essential information to the Gestapo, Wanda was placed in the Lublin Castle prison for several months with prostitutes, murderers, and other criminals. Although suffering from the mental agony of being imprisoned and away from her family as well as from the various illnesses that ran rampant in the prison, Wanda Poltawska still took the time to focus on those around her. When sharing a cell with a young prostitute in the Lublin prison, Poltawska attempted to convince the young woman of her own self-worth and her ability to change herself and her eventual life outside the prison. Contact with such individuals during her imprisonment lead to her eventual and post-war focus on juvenile psychiatry. Wanda's motivation in studying psychiatry was to help the individual “become a mature person who is aware of his or her humanity”. As a psychiatric doctor following World War II, she continued her attempt to prevent young people, especially girls, from making wrong moral choices with regard to their sexuality. Poltawska's husband told an interviewer that since the time spent as a Nazi prisoner, his wife had been “fighting for human dignity”.Ravensbrück Two years after the start of World War II, Wanda Poltawska entered the unknown, the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. Ravensbrück was truly a mysterious and unheard of place, deliberately built by the Nazi party in a secluded area with a relatively small population. The camp’s primary purpose was to incarcerate women for political affiliations or criminal activity, individuals who were deemed disruptive and against the established National Socialist German Workers' Party. With their meticulously planned campaign to destroy any political or spiritual loyalty other than to the race-nation, the Nazis hoped to “reeducate” all those that had fallen under their power. Therefore, no form of criticism and nonconformity was accepted as it would directly be against the Nazi vision of an unified racial collective world. Political prisoner, such as Communists, Social Democrats, and resistance group members, were equally dangerous to the Nazi vision of the world as criminal prisoners. Criminal prisoners as convicts were considered among society's “undesirables”, and therefore they needed to be separated and in some cases eliminated for the good of the Nazi nation. Similarly, homosexuals were seen as socially unacceptable while the spiritual adherence of the Jehovah's Witnesses posed a threat to the conformity of the Third Reich. In the concentration camp system, each group was identified with a colored badge. The specific identification of groups by color and shape can be found HERE).Barracks at Ravensbrück. The camp initially consisted of twenty barracks, referred to by many as “Blocks”, although additional barracks were added when the original twenty proved inadequate for the growing prisoner population. As Poltawska comments in her memoir, “That mass of women…It seemed so impossibly overcrowded to us then; yet, before the camp had finished with us, there would be five times our present number crowded into a barracks of equal size.” Beside the outrageous overcrowding, prisoners were also subjected to extreme temperatures, constant filth from overflowing lavatory buckets, as well as to the rampant spread of various diseases within the “Blocks”. The cell building was a fundamental element in the concentration camp system, as it not only determined the daily life in the camp, but also enforced the ceaseless terror of punishment and the possibility of death. Ironically, the cell building also served as the prisoner’s safe haven, a place to escape from the watchful eyes of the overseers and SS administration, allowing prisoners some precious and much needed rest as their normal day was filled from morning till the evening with with a maximum amount of activity found in such tedious tasks as transporting boulders to a top of a hill or digging trenches and ditches in the sand. Even though the conditions of the barracks were far from comforting, the prisoners of Ravensburck looked forward to returning to their prescribed “home”. Inside their barrack, the women could freely talk amongst themselves, reminisce about their lives and families outside the camp, and share their hopes for the future. In addition, women could enjoy smuggled objects in the limited privacy of the barrack. For example, in her memoir Wanda recollects the nights the women spent reading a smuggled copy of Pan Tadeusz, Adam Mickiewicz's epic poem that is also considered the national epic of Poland.Arriving A feeling of relief and hope marked the unexpected transport of Wanda Poltawska and other Polish political prisoners from the Lublin prison to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Unaware of the implications and conditions of the camp, Wanda believed that her entrance into the new environment was a release from her terrible prison days. However, she soon realized her entrance into the camp on September 23rd of 1941 was far from welcoming, as the reality of camp life was immediately made evident in the lifeless figures of the prisoners that moped slowly throughout the camp. Although Poltawska already understood that the camp was to be infinitely worse than the Lublin prison, she in no way let her realization devastate her as she relied on her strong religous faith in God in order to persevere the reality of the camp. She not only felt obligated to stay strong and firm for her own sake, but also in order to protect her innocent and younger friend Krysia. In a 2003 lecture, Wanda Poltawska revealed her thoughts on motherhood, a topic that was relevant to her relationship with Krysia. The essence of her life as a woman as well as her obedience toward God was found in her acceptance of motherhood. Although not taking care of her biological child in the case of Krysia, Poltawska believed she expressed her sense of motherhood by caring for those around her. The extent of this responsibility is illustrated as she notes, “Responsible. A powerful word… I felt responsible for ensuring that Krysia should one day return home. I don’t really know why. But I determined then, as I was to do so often in future years, that she, at least, must return.” This close-bound friendship became one of the most significant and defining points to Poltawska’s survival as it created an indestructible support system between the two young women while giving Poltawska an invaluable cause to fight for.A Sense of Unity With the majority of the barracks categorized by nationality, national identity was naturally strengthened as women shared a common language, value system, and way of life. Throughout her memoir, Poltawska speaks of and illustrates the prevailing sense of union and interconnection particularly apparent among the Poles. Marked by the red triangle badge, all the Polish women in the Ravensbrück concentration camp were political prisoners sharing a deep sense of nationalism. Among all the nationalities present in the Ravensbrück camp, the Polish women came closest to reflecting a cross-section of their own society, an approach that allowed them to create an efficient and extraordinary system of mutual aid and protection for one another. As the majority of the Polish women were devout Catholics, Poltawska and her fellow prisoners were propelled to live with the values they had practiced outside of the camp. Their pull for order allowed the women to hold mass inside the barracks, create a network of families to give comfort to their members, as well as organize a vast assortment of educational programs. The Nazi oppressors had taken away almost everything they could from their prisoners. However, the women prisoners found substitutes and made adjustments to attain some level of normality, pleasure, and order in their lives. With such actions, the women were able to hold some level of control and independence from the restricting Nazi regime. Although obedient and submissive on the outside, the women prisoners found ways to secretly spite their perpetrators and their ideal Nazi world. The women prisoners were conscious of their ability to achieve more in life than just hard, forced labor. Any education efforts were severely punished even outside the camp system, yet in the concentration camp Poltawska discovered “the suicidal courage of people who could act as they chose because they knew that by tomorrow they could be dead”. Poltawska mentions the presence of a number of teachers and professors within the barrack, an arrangement that allowed her to receive private lessons in human anatomy in order to fulfill her promise of becoming a doctor if she survived Ravensbrück. The Polish women of the Ravensbrück camp ultimately achieved an enviable level of power and importance in the camp, holding such positions as block senior and leader. These positions provided them with multiple key connections to goods and services. Only when the original Polish block ceased to exist by being divided among other blocks did the true level of interconnection and interdependence between the Polish women become apparent. Poltawska sorrowfully commented on the division of the barrack stating, “No longer were we in spotless Polish block, and we understood too late the mutual tolerance with which our girls had conducted their quarrels, the extraordinary refinement of their conversation.” Linked with their national traditions, common language, and ever-present Catholic faith, the Polish women found it more comforting to interact with one another than with the other prisoners. They not only had difficulty communicating with the other prisoners but also believed them to have a completely different mentality from their own. Reflections made by Wanda Poltawska throughout her memoir show her to be a proud Polish woman with virtues and prejudices common of many other Polish women of her generation. Throughout her memoirs, Wanda Poltawska describes the Polish prisoners and other Slavic prisoners as more courageous and nobler than the women prisoners from Western nations, specifically those from liberal France. Poltawska comments with distaste when describing the French women, who unlike the Slavic women, refused to wash and instead dedicated their time to painting their faces with beet juice. With the Polish barrack no longer existing, Poltawska was among the group of Polish women integrated into the block known as LL, the initials of lesbian love. Continually terrorized by the lesbians, Wanda Poltawska summarizes her experiences in block LL as Hell, a place only slightly less terrifying than the block where the medical experiments were performed. Poltawska believed in the importance of preserving the core values of Catholicism, especially under the extreme situations presented during the war. Therefore, lesbianism for Poltawska became “a hideous, inhumane reality” from which she was trying to protect her young and innocent friend Krysia. Forced to witness acts that destroyed her faith in innocence, Wanda Poltawska was constantly offered propositions to engage intimately with other women. Although Poltawska was openly disgusted by the homoerotic relationships within the barrack, lesbian relationships offered many women a source of affection that directly removed the overbearing feelings of loneliness. Within the camp system, many found these relationships natural, making some bonds between women permanent.Medical Experiments and Resistance Roll call at sunrise, physically and mentally exhausting labor, and the constant pain of hunger became routine to Wanda Poltawska’s daily life in Ravensbrück. In July 1942, a new and unimaginable element of torture was added to her struggle for survival. Wanda Poltawska was one of the first six women chosen by SS medical doctors to undergo a series of experimental operations. Poltawska and her fellow prisoners were forced to sacrifice their limbs in order to test new medicines that were to benefit injured German soldiers fighting on the front. The German physicians found the medical experiments performed on these women a direct benefit for both the war effort and medical research. By the time Ravensbrück was liberated in 1945, the number of “human guinea pigs” totaled seventy-five. With the exception of one victim, all the women experimented on were Polish political prisoners, who were seen to be especially disruptive with their radical adherence and nationalism. Many of the Polish women used in the experiments were to be originally executed in the Lublin prison. Instead of an immediate execution, the Nazis sent some of the women political prisoners to Ravensbrück, with an already devised plan to use them later for medical experiments. Being relatively healthy and strong, Wanda Poltawska was dumfounded to why she and others were being summoned to the camp’s hospital, the rewir. The overwhelming belief was that the rewir call was summoning the young women to their extermination. Instead, each prisoner was faced with a destructive leg operation, which involved injecting strains of bacteria into the leg, severing muscles, and even breaking bones. Other than the actual leg that was operated on, the German physicians deemed the prisoners subjected to the experiments worthless. Wanda Poltawska and her fellow prisoners were given little if any medical attention immediately following the operations, leaving them alone to face the agonizing effects of the deliberate operations. Crippled and hardly able to carry herself, Wanda Poltawska could not ignore the desperate cries of her fellow prisoners. Believing women to be protectors of life, Poltawska also found women capable of much greater love for others. As a woman she felt it was her prescribed role to take care of her fellow prisoners claiming that women had "nothing to gain from bringing themselves down to the level of men and trying to be like men". In her deplorable physical state, Poltawska ignored her own sufferings to attend and comfort those surrounding her. Even though she directly interacted and faced her medical perpetrators, Poltawska continued to believe that there was some good in every human being and was determined to prove it herself. To Wanda, the experiments went beyond the physical pain. She had experienced something terribly new; a realization to the extent humanity can lose all sense of control and awareness. Although she had initially felt utterly powerless in having to endure the operations, the experiments awakened an uncontrollable persistence to survive. The Nazis had the power to control every aspect of Poltawska's existence in the constraints of the camp, yet knowledge pertaining to the state of her existence in the outside world would leave Poltawska and her fellow prisoners with the power. Wanda became insistent on countering her sense of helplessness by making sure the outside world was aware of what was happening. The Nazis, aware of the dangers found in information leaking into the outside world, became especially attentive on destroying the human evidence of their experimentation. Poltawska, being the living proof of the horrors of Ravensbrück, would not allow and accept elimination of her existence in passivity. Wanda states in her memoir, “We would find it easier to die if we could be certain that news of our deaths would reach the world outside.” Her humiliation and vulnerability were to be eliminated with her decisive proclamation: enough was enough. As the medical experiments intensified and took the lives of several prisoners, the Polish women of barrack 15 were discovering a growing sense of their own power. When a list summoning new women to the rewir was issued, the women refused to comply and hid among the barracks of the camp. A group of representatives from the Polish barrack presented a petition directly to the commandment in order to protest the continuance of the experiments. Poltawska was completely aware of the possible consequences involved in signing the petition, but what mattered most to her was making a stand. She no longer was to be the submissive “guinea pig”. She still and always was a human being. As Poltawska explains in her memoir:“In a few brief sentences we stated that we, the undersigned political prisoners, wished to know whether the commandment was aware that experiments were being performed on completely healthy women in this camp- all of them political prisoners. We stated that these experiments had led to maiming and even death- here we gave the names of those who had died as a result of the experiments; the international law forbade experiments on human beings without their consent; and that we, the victims, hereby registered a formal protest against the research." Wanda and her fellow prisoners even arranged for the transport of a camera with film into camp, which allowed them to take photographs of their mutilated legs in order to reveal the truth to the outside world. When another list summoning the “human guinea pigs” to their execution was presented, the living proofs of the evils performed within the camp were protected and even transported out of the camp through the efforts of the entire camp population. The women were strategically hid throughout various barracks in the camp, while roll call involved constant shuffling in order to hide the disfigured legs of the “human guinea pig". When it came to smuggling the women out of the camp, fellow prisoners collected the identification numbers of dead prisoners in order for the women to leave the camp undetected and with a new identification. Poltawska along with Krysia were among the saved “guinea pigs” transported to the small camp of Neustadt-Glewe, where they remained at till the end of the war. In the meticulously regulated and organized concentration camp, such a feat seemed unfeasible, yet the former resistance fighters used their past system of organization to divide tasks amongst themselves, secretively distribute information within the camp, and take advantage of every opportunity to successfully transport the women out of the camp while still acting relatively normal under the watchful eyes of the SS guards. In this way the women of Ravensbrück defeated the concentration camp system along with the helplessness it originally imposed.After Ravensbrück Wanda Poltawska with Pope John Paul II. After the war, Wanda Poltawska returned to her hometown of Lublin. Although physically free from the bounds of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, mentally Poltawska remained tormented by her experiences, leaving her unable to sleep in order to avoid reliving the ordeal in her nightmares. Taking the advice of a trusted teacher, Wanda whole-heartedly wrote everything down in order to reclaim her priceless freedom, the freedom that the camp had so violently withheld from her for so long. In completing her memoir, Wanda recovered her sleep and rightfully regained her freedom. There was no notion of vulnerability as she was able to direct and handle her experiences rather than the occurrences tormenting her. Writing became Poltawska's self-therapy, an outlet to relieve her suppressed issues. Poltawska converted the images and emotions that tormented her into words, allowing her to construct a coherent narrative of her experiences. By writing her memoir, Poltawska was able to summarize, analyze, and assimilate the entire experience more efficiently, reducing the stress and torment associated with the traumatic happenings. Poltawska did acknowledge that sharing her problems with family members might have also helped her, but she did not want to burden her loved ones with the realities of the concentration camp. In her memoirs she reveals she wished she had a brother, then perhaps she could have talked about her experiences with a “strong man”. It was not uncommon for Polish women of Poltawska's generation to have such a frame of mind, as they were brought up in the tradition of idealizing strong men as protectors and defenders of women, their families, and their fatherland. Wanda Poltawska’s experience as a Ravensbrück “human guinea pig” made her openly concerned about how human life and human dignity were seen and measured after the war. Poltawska confronted many of these issues by fulfilling her vow of becoming a doctor by qualifying as a physician in 1951. Believing psychiatry to be the most humane medicine, as it is devoted to helping individuals mature, Poltawska dedicated much of her time working with the younger population traumatized by the concentration camp system. In facing the complete perversion and manipulation of humanity in Ravensbrück, Poltawska was set on establishing and reaffirming the true beauty and potential of humans. Just as she had felt responsible in protecting Krysia, Poltawska felt equally obligated to guide the misunderstood and forgotten “Auschwitz children”. In conquering her own demons, Wanda Poltawska was able to relate to and comprehend the sufferings of these young adults, honestly providing them with the personal guidance and reassurance they longed for. Poltawska deepened her call by focusing on the moral choices made by young adults with regard to their sexuality. In surviving Ravensbrück, Wanda Poltawska reaffirmed and defined her intense Catholic devotion by examining a number of these sensitive issues concerning sex and sexuality. In seeing the vast and unnecessary loss of life during the war, Poltawska became a strong opponent of contraception and abortion, believing that the processes only continued the mass murder of the innocent. For someone who was a victim of Nazi experimentation, it is not farfetched to conclude that contraception can undermine respect for life and possibly lead to greater abuses. Finding parallels to the Nazi experimentation in Ravensbrück, she warned against doctors who have once again been given “life-or-death powers over the human embryo” and who perform experiments on living embryos. She actively publicized in Poland the alleged harmful medical effects of artificial contraception, claiming it to be the first step to abortion. Believing women to be God-appointed protectors of life, Wanda Poltawska considered abortion the heaviest burden and disgrace for a woman.However, her claims that “the use of contraception leads to neurosis” have not been supported by any scientifically accepted proofs. Most of her articles have been published in publications put out by Church groups focusing on pro-life. Her featured articles mostly examine the topics of: idealism of youth, hysterical mothers forcing young women to get abortions, naivete of young girls, the suffering of women who miscarry, young people destroying their lives as a result of sexual promiscuity, and men seen as sexual predators. Due to her religious and ethical stands on human sexuality, Wanda Poltawska became one of the closest advisers of Pope John Paul II. Wanda Poltawska became such a close friend of Pope John Paul II as they both viewed most of today's moral choices through their war experiences. Offering him continual advice that influenced his views and decisions on many key issues in the Roman Catholic Church, the little known Wanda Poltawska will have an ever-lasting presence in the generally patriarchal institution. Wojtyla's own statements and views on national character, human dignity, women, sexuality, and abortion are reflected in Poltawska's writings. Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz Joining the resistance just after the occupation of France in June 1940, she expanded the present information networks, in particular the group “Défense de la France”. Arrested by P. Bonny, of the 93rd Band of Rue Lauriston, on July 20, 1943, she was imprisoned in Fresnes and was later deported to the concentration camp of Ravensbrück on February 2, 1944. In October of that year, she was placed in isolation in the camp bunker. This decision was taken by Heinrich Himmler in order to keep her alive and use her as a possible exchange prisoner. She was released in April 1945 and married Bernard Anthonioz the following year, a fellow resistance member and art editor, with whom she had four children. Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz wrote a book, fifty years after her release from Ravensbrück, speaking of her life in the concentration camp and the mutual help between the women. This book was called La Traversée de la nuit (literally, "The Crossing of the Night", translated to English as "The Dawn of Hope: A Memoir of Ravensbrück" [ISBN 1-55970-498-5] published by Arcade Publishing), and was published by Points. It was translated into English and published in 1998 as God Remained Outside - An Echo of Ravensbruck. An active member and later president of the ADIR (Association of Deportées and Internées of the Résistance), she filed lawsuits against Nazi war criminals, then took part in the rise of the political movement launched by her uncle, the Rally of the French People. In 1958, she worked with the cabinet of André Malraux when she met Father Joseph Wresinski, then chaplain of the town of Noisy-le-Grand. In the sufferings of the families she met there, it revived those of which she and other deportees had experienced. In 1987, she testified in the case of the Nazi Klaus Barbie. Allied with the movement ATD Quart Monde, then a permanent volunteer, she was the president of the movement from 1964 to September 2001. In 1988 she became a member of the French Economic and Social Council, and for ten years fought for the adoption of a law against great poverty. Deferred in 1997 due to dissolution of the French National Assembly, her law was voted in 1998. Corrie ten Boom Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom (Amsterdam, April 15, 1892 – Orange, California, April 15, 1983) was a Dutch Christian, who with her father and other family members helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. Her family was arrested due to an informant in 1944, and her father died 10 days later at Scheveningen prison where they were first held. A sister, brother and nephew were released, but Corrie and her sister Betsie were sent to Ravensbruckconcentration camp, where only Corrie survived. Ten Boom wrote numerous books and spoke frequently in the postwar years about her experiences. She aided Holocaust survivors. She wrote an autobiography, The Hiding Place(1971), about her experiences. It was adapted as a film of the same name two years later and starred Jeannette Clift as Corrie.World War II In 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Among their restrictions was banning a club which Corrie ten Boom had run for young girls. In 1942, she and her family had become very active in the Dutch underground, hiding refugees. They rescued many Jews from the Nazi SS. They had long been involved in charitable work, and ten Boom had worked with disabled children. They believed the Jews were God's chosen people.They provided kosher food for the Jewish refugees who stayed with them and honored the Jewish Sabbath.Harboring refugees In May 1942, a well-dressed woman came to the Ten Boom door with a suitcase in hand. She told the Ten Booms that she was a Jew and that her husband had been arrested several months before, and her son had gone into hiding. As Occupation authorities had recently visited her, she was afraid to return home. Having heard that the Ten Booms had helped their Jewish neighbors, the Weils, she asked if she might stay with the family. Corrie ten Boom's father readily agreed. A devoted reader of the Old Testament, Casper ten Boom believed Jews were "the chosen." He told the woman, "In this household, God's people are always welcome." Thus the ten Booms began "the hiding place", or "de schuilplaats", as it was known in Dutch (also known as "de Béjé", pronounced in Dutch as 'bayay', an abbreviation of the name of the street the house was in, the Barteljorisstraat). Ten Boom and her sister Betsie began taking in refugees, some of whom were Jews, others members of the resistance movement who were sought by the Gestapo and its Dutch counterpart. While they had extra rooms in the house, food was scarce for everyone due to wartime shortages. Every non-Jewish Dutch person had received a ration card which was required to obtain weekly coupons to buy food. Thanks to her charitable work, Corrie knew many people in Haarlem, and remembered a couple who had a disabled daughter. For about twenty years, Corrie ten Boom had run a special church service program for such children. The father was a civil servant who by then was in charge of the local ration-card office. She went to his house one evening, and he seemed to know why. When he asked how many ration cards she needed, "I opened my mouth to say, 'Five,'" Ten Boom wrote in The Hiding Place. "But the number that unexpectedly and astonishingly came out instead was: 'One hundred.'" He gave them to her.The secret room Because of the number of people using their house, the Ten Booms built a secret room in case a raid took place. They decided to build it in Corrie's bedroom, as it was in the highest part of the house. This would give people trying to hide the most time to avoid detection (as a search would start on the ground floor). A member of the Dutch resistance designed the hidden room behind a false wall. Gradually, family and supporters brought bricks and other building supplies into the house by hiding them in briefcases and rolled-up newspapers. When finished, the secret room was about 30 inches (76 cm) deep; the size of a medium wardrobe. A ventilation system allowed for breathing. To enter the secret room, a person had to open a sliding panel in a cupboard, and crawl in on their hands and knees. In addition, the family installed an electric buzzer for warning in a raid. When the Nazis raided the Ten Boom house in 1944, six people used the hiding place to evade detection.Arrest and detention The Nazis arrested the entire Ten Boom family on February 28, 1944 at around 12:30, with the help of a Dutch informant. They were sent first to Scheveningen prison (where her father died ten days after his capture). Corrie's sister Nollie, brother Willem, and nephew Peter were all released. Later, Corrie and her sister Betsie were sent to the Vught political concentration camp, and finally to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Corrie's sister Betsie died there on December 16, 1944. Before she died, she told Corrie, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still." Corrie was released on New Year's Eve of December 1944. In the movie The Hiding Place, Ten Boom narrates the section on her release from camp, saying that she later learned that her release had been a clerical error. The women prisoners her age in the camp were killed the week following her release. She said, "God does not have problems. Only plans."Post-war After the war, Corrie ten Boom returned to the Netherlands to set up rehabilitation centres. The refuge houses consisted of concentration camp survivors and sheltered the jobless Dutch who previously collaborated with Germans during the occupation. She returned to Germany in 1946, and traveled the world as a public speaker, appearing in over sixty countries, during which time she wrote many books. In 1977, Corrie ten Boom, then 85 years old, moved to a suburb of Orange County, California. Successive strokes in 1978 took away her powers of speech and left her an invalid for the last five years of her life. She died on her 91st birthday, April 15, 1983. Maria Skobtsova (1891–1945), known as Mother Maria (Russian: ???? ?????), Saint Mary (or Mother Maria) of Paris, born Elizaveta Yurievna Pilenko (????????? ??????? ???????),Kuzmina-Karavayeva (????????-?????????) by her first marriage, Skobtsova (????????) by her second marriage, was a Russian noblewoman, poet, nun, and member of the French Resistanceduring World War II. She has been canonized a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Born to an aristocratic family in 1891 in Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. She was given the name Elizaveta Pilenko. Her father died when she was a teenager, and she embraced atheism. In 1906 her mother moved the family to St. Petersburg, where she became involved in radical intellectual circles. In 1910 she married an Old Bolshevik by the name ofDmitriy Kuz'min-Karavaev. During this period of her life she was actively involved in literary circles and wrote much poetry. Her first book, Scythian Shards (???????? ???????), was a collection of poetry from this period. By 1913 her marriage to Dimitriy had ended and the latter subsequently converted toCatholicism. Through a look at the humanity of Christ — "He also died. He sweated blood. They struck his face" — she began to be drawn back into Christianity. She moved—now with her daughter, Gaiana—to the south of Russia where her religious devotion increased. Furious at Leon Trotsky for closing the Socialist-Revolutionary Party Congress, she planned hisassassination, but was dissuaded by colleagues, who sent her to Anapa. In 1918, after the Bolshevik Revolution, she was elected deputy mayor of Anapa in Southern Russia. When the anti-communist White Army took control of Anapa, the mayor fled and she became mayor of the town. The White Army put her on trial for being a Bolshevik. However, the judge was a former teacher of hers, Daniel Skobtsov, and she was acquitted. Soon the two fell in love and were married. Soon, the political tide was turning again. In order to avoid danger, Elizaveta, Daniel, Gaiana, and Elizaveta's mother Sophia fled the country. Elizaveta was pregnant with her second child. They traveled first to Georgia (where her son Yuri was born) and then to Yugoslavia (where her daughter Anastasia was born). Finally they arrived in Paris in 1923. Soon Elizaveta was dedicating herself to theological studies and social work. In 1926, Anastasia died of influenza. Gaiana was sent away to Belgium to boarding school. Soon, Daniel and Elizaveta's marriage was falling apart. Yuri ended up living with Daniel, and Elizaveta moved into central Paris to work more directly with those who were most in need. Her bishop encouraged her to take vows as a nun, something she did only with the assurance that she would not have to live in a monastery, secluded from the world. In 1932, with Daniel Skobtov's permission, an ecclesiastical divorce was granted and she took monastic vows. In religion she took the name Maria. Her confessor was Father Sergei Bulgakov. Later, Fr. Dmitri Klepinin would be sent to be the chaplain of the house. Mother Maria made a rented house in Paris her "convent." It was a place with an open door for refugees, the needy and the lonely. It also soon became a center for intellectual and theological discussion. In Mother Maria these two elements—service to the poor and theology—went hand-in-hand.Death After the Fall of France in 1940, Jews began approaching the house asking for baptismal certificates, which Father Dimitri would provide them. Many Jews came to stay with them. They provided shelter and helped many to flee the country. Eventually the house was closed down. Mother Maria, Fr. Dimitri, Yuri, and Sophia were all arrested by the Gestapo. Fr. Dimitri and Yuri both died at the Dora concentration camp. Mother Maria was glorified (canonized a saint) by act of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on January 16, 2004. The glorification of Mother Maria, together with Fr. Dimitri, Yuri, and Ilya Fondaminsky took place at the Cathedral of Saint Alexander Nevsky in Paris on May 1 and 2, 2004. Their feast day is July 20. The Nazis and Abortion The Nazis certainly were not "pro-Choice", but they were not "anti-abortion" either. The Nazis believed that a woman's body beloned to the State, and the State would decide what to do with it. The Nazis did not allow abortion for healthy "Aryan" German women, but demanded and forced abortion upon women deemed "unAryan" (i.e. Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, etc.) and "Aryan" German women who were thought to be feeble-minded, or have hereditary diseases. (Abortion in the New Europe, p.114) The Nazis wanted to do everything to increase the number of "Aryan" types; including: 1) Setting up stud-farms called Liebensborn ("Fountain of Life") in which Aryan-type SS men would impregnate young "Aryan" German girls (including very young girls) in order to increase the amount of "pure Aryans" among Germans. Abortion for these young single girls (who usually never knew the men who impregnated them) was absolutely forbidden. 2) Stealing blong-haired and blue-eyed "Aryan" type children from Poland, the Baltics, Russia, and other conquered countries and raising them in Nazi-controlled orphanages as Germans. 3) Forcing non-Aryan women in the conquered countries to have abortions and sterilizations in order to keep their population down (this eventually led to out-and-out mass-killing). 4) Forcing even "Aryan" German women who were retarded or suspected of having "inferior genes" to have abortions or become sterilized. VIABILITY AND THE HEALTH OF THE MOTHER The first court to rule that "viability" and the "woman's health" were determinate factors in abortion was the Nazi Heredity Court of 1934, when it ruled that "...pregnancy may be terminated, with the concent of the woman concerned, uless the foetus is already capable of independent life, or unless the termination of the pregnancy entails a serious danger to either the life or health of the woman herself." (The Racial State, 1991, p.141). In the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that abortion in the first two trimesters (up to 6 months) is permitted because the fetus is not "viable" (not capable of living outside of the womb "independently"). They ruled that abortion in the third trimester (after 6 months) was still illegal, unless the continued pregnancy posed a "serious threat" to the physical or mental health of the mother. Who decides if the pregnancy poses such a threat? The physician decides. Any physician; including a physician who works as an abortionist. If an abortionist decides that a pregnancy is a "threat" to the mental health of a woman, he can perform an abortion anytime in the third trimester. There is no "oversight" of these cases, and abortionists no longer even ask women who want third-trimester abortions if the pregnancy is "stressful" (what pregnancy is not stressful?). So, for all practical purposes, abortion in the U.S. is legal up until the moment of labor. ABORTION FORBIDDEN FOR HEALTHY 'ARYAN' WOMEN SS chief Heinrich Himmler wrote to Field-Marshal Willhilm Keitel the following in 1939: "According to statistics there are 600,000 abortions a year in Germany. The fact that these happen among the best German racial types has been worrying me for years. The way I see it we cannot afford to lose these young people, hundreds and thousands of them. The aim of protecting this German blood is of the highest priority. If we manage to stop these abortions we will be able to have 200 more German regiments every year on the march. Another 500,000 or 600,000 people could produce millions of marks for the economy. The strength of these soldiers and workers will build the greater Germany. This is why I founded Lebensborn in 1936. It fights abortions in a positive way. Every woman can have her child in peace and quiet and devote her life to the betterment of the race." (Master Race: The Lebensborn Experiment in Nazi Germany, 1995, pp.66-7) This is why abortion was forbidden for 'Aryan' women who were considered healthy and had no hereditary diseases. Abortion for young German women who were members of the Lebensborn ("Lifefountain" stud-farms) was absolutely forbidden; because the very pupose they were sent there was to have as many children as possible. ABORTION PROMOTED FOR NON-ARYAN WOMEN When the Nazis entered Poland (a Roman Catholic country) in 1939 abortion for any reason was illegal. The use of contraceptives was also illegal in Poland (because the Roman Catholic Church was opposed to abortion and to contraception as well). The Nazis conquered half the country (the other half went to the Russians), and they immediately did away with the anti-abortion laws. Hitler wanted to limit and reduce all non-Aryan populations. In late 1939 a decree was issued encouraging Polish women to seek abortions. The campaign was called "Auswahlfeiheit" ("Freedom of Choice"). Martin Bormann, the Head of the Nazi Party and personal secretary to Adolf Hitler, wrote the following letter to Alfred Rosenberg; the Nazi Party ideologist: "The Slavs are to work for us. Insofar as we don't need them they may die. Therefore compulsory vaccination and education are superfluous. The fertility of Slavs is undesirable." (NCA II. Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Nazi Conspiracy and Agression, Volume II. 1946) Hitler himself said: They may use contraceptives or practice abortion--the more the better. In view of the large families of the native population, it could only suit us if girls and women there had as many abortions as possible. Active trade in contraceptives ought to be actually encouraged in the Eastern territories, as we could not possibly have the slightest interest in increasing the non-Germanic population." (Harvest of Hate, 1954, pp. 273-4 emphasis added) Bormann personally wrote: "When girls and women in the Occupied Territories of the East have abortions, we can only be in favor of it; in any case we should not oppose it. The Fuhrer belives that we should authorize the development in a thriving trade in contraceptives. We are not interested in seeing the non-German population multiply." (ibid, p.274) On November 25 1939, the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germandom (RKFDV), an SS organization, issued this following decree in Poland: "All measures which have the tendency to limit the births are to be tolerated or to be supported. Abortion in the remaining area of Poland must be declared free from punishment. the means for abortion and contraceptive means may be offered publicly without police restriction. Homosexuality [which was illegal under Polish law] is to be declared legal. The institutions and persons involved professionally in abortion practices are not to be interfered with by police." (Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern Europe, 1961, p.171) The same pro-abortion order was established in all the territories that the Nazis occupied except where the population was considered "Aryan" (Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Flemish Belguim). On 27 April 1943 Prof. Erhard Wetzel, Racial Administrator for the Reich's Eastern Territories Ministry, wrote this memorandum: "Every propaganda means, especially the press, radio, and movies, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and lectures, must be used to instill in the Russian population the idea that it is harmful to have several children. We must emphazise the expenses that children cause, the good things that people could have had with the money spent on them. We could also hint at the dangerous effect of child-bearing on a woman's health. Paralleling such propaganda, a large-scale campaign would be launched in favor of contraceptive devices. A contraceptive industry must be established. Neither the circulation and sale of contraceptives nor abortions must be prosecuted. It will even be necessary to open special institutions for abortion, and to train midwives and nurses for this purpose. The population will practice abortion all the more willingly if these institutions are competently operated." (Harvest of Hate, pp.272-3) The diary of a Polish Jew living in the Shavli Ghetto named E. Yerushalmi has this entry for 13 July 1942: "In accordance with the Order of the Security Police, births are permitted in the ghetto upon up to August 15, 1942. After this date it is forbidden to give birth to Jewish children either in the hospitals or in the homes of the pregnant women. it is pointed out, at the same time, that it is permitted to interrupt pregnancies by means of abortions. A great responsibility rests on the pregnant women. If they do not comply with this order, thiere is a danger that they will be executed, together with their families." (Pinkas Shavli, 1958, p.88) During the Nuremburg Trials, almost all the Nazi defendents were accused of "crimes against humanity", and part of those 'crimes' were promotion of abortion. MEDICAL EXPERIMENTSOne wonders how German physicians during WWII could have justified their use of human subjects in horrible experiments that killed or permanently maimed thousands of innocent men, women, and children. Before the Nazis came to power all German physicians had to take the Hippocratic Oath, which swore they would "do no harm" and not "give a pessary to a woman to cause abortion". Dr. Georg August Weltz, the Nazi physician who conducted the notorious "cold experiments" (Jews, Gypsies, criminals, and even children were thrown into pools of ice-water to see how fast they would die, or they were taken out in comas to see if they could be revived...all in the name of helping downed German fighter pilots who were saved from the cold sea), wrote: "The Hippocratic Oath ... is an honorable historical document, which, however, does not altogether fit present times. *** Medicine based upon the principle of nil nocere ("do no harm") is a very impoverished medicine, and we are unfortunately not in a position to carry on medicine on that simple principle today." (Trials of the War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, Washington D.C., 1946-1954, IV:1,081-4) The term "Freedom of Choice" in regards to abortion was invented by a Nazi SS propandist as a means to intice Polish women to have abortions and use contraceptions. DR. ERNST RUDIN The most outspoken spokesman for "abortion rights" in pre-Nazi Germany was the psychitrist and head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute: Dr. Ernst Rudin. After the Nazis came to power, they made Dr. Rudin the head of the Nazi Society for Racial HygieneIn April 1933, Dr. Rudin wrote an article for The American Birth Control Review; the official publication of Margaret Sanger'sAmerican Birth Control League (which changed its name to Planned Parenthood in 1942). Dr. Rudin's article was called "Eugenics Sterilization: An Urgent Need" (American Birth Control Review, April 1933). One of Dr. Rudin's associates at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was Dr. Otmar Freiherr Von Versscheur, whose assistant at the Institute was Dr. Josef Mengele;who later became the director of medical experiments at Auschwitz death camp in Poland. He performed horrendous experiments; mostly on children. Many died or were scarred (emotionally and physically) for life. A few of Mengele's 'experiments' Dr. Mengele later became a Nazi fugitive, and was sought by many governments and the Israeli Mosad until his death was confirmed. Mengele was aided by Odessa (an organization of former Nazi SS officers) and others. Mengele made extra money in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil by performing illegal abortions. On his 65th birthday Dr. Frick, the Nazi Reichminister of the Interior wrote to Dr. Rudin: "To the idefatigable champion of racial hygiene and meritorious pioneer of the racial hygienic measures of the Third Reich, I send my sincerest congradulations on his 65th birthday." (The Men Behind Hitler, pp.18-19) Researcher Don Feder writes: "With the outset of the war, the Nazis were no longer content simply to stop 'useless eaters' from procreating. Beginning in 1939, an estimated 275,000 Germans (insane, incurably ill, handicapped) were put to death under the Third Reich's euthanasia program. Killing their own people, Nazi doctors acquired the mortal skills later employed in the Final Solution."(Nazism and Abortion, p.2 online) During the Nuremburg Trails (in which Nazi leaders were indicted for "crimes against humanity", 10 Nazi leaders were indicted for, among other crimes, "encouraging and compelling abortions" (ibid.). In his 1961 trial in Israel, the former Nazi SS major (in charge of transportation of Jews to concentration camps) Adolf Eichmann was charged, among other things, with "directing that pregnancies [be] interrupted [aborted] among Jewish women" in the Therseinstadt concentration camp. (ibid.) Dr. Rudin's 'measures' led to mass forced sterilizations, mass forced abortions (on non-'Aryan' women as well as 'feebilminded' or 'inferior' German women), and euthanasia ("mercy killing") of tens of thousands of German men, women, and children deemed "life unworthy of life" by the Nazis. Perhaps the most outspoken German critic of the Nazis was Dietrich Bonhoeffer; a German Luthern pastor and theologian. Soon after the Nazis came to power in 1934 they tried to introduce "Aryan" philosophy into the Protestant churches. Pastor Martin Niemoller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others formed the "Pastors Emergency League" in order to oppose these Nazi influences. The League later became known as "The Confessing Church". Members of the Confessing Church were Evangelical Christians (i.e. "Fundamentalist" Christians") who objected to the mainline Lutheran church; its silence on Nazi atrosities, and its degradation of the Bible and Christian truth. One article on the Confessing Church reads: "Members of the Confessing Church eventually helped approxiamately 2000 Jews escape to freedom, in addition they actively assisted political dissedents as well as fellow persecuted Christians. Bonhoeffer himself liasoned with members of the military resistance, some of whose members were involved in the famous bombing of the Wolf's Lair [the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler]. He helped draft memoranda on a future democratic government should the regime be toppled. Bonhoeffer also compiled information on SS crimes and coordinated contacts with foreigners abroad to gain support for various resistance cells.***Members of the Confessing Church actively protested the Nazi regime and its deadly anti-Semitic policies, in doing so, many lost their lives." (The Confessing Church, p.2 online) Bonhoeffer was not only an Evangelical Christian pastor and theologian, but he was a pro-Life advocate as well. Bonhoeffer wrote: "Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder." (Ethics, pp.175-6) Bonhoeffer wrote this poem: "They came from the Jews, and I [Germany--Bonhoeffer did object] did not object, as I am not a Jew. They came for the Catholics, and I did not object, as I was not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, and there was no one left to object." An expanded version of this poem was produced by Pastor Martin Niemoller; a fellow anti-Nazi and pro-Life advocate. He wrote the following prose that is now quoted by Feminists, civil-rights activists, gay-rights activists, and others worldwide: "First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out- because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out- because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out- because I was not a trade unionist. then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. On Sunday, April 9th, 1945, Bonhoeffer was taken from his concentration camp sell and hanged by Nazi guards. Another common Pro-Choice myth is that white racists and white-supremacits are behind the Pro-Life Movement, and that the leaders of the Pro-Life Movement are either white-racists or working 'behind the scenes' with white-racists. In truth, white-supremacists have a view toward abortion equal to that of the Nazis: 1) No abortion or little abortion among white Nordic (Aryan) women; unless they have genetic defects. 2) Free abortion and forced abortion among all other women. Tom Metzger, the founder of W.A.R. (White Aryan Resistance) has written: "Very little abortion should be tolerated, among our White race, while at the same time, abortion and birth control should be promoted as a powerful weapon, in the limitation of non-White birth. Over support of both non-White population and non-support of abortion for Whites, has the same desired effect.*** Covertly [secretly] invest into non-White areas, invest in ghetto abortion clincs. Help to raise money for free abortions, in primarily non-White areas. Perhaps abortion clinic syndicates thoughout North America, that primarily operate in non-White areas and receive tax support, should be promoted." (What We Believe As White Racists, p.2 online) MARGARET SANGER AND THE NAZIS Few people today know that Margaret Sanger, the founder of the Pro-Choice Movement, and the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an admirer of Dr. Rudin, and published several of his articles. Sanger had a white-racist, Lothrop Stoddard, on her Board of Directors. Stoddard was the author of several anti-Semitic and white-supremacist books. He was a well-known admirer of Adolf Hitler, and an open supporter of the Nazis. Sanger herself was a eugenicist and neo-Malthusian. It is very possible that Sanger got the phrase "Freedom of Choice" from Dr. Ernst Rudin; the Nazi physician who was a contributor to her publications. (see Margaret Sanger and the Pro-Choice Movement online). In conclusion, the Nazis were not anti-abortion. They converted entire hospitals to abortuaries. They were just selective on whoshould get an abortion and who should not. The sadistic SS-Oberaufseherin Maria Mandel was born at Munzkirchen in Austria in January 1912, and joined the SS in 1938. From October 1938 to May 1939, she was Aufseherin at KZ Lichtenburg and then from May 1939 to October 1942, she was Aufseherin in KZ Ravensbruck. She was then transferred as an Oberaufseherin to KZ Auschwitz where she worked until November 30, 1944. She was moved to KZ Muhldorf where she continued until May 1945. Her arrest came on August 10, 1945. She was reported to be highly intelligent and dedicated to her work. The prisoners however, referred to her as the beast, as she was noted for her brutality and enjoyment in selecting women and children for the gas chambers. Soon, she had become the feared chief-guard of Birkenau women’s camp. She also had a passion for classical music and encouraged the women’s orchestra in Auschwitz. The women of the orchestra were kept busy playing at roll-calls, and they had to play when new arrivals were sent directly to the gas chambers. They also had to play during the selections when the less healthy and sick were separated from the healthier ones who were still capable to work yet another day. An Auschwitz prisoner, Lucia Adelsberger, later described it in her book Auschwitz: Ein Tatsachenbericht: “The women who came back from work exhausted had to march in time to the music. Music war ordered for all occasions, for the addresses of the Camp Commanders, for the transports and whenever anybody was hanged…” The trial of the staff who had been captured took place at Crakow in Poland in the Autumn of 1947 and concluded on December 22 of that year. For her share in the selections for the gas chambers and medical experiments and for her torture of countless prisoners, Maria Mandel was condemned to death as a war criminal by the Supreme People’s Court in Crakow and executed. Juana Bormann was a murderous SS woman, who served in the death camp Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. She was known as The Woman with the Dogs, who took sadistic pleasure in setting her wolf hounds on prisoners to tear them to pieces. Juana Bormann joined the SS as a civilian employee on March 1, 1938, because – as she later said during the Belsen Trial – “I could earn more money…” After World War II, Juana Bormann was found guilty and convicted of war crimes and the execution was set for December 13, 1945. In his book of memoirs, Executioner, the English hangman Albert Pierrepoint described Juana Bormann’s last hours. The afternoon before execution, each prisoner was weighed so the correct drop could be calculated for them: “She limped down the corridor looking old and haggard. She was forty-two years old, only a little over five feet high…she was trembling as she was put on the scale. In German she said: I have my feelings…” More Notorious Female SS Nazi Guards Dorothea “Thea” Binz Dorothea Binz has trained female guards who eventually becomes cruel and ruthless. There was an incident where she chopped a Polish prisoner with an axe. During her time at the Ravensbrück, she continuously slapped, beaten and physically abused the female inmate. In fact, Binz and her SS officer lover Brauning enjoyed watching females inmated being beaten and flogged. Juana Bormann – The Wiesel Despite her petite stature, Juana Bormann was notoriously cruel female guard in Auschwitz. A former kitchen staff, she decided to join the staff of the Lichtenburg because it gives better wages. Noted for her cruelty by unleashing her wolfhound upon the prisoners, beating the sick female inmates furiously for not working and also had the better dressed female inmates stripped off their clothing. Bormann prefers to use rubber and wooden sticks to beat the inmates all over their bodies. One witness recalled that Juana had punched her in the face which knocked two of her teeth off and then had let her vicious dog attacked her friend which left her seriously injured that she died few days afterwards. Known as the overseer of hanging prisoners, she also took part in selecting prisoners for executions and sadistic cruelty. Not much is known about the life of Elisabeth Volkenrath aside from being a cruel SS Nazi supervisor in charge of selecting prisoners to the gas chambers. Despite the fact that most SS Nazi female guards were young and in fit of health, Emma Zimmer was an exception. She was already 54 when stayed as female overseer at Ravensbrück. When it comes to cruelty towards prisoners, she’s certainly not lagging behind her equally cruel peers. One of her duties includeselecting prisoners for the gas chambers. It was not known what her were the grounds for her dismissal as January 1945 from her service as female nazi guard. It was either due to her old age or because of her alcoholism. Wanda Klaff was just a common housewife before she joined the Stutthof’s subcamp. Due to her status as an overseer, she easily learned the pleasures of sadistic tortures and abuse toward’s prisoners. At her trial for Nazi war crimes, she was proud of her intelligence and enjoys her routine of beating at least two prisoners everyday. Elizabeth Lupka used to be a laborer at an aircraft factory before she trained as SS Nazi camp guard at Ravensbrück. Later on she was reassigned to the Auchwitz-Birkenaue camp as an overseer. She was notorious for whipping and beating prisoners while selecting some of them to the gas chambers. Eventually she was one of the last people to stay at the camp until the evacuation from Auschwitz camp was completed. She even accompanied the death march before she went back to Ravensbrück and resumed her usual sadistic routine towards prisoners. Ruth Elfriede Hildner Ruth Hildner was one of the most feared SS Nazi guard stationed at the Helmbrechts. During the evacuation of camp, Hildner murdered several youngfemale inmates during the death march as well as maltreatment of other prisoners. Her weapon of choice was her rod. Jenny-Wanda Barkmann – The Beautiful Spectre Jenny Barkmann was known as “The Beautiful Spectre” for her cruel treatmenttowards prisoners, her savage beatings results to deaths of her inmates. Part of her tasks includes selecting women and children for the gas chambers. Even during her incanceration, her coquettish nature still prevails that even during her trial she was seen fixing her hair and flirting with the prison guards. Despite being a protestant christian, Ewa Paradies unhesitantly commits depraved acts towards inmates and end up killing some of them. One witness recalls Paradies stripping the women inmates naked during winter, then she would pour ice cold water on them. If one of the inmates moved, she would viciously beat them . Gerda Steinhoff was a cook before she joined the camp staff at Stutthof. She left behind her husband and child to work as a Blockleiterin or Nazi guard in Stutthof women’s camp. She was known as a ruthless and cruel guard and was in charge of selection prisoners to the gas chambers. Margot Dreschel was described as bucked tooth, ugly, thin and vulgar woman by surviving inmates. She was notorious for brutal beatings on the inmates. Her tasks also includes selecting women and children to the gas chambers. She was known as Ruth Closius before she got married. Her bloodthirsty ruthlessness has impressed her superiors that she was promptly promoted as an overseer. One of her most shocking act of brutality was that she cut an inmate’s throat with shovel. She did confessed to her crimes such as maltreatment of prisoners as well as cold blooded murders. MI5 suspected young Briton was 'Nazi mistress' Intelligence officers suspected a teenage daughter of a British brigadier was a German officer's mistress during World War II, National Archives files show. Antonia Lyon-Smith was interned by the Germans in 1940 when she was 15 and living in France, but released due to her youth. She was taken in by a Gestapo officer and another Nazi wanted to marry her. MI5 suspected she had betrayed her knowledge of the Resistance. The previously-secret files said Antonia was the daughter of Royal Artillery officer Brigadier Tristram Lyon-Smith and a Canadian mother. A Nazi officer called Karl Gagel initially tried to claim there was no intimate relationship between the teenager and himself, but "there was nevertheless an understanding that when Germany and Britain ceased to be enemies they would become engaged," the file shows. Antonia revealed in her 1982 autobiography Little Resistance: A Teenage English Girl's Adventures In Occupied France that she had kissed the officer but was never engaged to him. She had tried unsuccessfully to flee France for Switzerland, but eventually gave up. Ed Hampshire, from the National Archives: "She had various liaisons with Gestapo officers" In December 1942, she had been asked to write a letter of introduction for a friend of Claude Spaak, the brother of the Belgian foreign minister. She later told MI5 that she had no idea Mr Spaak was heavily involved in the Resistance. The Nazis intercepted the letter, and she was interrogated in Paris by senior Gestapo officer Heinz Pannwitz. She claimed she was held in Paris in solitary confinement from October 1943 until January 1944, when she was allowed to leave and stay with her cousin. But her MI5 file includes a report from a Nazi source suggesting that she enjoyed "comparative freedom as a species of office girl" for Pannwitz. It added that she "did little but make tea, sew and listen to radio", and even went on shopping expeditions with Gagel. During interrogation by MI5 she did not disclose anything about her relationship with Gagel - which led the British intelligence officer to conclude that she was his mistress and "almost certainly" betrayed all her knowledge of a Resistance group to the Germans.Letter to father Continue reading the main story “Start Quote Brig Tristram Lyon-Smith Antonia has not the slightest intention of ever seeing Karl again if she can possibly avoid it” Gagel's feelings for Antonia were discovered after her irate father received a letter from Gagel via his bank branch in East Sussex. The former Gestapo officer wrote to the bank in October 1945: "I should be much obliged if you would kindly inform Miss Antonia Lyon-Smith that I shall be in Germany for some time to come, and that I should like to have news of her." An MI5 officer who interviewed Brig Lyon-Smith about his daughter noted: "She was apparently 'befriended' by Karl Gagel, who ostensibly arranged that she should not be sent to Fresnes prison in return for her undertaking to marry him when the war was over. "Antonia has not the slightest intention of ever seeing Karl again if she can possibly avoid it." Her own account, given in 1946, of her time with the Gestapo was described as "rather disconnected" and "not satisfactory" by an MI5 officer. At first the MI5 officer concluded: "It is clear to me that she was holding back on this matter [of Gagel], though whether simply because her association with him was a disreputable one or not, I cannot say." But after further research, the officer wrote in April 1946: "My own view is that she certainly became Karl Gagel's mistress and almost certainly disclosed to the Germans all her knowledge of the Spaak organisation, which I believe to have been considerably greater than she admits." He even raised concerns two months later about whether Miss Lyon-Smith was suitable to continue working for the Women's Royal Naval Service, but Royal Navy intelligence considered her not to be a risk as as she was about to marry. Her autobiography, published under her name from her second marriage, Antonia Hunt, was released in 1982, more than two decades before her death. In it, she mentions a surprise visit from the comic author PG Wodehouse when she was seriously ill while in Gestapo custody in Paris. National Archives have also released files about Wodehouse's activities while in an internment camp. The documents show that MI5 doubted his account of how he came to make broadcasts for the Nazis in the summer of 1941.

<urn:uuid:914626d9-b791-436d-9d44-46091183e256>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.fold3.com/page/285875487_women_of_the_third_reich/

2013-05-24T23:14:26Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Food Preservation on the WebWeb Savvy Tip: A User's Guide to Safe Information by: Lizann Powers-Hammond and Val Hillers Be Web Savvy For The Safety Of Your Family! The World Wide Web can be a great place to find volumes of information on certain topics. When it comes to food preservation, it is important to evaluate the information very carefully. Preparing a safe home-canned product involves having a laboratory tested recipe with research based processing time. If the recipe posted is not from a credible source, it could produce a product that is hazardous to your health. Screening Web Sites for Safe Information When searching for food preservation information on the web, the goal is to locate information that produces a safe product. A good first step is to determine who created the web site. Use the web address to identify the source of the information. The end of the address (domain name) identifies the type of organization. Government: .gov or .us Non-profit Organizations: .org Additional information is provided between thehttp://www and the ending. This can help you identify the organization, institution or individual responsible for posting the information. For example: http://www.usda.gov identifies this site as the United States Department of Agriculture, a government organization. United States Government Web Sites Throughout history, the United States Department of Agriculture has been involved in publishing research-based food preservation information. Web sites that reference USDA recipes provide a safe source of information as long as the recipes are up-to-date. Cooperative Extension Web Sites The Cooperative Extension service has long been recognized as a credible source of research-based food preservation information. Across the nation Cooperative Extension programs are affiliated with the land-grant universities in each state. Web addresses for Cooperative Extension programs often have the name of the university abbreviated in the address. Some addresses also make a reference to Cooperative Extension. For example: http://ext.wsu.edu/ takes you to the web site for Washington State University Extension. USDA and Cooperative Extension Web sites publishonly researched-based food preservation information. The recipes on these sites have been tested to guarantee the safety of the final product when followed as written. Commercial Web Sites Some commercial companies publish food preservation information on their web sites. For example, the following site is for the Kerr Alltrista Corporation® (formerly the Kerr and Ball Canning Companies). Web Savvy Tip: Food preservation information from commercial web sites may or may not be safe. Some companies post research based information, others do not. It’s a good idea to have information from these sites screened by a food safety expert. Personal Web Sites Addresses of personal web sites often contain an internet service provider (ISP) company name, personal name, list name or combination of these. Some examples of how a personal web site might look are: *Sample only-not an actual web site. Web Savvy Tip: Be especially cautious of personal web sites, recipe web sites and cooking exchange lists for food preservation information. Anything can be posted to these sites. Always have these recipes screened by a food safety expert before using them. What is the Meaning of “Research-Based”? Home canning has changed greatly in the 170 years since it was introduced as a way to preserve foods. Scientists have found ways to produce safer, higher quality products. Too many times people don’t understand there are risks when processing food at home. Those risks include botulism poisoning, which can lead to illness and even death. The development of a canning recipe is an extensive process. It involves repeating the entire preparation and canning process 15-30 times to obtain accurate heat penetration data. Then, microorganisms are put into the jars before processing to make sure the processing time is sufficient to destroy them. This research must take place in a laboratory with equipment for testing heat penetration and microbiology. This is why processing times cannot be made up! It’s also why a sealed jar does not mean it’s a safe jar. National Food Safety Data System USDA and the National Center for Home Food Preservation have compiled the most complete source of tested food preservation recipes in a publication called “The Complete Guide To Home Canning”. It is available at the National Center for Home Food Preservation web site. A link to the "Complete Guide to Home Canning" is on this web-site. Trade names have been used to simplify information; no endorsement is intended.

<urn:uuid:ddbe8e05-4923-45a4-bca0-9800ae5f1db5>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.foodsafety.wsu.edu/consumers/factsheet22.htm

2013-05-24T23:13:08Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Amblyopia is poor vision in an eye that did not develop normal sight during early childhood. It is sometimes called "lazy eye." When one eye develops good vision while the other does not, the eye with the poorer vision is called amblyopic. Usually, only one eye is affected by amblyopia, but it is possible for both eyes to be "lazy." This condition is called bilateral amblyopia. The condition is common; approximately two or three out of every 100 people has amblyopia. The best time to correct amblyopia is during infancy or early childhood. Amblyopia in children and adults Newborn infants are able to see, but as they use their eyes during the first months of life, their vision improves. During early childhood years, their visual system changes quickly and their sight continues to develop. In order to have normal vision, it is important that both eyes develop equal vision. If a child has amblyopia and cannot use his or her eyes normally, vision does not develop properly and may even decrease. After the first nine years of life, the visual system is normally fully developed and usually cannot be changed. If amblyopia treatment is not begun as early as possible, several problems can develop that can seriously affect vision from childhood into adulthood: - the amblyopic eye may develop a serious and permanent visual defect; - depth perception (seeing in three dimensions) may be lost, because good vision in both eyes is needed; - if the stronger eye becomes diseased or injured, it can mean a lifetime of poor vision. People with amblyopia in one eye are more than twice as likely to lose vision in the healthy eye from trauma. If the vision in one eye should be lost later in life from an accident or illness, it is essential that the other eye have normal vision. Another important reason to make sure amblyopia is detected and treated as early as possible in childhood: people who have good vision in only one eye may find they are limited in the kinds of jobs they can perform. Your ophthalmologist can teach you how amblyopia can be treated, and can help you and your child successfully carry out this treatment. What is refractive (or anisometropic) amblyopia? Refraction is when the eye focuses light onto the retina to form a visual image. A refractive error occurs when the light is not properly focused in the eye and vision is blurry. When a child has refractive, or anisometropic, amblyopia, it means he or she has a different amount of refractive error in each eye. When this is the case, the brain will use the better-seeing eye and essentially "turn off" vision from the weaker eye. At first, eyeglasses may help by correcting the refractive error in both eyes, allowing them to work equally together. Then the amblyopia may be further treated to help improve vision and depth perception. Next Page: Amblyopia: Lazy Eye Symptoms

<urn:uuid:c5297a55-e335-4940-b249-5330195af093>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.geteyesmart.org/eyesmart/diseases/amblyopia.cfm

2013-05-24T23:13:21Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

How to Select AC Motors Image Credit: Baldor Electric Company | Demag Cranes and Components | ElectroCraft AC motors are electric motors which are powered by alternating current (AC). They are used to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy in order to do work in a system. Specifically, rotational energy is produced by utilizing the force of magnetic fields induced by alternating current flowing through electric coils. AC motors are... Learn More about AC Motors Q & A on AC Motors We asked our users for their input on AC Motors. Here are the results of 242 users familiar with AC Motors.Who Took Our Poll? | Design Trends | Applications and Use | Features | Buying Advice

<urn:uuid:793f3b45-a934-4774-98be-6bf0f45c66f9>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.globalspec.com/insights/159/ac-motors-design-trends-applications-buying-advice-from-technical-experts

2013-05-24T23:47:30Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Biography of Henry Fielding (1707-1754) Henry Fielding was born near Glastonbury in southern England, and grew up on his parents’ farm in Dorset. His origins were not opulent, but they were decidedly genteel: his second cousin would become the fourth Earl of Denbigh, his father was a colonel (and later a general) in the army, and his maternal grandfather was a judge of the Queen’s Bench. Henry's first-rate education at Eton College endowed him with a knowledge of classical literature that would influence his conception of the novel. In 1728, Fielding went to London and, on the advice of his cousin Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, embarked on a literary career, writing poems and plays that satirized artifice, sham, and political corruption. Later that year, he went on to the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, but his classical studies there ended when his father discontinued his allowance. By 1730, he was back in London managing theaters and writing plays, among them the still-famous Tom Thumb. During this time, he led a rakish existence that may inform the biography of the character Wilson in Joseph Andrews; the life of dissipation ended, however, when he eloped in November 1734 with Charlotte Cradock, the woman whose image would inspire the heroines of his later novels. A supporter of the Opposition party of the day, Fielding continued to satirize the government of de facto Prime Minister Robert Walpole. Walpole struck back, however, with the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737, whereby no new plays could be produced until they were licensed by the Lord Chamberlain. The Act made theatrical satire virtually impossible and effectively ended Fielding’s career in the theater, leaving him with a wife, two children, and no income. Forced to seek another line of work, Fielding studied law in the Middle Temple and completed a six-year course of study in three years. He began practicing law in 1740, working hard but never prospering. Meanwhile, however, there occurred a watershed event both in Fielding’s life and in the history of the novel: the publication in 1740 of Samuel Richardson’s wildly popular and controversial Pamela, the story of a virtuous servant-girl’s resistance to the sexual overtures of her genteel master, who gradually recognizes and rewards her virtue by marrying her. The novel’s sentimentality and (allegedly) hypocritical moral code were spurs to Fielding’s wit, and the struggling barrister accordingly published Shamela, an anonymous parody, in 1741. Not content with this bawdy evisceration, Fielding in 1742 followed Shamela with Joseph Andrews, which begins as a gender-reversed Pamela parody but develops into something much more original, a fully realized novel replete with buoyant comedy and sustained social critique. In 1743, Fielding published his multi-volume Miscellanies, which included the novel Jonathan Wild, a bleak satire on “great men,” the Whig party, and the criminal law system, among other things. Fielding’s own existence at this time remained bleak, as his wife and daughter were dying, he himself was suffering from crippling gout, and his finances were grim. For the next two years, he produced no further writing, either in book form or in periodicals, devoting his time instead to his law practice and his efforts to recuperate his wife's health. These efforts were in vain, and Charlotte died in the resort town of Bath in 1744, leaving Fielding frantic with grief. He resumed his literary career in 1745, inspired by opposition to the Jacobite Rebellion, in which supporters of the Stuart line pressed the claim of Prince Charles Edward, the descendant of James II. Fielding’s reasons for opposing the Jacobites were twofold, religious as well as political. The English monarch was the Supreme Head of the Church of England, and Charles Edward was a Catholic; his accession would therefore have been awkward for this most statist of churches, and Fielding was a staunch supporter of the Anglican Establishment. Politically, Fielding was a Whig - that is, an advocate of the Hanoverian succession - and now that the detested Walpole had been succeeded by another Whig Prime Minister, Fielding could leave the Opposition and became a defender of the Establishment government. Accordingly, as the editor of a political journal from 1745 to 1746, he denounced the Jacobites and their Tory allies, and even after the defeat of the Jacobites, he continued as an apologist for the government. His reward was to receive appointments as Justice of the Peace for Westminster in 1748 and for the county of Middlesex in 1749. These positions installed him in a courthouse which also served as his residence, in Bow Street, London. In 1747, Fielding had married Charlotte’s former maid, Mary Daniel, who had been pregnant by him. This move had made him a target of ridicule, but Fielding would later describe his second wife as “a faithful friend, an amiable companion, and a tender nurse.” In 1749, he published Tom Jones, his greatest work, a picaresque novel about a foundling who comes into a fortune. Amelia, which followed in 1751, evinces a dark new sense of human folly. Fielding’s work in Bow Street had put him on intimate terms with social disorder, and the stern remedies for such disorder that he proposed in his capacity as a magistrate - measures that included the workhouse and the gallows - marked a turn from the ethics of broad and cheerful tolerance that imbue Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones. Fielding was equally stern with himself, however, and in spite of the fact that his work as Justice of the Peace brought him no salary, he stood out among other magistrates of the day in his refusal of all bribes. He also contributed greatly to the suppression of crime in London through his organization of the Bow-Street Runners, a squad of “thief-takers” that has been called London’s first professional police force. In addition to his social and political vocations, Fielding also supported the literary ambitions of his younger sister, Sarah Fielding. She published a novel in 1744 called The Adventures of David Simple, and followed with an additional text in 1747, Familiar Letters Between The Principal Characters in David Simple. Sarah later wrote a sequel to David Simple in 1753. Henry Fielding wrote the prefaces to these texts. Sarah Fielding also wrote historical biography and children's literature, ultimately publishing ten works, albeit anonymously, as was common with women authors at that time. It is believed that Sarah was also influential in helping Fielding develop areas of his own writing: in particular, the development and portrayal of his major female characters. There is an expertise in the creation of the roundly moral Mrs. Miller and the forceful Mrs. Western, which likely reveals the influence of a female critic if not a female writer. Asthma, dropsy, and severe gout compelled Fielding to retire in 1754, and he went abroad to Portugal to convalesce. His Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, published posthumously in 1755, chronicles the slowness of travel, the incompetence of doctors, the abuse of power, and Fielding’s own courage and cheerfulness in encountering these evils. He died in Lisbon in October of 1754.

<urn:uuid:3336e29a-d90c-4e5e-aeff-2c2ac7a03344>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.gradesaver.com/author/henry-fielding/

2013-05-24T23:34:11Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

A nitty GRIT-y guide to heritage breeds. Ameraucana; size: small; comb: pea; plumage: widely variable; legs: clean; egg color: blue, green; use: special interest; origins: South America; ALBC rating: not rated illustration by Diane Jacky Every farm and most households in America used to play host to at least a small flock of laying hens – doing so was, after all, part of the program for feeding one’s family. Those flocks also supplied plenty of meat for the table, either as old hens long past their reproductive prime or cockerels of virtually any age. In many cases, the flock consisted of a multipurpose breed suitable for relatively efficient egg production and of sufficient size to fill a frying pan when young, or a roaster as young adults. Folks in need of food haven’t been the only people interested in poultry, however. Humans have fancied the flock for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and early breeding efforts gave rise to a number of ornamental chicken breeds as well as more specialized meat- and egg-producing varieties. Today, chickens born of pinpoint-focused genetics are raised by the millions. The average frying chicken is physiologically so well adapted to gain weight that it is ready for the frying pan in no more than six weeks. Likewise, modern hybrid laying hens are so efficient at the process that they don’t even think of sitting on the eggs – and they barely have enough meat on their bones to make a decent pot of stew when their laying days are over. Industrialized chicken farming has done wonders for keeping meat and egg prices low, but with an unexpected consequence: the extinction of many interesting old breeds. In the United States today, the several hundred million Cornish-cross and strain-crossed white leghorn chickens raised each year for meat and eggs are estimated to be close to 99 percent of the country’s total production. The reality that traditional breeds have little value to the factory farm is all the more reason to consider raising them yourself. A “heritage” chicken is one that was raised in the not-so-distant past. These breeds don’t fit our generalized modern production standards, even though most will outperform their conventional counterparts in the home flock. Heritage chickens are also profoundly important as a pool of genetic diversity and will no doubt be essential to the well-being of future factory flocks. Because of their often quirky characteristics and downright good looks, heirloom chickens today offer many excellent choices for those of us who want more control over our food supply. In the entries that follow, we have compiled the key characteristics and some anecdotal information on 20 interesting chicken breeds that fall far from the mainstream. We’ve also included information from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy Priority List for each breed. They classify a breed as critical if fewer than 500 breeding birds and five or fewer primary breeding flocks exist in the United States. Threatened breeds have fewer than 1,000 breeding birds and seven or fewer breeding flocks. For a breed to be classified as a watch breed, it must have fewer than 5,000 breeding birds and 10 or fewer breeding flocks or be a breed that presents genetic or numerical concerns or limited geographic distribution. All three of these classifications include breeds that are considered globally endangered. A recovering breed is one that was once in another category, has exceeded the numbers of the watch category and still needs monitoring. A study classified breed is one of genetic interest that lacks definition, genetic or historical documentation. If your favorite breed wasn’t included, please send us a photo or post one (with a caption) at our new photo-blog Web site cu.Grit.com. And for more breed information, visit our Web site at www.Grit.com. Page: 1 | 2 | Next >>

<urn:uuid:bcbdccd8-f3e3-411e-82f9-f00dc9ae5325>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.grit.com/Animals/Perfect-Chickens.aspx

2013-05-24T23:26:39Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Become a fan of h2g2 The liver is the largest, heaviest and most complex internal organ in the body, weighing 1-1.5kg and hidden mostly by the lower right ribcage. Its shape is determined by the cavity available in the upper right part of the abdomen, between the diaphragm and the rib margin. It is one of only two organs1 to have two blood supplies, receiving blood from the hepatic arteries [20%] and the portal vein [80%] (carrying blood from the intestines). The liver makes and breaks down proteins, sugars and fats; stores nutrients absorbed from the intestines; and removes toxins from the blood. It is the powerhouse, recycling and disposal plant of the body. Life literally is not possible without the liver. There are many causes of liver disease, including alcohol, viral hepatitis2 (for example Hepatitis B, C3 and the glandular fever virus EBV4), autoimmune diseases, poisons/drugs (for example an overdose of paracetamol, some antibiotics, and drugs) and inherited disorders. Hepatitis A never causes chronic problems or cirrhosis. The most common cause in Western countries is alcohol - worldwide it is Hepatitis B (often transmitted from mother to foetus). The Liver's Normal Function The liver receives the blood from the gut after a meal and turns sugar (glucose) into glycogen (a storage molecule). This is turned back into glucose when required, keeping blood glucose levels stable. There is only so much 'storage space' - once that is filled, the rest is converted to fat. Excess carbohydrates and protein are also converted into fat. Fat can be broken down into sugar again, for example: exercising burns off calories. The liver also makes proteins (mostly blood proteins for example clotting factors and albumin, and hormones) and bile acids (essential for fat digestion and vitamin absorption). The breakdown of haemoglobin, cholesterol and proteins all occur at least partly in the liver. Digested proteins in the form of amino acids are broken down further in the liver, a process known as deamination. Water-soluble toxins and waste products can be eliminated via the kidneys in the urine, but non-water soluble toxins need to be chemically modified by the liver to allow this process to occur. The liver also eliminates chemicals not produced by the body. The Diseased Liver The initial response of the liver to disease is inflammation and fatty change. Inflammation can be caused by contact with toxic substances such as bufotoxin, so care should be taken when handling/disposing of a creature like the Cane Toad. Heavy drinking will cause alcoholic hepatitis. Prolonged or severe inflammation leads to cirrhosis (scarring of the liver). When a section of liver is removed the liver will regenerate, but scarring in cirrhosis stops this regeneration and so the damage is irreversible. The most obvious sign of liver disease is jaundice, where the skin and whites of the eyes are yellow. Neonatal jaundice is very reversible: the current treatment is increased fluids and UV light therapy. Other symptoms include constant, extreme tiredness and lack of energy; itching; nausea; pain to the right shoulder; and pain in the right upper area of the abdomen. The complications of liver cirrhosis include: lack of albumin causing swollen legs and abdomen; lack of clotting factors causing easy bruising and internal haemorrhages (haematomas); impaired mental state from low-blood sugar and toxins (acting like morphine and sleeping tablets) normally removed by the liver; and cancer of the liver (hepatoma). Another malfunction of the liver is the inability to breakdown LDL (low density lipoprotein) cholesterol, and statins5 need to be taken to keep LDL at a safe level to prevent arterial disease, known as atherosclerosis. If a clot forms and blocks a narrowed artery, it can cause a heart attack or stroke. LDL cholesterol is the harmful (bad) cholesterol, as opposed to the HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol which is absorbed and used as energy etc. The only current treatment for liver failure is transplantation. Death usually occurs from infection of a suppressed immune system, or vomiting blood from abnormal vessels in the oesophagus (varices). With drugs, the liver combines cocaine and alcohol and creates a toxic third substance, cocaethylene, which magnifies cocaine's euphoric effects. The mixture of cocaine and alcohol is the most common two-drug combination which results in drug-related death, the second being paracetamol and alcohol (this is usually an attempt at suicide and if it fails the patient will almost certainly have long-term liver damage). Liver disease is often first detected because of abnormal liver blood tests, often called liver function tests (LFTs), although they are not actually a measure of liver function. Abnormal albumin, and blood clotting tests, demonstrate abnormal liver function. The pattern of the abnormalities of LFTs points to whether the problem is the liver, a haemolytic anaemia, or the biliary system. Blockage of the biliary system6 and haemolytic anaemias7 cause jaundice as well. Blood tests can diagnose viral hepatitis and autoimmune liver diseases. Iron and copper levels in blood tests check for iron overload (haemachromatosis) and copper overload (Wilson's disease), both inherited diseases that can cause cirrhosis. An ultrasound scan will show blockage of the bile duct, fatty liver, cirrhosis and liver tumours. A liver biopsy may be necessary to examine the liver under the microscope, look for iron or copper, or determine the amount of virus present. The main aim of treatment of liver disease is to prevent cirrhosis. Obviously alcohol consumption must stop. Both Hepatitis B and C can be treated with antiviral drugs. Where the patient's immune system is attacking the liver, powerful suppressants of the immune system are given. N-acetylcysteine is given to prevent damage from paracetamol overdoses. Iron or copper overload can be treated with chelating agents that help the body to eliminate the excess heavy metals. Treatment of cirrhosis involves preventing complications (eg drugs to prevent bleeding from varices); ensuring good nutrition, and monitoring for liver cancer. Water tablets (chemical diuretics) for the treatment of fluid retention in the legs (peripheral oedema) or abdomen (ascites) should not be taken without medical consultation, particularly if the patient is already taking other medication. The current prescription drug for water retention, Bendroflumethiazide, lowers blood-pressure; and lists as potential side effects: mineral changes in body salts; feeling physically sick; loss of appetite; feeling dizzy or light-headed on standing up; feeling weak, tired, drowsy or sleepy; confusion; and muscle cramps. It can cause gout, impotence, skin rash, itchy skin and allergic reactions. Laxatives (usually a syrupy solution called lactulose) need to be administered to prevent constipation and to reduce the chances of the poisonous substances from the bowel bypassing the liver and reaching the brain, causing drowsiness, confusion and coma (hepatic encephalopathy). For someone recovering from any form of liver disease, it is very important to minimise the amount of fat in the diet: eating bread without any form of butter or margarine; frying eggs in a non-stick pan without any fat, etc. Liver as a food product contains considerable amounts of vitamin D. However as it is a filter for toxins, it can also contain amounts of less desirable substances. Although liver and liver products, such as pâté and liver sausage, are good sources of iron, they can also contain very high concentrations of vitamin A8. If taken in excess, this vitamin can build up in the liver and cause serious harm to a growing foetus. As a result, the Department of Health advises all pregnant women to avoid eating liver and liver products.

<urn:uuid:1fe7acbd-7bdf-4012-8bae-371ad03f3f37>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.h2g2.com/approved_entry/A134920

2013-05-24T23:40:26Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

THURSDAY, Feb. 4 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests that young children and teenagers with type 1 diabetes could benefit by using an artificial pancreas device to lower the risk of dangerously low blood sugar levels during sleep and help them control their disease. The findings, which appear in the Feb. 5 issue of The Lancet, examined use of an artificial pancreas by people aged 5 to 18 in a hospital setting. The device, which combines blood sugar sensors and insulin pumps, give doses of insulin as needed to patients as they sleep. Controlling blood sugar at night is a challenge for people with type 1 diabetes. If blood sugar levels drop to dangerously low levels, diabetics can suffer from seizures, coma and even death. The researchers found that the study participants spent twice as much time during the night at targeted glucose levels when they used the artificial pancreas system compared to when they tried a "manual" approach. "These studies show that automated systems not only can help people manage diabetes by maintaining good control, they will also improve quality of life for the people with type 1 diabetes and their families by lowering the risk for hypoglycemia," principal investigator Roman Hovorka, of the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge in England, said in a news release from the journal. "These results suggest that closed-loop devices may be able to significantly lower the patient's risk of developing complications later in life by reducing or even overcoming the burden of hypoglycemia." Get more on type 1 diabetes from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International.

<urn:uuid:b29cac0d-aa25-4e26-993b-45d1e0293c30>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.harthosp.org/HealthLibrary/News/default.aspx?chunkiid=572147

2013-05-24T23:42:20Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

After minor skirmishes, the First Battle of Champagne begins in earnest, marking the first major Allied attack against the Germans since the initiation of trench warfare on the Western Front. Still determined to win a quick victory, and despite early defeats in the trenches against German positions, French commander Joseph Joffre planned a major offensive stretching throughout the Artois and Champagne regions of France from Nieuport in the north to Verdun in the south. After minor attacks on December 10 near Perthes in eastern Champagne, heavy fighting occurred simultaneously at Givenchy, Perthes, and Noyon, where the numerical advantage enjoyed by the French resulted in few gains in territory. The Germans were well-entrenched and their defense proved superior. From the outset of the war, machine gun battalions were used along with the regular infantry, which proved lethally effective in Champagne. Winter weather made for dismal conditions on the battlefield: guns became clogged with mud and refused to fire, and heavy rainfall often made the trenches practically unusable. Fighting continued in the region from mid-December until mid-February, when the French paused briefly to reorganize, and then again until March 17, 1915. On that day, due to their continuing lack of gains and the strength of German counter-attacks since the beginning of the year, the French called off the attack. Joffre did not give up hope of eventual success in Champagne, however, and would begin another offensive there in the fall of 1915.

<urn:uuid:3c2fbe98-a990-4dd7-83f5-8bb0a97a7a16>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-battle-of-champagne-begins

2013-05-24T23:47:01Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

On this day in 1718, Francois-Louis-Frederic Haldimand, who would help bring the United Empire Loyalists and Six Nations of Iroquois to safety in Canada following the American War for Independence, is born in Yverdon, Switzerland. Haldimand joined the Prussian army in 1740 and, after a successful career during the War of the Austrian Succession, joined the Swiss Guards in the Dutch army, gaining the rank of captain commandant in 1750. He and fellow Swiss Guard Henry Bouquet were recruited to the British army to assist in militarizing the German settlers in Pennsylvania during the build-up toward the Seven Years' War with France. Although Haldimand never served in his intended capacity, he served with honor, was wounded and rewarded with the administration of Montreal following its capture. At the end of the conflict, he became the military governor of nearby Trois-Rivières in May 1762. Following a political reshuffling in Canada, Haldimand left to manage military affairs in Florida from 1767 until 1773. The outbreak of what the British understood to be a civil war within its colonies caused them to consider foreigners too untrustworthy to hold a command position. As a result, Haldimand left North America in 1775 and returned to Yverdon, where he purchased an estate. When the governor of Quebec resigned, Haldimand was called upon to replace him and, in 1778, he arrived to take his position as captain general and governor in chief of the province of Quebec. In this capacity, Haldimand was tasked with resettling American Indians and Loyalists within the boundaries of the British empire along the upper Saint Lawrence Seaway in Canada.

<urn:uuid:c591708f-1ef8-46a1-bb14-f1cfc6dd78ad>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sir-frederick-haldimand-born

2013-05-24T23:26:57Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

More to Explore People and Groups This Day in History World War II On this day in 1941, Germany's largest battleship, the Bismarck, sinks the pride of the British fleet, HMS Hood.The Bismarck was the most modern of… On July 5, 1943 the Germans struck on both sides of the Kursk salient to begin the biggest battle of World War II. Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign involved 287,000 U.S. Army troops against 130,000 Japanese soldiers. On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. This form of warfare derives its modern name from Spanish "guerrilla" (little war). October 23-26, 1944 The aerial and naval battle conducted as Allied forces invaded the Philippines began with Leyte Island on October 20. Expecting an invasion, the Japanese fleet command ordered its forces to sea at the very first sign of Allied landings. Due to the effects of previous engagements and to Japan's precarious fuel situation, however, the Japanese fleet was deployed in a scattered fashion: carrier forces in Japan were training new pilots; battleship units near Singapore (close to the fuel sources) and some cruiser forces, formerly in the northern Pacific, maneuvered in the wake of the Allied carrier strikes on Taiwan (October 10-12). When Japan ordered its fleet into Philippine waters, these forces had to sail separately and for the most part operated independently in the battle that followed. Headed toward the Philippines, the naval command suggested that Admiral Kurita Takeo of the battleship unit detach an element of his fleet to enter Leyte Gulf through the Surigao Strait. He did send a force that way, which was annihilated in surface naval combat in a classic crossing of the "T" on the night of October 24-25. The cruiser element from the north tried to follow but recoiled before making contact. Japan's aircraft carriers successfully decoyed north the U.S. Third Fleet of Admiral William F. Halsey, uncovering the San Bernardino Strait, through which Kurita's main fleet passed after turning away momentarily under the pressure of fierce U.S. submarine and air attacks. Kurita came closest to Leyte Gulf, in the process encountering several forces of small U.S. escort carriers, which the Japanese mistook for regular fleet carriers. Aircraft, however, made more and more powerful attacks on the Japanese as time went on, at length forcing Kurita to withdraw from Philippine waters. Leyte Gulf was decisive in that it destroyed much of the remaining Japanese surface fleet while virtually ending Japan's ability to move resources from Southeast Asia to the home islands. Japanese losses included four aircraft carriers, three battleships, six heavy and four light cruisers, and eleven destroyers, along with several hundred aircraft and over 10,500 sailors. Allied losses were one light carrier, two escort carriers, two destroyers and one destroyer-escort. Despite overall failure, however, the Japanese showed that with determination they could still press home attacks against an Allied armada with huge technical and material advantages. The Reader's Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Keep up with the latest History shows, online features, special offers and more.Sign up Classroom Study Guides Classroom companion for the new HISTORY series Vietnam in HD.

<urn:uuid:b6001f5c-48c5-40a1-b015-aaa70e7764a0>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.history.com/topics/battle-of-leyte-gulf

2013-05-24T23:46:55Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

An island in the mouth of the Patuxent River in Maryland. A group of islands in the southwestern Pacific, east of New Guinea, containing 15 major islands and numerous smaller ones. United States forces invaded the group at Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942. This was the first amphibious operation directed against Japanese-held territory in World War II. By February 1943, Guadalcanal had been secured, and landings were made on two other islands of the group, Bougainville and New Georgia. The development of the campaign in New Guinea, however, enabled the Americans to bypass the approximately 120,000 remaining Japanese who were scattered among the other islands of the Solomons group. The first Solomons was named after the Maryland island; the second for the pivotal campaign in the South Pacific. (YFB-23: l. 65'; b. 13'; dr. 4') The first Solomons was laid down at Seattle, Wash., on 5 May 1942 by the Shain Manufacturing Company. The wooden-hulled ferry was launched on 20 June 1942; was delivered to the Navy on 21 August; and was assigned to the 14th Naval District. She was sea-lifted via Pearl Harbor to Midway Island and placed in service there on 8 December 1942. Solomons served her entire World War II career performing ferry services at Midway. She was renamed Sanibel on 6 November 1943 to allow her original name to be given to an aircraft carrier, CVE-67, then being constructed. Sanibel operated on local transport and ferry duty in the Midway Island area until deleted from the 14th Naval District list of service craft on 1 July 1946. Placed out of service after the war's end, she was declared surplus and intentionally destroyed by burning on 3 July 1946 at Midway. Sanibel was struck from the Navy list on 28 January 1947.

<urn:uuid:acb89af1-07d8-4e07-86a9-c030d4e64e3d>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/s14/solomons-i.htm

2013-05-24T23:34:19Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Belgium's Heart of Darkness King Leopold II’s personal rule of the vast Congo Free State anticipated the horrors of the 20th century, argues Tim Stanley. When I was a boy we used to play a car game called Name Five Famous Belgians. The game speaks to a lazy stereotype among Britons that Belgium is a country without history or character, lost somewhere between France and Germany. How extraordinary it was to discover, then, that one of this small state’s kings was also one of history’s greatest mass murderers. Leopold II (1835-1909) wanted his country to join the league of European empires, but the Belgian state refused to finance its part in western Europe’s expensive scramble for Africa. So they outsourced the task to Leopold, who used personal diplomacy to convince the European powers to grant him control of a large portion of the Congo basin. He promised to bring civilisation to the so-called dark continent. Christened the Congo Free State in 1885, Leopold’s playground was an astonishing 76 times the size of Belgium. Comprised largely of unmapped jungle, it was initially a huge financial burden. But when worldwide demand for rubber boomed, Leopold cashed in. Congolese workers were sent out into the jungle to slash down vines and layer their bodies with rubber latex. Later they would scrape it off their skin – often taking flesh and hair with it. The work was labour-intensive and injurious to health; the only economical way to collect it was via the forced mobilisation of Congolese society. The Congo Free State evolved from a vanity possession into a slave plantation. Leopold’s hell operated by an insane logic. Villages were set quotas of rubber and the gendarmerie were sent in to collect it – a process that was sped up by looting, arson and rape. If a village failed to reach its quota hostages would be taken and shot. To ensure that the gendarmerie didn’t waste their bullets hunting for food, they were required to produce the severed hands of victims. As a consequence a trade in severed hands developed among the villagers and those police that couldn’t reach their quotas. The most famous account of Leopold’s Congo is Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness (1899). With its grisly, bloody imagery, one might imagine that Conrad exaggerated the awfulness of the regime. In fact the cold details of missionary journals make even more horrifying reading. William Henry Sheppard, a Presbyterian missionary, recalled in his diary passing by more than a dozen burned villages. He was taken to the headquarters of a gendarmerie recruit called Mlumba Nkusa, described by Sheppard as ‘a most repulsive looking man’ because his teeth were filed into sharp points, his eyebrows were shaven and his eyelashes plucked out. Leopold had demanded that Mlumba collect 60 slaves and a huge amount of rubber, but only eight slaves and 2,500 balls of rubber had been gathered. ‘I think we killed between 80 and 90,’ said Mlumba of the local workers. He took Sheppard to a hut reserved for the rape of hostages and to another for the preservation of collected hands. Sheppard counted 81 hands hanging over the fire. The Congolese horror ended when international outrage compelled the Belgian state to take control of the colony in 1908. Estimates for the number of people killed range between two and 15 million, easily putting Leopold in the top ten of history’s mass murderers. When he died in 1909 the king’s funeral cortege was booed. Conceptually Leopold’s reign of terror was a bridge between the imperialism of the 19th century and the totalitarianism of the 20th. Like most other empires it began as an exercise in piracy. But the sheer scale of the terror, the role of bureaucracy and the near-genocidal numbers of dead draw comparisons with Hitler’s Lebensraum and Stalin’s war on the Kulaks. The motive was greed rather than ideology, but the organised slaughter and the racist assumptions behind it make it recognisable to those old enough to remember the siege of Sarajevo or the Rwandan genocide. It is a reminder of the many forgotten horrors that lace the narrative of imperialism. The problems that African nations have endured since independence should be contextualised by the lingering trauma of colonisation at its most exploitative. Perhaps its greatest evil was that it concentrated power over so many into the hands of so few – allowing one wretched Belgian to ravage a continent. Tim Stanley is associate fellow of the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University. - Middle East - North America - South America - Central America - Early Modern - 20th Century - 21st Century - Economic History - Environmental History - Historical Memory - Science & Technology

<urn:uuid:a26f6c8c-982c-4546-8753-75c2a38099bc>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.historytoday.com/tim-stanley/belgiums-heart-darkness

2013-05-24T23:40:26Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Up next in How to Play Guitar (144 videos) Learn how to play guitar with these beginner guitar lessons from Howcast. "We're going to talk about A Major 7 as a barre chord. First, what we should do is talk about the shapes that I'm going to use, in order to make A Major 7 as a barre chord. I'm going to use an E Major 7 shape and an A Major 7 shape, in order to make A Major 7 as a barre chord. How do I do that? For E Major 7 shape, I'm going to take my 1st finger and I'm going to put it on the 4th string 1st fret. Then I'm going to take my 2nd finger and I'm going to put it on the 1st fret, but on the 3rd string. And then, my 3rd finger I'm going to put all the way up here on the 5th string 2nd fret. It's a little awkward. But that is the shape. E Major 7, very jazzy sound, right. Now, in order to make a barre chord out of that, I have to adjust my fingers so my 1st finger is free. Right? So, I'm just going to switch around my fingers a little bit, and get my 1st finger free, look how I do that. Now, I'm going to bring that shape all the way up to A, which again here is at the 5th fret. And so, here you go. A Major 7 as a barre chord. Then you can also use the A form of that to make A Major 7. This is the shape here. And what we're going to do is you're going to but your 1st finger on the 3rd string 1st fret, and then your 2nd finger on the 4th string 2nd fret, and then your ring finger is going to go on the 2nd string 2nd fret. A Major 7, all right. Again, I just going to switch that around so I have my 1st finger free and so look how I did that. First, like that, then I just switch it around so that this finger is free. Now, in this case, we already have A Major 7 but just to prove that it can be a barre chord, we're going to go all the way to the 12th fret. That's where the guitar starts again, make that shape. A Major 7 as a barre chord."

<urn:uuid:ce012be8-6117-40cd-a810-e34a0e7a7cb3>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.howcast.com/videos/434442-How-to-Play-an-A-Major-7-Barre-Chord-Guitar-Lessons

2013-05-24T23:34:12Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

When we talk about HIV prevention, we tend to frame it as a medical challenge and of course it is one. To accelerate the progress in the AIDS response we must reduce transmission and people's exposure to the virus. We need to develop affordable vaccines and microbicides that will make exposure less dangerous. We also need to make sure people living with HIV have access to treatment. But ending AIDS is as much a social challenge as a clinical one. One of the clearest lessons of the past three decades is that illiteracy and poverty fuel the spread of HIV and that education can slow it. Education -- not just sex education but literacy, numeracy, critical-thinking and global citizenship -- is the social equivalent of a vaccine, and it's already available for clinical use. That's why I and other health advocates so strongly support Education First, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's new effort to expand and improve schooling around the world. To assist in these efforts, the Secretary-General has appointed the first ever Special Envoy on Global Education, former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Education First could open new pathways to peace, economic development and environmental sustainability. It also embodies our best hope yet of empowering young people, especially girls, for an AIDS-free generation. Our challenge is to seize the opportunity it presents. How does education protect youth from HIV? At the most basic level, it gives them the knowledge and skills to avoid risky behavior. Those who receive comprehensive sex education are less likely to become sexually active at early ages and more likely to protect themselves when they do start having sex. Research from Nigeria suggests that even a modest investment in sexuality education (roughly U.S. $7 per student in that country) can yield lifelong health benefits while reducing the medical costs associated with unintended pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. But sex education is only part of the story. General education helps counter gender inequality, thus reducing girls' vulnerability to HIV by bolstering their self-esteem, assertiveness and economic prospects. Partly because they depend less on men for food, housing and other basic necessities, educated women are better equipped to resist violence and sexual exploitation. In sub-Saharan Africa, girls who attend primary school are less likely than those that do not to contract HIV, and secondary education further increases their advantage. In Tanzania, young women who complete high school have only one-fourth the infection rate of those who do not attend any school. Education can also help the millions of young women already living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries. In Malawi, 60 percent of high school-educated mothers know that a brief treatment regimen can keep an HIV-positive woman from passing the virus to her child during birth. Yet only 27 percent of women with no education are aware of this -- a critical gap when you consider that globally more than a quarter of a million babies were infected with HIV during 2011 alone. The world has made immense progress since the year 2000, when 189 countries signed the groundbreaking Millennium Development Goals. Among other pledges, the signatories committed themselves to achieving universal primary education and to reversing the spread of HIV within 15 years. By 2010, the enrollment rate for children of primary school age had risen from 82 percent to 90 percent and the number of out-of-school children had fallen from 108 million to 61 million worldwide. During the same period, HIV infection rates amongst young people declined significantly. In low- and middle-income countries, the expansion of treatment added some 14 million years to the lives of people living with HIV. But where education is concerned, our progress has not gone far enough and our promises to children are still unmet. In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly a fourth of all school-age children are still not enrolled, and the proportion is closer to a third among girls. What is more, over one third of girls who enroll in primary school do not complete it. If current trends continue, we may have more out-of-school children in 2015 than we have today. And for millions of young women -- especially women marginalized by poverty or disability -- the consequences will include exploitation and ill health. Education First is the blueprint for a brighter future, but it won't succeed without steadfast commitment from all sectors of society, including governments and funders as well as students and families. And success will require resources as well as good will. We now have an historic opportunity to end one of the greatest threats to humanity of our lifetime. Ending AIDS is possible -- and education is the key to success.

<urn:uuid:250b55e0-d381-422d-968a-ecd44bad8360>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michel-sidib/aids-education_b_1915767.html

2013-05-24T23:12:07Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Cooking with kids When can you start? You can start even before your little one can walk or talk by reading books. Then once your little one has the skills, open the kitchen up to some fun. “Make it fun to explore the kitchen…” Where to start - Read food orientated books - Start up a small vegie garden - Involve children in baking - Don’t forget setting the table - Sprouting beans is great fun - Expect a mess - Make it relaxed and fun Why get kids cooking? It’s wonderful to sit down to a meal that has involved the whole family, and children pride themselves on helping others. There are so many advantages to involving children in food and meal preparation, ranging from nutritional advantages such as: - Establishing healthy eating habits - Encouraging children to make good eating decisions - Avoiding fussy eating or reducing the impact of fussy eating habits - Making a positive association between healthy food and a healthy life - Improved motor skills. - Encouraging exploration and confidence - Gaining an understanding of the importance of food hygiene - Appreciation of cultures and their diversity - Spending quality time together and sharing experiences Ways to get started - Read books that involve food - Make it fun to explore the kitchen (safely of course): pots and pans make great music to children’s ears, stirring spoons and utensils are fun to nibble and plastic containers make great rattles - Encourage them to help set the table and lay out the cutlery - Together, gather food from the garden (herbs, fruit and vegetables) or from the supermarket - Encourage them to help wash the produce and even peel it - Baking is a great starter and perfect employment for a chief mixer. It can be worthwhile to invest in non-stick baking mats and trays Sow the seeds of interest - Start growing the cut ends of potatoes, carrots and other root vegies. Or pop the odd potato into the garden and grow your own - Sprout beans and seeds such as mung beans, alfalfa and wheat grass in little egg cups (made from cleaned eggshell halves with soaked cottonwool), but don’t forget to water them Encourage children to master the skills needed to prepare meals. This will help them work towards putting it all together and making their own masterpieces. - Some toddlers and many preschoolers will be able to assist you with cutting, grating, tossing salads, adding toppings and herbs, pouring and combining - Work up to skills such as measuring ingredients - Involve them in planning and creating a whole meal from start to finish - Don’t forget that presentation is important so dishing up is the ‘icing on the cake’ - Set the rules early, use frequent positive reminders of what is okay to touch - Enlist your helper when you have plenty of time and it can be a stress-free and fun experience for all concerned - Expect things to take more time and be a bit messier - Keep up the praise and encourage your child to be proud of their creation. Check out our Kids Recipes Finder for inspiration This information has been provided by Leanne Cooper from Sneakys baby and child nutrition. Leanne is a qualified nutritionist and mother of two very active boys. Loading tip submission... Loading tips list...

<urn:uuid:41f3a1a2-c165-4771-9e1f-1e575313ebb7>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.huggies.com.au/toddler/recipes/cooking-with-kids

2013-05-24T23:27:02Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

What Are The Types Of Mushrooms? What are the types of mushrooms? If you are a mushroom lover, this must have come to your mind. There are many types of mushrooms – some of which are edible while others are not. In fact, it is said, that there are nearly 10,000 types of mushrooms all over the world. Here is a list of various types of mushrooms and information related to them. Mycorrhizae – These usually wrap themselves with roots of different plants and feed on the glucose of the host plant. These types of mushrooms grow very quickly along with the plant on which they cling on to. Saprotrophic– These mushrooms are considered to be very helpful for the environment. These are decomposers which help to break down the enzymes present in the dead tissues of different types of plants and animals which exist in the environment. Smaller molecules are usually absorbed by these mushrooms. These mushrooms also help in recycling the organic matter which helps to increase the fertility of any soil. Parasitic– Of the various types of mushrooms which are available, these mushrooms are the most common. They actually infect their host plant and feed on its nutrients. These types of mushrooms are responsible for the death of the host plant in the long run. Endophytes –These are wild mushrooms which feed on the host tissue and ultimately kill the plant. These mushrooms can be cultivated in labs also without their host. There are nearly 5000 types of mushrooms which are known as wild mushrooms and normally are found in abundance in gardens, wood chips and roadsides. Some of these mushrooms are edible but it is very difficult to decide which mushroom is not poisonous. Enoki – This are those mushrooms which have a long stalk and round edges. These are often used in soup and fry recipes. - Morels – These are considered to be one of the most delicious mushrooms. They appear just after the spring and are often used in several recipes. - Bearded tooth – These mushrooms look quite similar to white fur as they are completely white in color. Out of the various types of mushrooms which grow wild, these consist a majority of them. These are usually found in dark logs which make them quite easy to spot. The yellow kind of mushrooms which are found are very sour in taste and cannot be eaten. - Cremini Mushrooms – These types of mushrooms are used in most recipes. They have full bodied flavor which makes them highly popular among the food lovers. - White button mushrooms – These are normally grown at backyards. These mushrooms usually have a unique flavor and are quite mild in taste. They are normally used in salads, meats and pastas and are often cooked with loads of garlic and onions.

<urn:uuid:d3e23ab1-8825-494f-89d4-a0a4c62d81e8>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.ifood.tv/blog/what-are-the-types-of-mushrooms

2013-05-24T23:47:52Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Roma, LGBT and Disability Organisations Stand Together on International Holocaust Remembrance day Yesterday on 27 January, the international community marked the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day reminds us of the millions of Roma, Jewish, homosexual, persons with disabilities, political opponents, Jehovah witnesses and other victims of the Holocaust and it is also a poignant date in the calendar to celebrate the lives of those who survived. Read the joint statement here. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day the European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF), European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), Roma Virtual Network (RVN), the European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA – Europe), the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Youth and Student Organization (IGLYO) and the European Disability Forum (EDF) call on national governments and inter-governmental organisations to ensure the safety of all minorities who are targets for Europe’s extremists. International Holocaust Remembrance Day reminds us of the millions of Roma, Jewish, homosexual, persons with disabilities, political opponents, Jehovah witnesses and other victims of the Holocaust and it is also a poignant date in the calendar to celebrate the lives of those who survived. As human rights defenders, we are worried by the rise of extremist movements in Europe and even more concerned by what appears to be the mild reaction of some European governments to such developments. Simply remembering the Holocaust is no longer enough. States must ensure the protection of human rights and the security of citizens, regardless of their race or ethnicity, religion or belief, disability sexual orientation or gender identity. Laws must be applied and enforced to prevent of the proliferation of racist and extremist ideologies which threaten harm to others. The Holocaust took place because governments, institutions and civil society remained passive as prejudice, discrimination and hate flourished. Today is reminder to us all that the mistakes of the past should not be repeated.

<urn:uuid:94a04035-fc6f-4a2e-9396-ed470b01ab22>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.ilga-europe.org/home/news/latest/holocaust_remembrance_2013

2013-05-24T23:19:43Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

An Affair to Remember Poetry is a special kind of writing, for it allows you to say things you can't say in prose. Writing poetry gives you a chance to fall in love all over again—with life, language, and literature. Here are some ideas to get you started writing poetry: - Try an acrostic poem from your name. Run the letters of your first or last name vertically down the page. Then write a line for each letter that describes your personality, hopes, and dreams. - Since poetry is based on sound, collect some pleasant-sounding words and use them to spark ideas for a poem. - Write a poem in list form that names or describes things. Include as many specific details as you can. Check Whitman's “I Hear America Singing” for a model. - Write a poem that directly addresses someone or something. Perhaps describe some unfinished business you have with that person or why that person is so special. Address the subject directly, by name, to help you keep the focus. - Take a narrative, perhaps something you wrote in “Tell Me a Story: Narration”, and retell the story as a poem. - As you write your poem, say each line out loud. Pay attention to the words and the feelings they evoke. This will help you select the precise word you need. Revise your poems by sharpening the language. Add specific words and vivid images. Condense draggy lines by eliminating unnecessary adjectives and adverbs, too. You might have to rearrange stanzas to make your meaning clear or emphasize the mood. Then publish your poem by sharing it with a friend, relative, or colleague. You might want to join a writers' group (check your local library or adult education for a list). If your community doesn't have a writers' group, why not start your own? Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Well © 2000 by Laurie Rozakis, Ph.D.. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group To order this book direct from the publisher, visit the Penguin USA website or call 1-800-253-6476. You can also purchase this book at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. 24 X 7 ||24 x 7 Tutor Availability ||Unlimited Online Tutoring

<urn:uuid:c2589a44-b9ae-42bd-9521-e7ebbb46755f>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.infoplease.com/cig/writing-well/affair-to-remember.html

2013-05-24T23:48:24Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Under the Old Pretender At the death (1701) of James II his son James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, was recognized as James III by the courts of France and Spain and proclaimed by the Jacobites. An invasion of Scotland in 1708 by the new claimant proved totally abortive. Each subsequent attempt also failed, and in each the Jacobites were the dupes of French or Spanish policy. After the death (1714) of Queen Anne and the accession of the Hanoverian George I, there was the rising known by its date as "the '15." Led by the incompetent John Erskine, 6th earl of Mar, it ended in the disastrous battles of Preston and Sheriffmuir. The Old Pretender, discredited by failure, retired first to Avignon and finally to Rome. Spain supported another Jacobite invasion of Scotland in 1719. Sections in this article: The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

<urn:uuid:be9ce4a0-23a7-4091-950e-03ca73318bf1>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/jacobites-under-old-pretender.html

2013-05-24T23:33:13Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

October 19, 2010 The United Nations has ensnared the world in voluntary treaties intended to become mandatory later, tricking politicians and the public. The treaties may be vague and open to interpretation over time, using a tactic known as ‘incrementalism’. These treaties affect many branches of government. The treaties are designed to deindustrialize and economically break nations, restrict energy resources (especially for electricity and transportation) and implement taxation schemes based on manipulated science from the UN (the EPA has authority to implement Cap-and-Trade). Agenda 21 Sustainable Development was introduced at the 1992 Earth Summit; it is not a treaty but uses treaties as a tool to implement its action plan for depopulation and total control. Michael Shaw has described Agenda 21 as the head of a monster whose tentacles have infiltrated all levels of government, affecting almost all areas of life, and he says that if you take out the head of the monster (Agenda 21), its tentacles will wither. The UN avoids using the word ‘treaty’. Most people understand that treaties erode national sovereignty and power. Voluntary treaties can be used to slide a foot in the door in order to trample sovereignty later through mandatory regulations. Conventions, Protocols, Agreements, Covenants and Accords take the form of a treaty, which may be binding international legal instruments or may become binding later when negotiations are completed. An Initiative is a type of referendum in which a proposal is placed on the ballot by way of petition. A Declaration does not have any legal power to enforce compliance but relies on the moral weight it carries. UNFCCC: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is a voluntary treaty ratified by the US in 1992 following the Earth Summit; no limits were set for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but the treaty provided for updates (protocols) to set mandatory limits. The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the UNFCCC which is legally binding but the US never ratified this treaty. The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, hence the push to ratify it, or a similar treaty like the Copenhagen Accord. SCARY POLITICAL POLICIES According to Richard Courtney’s article (May 1999) the real danger of global warming is the extreme response that politicians have had to imaginary global warming. Courtney says that the theory of global warming was developed during the Industrial Revolution in the 1880’s, but remained relatively obscure until 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Courtney’s article explains that Thatcher desired respect and followed the advice of Sir Crispin Tickell, depopulation advocate and UK ambassador to the UN. He pointed out that she could gain international credibility if she promoted the global warming (GW) deception because most politicians are scientifically illiterate (Thatcher holds an undergraduate degree in chemistry). The benefits to the Thatcher Administration GW policies were: * GW fear was used to weaken US power- if all other countries enacted carbon taxes and industrial reductions they could pressure and gain benefit over the US. * Thatcher belonged to the Conservative Party that held a grudge against the National Union of Mineworkers who were blamed for the Party’s prior defeats, so GW provided an excuse shut down many coal mines and eliminate the miners’ political power. * Nuclear energy emits no carbon dioxide (CO2), and many coal plants were replaced with nuclear power plants. Nuclear power, which presents its own risks, was 4 times as expensive as coal-fired electricity. * The new nuclear power plants were necessary to produce nuclear weapons. Thatcher established the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, the operating agency for the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Hadley is located at East Anglia University, the focal point of the ‘Climategate’ scandal. RETURN OF THE GLOBAL WARMING ZOMBIE UN global warming policies refuse to die because the EPA enforces them and endorses UN IPCC “science”. The EPA created the first Cap-and-Trade scheme for acid rain by expanding the Clean Air Act in 1990 that generates billions a year in taxes for a problem that is not serious and this is the model for carbon taxation. The EPA, through the Clean Air Act and a broad Supreme Court case ruling in 2007, has authority over air pollution that endangers public health. In 2009 the EPA came out with the CO2 ‘endangerment finding’ that determined CO2 threatens public health! Therefore, the EPA appears to have the authority to regulate harmless CO2 and other minor greenhouse gas emissions (Texas is suing the EPA). The EPA has an 18,000 page document with new regulations that includes a Cap-and-Trade scheme, which is the back-up plan because the national bills for Cap-and-Trade failed. The EPA and other federal agencies have received money from the taxpayer funded $787 billion Recovery Act stimulus program to pursue useless green policies. Over $7 billion dollars has been allocated to the EPA directly; the total amount for all agencies pursuing restrictions on electricty and transportation, in the name of the environment, is not known. The Department of Energy (DOE) has received over $30 billion from the Recovery Act stimulus program. The DOE is spending this money on perpetuating bad UN policies that include: Energy Efficiency- this paves the way for licensing your home for energy efficiency (HR 2454). Modernizing the Electric Grid- this program institutes the “Smart Grid” program that monitors your energy usage: how much is used, when it is used, and it can even track some appliances. Some people fear that the government will use the grid to remotely control personal energy usage. Here’s a map of the DOE’s consolidation of federal grids across America: Carbon Capture and Storage- this program is a giant waste of money because carbon is harmless and even if there was 500% more carbon dioxide in the environment, it would be a benefit for agriculture and would not harm the atmosphere or animals and humans. Transportation: Obama is proud of this program and boasted about creating jobs at a battery plant in Michigan, but $548 million was spent to create 309 jobs (that’s $1.4 million per job). Renewable Energy: this program focuses on biofuels, wind and solar power. Biofuel crops have cut down on food production. Wind and solar are inefficient. Of course, industrial hemp, a plant that is a source of fuel, food, paper and plastic replacement, is not mentioned, nor will it receive any funding because it threatens too many monopolies and is illegal to grow. The centralization of power designed to depopulate and control people is funded by the people. The policies are dreamed up in think tanks affiliated with the UN, like the Club of Rome, famous for this quote: “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill….All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” The policies are then supported by UN “science” that has proven to be manipulated, if not outright fraudulent. Based on inaccurate UN science, nations fund these programs and implement the policies. The taxpayers fund the governments, so We The People are actually paying for our own demise! NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) are deeply rooted in promoting propaganda to implement these programs and over 2400 NGO representatives went to the 1992 Earth Summit, and over 17,000 attended the parallel forum. Here is a list of foundations that fund global warming propaganda and programs: Deindustrialization through limiting electricity and transportation is a primary goal of Agenda 21 and the people are funding it. Therefore, the people and a true free market should decide the course of the future. Fossil fuels pollute, but severely reducing them would set us back to a pre-industrial existence. Nuclear power has serious risks. Renewable energy will not sustain an industrialized society. AWAKENING FROM THE NIGHTMARE Darkness is destroyed by light. Exposure of Agenda 21’s dark intentions is the first critical step. Action is essential. The most effective way to get rid of Agenda 21 is to educate your hometown local government officials (both city and county) that have far more power than most people realize. Click here to download information from FreedomAdvocates.org to give to your local officials: We have a tremendous opportunity to replace 37 Governors on November 2nd and to restore State sovereignty and action that can be taken on the state level. Please read “STATES OF EMERGENCY” at MorphCity.com (publish date 10/21/2010). This article was posted: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 2:13 pm

<urn:uuid:049b7de6-6362-4d0a-a93a-64beff1a04ac>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.infowars.com/un-tricks-and-treaties/

2013-05-24T23:34:04Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

|Home | Welcome | What's New | Site Map | Glossary | Weather Doctor Amazon Store | Book Store | Accolades | Email Us| Weather Almanac for July 2006 HOW HOT CAN IT GET? US State Maximum Temperature Records Set in 1936 |Arkansas||Ozark||120||Aug. 10, 1936| |Indiana||Collegeville||116||July 14, 1936| |Kansas||Alton||121||July 24, 1936| |Louisiana||Plain Dealing||114||Aug. 10, 1936| |Maryland||Cumberland and Frederick||109||July 10, 1936| |Michigan||Mio||112||July 13, 1936| |Minnesota||Moorhead||114||July 6, 1936| |Nebraska||Minden||118||July 24, 1936| |New Jersey||Runyon||110||July 10, 1936| |North Dakota||Steele||121||July 6, 1936| |Pennsylvania||Phoenixville||111||July 10, 1936| |South Dakota||Gann Valley||120||July 5, 1936| |Texas||Seymour||120||Aug. 12, 1936| |West Virginia||Martinsburg||112||July 10, 1936| |Wisconsin||Wisconsin Dells||114||July 13, 1936| The average daily maximum temperature for the month of July in Kennebec, South Dakota was 106.6oF (41.4oC) with a dozen days exceeding 110oF (43.3oC). Kansas City saw 100oF (37.8oC) or hotter temperatures on 53 days that summer; Lincoln, Nebraska had 41. Of the 88 Ohio weather stations, only three failed to reach the century temperature during July, and each of those fell one degree short. Many locations also reported record strings of 100oF or more. Lincoln had eleven straight days, Bismark, North Dakota and Chicago, eight; Detroit, seven. Clarendon, Texas was over 100oF for all but two days between 12 July and 27 August. Over the course of July and August, many cities set temperature records. Some of the more notable, Seymour, Texas melted at 120oF (48.9oC), the Texas state record which still stands. New York's Central Park hit 106oF (41.1oC) as did Duluth, Minnesota; Chicago's Midway Airport reached 104oF (40oC). And while the bulk of the heat covered the continent east of the Rockies, Anchorage, Alaska had its own version of the heat wave: 43 days with maximum summer temperatures over 70oF (21.1oC), a mark still standing. The heat waves of 1936 with its heat and high humidity frequently combining to give a heat index exceeding 120oF (48.9oC), and it killed more than 4,768 Americans. The records count 364 dead in Detroit, 570 dead in Michigan, the highest toll for any state. The heat wave, days with temperatures above 32oC (90oF), also spread into Canada during the first week of July, moving first northward across the central border into southern Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario, then spreading eastward into the Ottawa Valley. It began in southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba on 5 July, the hottest period there lasted thirteen days. In Ontario the heat wave lasted 8 days, beginning in the northwest on 7 July and ending across the full province on the 14th. When the heat finally broke, 780 Canadians, most of whom were elderly and infants, had died from the heat. Another 400 or so were indirect casualties included several who drowned trying to escape the stifling heat. Ontario recorded the greatest number of heat deaths: nearly 600 persons of which 225 died in Toronto. Manitoba's heat-related death toll exceeded 70. By comparison, the previous summer had registered only 42 heat-related deaths. High humidity added to the discomfort and the deadliness of the heat wave. Crops withered under the heat and dryness, and wildfires consumed vast tracts of tinder-dry bush in Ontario and the Prairies. Many fruit withered on the trees and crops wilted. The hot weather caused wheat crop losses estimated at $514 million (1989 US dollars). The heat buckled sidewalks and highways and softened asphalt as ground surface temperatures soared to unimaginable levels. According to David Phillips of Environment Canada, surface temperatures exceeding 65oC (149oF) were measured. Railroad tracks and bridge girders twisted in the heat. The hottest day occurred in Manitoba. St Albans registered 44.4oC (111oF) on 11 July, and Emerson equalled that mark the following day. These readings still stand as the hottest on record in that province. In Winnipeg, temperatures exceeded 32oC (90oF) for 13 consecutive days, peaking at 42.2oC (108oF) on the 11th, the hottest day on record for that city. That night the minimum temperature recorded was 28.3oC (83oF). In Northwestern Ontario at the town of Atikokan, the hottest day (11 July) reached 42.2oC (108oF) which tied a provincial record set in 1919. Two days later, the mercury soared in Fort Frances to a level which again tied the Ontario heat record. Heat in the eastern region of Ontario did not quite reach that in the west, but it was still stifling, the hottest period ever observed in that part of Canada where weather records extended back nearly a century. Toronto peaked on 10 July at 41.1oC (106oF). The mercury only fell to 26.6oC (80oF) during the following night, setting a new record for highest minimum temperature. Eastern Canada never reached those extremes of temperature, the record highs for the Maritime Provinces had been set the previous summer in mid-August. However, Newfoundland would see three straight days over 32oC (90oF) in early August, the longest string of such temperatures in provincial history. Saskatchewan would reach record temperature levels, but the highest to ever be recorded there would occur in the following summer. Three quarters of the US was extremely short of rain, and the heat produced extreme drought conditions. Ludlow, South Dakota had just 2.89 inches (73.4mm) of precipitation that year. Eastern Nebraska saw only 8 percent of its average precipitation total for July, and Iowa only 14 percent of the normal. In Oklahoma, the state-averaged precipitation for August was only 7 percent of expected. During the summer of 1936, the number of dust storms across the central Great Plains increased to 68 (only 1937 with 72 experience more), and at least four major dust storms swept across the nation. Seventy years later, temperatures across the United States soared during July. Extreme heat was reported just about everywhere. But hot as it was, the average temperature for the US (in the 48 contiguous states) of 77.2oF (25.1oC) in July fell just shy of the record of 77.5oF (25.3oC) set in July 1936, according to the National Climatic Data Center. July's heat set over 2,300 daily high temperature records across the nation, mostly in the Midwest and West. An additional 3,200 records fell for the warmest nighttime temperatures. The most pronounced heat wave affected much of the nation from 16-25 July reaching from the Pacific to Atlantic shores. The hottest official temperature, outside the SW desert was 120oF (48.9oC) at Kelly Ranch/Usta, South Dakota. Montana was also baking, major reporting stations showed 20-23 day with temperatures above 90oF (32.2oC). Among the many notable heat events in the month are: 15 July 2006, Pierre, South Dakota: Pierre sets its new all-time daily maximum temperature record: 117°F (47.2°C). 16 July 2006, Valentine, Nebraska: Mercurt soars to daily maximum temperature of 113°F (45°C). 21 July 2006, Western Washington: An unusual heat wave in western Washington breaks five maximum temperature records: Vancouver at 104°F (40°C); Olympia at 100°F (37.8°C); Seattle at 97°F (36.1°C); and Hoquiam at 90°F (32.2°C). 21 July 2006, San Francisco, California: San Francisco International Airport's high of 83°F (28.3°C) broke a 52-year-old record of 80°F (26.7°C). 22 July 2006, Palm Springs, California: Mercury soars to 121°F (49.4°C). 26 July 2006, Death Valley National Park, California: The low temperature for the day bottoms out at a scorching 104°F (40°C). The day's high was only 116°F (46.7°C). Like the hot month of July, the Summer of 2006, defined as June 1 to Aug. 31 by the National Climatic Data Center, the continental US had an average temperature of 74.5°F (23.6°C). According to the NCDC's Climate Monitoring Branch, this ranks as the second warmest for the nation since 1895, when such records were begun. The warmest US summer on record was the Summer of 1936 with an average of 74.7°F (23.7°C). Of the US's ten hottest summers, five came during the decade of the 1930s and four, so far, in this opening decade of the 21st Century. The other hot summer came in 1988, and extreme El Niño year. To Purchase Notecard, Now Available! Order Today! The BC Weather Book:

<urn:uuid:785ced92-56ad-4396-8d10-fe2052bbfe3a>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2006/alm06jul.htm

2013-05-24T23:41:06Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Joseph Nasi was born as a Secret Jew in Portugal in 1524, long after all Jews had been expelled. He escaped Portugal by following his paternal aunt, Beatrice de Luna (Gracia Mendes), when she went from Lisbon to Antwerp in 1537. After studying at the University of Louvain, he entered the banking establishment of Mendes and was responsible for settling the family's affairs when Gracia left in 1545 for Italy. He was very popular among the highest nobility in the Netherlands. Despite that, he had to flee in 1547. The following years he spent in France, where he became known to King Francis I, and later in Italy. Early in 1554 he joined his aunt, Gracia Nasi, in Constantinople, where he was circumcised and assumed the name of Joseph Nasi. In August he married her daughter Reyna. This cemented his economic and political fortunes with her. In 1556 he joined her in organizing the blockade of the port of Ancona to avenge the persecution of the Secret Jews there. Joseph Nasi made a series of incredibly fortunate political decisions. In the struggle for the succession to the Ottoman thrown between Selim and Bajazet, Joseph Nasi supported the former, with the result that he received many favors from him, including a high rank in the Ottoman court. Due to his intimate knowledge of European affairs and statesmen, and his chain of agents throughout the Western world, he exercised great influence on the foreign policy of the Ottomans, taking a prominent part in the peace negotiations between Poland and Turkey in 1562. In 1569 he encouraged the Netherlands to revolt against Spain and a letter of his, promising Turkish support, was read out at a meeting of the Calvinist consistory of Amsterdam. By then his influence at Constantinople had grown, due to the accession to the throne of his friend Sultan Selim II, who esteemed him as his favorite. Immediately after this, he was granted a monopoly on the import of wines through the Bosporus, said to have brought him a net income of 15,000 ducats annually. In addition, he obtained important trading privileges in Poland. In 1568, in order to satisfy certain claims against the king of France (who had stolen the family property left in that country because Jews were not permitted in France), Joseph Nasi obtained the sultan's authority to confiscate one-third of the merchandise on French ships docking at Alexandria. The French envoy, Grandchamp, launched an elaborate plot with Nasi's former physician, Daoud, in the hope of disgracing him. The plot failed and Daoud was excommunicated by the principal Jewish communities of the Turkish Empire. Soon after Selim's accession, he appointed Nasi duke of the island of Naxos and the adjacent archipelago, whose Christian duke had recently been deposed, and eventually he also became count of Andros. He administered his duchy mainly from his palace at Belvedere near Constantinople. During the War of Lepanto (1570–71) Nasi's dominions were re-conquered by the Venetians for the former duke, but Nasi's authority was soon reinstated. Joseph Nasi is best known for his attempts with his aunt to establish an independent Jewish community in Tiberius. As early as 1558 or 1559, Gracia Mendes had obtained from the sultan various concessions in Tiberius. The city on Lake Kinneret was mostly ruins. She planned to found a yeshivah there. In 1561 Joseph obtained confirmation and extension of this grant, giving him ruling authority in Tiberias and seven nearby villages in consideration of an annual payment. In the winter of 1564–65 the rebuilding of the ruined walls of Tiberius was completed, ensuring a certain degree of physical security. This was the only practical attempt to establish some sort of Jewish political center in Palestine between the fourth and 19th centuries. Joseph Nasi then tried to give Tiberius an economic foundation by investing there in both the wool and silk industries. Several hundred families settled there. He then sent a circular letter to the Jewish communities of Italy inviting them to move to Tiberius, offering them stipends. Numerous families excitedly prepared to move. Unfortunately, Turkey and Venice went to war. The Tiberias Plan failed. Source: Gates to Jewish Heritage

<urn:uuid:7b20939d-1edf-404d-9ba0-ca6bcdc79c96>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/JosephNasi.html

2013-05-24T23:41:52Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

What is Ventilation? Is the means of circulating and distributing the air in a room or enclosed space. There are 2 types of ventilation: - Natural ventilation Utilizes the pressure difference of outside air & circulation of air. - Mechanical ventilation Uses air moving equipment (Fan) to generate pressure difference for air flow.

<urn:uuid:806c434f-a61f-4511-a091-493224598fa0>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.kdk.com.my/tips-ventilating.asp

2013-05-24T23:34:29Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Building a Beautiful Edifice Throw away the textbooks! Well, not quite, but our classically-based curriculum focuses on studying the greatest spiritual, literary, artistic and cultural achievements of Western civilization by reading the original sources whenever possible, especially in high school. The classical curriculum, combined with the study of Latin and Greek, brings intellectual knowledge of the Faith into the heart by introducing the student to the great works of Christendom and the pre-Christian masterpieces that influenced and inspired Catholic Europe. The intent and purpose is to deepen and strengthen the student's commitment to Catholicism and move the student, in the spirit of the Ignatian principle of emulation, to accomplish great deeds himself.The study of a classical curriculum serves several purposes. It: - Focuses on the highest spiritual, literary and artistic achievements of Western civilization, elevating the mind and soul - Introduces students to the greatest books in their original sources, not biased textbook summaries - Integrates the study of different subjects, showing the interrelationships that exist among them - Provides a solid grounding in the basics, emphasizing the technique of learning by memorization in the lower grades - Improves language skills by the study of Latin and Greek The classical curriculum is implemented in phases. We introduce younger students to the ancient world to display God's preparations for the arrival of the Messiah. We revisit Greece and Rome in high school, along with the Medieval and Modern worlds. In high school, the literature and history courses go hand-in-hand: while reading The Iliad in literature, the student reads Herodotus' Histories; while reading about the Crusades in history, the student is also reading The Song of Roland in literature. It's about making connections between ancient and modern, between classical and Christian civilization.

<urn:uuid:24679796-494e-4afa-b894-290a955bfdf1>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.kolbe.org/Classical/

2013-05-24T23:41:30Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

On top of the sensory experience, this playdough imprinting activity also encourages development of fine motor skills, language skills, processes, exploration and textural differences. All important for children learning about the world around them. Ages: My 3 year old loved this activity but it's suitable for toddlers through to school age. I set it out here as an Invitation to Play. Imprinting with Rubberbands, Pipecleaner, Comb and strip of Packing material (polystyrene wrap) Imprinting with Beaded Necklace, Bubblewrap, Duplo brick, Foam Straight into it Realising that it should be flat first It made a slight fuzz texture and the rectangular shape. She wasn't all that impressed How about the duplo? Oooh, this looked cool! We noticed how the thin yellow playdough appeared green on top of the blue mat We assumed this one would just come out with holes in it. The extra textures inside the holes was unexpected and delightful. She noticed each one was different. These were due to the creases The beads made different prints depending on how they were pressed into the playdough Because of how thin this material way, the biggest imprint was from fingers! Here we talked about grooves and ridges. It also made dots. Very cool This left quite a fuzzy texture and she noted the imprint could be in any shape she desired I wasn't expecting her to put the rubber band on like this She enjoyed looking at and touching the variety of patterns and textures. They were all so different Ask your child, which was their preferred/favourite pattern/texture. Why? Then I sent her on a hunt to find things around the house that she wanted to test the pattern and texture of. This is what she returned with. So many exciting and varied prints. The ideas that came to mind from this were endless... How else can you play with these materials? - Extend this activity by asking your child to predict what they think the imprint will look like. What different textures and patterns can they achieve with the same material? - Create a picture or pattern using the different indentations from various materials - Use new language and descriptive words like, "textures," "grooves," "ridges," "indentations" etc This will help with their language development. -Ask questions to help connect their understanding using vocabulary to give them words to describe what they're experiencing, eg. "What pattern do you think this will leave?" "What shapes can you see on this material?" "What would happen if you pressed the other side in the playdough?" "How could you make a different texture with this material" etc - Listen to your child talk as they go through their experiences. This will help you determine where they are at with their learning, knowledge and understanding and help you to develop the activity (or future activities) to their level and interests. - Repeat. This activity can be repeated time and time again with a different end result each time. Mix around and change some of the materials that you provide each time to inspire new ideas Look where else we are. Are you following along? :) New Here? Subscribe to get all activities sent directly to you

<urn:uuid:ebfce354-4d3b-4a80-9a64-68007e61eb4e>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.learnwithplayathome.com/2012/05/playdough-imprints-texture-and-pattern.html

2013-05-24T23:32:52Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Enteritis is inflammation of the small intestine. Enteritis is usually caused by eating or drinking substances that are contaminated with bacteria or viruses. The germs settle in the small intestine and cause inflammation and swelling, which may lead to abdominal pain, cramping, diarrhea, fever, and dehydration. Enteritis may also be caused by: - An autoimmune condition such as Crohn's disease - Certain drugs, including ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, and cocaine - Damage from radiation therapy The inflammation can also involve the stomach (gastritis) and large intestine (colitis). Risk factors include recent family illness with intestinal symptoms, recent travel, or exposure to untreated or contaminated water. Types of enteritis include: The symptoms may begin hours to days after you become infected. Symptoms may include: - Abdominal pain - Diarrhea - acute and severe - Loss of appetite - Vomiting - rare Exams and Tests A stool culture may be done to determine the specific type of infection, however, this test may not always identify the bacteria causing the illness. Mild cases usually need no treatment. Antidiarrheal medication may delay the organism from leaving the digestive tract, and therefore may not be recommended. Rehydration with electrolyte solutions may be necessary if dehydration occurs. Persons with diarrhea (especially young children) who are unable to drink fluids because of nausea may need medical care and fluids through a vein ( intravenous fluids) . If you take diuretics and develop diarrhea, you may need to stop taking the diuretic during the acute episode. Do not stop taking any medicine unless told to do so by your health care provider. Symptoms usually go away without treatment in a few days. - Prolonged diarrhea Note: The diarrhea can cause rapid and extreme dehydration in babies. When to Contact a Medical Professional Call for an appointment with your health care provider if: - Dehydration develops - Diarrhea does not go away in 3 to 4 days - You have a fever over 101 degrees Fahrenheit - There is blood in the stools - Always wash hands after using the toilet and before eating or preparing food or drink. You may also clean your hands with a 60% alcohol based product. - Avoid drinking from unknown sources, such as streams and outdoor wells, without boiling the water first. - Use only clean utensils for eating or handling foods, especially when handling eggs and poultry. - Cook food completely and properly. - Store food appropriately in coolers. DuPont HL. Approach to the patient with suspected enteric infection. In: Goldman L, Ausiello D, eds. Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2007:chap 305. Steiner TS, Guerrant RL. Principles and syndromes of enteric infection. In: Mandell GL, Bennett JE, Dolin R, eds. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone; 2009:chap 93. Craig SA, Zich DK. Gastroenteritis. In: Marx JA, ed. Rosen’s Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice. 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Mosby Elsevier; 2009:chap 92. Linda J. Vorvick, MD, Medical Director, MEDEX Northwest Division of Physician Assistant Studies, University of Washington, School of Medicine; George F Longstreth, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program, San Diego, California. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc. The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. © 1997- A.D.A.M., Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.

<urn:uuid:b533cdda-6e9d-4f5d-b3cf-28d92badbee8>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.lmhospital.org/health-library/HIE%20Multimedia/1/001149.htm

2013-05-24T23:47:09Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Solar Walk, from Vito Technology, is a beginner’s introduction to the Sun and the planets. Basic information about the distance from the Sun, the length of the day, and the internal structure of each planet is provided. It’s a simple app, really geared towards U.S. Grade School level. At launch, the solar system is displayed with the planets all lined up for convenience, as a nice graphic. By default, the Earth is the first item of focus, brought up against the the celestial background. One can get more information about the Earth, or move on to another planet. In a nutshell, that’s the complete operation of the program. Display at Launch Accompanying the details of the planet is a dreamy sound track of celestial music by AstroPilot. It sets a nice mood. Sound can be turned off by touching the speaker icon on the bottom right. (The app runs only in landscape mode, by the way.) Click on the “i” icon at the top left to bring up details of each planet. There are several panes of data there that can be scrolled up and down as well as swiped right to left. Things like how each planet got its name, astronomical facts, atmospheric composition and the internal structure are discussed. When the data popover is not shown, there is an option to view the image of the planet in 3D, using the traditional Red + Cyan 3D glasses (not supplied). However, the effect is not particularly spectacular, and the feature doesn’t add much to the app. Use normal gestures to rotate the planet or view from another angle. Touching the orrery icon at the bottom brings up a representation of the solar system, this time with the planets in their correct current positions. (Checked against Emerald Observatory.) This is a schematic only; neither the sizes nor the distances between the planets are to scale, but one can two finger pinch or swipe to change the overal size or orientation of the solar system. In this sense, the program fails to teach the beginner the relative sizes and the vast distance between the planets. I’ll admit that’s a challenge, but one that should have been accepted. Orrery Mode (not to scale) A sliding tape along the right side allows one to propel into the future or past, but only by minutes. That allows one to see how, for example, the moons of the planets change with time, but it’s not so good, in orrery fashion, for seeing the positions of the planets over the years. There should be a way to change the time increments: minutes, days, years. I noted one problem with the display of astronomical facts, and that was for the Earth’s distance from the sun. Of course, the average distance from the Sun to the Earth is 1.0 Astronomical Unit (A.U.) by definition. But there is a superfluous number, 0.72333 A.U. in the display. The developer says that’s a mistake and will be removed. I also noted that the sophistication and depth of the details for the Sun’s internal structure is out of sync with the corresponding data for the planets. For example, any grade school student can appreciate the details of the internal structure of Mars, but the description of the Sun goes into considerable detail in the Radiative Zone, the Convective Zone and the Photosphere. The discussion of the opacity of H- ions in the Photosphere, for example, will be lost on younger students. I asked the developer about this, and the reply was: “we didn’t stick to any particular level of knowledge.” That’s an explanation, but remains unsatisfactory. It’s important that the customer be properly identified. Conversely, it’s important for the customer to know the academic level of the software before purchasing. It would be helpful if there were call outs or labels to tie the layers in the planetary internal structure graphic to the corresponding text description. Finally, it would be nice if touching one of the planets at the launch screen were effective. As it is, the default is always Earth. Saturn and its moons Also, when viewing the information panel of the planet or Sun the speaker/mute icon inexplicably goes away. Once must be in the overall view mode to mute the music. That’s an annoying oversight. Solar Walk is a nicely designed program, overall, but suffers from a lack of attention to details and intended scope. There is no explanation regarding the displayed scale of the solar system and graphically depicted sizes of the planets — which is misleading. The presentation level of the technical data is inconsistent, seemingly without an overlying philosophy, and the same knowledge can probably be more readily understood in its entirety by any good library book on the planets — of which there are many. The program also dances around the pedagogical issue of whether a simple accumulation of data and facts constitutes education or whether it’s just reference material for those who already have a basic understanding. Solar Walk squeezes into a nebulous space of being neither. If however, the goal is to provide a basic introduction to the solar system for 4th to 6th graders, with the intention of filling the gaps with more supervised discussion, then Solar Walk will do. Casual, non-technical adults may find it interesting for awhile. Technically minded adults should look elsewhere. [UPDATE: Vito Technology Responds] 1. Concerning the orrery icon and view of planets in this mode, this view is made for search purposes only. So that the person could easily find any planet and see the order of planets how ther circulate around the Sun. Once you choose a planet and “fly” to it all relative sizes between planets, their moons and the Sun as well as the sizes of all objects of Solar System become real (of corse the sizes are scaled). If you zoom in or zoom out the planet you can easily see it. 2. The “Time Machine” can change not only minutes. If you tap either days, months or years at the upper panel you will immediately see that planets start moving much faster or slower depending on the speed you choose to drag the Time Machine scale. Besides if you are far in the future or past you may always tap the “now” button and you will be back to the present date. [The reviewer regrets missing this, but points out that documentation on that is scarce.] 3. Concerning the info in our app. Our app is not a scientific book that presents the detailed academic facts about Solar System. Our aim was to make a visual representation of our Solar System and to show how planets move in time to let people play with the Solar System model and understand it a bit better. [The reviewer adds that this is not made clear in the app’s description in the App Store.] 4. Now we are working on creating movies for Solar Walk. These movies will explain the technical detsils you were mentioning. There will be movies devoted to the comparitive sizes of planets, the Solar eclipse, parade of planets and other interesting facts concerning with functioning of our Solar System. [The reviewer will update the review and rating when this new version comes out.]

<urn:uuid:e74d9716-eb73-4dcd-afa1-2835070d75d0>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/review/solar_walk_a_beginners_introduction_to_the_solar_system/

2013-05-24T23:20:39Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

In 2010, Mayo Clinic partnered with the Rochester Public Library to bring the national touring exhibit "RACE: Are We So Different?" to Rochester, Minn. The exhibit was free of charge to the public. The RACE exhibit will also appear at science museums in Arizona and Florida in 2011 and 2012. The RACE exhibit explores the issues of race and racism in the United States and is designed to appeal to people of all ages, interests and backgrounds. "The RACE exhibit brings together the everyday experience of living with race, its history as an idea, the role of science in that history, and the findings of contemporary science that are challenging its foundations," says John Noseworthy, M.D. "We believe the RACE exhibit will serve as a wonderful prompt for us all, for the people of Mayo Clinic and for the greater community — a prompt that will provoke thought, inspire conversation and challenge convention." "RACE: Are We So Different?" promotes the appreciation and understanding of the origins and impacts of race and racism. It provides an opportunity for visitors to discuss and reflect on a powerful topic in their daily lives through artifacts, historic and contemporary photography, multimedia components and interactive experiences. The exhibit provides a unique learning opportunity for Mayo Clinic staff, patients and the community to further understand the importance of diversity and respecting differences. The exhibit explores race from three different perspectives: Human beings are more alike than any other living species, and no one gene or set of genes can support the idea of race. Sorting people by physical differences is a recent invention. Economic interests, power struggles, science and even popular culture have played a role in shaping the American understanding of race. Although race may not be a real biological concept, it certainly is real both socially and culturally. In this section of the exhibit, visitors will explore the concept of race in American life — at school and work, at the doctor's office, neighborhoods, and through sports and entertainment industries. The RACE exhibit was developed by the American Anthropological Association in collaboration with the Science Museum of Minnesota and funded by the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

<urn:uuid:09f8686b-4119-45b1-b15f-f78a32597ed9>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.mayoclinic.org/annualreport/2010/education/race.html

2013-05-24T23:41:02Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

View your list of saved words. (You can log in using Facebook.) (Icelandic geysir, to rush forth) Any hot spring that discharges jets of steam and water intermittently, generally associated with recent volcanic activity and produced by the heating of underground waters that have come into contact with, or are very close to, magma. Geyser discharges as high as 1,600 ft (500 m) have been recorded, but 160 ft (50 m) is much more common (e.g., Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park). Occasionally, a geyser will adopt an extremely regular and predictable pattern of intermittent activity and discharge for a few minutes every hour or so. This entry comes from Encyclopædia Britannica Concise. For the full entry on geyser, visit Britannica.com.

<urn:uuid:dc00a4b8-63f9-465e-9115-714c19b44315>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.merriam-webster.com/concise/geyser

2013-05-24T23:40:42Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Mark Spalding, Nature Conservancy scientist Just how much are humans affecting oceans? Our impact is everywhere. When we look out across the ocean, it's tempting to imagine that it's still a vast wilderness, a final frontier where humans have little impact. In reality the oceans are vulnerable, particularly in coastal waters — hard up against a great storm of human disturbances. But they are also vulnerable far from land, where fishing fleets are extracting all they can. There's been a lot of attention on oceans lately. How is this report different? The report stands out because it captures the combined impact of major threats to the oceans — such as overfishing, pollution or invasive species — and how they affect different ecosystems such as coral reefs or mangrove forests. It's the first comprehensive review. It is often not single impacts that cause problems, but a nasty concatenation. For example, a torrent of impacts has affected the Caribbean coral reefs, wave on wave: pollution, overfishing, coral bleaching and diseases. Although still beautiful and fairly productive, most of the Caribbean coral reefs are a shadow of their former selves. Conservation on land has a long history and has captured the public imagination for decades, but in the oceans we have done very little. In many ways it seems the challenges for ocean conservation are far greater. I think what we're seeing is a small degree of re-balancing as conservation scientists are realizing just how much we need to do to try and sustain oceans — the largest ecosystems on Earth. What are the most affected areas of the world's oceans? And which human activities seem to be causing the most damage? Not surprisingly, the worst affected oceans are those that touch densely populated coastlines. We're talking about the northern Atlantic — both on the U.S. seaboard and more especially around northern Europe — and the western Pacific around Japan, Korea, China and into Southeast Asia. But just as important in many ways is the unequivocal spread of human impacts across the high seas. Unsustainable levels of fishing are a major driver of these problems. Despite increasingly complex equipment and the opening up of new fisheries year on year, total fish catches around the world are stable or declining, and have been for a number of years. The crazy part is that if we could only collectively get our act together and properly manage our fisheries, we could allow sufficient recovery and enable higher fish catches for less effort and leave our ecosystems in a better place to adapt to other impacts. Coastal waters are of course are greatly impacted by pollution. Nutrients are a major problem — they wash off the land, from human and animal waste and from agricultural fertilizers, and encourage algal blooms that block out light from the seabed. Or they produce toxic algae that are ingested by shellfish, making them a hazard to humans. And in extreme cases, such as in the waters off the Mississippi River, the blooms suck oxygen out of the water, leaving a dead zone the size of New Jersey where no fish can live. Is there any hope that the oceans can be rehabilitated? What would we have to do, or stop doing, to help the oceans and ocean habitats repair themselves? The big picture can seem pretty gloomy, but we need to keep a sensible perspective. At large scales, the map points us to areas that still have a relatively low impact — surely targets to try and prioritize urgent and large-scale conservation efforts that could include large protected areas, regulations to ensure that fisheries are fairly and sustainably managed, coastal development plans to prevent pollution, and shipping and aquaculture controls to prevent the damaging release of invasive species, to name a few. Fantastic work is also going on all around the globe, perhaps especially in some of the heavily impacted areas that show us that nature can and will bounce back if we give it the space. Hundreds of protected areas and no-take fishing areas are undergoing remarkable recoveries, supplying larvae and adult fish to adjacent waters. New efforts at restoring salt marshes, shellfish beds and mangrove forests are beginning to pay dividends in providing a whole array of services not only to natural systems, but also to coastal populations. I really don't think there can be one top priority. Instead, there's a raft of problems and dozens of tried and tested methods to deal with them. The Conservancy is already a world-leader in some innovative and exciting approaches, including working with fishers and with governments. We're encouraging broad-scale efforts at protection with our coral reef resilience work, and also at fine-scale restoration with our shellfish restoration work. What's the most important finding from this study? What can we, as consumers and recreational users of the world's oceans, do to help prevent further degradation of the oceans? I would love to see every one of us develop a greater sense of ownership of the oceans. With that comes stewardship. The oceans aren't the private domain of remote industrial fishing vessels, or of oil and gas companies. We need to start placing the demands on our leaders to call for better management of our oceans. That can sound like a call to restrict activities, but in fact it's quite the opposite — if the oceans are well-managed, they can provide more for us, and for our children. There are personal things one can do as well. For instance, try to buy fish you know has been sustainably harvested. And if you ever find yourself headed for a beach holiday try to aim for a hotel that promotes the natural environment and encourages conservation.

<urn:uuid:d3c5408f-f922-4ee4-9b6c-b78a0f51a3a0>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/habitats/oceanscoasts/threatsimpacts/threats-feature.xml

2013-05-24T23:34:45Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

How to Prepare for Your Visit View All The Black River is an easy paddle through a landscape largely undisturbed by humans. With a lowland lake as its main source, this river shows a dramatically different face from others in the state, most of which are fed by melting snow. The Black River meanders through a vast, largely impenetrable swamp before becoming a free-flowing river, ultimately merging gently with the Chehalis River southwest of Olympia. The land on either side of its banks boasts one of the most extensive riparian environments in Western Washington. Near Rochester in Southwest Washington In 1980, United States Fish and Wildlife Service identified the Black River as one of the most important fish and wildlife habitats in the state. It supports healthy runs of chum, chinook and coho salmon, as well as steelhead and cutthroat trout. The river is flanked by robust riparian vegetation, creating crucial habitat for an impressive variety of wildlife, including neotropical birds. The Conservancy has assisted the US Fish and Wildlife Service with the protection of several parcels within the Black River unit of the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. This includes the Black Lake Preserve, which the Conservancy transferred to the Refuge. The Conservancy has also purchased key properties in the central stretch of the Black River. These parcels, combined with property owned by Thurston County Parks and Recreation, form a nearly two-mile corridor of protected river. Black River Preserve Map Click image to enlarge. Rising from the soggy ground are mixed stands of red alder and distinctive Oregon ash, a handsome hardwood tree that grows to a height of 50 feet. Pacific ninebark, red-osier dogwood and willow form a dense thicket beneath the trees. The thickets that make foot travel so difficult create safe homes for swamp dwellers such as river otters, beaver and mink. Stilt legged waders, including the American bittern and great blue heron, hunt silently in the calm water at the river's edge, while the yellow warbler, cedar waxwings and other native songbirds flit among the branches on the banks. Black River is open year-round during daylight hours. A Class I river, it is accessible by canoe or kayak only. The preserve is dense shrub swamp with no trails; the best view is from the water. There are two rough places to launch canoes and kayaks into the Black River Refuge, both at bridges that cross the river on 110th Avenue Southwest and 123rd Avenue Southwest. To reach them (from Olympia):

<urn:uuid:8681f077-09db-4ab1-8a30-8737c760e153>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/washington/placesweprotect/black-river-1.xml

2013-05-24T23:28:44Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Let's Get This Straight Thu Jul 19 17:03:05 BST 2012 by Eric Kvaalen "Meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites are thought to have delivered water and volatile elements such as nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen to Earth." First of all, carbon is not a volatile element! It sublimates at about 3900 K. (What is volatile is organic compounds.) And secondly, to say that it was carbonaceous chondrites that provided these elements to Earth is begging the question. The question was whether the earth got these elements from carbonaceous chondrites (derived from asteroids) or from comets. If I understand the abstract of the paper, the idea that it was from carbonaceous chondrites was the conclusion of the research: "The bulk hydrogen and nitrogen isotopic compositions of CI chondrites suggest that they were the principal source of the Earth's volatiles." All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us. If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

<urn:uuid:e6bd572b-8cc3-4f7e-bc7e-0ecf2d676cfb>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.newscientist.com/commenting/thread?id=dn22061-1

2013-05-24T23:41:26Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, 1492-1996 by Edward N. Rappaport and Jose Fernandez-Partagas 28 May 1995 NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC 47 updated 22 April 1997 by Jack Beven - Tropical Cyclone Terminology - Casualty Information - Storm Lists and Statistics - Acknowledgements and References - Appendix 1: Cyclones with 25+ deaths - Appendix 2: Cyclones that may have 25+ deaths - Notes to the Appendices - References to the Appendices The legacies of Atlantic tropical cyclones span many cultures and thousands of years. Early evidence of these storms predates extant weather records. Geologists believe that layers of sediment at the bottom of a lake in Alabama were brought there from the nearby Gulf of Mexico by storm surges associated with intense hurricanes that occurred as much as 3,000 years ago (Liu and Fearn 1993). Similarly, sediment cores from the Florida west coast indicate exceptional freshwater floods during strong hurricanes more than a thousand years ago (Davis et al. 1989). Perhaps the first human record of Atlantic tropical cyclones appears in Mayan hieroglyphics (Konrad 1985). By customarily building their major settlements away from the hurricane-prone coastline, the Mayans practiced a method of disaster mitigation (Konrad 1985) that, if rigorously applied today, would reduce the potential for devastation along coastal areas (e.g., Pilkey et al. 1984; Sheets 1990). Many storms left important marks on regional history. In 1609, a fleet of ships carrying settlers from England to Virginia was struck by a hurricane. Some of the ships were damaged and part of the fleet grounded at Bermuda (The Encyclopedia Americana 1994). The passengers became Bermuda's first inhabitants and their stories helped inspire Shakespeare's writing of The Tempest (Carpenter and In several incidents, tropical cyclones destroyed otherwise invincible colonial armadas (Millas 1968; Hughes 1987). The French lost their bid to control the Atlantic coast of North America when a 1565 hurricane dispersed their fleet, allowing the Spanish to capture France's Fort Caroline near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. In 1640, a hurricane partially destroyed a large Dutch fleet apparently poised to attack Havana. Another naval disaster occurred in 1666 to Lord Willoughby (the British Governor of Barbados) and his fleet of seventeen ships and nearly 2,000 troops. The fleet was caught in a hurricane near the Lesser Antilles. Only a few vessels were ever heard from again and the French captured some of the survivors. According to Sugg (1968), the 1640 and 1666 events secured, more or less, control of Cuba by the Spaniards and Guadeloupe by the French. More than two centuries later, commenting on the Spanish-American War, President McKinley declared that he feared a hurricane more than the Spanish Navy (Dunn 1971). McKinley's concern translated to a revamped United States hurricane warning service, forerunner of today's National Hurricane Center (NHC). Surviving quantitative documentation about specific storms generally begins late in the 15th century during the period of New World exploration. A succession of chronologies brings the record forward to modern times (e.g., Poey 1862; Tannehill 1940; Ludlum 1963; Millas 1968). Hebert et al. (1993) frequently update their popular statistical summary about hurricanes that affected the United States this century. Their study, which includes a tabulation of the largest United States losses of life caused by those storms, has no counterpart for earlier tropical cyclones or for casualties incurred elsewhere. In this presentation we extend their work, providing a catalog of Atlantic tropical cyclones1 associated with loss of life during the period 1492-1994. To document casualties and attendant circumstances we relied on books and articles about the weather, newspaper reports about storms, and accounts of shipwrecks. Some of these sources consulted hundreds or thousands of original documents. They provided an extensive, though admittedly not exhaustive, data base. Indeed, if current Atlantic tropical cyclone activity is representative of the past five centuries, then a staggering number of those systems (upwards of 5000!) developed during that period. Some storms were harmless. Others likely caused loss of life that was never documented, or was recorded in documents subsequently lost to deterioration with age, war, or fire (e.g., Marx 1983). It is hoped that still other cases not identified here will be uncovered in future investigations. The catalog comprises two lists. The first list (Appendix 1), like Hebert et al. (1993), provides information about tropical cyclones responsible for at least 25 deaths. The second list (Appendix 2) identifies storms associated with loss of life that, while not quantified, may have reached at least 25, according to records about those events. 1 In this context, "Atlantic" will refer to the North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of

<urn:uuid:e045f08f-0b9e-4564-9a6e-6247de76b1ff>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdeadly.shtml

2013-05-24T23:33:23Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Points North: We Don’t Need No Science—Legislators Prove Global Warming A Farce The Canada lynx may be Minnesota's most reclusive resident, but we know much more about this boreal forest wild cat than we did 10 years ago. A story in the current issue of the Minnesota Volunteer describes how researchers at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, used radio-collars to track lynx movements and learn about their habitat needs, reproduction, range and behavior. What the researchers learned about lynx has practical applications. Minnesota's lynx are classified as “threatened” on the federal Endangered Species List, which means the animal and its habitat must be considered in forest management and development projects. Perhaps the most important outcome of the radio collar research is a better understanding of how lynx coexist with people. According to the Volunteer, lynx do not need to be a flashpoint for environmental controversy. Unfortunately, the successful lynx study may soon seem like a nostalgic song from the days of wine and roses. Recent news stories suggest the current crop of legislators takes a dim view of science. A link to this page will be included with your message. E-mail addresses supplied to this service will be used only to send the requested link.

<urn:uuid:876d6725-4cf1-4634-ac1c-33f9329219f1>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.northernwilds.com/pages/Explore/perich/points-north-we-dont-need-no-sciencelegislators-pr~email.shtml

2013-05-24T23:48:02Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Cooperating Associations are mission-driven nonprofit organizations, incorporated under state law. They operate under a signed standard agreement with the National Park Service (NPS) to provide program and financial assistance for interpretation, education, and research in national parks through the production and sale of educational media to the Cooperating Associations and the National Park Service Cooperating Associations are one of the oldest and most enduring partnerships of the NPS. Beginning in the 1920s, Park Service naturalists and historians partnered with private citizens to form nonprofit organizations to assist park areas and serve park visitors. These nonprofit organizations supported park programs and projects that were not readily achievable through the use of federal funds and personnel. The first of these, Yosemite Museum Association, was established in 1923 to lead a fundraising effort for a museum in Yosemite Valley. Upon successful completion of that project, the Association expanded its mission to support other kinds of park educational needs, such as providing inexpensive quality guides, maps and interpretive literature. Today, cooperating associations are a vital extension of the NPS’s interpretive and educational operations. Cooperating associations help connect individuals to the nation’s parks by selling educational and interpretive materials, providing information services, conducting educational programs and field institutes, and raising contributions to support the interpertive and educational mission of the parks. Sixty-four associations operated 1,000 outlets in 325 units of the National Park Service in fiscal year 2004. Many federal land management agencies, as well as some state and local public land agencies, have partnerships with cooperating associations (also known as interpretive associations). After more than 80 years of collaboration with government agencies, cooperating associations are well established as mechanisms for providing exceptional interpretive and visitor services.

<urn:uuid:3c5f3a9b-3a75-457f-947a-7e02cfc3c920>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.nps.gov/interp/coop_assn/index.htm

2013-05-24T23:19:44Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Staphylococcus is a bacteria that is normally found on the skin of most people. MRSA is a strain of staph infection that is resistant to traditional antibiotics and can cause serious illness, and may pose a significant threat to health and well being. When the skin is cut, scraped or otherwise vulnerable, an infection can develop. While still mostly a hospital contracted infection, MRSA is showing up more frequently in the community. It is found more often in people who have close bodily contact and sharing of personal items including towels, razors, body products, personal sporting equipment and other personal items that have direct contact with infected wounds. The school district has cleaning procedures in place to disinfect commonly used locker rooms, and other shared facilities. Students are reminded not to share personal items, launder sports uniforms and other equipment after each use. Students are also reminded to use proper hygiene i.e. frequent hand washing and proper first aid for all cuts, abrasions and wounds. Any open wound needs to be securely covered while at school. Wounds that are red with drainage need prompt medical evaluation. If medical treatment is prescribed, any wound that does not improve within 1-2 days should be re-evaluated immediately. For more information, contact your health care provider, school nurse or check the links below: SEATTLE/ KING COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) • WHAT IS A STAPH SKIN INFECTION? • Staphylococcus aureus (or S. aureus), also called staph, are bacteria commonly found on human skin; common places include inside the nose, in the armpit, groin, and genital area. • When bacteria are found on the skin but do not cause illness it is called "colonization." When the bacteria do cause illness the person is said to be "infected" with staph. • In most cases, staph either do not cause any problems or cause minor infections, such as pimples or boils. In some cases, staph can cause more serious infections. • WHAT IS MRSA? Some staph bacteria are resistant to certain antibiotics. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) are resistant to the antibiotic methicillin and related antibiotics. Other antibiotics can be used to treat MRSA, but treatment may take longer and/or be more expensive. • WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS? People who are colonized with staph or MRSA do not have any symptoms. Staph skin infections often begin with an injury, which allows the bacteria to enter the skin and develop into an infection. Symptoms include: • Redness, warmth, swelling, tenderness of the skin, and boils or blisters. • Staph infections are sometimes mistaken for spider bites. • Some people may also have fever and chills. • HOW DOES MRSA SPREAD? • Staph infections including MRSA are spread by close contact with infected people. Staph can rub off the skin of an infected person onto the skin of another person during skin-to-skin contact. Staph can also come off the infected skin of a person onto a shared object or surface, and get onto the skin of the person who uses the object next. • Examples of shared objects that might spread staph include personal hygiene objects (e.g., towels, soap, wound-dressings, bandages, etc.) sheets, clothes, benches in saunas or hot tubs, and athletic equipment. In other words, anything that could have touched the skin of a staph-infected person can carry the bacteria to the skin of another person. • WHO IS AT RISK FOR A MRSA INFECTION? • MRSA infections are more common among persons who have the following risk factors: • Recurrent skin diseases or open wounds, • Long-term illness or long-term dialysis patients, • Illicit injecting drug use, • Been a patient in the hospital or other health care facility within the past year, • Contact with other persons with MRSA infection, • Recent antibiotic use, or • Live in crowded settings. • MRSA can also cause illness in healthy people who have not been patients in hospitals. • MRSA infections have also been reported among injecting drug-users, persons in prisons, players of close-contact sports, men who have sex with men and other populations. • HOW IS MRSA DIAGNOSED? • A sample of the infected area (for wounds, usually taken with a swab) is used to grow (culture) the staph bacteria in the laboratory. • Tests are then done to determine which antibiotics are active for treating the infection. • A culture of infected skin is especially useful in recurrent, persistent, or severe infections and in cases of antibiotic failure. • HOW IS MRSA TREATED? • Most MRSA infections can be treated successfully with proper wound and skin care and by using antibiotics active against MRSA. If antibiotics are needed, they can usually be given by mouth. • A procedure by a healthcare provider to drain pus from the infected area (called incision and drainage or "I & D") may be necessary. • Some MRSA infections can be difficult to treat and can progress to serious and possibly life-threatening infections. Serious MRSA infections may require intravenous (given through a vein) antibiotic treatment. Continued on other side. (HOW IS MRSA TREATED?, continued) • People who are colonized but not infected with MRSA do not usually need to be treated. • HOW CAN I PROTECT MYSELF FROM BECOMING INFECTED WITH STAPH? • Keep your hands clean by washing thoroughly with soap and water. Cover and rub all surfaces of the hands. Lather and rub for at least 10 seconds. Alternatively, if there is no visible dirt on the skin, alcohol-based hand sanitizers (containing at least 60% ethyl alcohol) can be used to clean hands. • Keep cuts and abrasions clean and covered with a clean bandage until healed. • Avoid contact with other people's wounds or material and surfaces contaminated from wounds. • Avoid skin-to-skin contact with persons who have skin infections. • Do not share personal items (e.g., towels, washcloth, razor, clothing, or uniforms) with other persons. • Clean objects and surfaces that are shared with other persons, such as athletic equipment, before you use them. • IF I HAVE A MRSA OR STAPH SKIN INFECTION, HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SPREADING IT TO OTHERS? • Keep infections covered with clean, dry bandages. This is especially important for infections that continue to produce pus or to drain material. • Follow your health care provider's instructions on proper care of the wound. Pus from infected wounds can contain bacteria and spread the infection to others. • Wash hands (as described above) after touching infected skin and bandages. Put disposable wastes (e.g., dressings, bandages) in a separate trash bag and close the bag tightly before throwing it out with the regular garbage. • Advise your family and other close contacts to wash their hands frequently. Caregivers should use gloves, and wash hands afterwards, if they change your bandages or touch the infected wound or other objects that have been in contact with the wound or wound drainage. • Do not share personal items (e.g., towels, washcloth, razor, clothing, or uniforms) or other items that may have had contact with the infected wound or wound drainage. • Disinfect all non-clothing (and non-disposable) items that come in contact with the wound with a solution of one tablespoon household bleach mixed in one quart of water (must be prepared fresh each day) or a phenol-containing store-bought cleaning product. • Wash linens and clothes that become soiled with hot water and laundry detergent. Drying clothes in a hot dryer, rather than air-drying, also helps kill bacteria in clothes. • Wash utensils and dishes in the usual manner with soap and hot water or using a standard home dishwasher. • Avoid participating in contact sports or other skin-to-skin contact until your infection has healed. • If you have a MRSA infection, be sure to tell any health care providers who treat you that you have this infection. • WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I THINK I HAVE A STAPH SKIN INFECTION? • If you suspect that you might have a staph skin infection, consult your health care provider as soon as possible. Early treatment can help prevent the infection from getting worse. Be sure to follow closely all instructions from your healthcare provider and if prescribed antibiotics, take all of your pills, even when you start to feel better. Acknowledgements: adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

<urn:uuid:d7022ee8-aada-4774-ab8a-dfd293e4eb64>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.nsd.org/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=71616

2013-05-24T23:19:51Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Cervical Cancer Cancer occurs when cells inside the body change and begin growing out of control. A clump of these cells is called a tumor. A tumor can be benign (not harmful) or malignant (continuing to spread and destroy other parts of the body). Colon Cancer Colorectal cancer affects men and women of all racial and ethnic groups, and is most often found in people aged 50 years or older. In the United States, it is the third most common cancer for men and women.

<urn:uuid:e1901f76-49b2-498d-a458-a3a99ba09095>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/living/cancer-prevention.shtml

2013-05-24T23:40:40Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Via Medical Daily Scientists have created a yogurt drink that may one day detect a range of illnesses from stomach ulcers to cancer by changing the color of your fecal matter. The key ingredient in the E. Chromi probiotic drink is a color-coded designer bacteria made from E. coli and works by interacting with the food in your stomach that turns your stools into a variety of hues depending on your ailment and how sick you are. While researchers have so far only suggested that the drink could be used to track the progress of E. coli, they believe that one day it can diagnose conditions like colorectal cancer, worms, stomach ulcer and salmonella just by people looking into the toilet to check the color of their remains. British designers Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and James King developed the disease detecting drink by first genetically engineering bacteria to secrete a variety of colored pigments that are visible to the naked eye. The team had designed standardized sequences of DNA, known as BioBricks, and inserted them into E. coli bacteria. They explain that each BioBrick part contains genes selected from a range of existing organisms that allows the bacteria to produce colors like red, yellow, green, blue, brown or purple. Read more here via Medical Daily

<urn:uuid:c1edda7f-7a27-4c87-badd-529382081794>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.ofosho.net/2012/07/web-digging-scientists-develop-disease.html

2013-05-24T23:13:41Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Lieutenant Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, or more commonly known as “Fighting Jack” was a British soldier renowned for his outlandish battle techniques in World War II. Routinely called mad, Churchill would go into every battle with a Scottish broadsword slung across his back, bagpipes under his arms, a longbow, and a quiver with arrows. Churchill joined the army relatively early in his life. He joined the Commandos because it “sounded dangerous,” unsure of what his duties would be. Churchill was put in charge of raiding several German garrisons and became famous for his strategies. While in Poland, Churchill would give the signal to attack by shooting at the enemy commander with his longbow. This marks him as the only known British soldier to have killed an enemy with a longbow throughout the entire war. Churchill also became famous for his routine attack style while trying to capture different enemy territories. He would jump from his position while playing a tune on his bagpipes. As he did this he would throw a grenade and sprint into the midst of the fighting, attempting to fell as many men as possible with his broadsword!

<urn:uuid:f07d3a6a-9288-4fa2-b080-e1aecdcfbdc5>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.omg-facts.com/category/6/History/147

2013-05-24T23:12:27Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Orchids will not grow in garden soil. Instead, use Douglas fir bark, mixing 2 parts bark to 1 part perlite. Use fine-grade bark for paphiopedilums, and medium grade for the others. Buy bark where you buy your orchids — at greenhouses and well-stocked garden centers or through mail order orchid catalogs. For best growth and bloom, repot once a year since fir bark breaks down and orchids need a loose, fast-draining medium. Thorough watering once a week is enough except for large or very small plants. Household humidity that's comfortable to you (40-60 percent) is fine for orchids. (A humidifier will be good for you and your plants!) Or set the pots on pebble-filled trays and add water to the trays to increase humidity around your plants. Make sure the water doesn't reach the top of the pebbles. Feed orchids twice a month with a balanced organic fertilizer, and give a nitrogen supplement such as fish emulsion at each feeding. Pests and Diseases Orchids are remarkably problem-free. Use insecticidal soap to control the most common pests: mealybugs, scale, and spider mites. If a plant shows signs of disease, isolate it, remove affected parts with a sharp, flame-sterilized knife, and watch for recurrences.

<urn:uuid:fe793e37-f9f3-4796-a148-43b9639805dd>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/orchid-care

2013-05-24T23:42:13Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Dr Farrukh Saleem On December 8, 1941, the United States officially entered World War II – and from that day onwards everything within the US changed. All internal political actors ended their peacetime conflicts. All labour unions went all out to support their armed forces and even signed a ‘wartime no-strike pledge’. The FBI arrested thousands “suspected of loyalty to Germany, Japan or Italy”. Hundreds of US citizens who were “accused of supporting Germany” were publicly tried. Hundreds more were detained without trial. Under a presidential request, an all-volunteer United Services Organisation (USO), comprising Hollywood celebrities and well-known entertainers, was established. The USO’s goal was to provide “morale and recreation services to US uniformed military personnel”. On December 19, 1941, the Office of Censorship was established as “an emergency wartime agency”. The Office of Censorship issued the ‘Code of Wartime Practices’ that directed both the print and electronic media against printing or airing material that would be of “value to the enemy”. In Britain, Churchill formed a coalition government in order to secure cross-party support for British soldiers. In Japan, a ‘wartime regime’ was established that pulled together politicians, intellectuals and the press into one pool. In the west, wartime politics have often produced ‘war cabinets’ for an orderly ‘execution of the war effort’. PM Churchill formed a ‘war cabinet’ in which he held the portfolio of the minister of defence. The Australians had also formed a ‘war cabinet’ during WW II. In 2001, President Bush had also formed a ‘war cabinet’ to fight America’s ‘war on terror’. For the record, America held two elections during the six-year, one-day war (WWII). In the US presidential election of 1940, Franklin Roosevelt won but the defeated candidate became a ‘roving ambassador’ for Roosevelt. Over to India. The Sino-Indian War began on October 20, 1962. According to B Raman, of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), “Before the outbreak of the Sino-Indian war of 1962, there was considerable opposition criticism of the way Jawaharlal Nehru, the then prime minister, and VK Krishna Menon, the then defence minister, were handling our differences with China. But once the Chinese troops invaded India, all the opposition parties stopped their criticism of the government and supported it and our armed forces in a total mark of solidarity.” Pakistan is at war – at war to save its soul. In the western theatre, the Pakistan Army, under attack by violent non-state actors (VNSA), is fighting a 4G war. In the eastern theatre, the Indian Army has its ‘cold start doctrine’. Within Pakistan, our mainstream politicians, having lost out in four martial laws, seeking to tilt the civil-military balance in their favour, are now targeting their own army. The judicial organ of the state, in an overzealous undertaking to guard its new-found ‘independence’ is somehow ending up harming its own army’s chain of command. Pakistan is up against existential threats but, intriguingly, ‘Operation Target Pak Army’ is in full swing. No army on the face of the planet can fight a war on its own. The three things that an army needs to win are: chain of command, unit cohesion and support of the people. Remember; “war does not determine who is right – only who is left.” P.S. The inspiration for this article came from an op-ed piece published in the Sri Lanka Guardian. The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: [email protected] Source: The News

<urn:uuid:9229b505-23ea-47c8-9af0-934e0de4670b>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.pakistankakhudahafiz.com/2012/12/18/wartime-politics/

2013-05-24T23:15:05Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

STUDIES ON PROVERBS Here as in other places in the Bible, the original Hebrew text is not divided into chapters and verses, as in our English versions. However, some natural divisions are discernable, as, for example, when Solomon divides subjects by saying “My son…” (Prov. 2:1; 3:1; 5:1; 6:1, etc.). The same words, however, often divide subjects within chapters as well, (Prov. 1:8, 10, 15, etc.). In Chapter two “There are two leading propositions—I. Verses 1-9 with three antecedent conditions and two consequents: verse 1, ‘If;’ verse 3, ‘If;’ verse 4. ‘If;’ and verse 5 ‘Then.’ —II. Verses 10-22 with one antecedent and one consequent: verse 10 ‘When;’ verse 11 (then the consequence), ‘Discretion shall preserve thee,” [Faussett]. Proverbs 2:1 “My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee.” Throughout this book, Solomon gives evidence of great concern for the spiritual welfare and uprightness of his son. For this reason, Proverbs is a book well adapted for family devotions, and were its principles practiced more, juvenile delinquency would almost cease to exist. It has always been hard for young people to realize that parents have at least twenty years more knowledge and experience than they do, and to submit to their teaching. But this is the divine order. The Word of Truth is not only a preventative to sin, (Ps. 119:11), but it is also a producer of God-honoring fruit, (Matthew 13:23). Solomon appeals to his son to both receive his teachings and also hide them in his heart. Proverbs 2:2 “So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding.” “The ear is the avenue to the heart, unless men stop the avenue, as the Jews did (Zech. 7:11; Acts 7:51). ‘The hearing ear’ is God’s gift (20:11),” [Faussett]. Sin deafens human ears, for the heart is not desirous of hearing the truth about itself, which is why there must be a sovereign and gracious working of the Spirit in the natural man before he is capable of hearing and heeding the truth (John 8:43-47). Why then is man called upon to hear and obey if he is incapable of it by nature? Because he sinned away the ability, but not the responsibility to obey. Generally if a person hears with the natural ear long enough, God will bless him with a truly “hearing ear.” Proverbs 2:3 “Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding.” This refers to prayer for spiritual understanding, a prayer that is promised an answer in James 1:5-8 if prayed in faith. Hence, there is no excuse for any person remaining spiritually ignorant, for God is gracious to give knowledge and understanding where it is sought in simple faith. It is when one begins with a preconceived idea against the truth, or when one is unwilling to do the truth that it is hidden from him, (Hosea 6:3; John 7:17—“willeth to do” is more liberal). One’s moral purpose must be in harmony with God’s will before one can understand the truth. One of the great laws of rightly understanding the truth, is the law of submission to the Divine will. Proverbs 2:4 “If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures.” Spiritual understanding is not for the unconcerned or lazy person; it takes diligent searching and study, but it is worth all the cost of it (Prov. 8:10-11). This description of the value of wisdom reminds us of Matthew 13:44. Solomon’s command here is very similar to the Lord’s in John 5:39. “The ‘treasures’ are hidden by God, not in order to keep them back from us, but to stimulate our faith and patient perseverance in searching for them,” [Faussett]. Verses 1-4 describe the successful seeker of Divine wisdom. “The characteristics of the seeker of wisdom are a willingness and desire to know, accompanied by devotion, to which may be added diligence and persistency,” [Carroll]. Most people do not have any depth of spiritual wisdom because they treat the Bible as if it had nothing to offer them but myths and fables, entertaining stories, or, at best, some mere moral platitudes. The truth is, it is a veritable mine of treasures of wisdom and knowledge, without which no one can know or do God’s will. Proverbs 2:5 “Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.” Here is the first consequence of the three conditions set forth in the “ifs” of verses 1, 3, and 4. Notice the connection here: it is only “then,” i.e., after these things are fulfilled, that one receives this wisdom and knowledge. God is a God of order, and all that He does is orderly. For every effect, there must be and adequate cause. “Fear” here is the most common word so rendered, and means reverence. Many people have a quaking, trembling dread of God, who yet have no reverence for Him. This is the more noble word. Clearly, the proper attitude toward, and knowledge of, God comes only through the spiritual instruction of verses 1-4. This reminds us of Romans 10:17. Paul prayed for the Ephesians that they might have this “spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,” (Eph. 1:17). Proverbs 2:6 “For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.” This is certainly clear enough as to the origin of spiritual wisdom and knowledge. Man can, by nature, get an education in worldly and human matters, but heavenly, Divine things can be understood only by the aid of the Holy Spirit, (1 Cor. 2:7-13). Solomon had experienced this verse personally (1 Kings 3:9-14). God has given this heavenly wisdom orally to His prophets and apostles, not in some nebulous thought inspiration such as the modernist thinks to find in every poet and philosopher. God spoke to Moses and the other inspired writers of the Bible, and it is from their writings that we too may have this heavenly wisdom, but in no other way, for God’s revelation of Himself and His will for us has long been closed. He who rejects this wisdom will be eternally unwise. Proverbs 2:7 “He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.” This wisdom is laid up, ready to be found upon our diligent searching for it. Note for whom this is laid up: “the righteous.” This shows that God works for our good antecedent to our earliest desires for knowledge. Where may this sound wisdom be found today? In the Lord’s churches, (Eph. 3:10-11), which are the “pillars and grounds (supports) of the truth,” (1 Tim. 3:15). “Buckler” means shield, and is more commonly rendered, as in Genesis 15:1; Psalm 84:11; Proverbs 30:5, etc. It is certain that not only is there wisdom laid up for those who are upright, but also there is safety. “If we depend upon God, and seek to him for wisdom, he will uphold us in our integrity, will enable us to keep the paths of judgment; for he preserves the way of his saints,” [M. Henry]. Proverbs 2:8 “He keepth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints.” This, as so many other verses, traces the safekeeping and security of the saints to God Himself, not to their own wisdom, works or will, (Deut. 33:27; Ps. 121; Isa. 26:3-4; John 10:28-30; Jude 24-25). “Judgment” is often used, not for an abstract examination of the right and wrong of something, but for the right exercise of truth and righteousness, as in Genesis 18:19 and 25 (its first appearance); it is used in Exodus 21:1 for commandments to do right. This same word appears twice in Psalm 105:5-8 where God promises to keep his covenant to a thousand generations (30,000 years, if taken literally), and to keep the covenant is to also keep the saints who are in that covenant. Proverbs 2:9 “Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.” Here is the second consequence to the “ifs” that precede. All three of there terms appear in the Hebrew text of 1:3, “righteousness” here being rendered “justice.” When God’s “sound wisdom” is operative in the saint, it will not only keep him safe, but will also give him understanding of these right principles, both as regards God and man. “That only is sound wisdom (v. 7) which leads us into ‘every good path,’” [Faussett]. If one is led in the direction of evil, then it is clear that it is not God’s Spirit that is leading, (1 John 4:1). God’s Spirit and God’s Word are harmonious in the direction that they lead. Proverbs 2:10 “When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul.” One may have knowledge in the head when there is no wisdom in the heart, for wisdom is the right application of knowledge: knowledge is theoretical, but wisdom is practical. Too many people do not have wisdom because they only give superficial glances at Divine truth, so that it never gains an entrance into their hearts, and so never enlightens them (Ps. 119:130). Truth must be a pleasant and desirable thing to us before we will ever receive it into our hearts. To be practical, wisdom must be in the heart, for that is the motive center of a person (Prov. 4:23), and if it is not moved by truth, the person will not practice the truth. Proverbs 2:11 “Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee.” Here is the consequence of which verse 10 is the antecedent. “When wisdom has entire possession of thee, it will keep thee,” [M. Henry]. Most sins result from the neglect of practicing the truth, which is always an antidote to sin, (Ps. 119:9-11). “Discretion” means thoughtfulness, and is suggestive of meditation on the truth until it is understood and becomes wisdom. God keeps His people, (Deut. 32:10; Isa. 27:3), but He does so through teaching them the truth, and moving them to believe the truth, (1 Pet. 1:3-5). We can have this security only if we submit ourselves to the truth. Proverbs 2:12 “To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things.” The first “man” is italicized, showing that it is not in the original Hebrew, and so something must be supplied: it could be “evil man” (Matthew 6:13), or “evil way” (Greek version—LXX—so renders it) or “evil man” as the English. All of these are dangers to the saint, but knowledge of Divine truth will deliver us from all of these. In the LXX version “speaketh froward things” is rendered “speaketh nothing faithfully.” If we render the first part “the evil one,” then this latter part is an apt description of Satan’s deceitfulness, (John 8:44). Clearly this teaches that the Word of God is the sword that will parry every thrust that the devil makes. Jesus so used the Word in Matthew 4:1-11. Proverbs 2:13 “Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness.” Again, this is remarkably similar to the description of the fall of the anointed cherb (Lucifer, Isa. 14:12-14, Satan), who was perfect in his creation and filled with the brightness, (Ezek. 28:15, 17), until he sinned and led a third of the other angels with him into eternal darkness, (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). However, this is not restricted to the devil, if it applies to him, for this also describes the unsaved man as well, (John 3:19-20; Rom. 13:12; Eph. 5:11-12). Rejection of the truth always leads to delusion and often to damnation, (2 Thess. 2:10-12). “It is a just judgment of God to give up to their own delusion them that have pleasure in unrighteousness,” [Faussett]. No one hears the truth and remains neutral. Proverbs 2:14 “Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked.” This is one of the characteristics of the unsaved, (Rom. 1:32). A person is known by his practice, not by his profession, and some, who have not the courage to do the evil that they desire, only delight in the evil that others do, so that we may also say that a person is known by his associates. The “rejoicing” and “delighting” are conditions of the heart, which are the true gauge of a person rather than his outward actions, (Prov. 23:7; Matthew 15:18-19). One’s thoughts can be hidden from man, but God knows the heart and judges accordingly, (Jer. 17:9-10; Rev. 2:23). Proverbs 2:15 “Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths.” When once one leaves the paths of uprightness, he enters crooked and winding paths which can lead only downward. “Ways” and “paths” both suggest the daily walk of the person, so that this does not deal with momentary lapses from the truth by godly people, but rather has to do with regular life of the ungodly, who may have brief times of trying to live godly, yet who will ultimately turn back to their former ways because they were never really born again. (2 Pet. 2:20-22). No amount of human works can ever change a man’s sinful nature. God alone can do this. Proverbs 2:16 “To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words.” This deliverance, like that in verse 12, is connected to the discretion and understanding of verse 11. Perhaps because of the almost universal tendency to be tempted to commit this sin, fornication is warned about as much as almost any other sin with the possible exception of unbelief. “The adulteress is here called the strange woman, to be shunned by every Israelite as if she were a heathen, and a stranger to that sacred commonwealth. She is false to him whom she entices,” [M. Henry]. Every person being subject to pride, flattery is most easy to believe because it makes us feel good about ourselves. “Lust and idolatry were the spiritual adultery into which they entrapped the once wise king. How striking that he should utter beforehand a warning which he afterwards himself disregarded! (Neh. 13:26),” [Faussett]. Proverbs 2:17 “Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.” This refers to her forsaking of her husband, whom God has ordained as the head of the home, (Eph. 5:22-25), and of her unfaithfulness to the marriage vows made before the Lord. As here the unfaithful wife is rebuked, so in Malachi 3:14-16 the unfaithful husband is. Marriage vows are made before God who instituted marriage in the beginning, and who is the unseen party in every marriage, and the unseen head of every family, (1 Cor. 12:3). To believe the flattery of an unfaithful man or woman is to be deceived. “What faithfulness to him can the youth look for on the part of the female tempter who has been unfaithful to her natural friend and true lover?” [Faussett]. Proverbs 2:18 “For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.” This is very similar to Proverbs 7:6-27. Good reason to warn people about this strange woman, if her house is the door to death. Her house, as described in Proverbs 7:16-18, seems to promise so much, but its real products—death and damnation—are not advertised. How wilily Satan works today by picturing sin in such beautiful and alluring ways, when its end is always eternal death, (Rom. 6:23a; Rev. 20:14.) “Death” has to do with the act of dying, while “the dead” refers to the departed, those who have experienced death. Thus, the adulteress’ house is where the death occurs, but it is the doorway to the hereafter from whence none return to this life. Proverbs 2:19 “None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.” For all her promises, this pathway is a one-way street to death and when one begins this slippery downward, path, there is no stopping apart from Divine grace intervening. Thus it is written of sinners generally that “Their foot shall slide in due time,” (Deut. 32:35), and this sin is specifically said to be against one’s own body, (1 Cor. 6:18), for it tends to physical death, having no justification nor excuse in the eyes of the offended husband, (Prov. 6:30-35). Many murders are committed because of “love” triangles. Proverbs 2:20 “That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.” Another reason to seek for discretion and understanding, (v. 11), that one may keep to right paths. “As verse 12 etc., and verse 16 etc., express the negative good of ‘discretion,’ so this 20th verse the positive good,” [Faussett]. There are only two pathways through the present life: (1) The one that God dictates in His Word, and (2) Satan’s erratic and evil way which leads to perdition. One is extremely narrow, and so, unpopular and not crowded; the other is extremely broad, popular and peopled by many, (Matthew 7:13-14). It takes much self-denial to walk in the narrow way, but it is, ultimately, the only way of all good—eternal good. Proverbs 2:21 “For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.” (Jer. 6:16). The ungodly forsake the way of the upright, (v. 13), not realizing that this is the path that leads to the new earth in which the meek are to eternally dwell, (Ps. 37:9-11; Matthew 5:5). This will be a time, place and condition “wherein dwelleth (is at home) righteousness,” (2 Pet. 3:13). The materialist, the opportunist, the self-seeker, etc., will not have the faith to wait for this, but in seeking present pleasures and possessions, will miss out on true good. Proverbs 2:22 “But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.” “There is a great and encouraging prophecy given in 2:21-22. It is the final triumph of the righteous over the wicked. The righteous who possess the divine wisdom here described may walk in the ways of good men and dwell safely in the land, but the wicked are doomed to defeat and final banishment,” [B. H. Carroll]. The imagery is taken from trees being cut down or plucked up, as in Matthew 3:10 and 15:13. Whatsoever is not rooted in truth is of short duration and destined for the eternal burning. © Copyright 2004-2012 Providence Baptist Ministries

<urn:uuid:5443c2fe-8233-48eb-835e-aceff6a19ec0>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.pbministries.org/Landmark_Baptist/Seminary/Bible_Study_Courses/Proverbs/DH_proverbs_chap02.htm

2013-05-24T23:20:33Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

People & Events 1813 - 1897 |Resource Bank Contents| It was not Harriet Jacob's nature to give up without a fight. Born into slavery, Harriet Jacobs would thwart repeated sexual advancements made by her master for years, then run away to the North. She would later publish an account of her anguished life in her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Harriet's childhood was a happy one. "[We] lived together in a comfortable home," she wrote in her autobiography, "and, though we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed that I was a piece of merchandise." She even found happiness after her mother's death, when she moved into the home of her mother's mistress -- a kind woman who nurtured the young Harriet, teaching her to read and sew, and seeing to her well-being. The happiness would not last, though. Upon the death of the benevolent mistress when Harriet was 12 years old, ownership of Harriet was transferred to the mistress' niece. But since the niece was only three years old, Harriet's actual master was the father, a Dr. James Norcom. This man would be the cause of a great deal of misery. Around the time Harriet turned 15, Norcom began his relentless efforts to bend the slave girl's will. At first he whispered "foul words" in her ear. As time went on his tactics became more overt. Still Harriet refused to give in. To get Harriet away from his wife, who was suspicious of her husband's intentions, he built a cottage for the girl slave four miles from town. Harriet had previously asked Norcom for permission to marry a free black man. Norcom had violently refused. Now Harriet had a plan to disrupt his fight for sexual conquest: She had become friends with a caring white man -- an unmarried lawyer. She would become sexually involved with this man, become pregnant, and an infuriated Norcom would sell her and her child. A child was conceived. Harriet felt "it was something to triumph over my tyrant in that small way." Nevertheless, Norcom had no intention to sell her. Harriet gave birth. Still Norcom pursued Harriet. The harassment continued even after she bore the lawyer another child. Finally, after she learned that Norcom was preparing to put her children to work as plantation slaves, she had had enough. In June of 1835, after seven years of mistreatment, Harriet escaped. For a short time she stayed with various neighbors, both black and white. Then she moved into a tiny crawlspace above a porch built by her grandmother and uncle. The space was nine feet long and seven feet wide. Its sloping ceiling, only three feet high at one end, didn't allow her to turn while laying down without hitting her shoulder. Rats and mice crawled over her; there was no light and no ventilation. But her children had been bought by the lawyer and were now living in the same house. Harriet could even see them while they played outside through a peephole she had drilled. She lived in the crawlspace for seven years, coming out only for brief periods at night for exercise. In 1842, Harriet made her escape to freedom. She sailed to Philadelphia, and after a short stay, travelled to New York City by train. There she was reunited with her daughter, who had in the meantime been sent by her father. Harriet would later move to Rochester, New York, to be close to her brother, also a fugitive slave. There she became involved with the abolitionists associated with Frederick Douglass' paper, the North Star. In the following years, she would move back to New York, flee to Massachusetts to avoid Dr. Norcom, and finally become legally free after a friend arranged her purchase. Friends later convinced her to write an account of her life as a slave. The book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, was one of the first open discussions about the sexual harassment and abuse endured by slave women -- a topic that even made many abolitionists uncomfortable. Harriet was actively involved with the abolition movement before the launch of the Civil War. During the war she used her celebrity to raise money for black refugees. After the war she worked to improve the conditions of the recently-freed slaves. Runaway notice for Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Letter from Harriet Jacobs to Ednah Dow Cheney "A Slave Is Tortured" Margaret Washington on Harriet Jacobs Part 4: Narrative | Resource Bank Contents | Teacher's Guide Africans in America: Home | Resource Bank Index | Search | Shop WGBH | PBS Online | ©

<urn:uuid:6cca1a9c-ee49-48b1-a8a8-b45dc532b944>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2923.html

2013-05-24T23:14:57Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

In 1805 and 1806, the North West Company constructed the first two permanent fur trade posts west of the Rocky Mountains. The second, Fort St. James, became the centre of the northern fur trade district, known as New Caledonia. Although today it is restored to a single year in time, 1896, the story you will hear spans about one hundred and forty six years, starting with the arrival of the fur traders and ending in 1952, when the Hudson‘s Bay Company closed shop on the original site. The years of early contacts and the decades of trade between Carrier and the Euro-Canadian newcomers were an era of important changes and adjustments. As you wander among the historic buildings, you will discover that each of them is a cultural treasure. Here you will meet and talk to site interpretive staff in period costume. You will see that Fort St James is a place of many stories, and that the array of events and experiences have had different meanings and implications for different people.

<urn:uuid:7ed15afa-357d-4e98-b147-f7a0143979de>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/bc/stjames/natcul.aspx

2013-05-24T23:35:15Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Researchers: Search Engines Supplanting Our Memory Ubiquitous availability of the Internet may be causing a shift in how much information we retain in our memories, researchers claim. Because search engines such as Google and Bing are so readily at hand, through desktop computers and mobile phones, we feel less need to remember details that can be easily looked up, note researchers from Columbia University, the University of Wisconsin, and Harvard University. They have published their study, entitled "Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips," in this week's edition of the journal Science. "People worry about what our relationship to technology is doing to our cognition," said Betty Sparrow, a researcher at Columbia University who led the research. "They worry about looking up everything online and not remembering it all." To probe the effects of this behavior, the researchers carried out a battery of tests with undergraduate students that closely observed what information they committed to memory and what information they didn't bother remembering, presuming that they could look it up on a computer should they need to refer to it later. In one test, 28 participants were asked to read and retype items of memorable trivia, such as "Greenland is the world's largest island by area." Some of the participants were told the information that they typed in would be erased and others were told it would be saved on a computer. Then, they were quizzed on the material they retyped. Those that believed their material would be erased remembered more of the information than those who had assumed the material would be saved. "Thus it appears that believing that one won't have access to the information in the future enhances memory for the information itself," the paper stated. In other words, if someone knows that information may be found on the Internet, he or she may be less likely to commit that information to memory. Another experiment was conduct to determine if people prefer to memorize the locations of where they could find data in favor of remembering the data itself. Here, 32 participants were presented with a number of statements, along with the names of folders in which these bits of information would be saved. Then, they were asked to recall as much of the information as possible and were then quizzed on which folder each piece of information was in. Overall, participants were better able to recall which folder each bit of information was stored in than the information itself. Such results shouldn't alarm people, Sparrow cautioned. "I don't think that the parts of our brain that can remember information are atrophied," she said. While the Internet is fairly new, the act of relying on external resources for memory is not new for humans. People have long relied on friends, co-workers and family to keep track of information that they themselves have forgotten. The researchers call this phenomena "transactive memory." "We've always done this sort of thing, allowed certain types of information to be stored with other people," Sparrow said. "Computers and access to online information work in similar ways." Sparrow may next investigate if people memorize different kinds of things now that search engines are capturing all the details of what they used to memorize. Freed from the burden of remembering specifics, people could possibly better understand the larger meaning of the material they learn. "Will people who don't focus so much on remembering who, what and where be better at answering conceptual type of questions?" she said.

<urn:uuid:820888a5-f064-4a4f-8ab6-a5e3567c8df8>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.pcworld.com/article/235767/article.html

2013-05-24T23:33:46Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Please sign up, comment on articles and bring your friends! The best way to predict the future is to create it. The analysis says that estuary barrages and tidal streams could provide more than 20% of the nation's demand for electricity. Despite high costs, experts say tidal power is more reliable than wind. The predictable nature of tides makes them an ideal renewable energy source, the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A reports. But finding effective ways of utilising their latent power have proved elusive. Essentially, engineers try to tap tides in two ways: one involves building barrages across tidal estuaries that use the ebb and flow of the waters to turn turbines - a major project of this type had been proposed for the River Severn. The other method involves planting turbines underwater in fast flowing tidal streams in areas such as in coastal waters around Cornwall and Scotland. In the Royal Society report, researchers say they are "extremely optimistic" that both types of technology can be realised and relatively soon.

<urn:uuid:fdff240a-5d1a-4551-9aca-743992d95af1>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.planettechnews.com/science/item2720

2013-05-24T23:41:43Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

Church of the Transfiguration, Mount Tabor On the summit of Mount Tabor the road to the right leads to the area occupied by the Franciscans, enters a walled courtyard and continues between the ruins of an older church on the left and the monastery garden on the right (memorial to the visit of Pope Paul VI in 1964, plaque commemorating the architect Antonio Barluzzi) to the Church of the Transfiguration (or Tabor Church).Built of light-colored limestone, it harks back to the style of church building which developed in Syria in the fourth-sixth centuries. This architecture was no longer concerned only with the decoration and furnishing of the interior but for the first time sought to give the exterior a monumental stamp. This Syrian tradition (as found particularly at Qalb Lozeh near Aleppo) is reflected, for example, in the facade with its two projecting towers, between which a round-headed arch surmounted by a pediment frames the entrance to the church, and in the volute-like framing of the windows. In the interior - again on the Syrian model - the nave is separated from the aisles by wide- spanned arches. The roof beams are born on short columns in the clerestory.The church contains three grottoes which were described by Jonas Korte in 1751 as "three chapels, with a small altar; they are called tabernacles, and they are said to represent the three huts which Peter desired to build, one for his Master, the other two for Moses and Elias". The Grotto of Christ is in the eastern part of the church. Steps lead down to a lower level with a sanctuary enclosed by walls belonging to a Crusader church and roofed with a modern barrel vault. In the vaulting of the apse in the upper part of the church is a mosaic on a gold ground representing the Transfiguration. There are two other chapels in the towers on the west front: in the south tower the Chapel of St Elias, in the north tower the Chapel of Moses, with a mosaic pavement incorporating crosses in the design. This means that the mosaic must date from before 422, when the Emperor Theodosius II prohibited the representation of crosses in mosaic pavements so that this sacred symbol should not be trodden underfoot.

<urn:uuid:b6480e59-637c-4dd2-847f-e6ad08ae95b5>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.planetware.com/mount-tabor/church-of-the-transfiguration-isr-nr-mtct.htm

2013-05-24T23:12:59Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en

HI 3116 - Revolutionary America, 1763-1815 Offered: Spring of odd years. US Group. The American Revolution is one of the most important events in modern history. Not only did it lead to the creation of a new republic among the English-speaking inhabitants of North America, but it also played a key role in inaugurating the revolutionary epoch that engulfed much of Europe and Latin America during the next 75 years. Explores the Revolution chiefly as an American event, considering its origins, the extent to which it altered American society and politics and the ways in which the forces driving the Revolution influenced the history of the United States during its early years as a nation. Because the American Revolution was in the first instance a political event, spends a good deal of time on questions of political ideology and constitutional thought. Also considers the social and economic setting within which the Revolution occurred and the way in which it affected those groups: women, slaves, native Americans, who were excluded from the formal exercise of political power. Spring of odd years. *All course information is from the 2013-2014 Catalog.

<urn:uuid:fcfcb952-4cf2-448e-a3ad-46c2be4948f4>

CC-MAIN-2013-20

http://www.plymouth.edu/department/history-philosophy/courses/?course_num=HI3116

2013-05-24T23:41:51Z

s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705284037/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115444-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz

en