The Four Freedoms Medals are presented each year to men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to those principles which President Roosevelt proclaimed in his historic speech to Congress on January 6, 1941, as essential to democracy: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear.On Saturday, May 29, HM The Queen and TRH The Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima will attend the awards ceremony at the Nieuwe Kerk, Middelburg, in the province of Zeeland. FDR's ancestors were from the province. In odd-numbered years the awards are presented in Hyde Park, New York.
Donderdag 27 mei krijgen we hoog bezoek in de Ruilwinkel.
Kroonprins Willem Alexander komt 's morgens naar de ruilwinkel voor een werkbezoek. Het zal een besloten bezoek zijn.
Burgemeester van der Zaag en Gedeputeerde van Waveren zullen ook aanwezig zijn bij dit voor de ruilwinkel toch heel bijzondere moment.
And from the “I didn’t see that coming” files: Former Ward Four school commissioner Jane O’meara Sanders is selling Colodny’s and moving Burlington College a click north to the Catholic Diocese at 351 North Ave. I wonder if she gets to keep the link from the chain of Saint Peter that Pope Pius IX gave to Bishop De Goesbriand.
... the participants are weavingin and out in almost perfect harmony. The effect is positively hypnotic.
I am given to understand that what makes this video by Mark Wagenbuur special is that the main form of transportation in it is the humble bicycle. As a result the video has gone viral among treehuggers
At its core, this is not just a travesty for academic integrity and students in Texas, but it's also a reminder of what's gone horribly wrong with the twisted right-wing worldview. These state officials have decided they simply don't care for reality, so they've replaced it with a version of events that makes them feel better. The result is an American history in which every era has been distorted to satisfy the far-right ego.
The world's oldest sex toy was more than just a feel-good aid. The 30,000-year-old siltstone phallus doubled as a tool to ignite fires.Photo: University of Tübingen
The racy relic was found in a cave in Germany and is being studied at the University of Tubingen there, according to Independent Online.
The find was a rare one since examples of masculinity from that period are unusual to stumble upon, although female-inspired works of art are rather common.
The prehistoric phallus, which has marks where it was obviously used for striking against flints, also features carved rings around one polished end. Researchers say it's easy to see what it was used for.
A team of scientists from the University of Montreal and Harvard University have discovered that exposure to organophosphate pesticides is associated with increased risk of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the study focused on 1,139 children from the general U.S. population and measured pesticide breakdown product levels in their urine. The authors conclude that exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides, at levels common among U.S. children, may contribute to a diagnosis of ADHD.
“Previous studies have shown that exposure to some organophosphate compounds cause hyperactivity and cognitive deficits in animals,” says lead author Maryse F. Bouchard, a professor at the University of Montreal Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and scientist at the Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center. “Our study found that exposure to organophosphates in developing children might have effects on neural systems and could contribute to ADHD behaviors, such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.” Marc Weisskopf, PhD, ScD, another study author told Reuters, “What this paper specifically highlights is that this may be true even at low concentrations.”... MORE
On 10 May 1940 the Germans invaded the Netherlands and Belgium on their way to France. As they had tried more or less the same thing in the First World War the French strategy was to meet them halfway, moving into Belgium and the Southern Netherlands to stop them. As you know this wasn’t quite succesful, but some French units (including French Moroccan units) managed to get as far as Breda before retreating westwards into Zeeland. This was the reason why the Dutch surrender on the fifteenth did not include Zeeland, as that was occupied by French troops. The slow withdrawal of the French meant that on the 17th Middelburg was near the frontline, with most inhabitants fortunately evacuated already as a precaution. That day a combination of aerial and artillery bombardment by the Germans broke the last resistance in Zeeland, with the last French soldiers already having disappeared into Belgium.
Twentytwo people died in the bombardment, which could have been much higher had there been no evacuation. The material devastation however was enormous, with most of the historical centre — some parts dating back to around 800 CE — destroyed. Some 253 houses and 320 shops and other business buildings were destroyed, as well as another 18 or so public buildings, including the old abbey and the city hall. The evacuation may have saved lifes, but it also meant there were few people other than the voluntary fire fighters available to extinguish the many small fires that the bombardment started; much of the damage therefore was done by fire rather than explosion. That it was such nice, warm, dry spring weather didn’t help either…
Unlike Rotterdam the bombardment was not intended as a terror bombardment, but a tactical decision to break the remaining resistance in Zeeland. The Germans supposed that Middelburg was were the French units had their headquarters and allegedly also believe there were artillery and anti-aircraft guns in place in the city, which was not the case. These reasons for the bombardment do not excuse the crime of course, but do make the bombardment more understandable than that of Rotterdam.
Let's remember that so many of the proposed financial aid plans for countries like Thailand and Greece are about rescuing investors who lost their bets. They certainly aren't about helping the people who actually live there. Some line is trotted out about their governments being irresponsible and corrupt, and that's probably true (true for the increasingly plutocratic USA and Europe), but why punish the people, who had to live under those governments, with austerity measures in the middle of the worst global depression since the 1930s?[...]
I raise my old socialist question again, whose economy is it?
"I've said it before to my friends here (and I'll say it again): Burlington is a small town pushing hard to be a city. And if you read all the accolades Burlington has received in the PR "Best of..." categories, you'd think we were the most hospitable, liveable place in North America! We're not! As I read the whining comments on here, hardness of heart comes to mind. You've lost that spirit of generosity that has made Vermont great!
"When I lived in London ten years ago, I might have been irritated by the constant panhandlers, but recognised that this is part of life in a big city. Actually, I stopped frequently outside my neighbourhood tube station and talked with the people who sat there ("Spare some change, sir?") and heard their stories. Turns out the majority were human! Fancy that! And several friends I made had once been among the working class, laid off unemployed (one pay-check away from poverty), and were struggling to find food for their own families. (With the new ConDem government it will get worse!)
"The memo accompanying this resolution was written by police chief Schirling. He heads up that same force that sends deputy officers as department liaisons to NPA meetings, encouraging citizens to act as block wardens and report on citizens' "undesirable" activities in neighbourhoods. So much for friendly, community policing.
"I'm actually more concerned about the despicable NIMBY resolution against Phoenix House. "The Other America" is alive right in our own backyard.
The nine-year-old boy who survived Wednesday's air crash in Tripoli is to be flown back to the Netherlands on Saturday, Ed Kronenburg, who is in charge of the Dutch crash team in Libya said on Friday.The boy's relatives are en route to Tripoli, according to (Dutch) Volkskrant.
[...]
In the meantime, the Libyan authorities have taken steps to improve security around the boy to ensure his privacy.
The Telegraaf newspaper caused disbelief on Friday morning by publishing a short phone conversation made with the boy via a doctor's mobile phone. Deputy prime minister André Rouvoet called the paper 'shameless'.
In a statement, the newspaper stressed the reporter had said nothing about the accident or the fact the boy's parents were killed.
I like thinking about how words are used and how they travel virally through groups of people. Words like "Doucheoisie," and prefixes, too, like "Celebu-." And now, thanks to a few blog posts about the opening of Mast bookshop on Avenue A, I'm thinking about the word "curated" and what it means these days.Photo: source
[...]
The Times actually did a whole story about this word in 2009. They wrote that curate:
- "has become a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded, who seem to paste it onto any activity that involves culling and selecting."
- "is code for 'I have a discerning eye and great taste.'"
- is "an innocent form of self-inflation."
- "can be good for one’s image and business."
"Pretentious?" asked the Times, "Maybe. But it’s hardly unusual for members of less pedigreed professions to adopt the vernacular of more prestigious ones."
So the use of "curate" is aspirational, which does put it in the same league as "artisanal." And that makes some people nervous because it signals to consumers something very specific. It signals "exclusivity" and is meant to attract people who yearn to be in the club. It may also repel people who find the use of such words pretentious and exclusionary.
In addition, museum curators really aren't happy about it.
A proposed ordinance being reviewed by Burlington City Councilors could ban people from sitting on the sidewalks of five key downtown streets that feed onto the Church Street Marketplace.Ain't this in a kick in the pants! Indeed, the public spaces in Burlington have now become white bread fucking elitist and the city council has turned itself into a class(ism) act!
The ban would also extend to sandwich board signs or other types of advertising, though it would allow any existing licensed "encumbrances" to continue until their license expires.
The Burlington City Council Monday night agreed to send the proposed ordinance to its Ordinance Committee for review. The three-member committee is chaired by Councilor Joan Shannon (D-Ward 5), and includes Councilors Sharon Bushor (I-Ward 1) and Bram Kranichfeld (D-Ward 2).
On Monday, too, the council voted 10-4 to oppose the issuance of an Act 250 permit to Phoenix House to operate a 20-bed transitional house on Elmwood Avenue, just a half block from the top of Church Street. The opposition to the proposal was fueled, in part, by downtown business concerns that it would add more "undesirable people" onto the Marketplace and detract shoppers from coming to the pedestrian mall.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
... nowhere does Garcia-Navarro grapple with the terrible inhumanity of a regime that has kept other people stateless for 60 years, depriving them not just of civil but human rights. A military occupation that arbitrarily defines the legitimate owners of a land as "infiltrators" is unspeakable. Why is "our" U.S. government paying for the illegal expulsions?
To do Garcia-Navarro justice, the on-air report gives details curiously absent from the transcript, but holes nevertheless remain. NPR’s transcript changes many terms and the order of the actual Garcia-Navarro report that aired this morning.
I've included choice bits of the actual broadcast that were not included in the online transcript of the story below. Why were they removed? They smooth over the ugly facts of the original broadcast. I guess we should also ask Lourdes Garcia-Navarro about the alterations.
"This is our nation's drug enforcement in a nutshell. We started out by banning the things. And people kept taking them. So we made the punishments more draconian. But people kept selling them. So we pushed the markets deep into black market territory, and got the predictable violence . . . and then we upped our game, turning drug squads into quasi-paramilitary raiders. Somewhere along the way, we got so focused on enforcing the law that we lost sight of the purpose of the law, which is to make life in America better."
"It’s hard to adjust to the idea that cities — New York in particular,and Times Square most of all — are now places where unseen watchers canmonitor your every move." - City Critic, New York Times
And... who knew? The Burlington school board's Policy and Advocacy committee "is currently writing the district’s policy on the use of surveillance cameras in schools."(I've not seen any local media coverage about this.) Your tax dollars at work indeed, treating children as criminals. But hell, it's business-as-usual in our schools. The little buggers are groomed anyway, to be passive and unquestioning automatons, to accept being monitored by the surveillance cameras of businesses on Church Street (the major pedestrian shopping district in Burlington).
Recommended video (Quicktime): Its Eyes, filmed on location in New York's Chelsea Market and Harlem - treating "surveillance cameras as a biological organism slowly taking control of our urban space."Camera surveillance systems also inevitably raise issues of racial profiling and voyeurism. Everyone has heard of the camera operators who zoom in upon women's breasts or police officers who used infrared video surveillance equipment to watch a couple engaged in romantic activity.
The bottom line is: Are cameras worth the cost in terms of money and civil liberties? Cities and states are still wasting limited security budget dollars on camera surveillance systems. In the last five years, the US Department of Homeland Security had handed out about $300 million in grants for camera surveillance systems. These funds could have gone toward hiring more experienced police officers, improving equipment for first-responders so that they can be ready to help in cases of emergency or other such security needs.
And consider the civil liberty costs of video surveillance systems. Video surveillance technology will only grow more sophisticated. There will come a day when the cameras will be routinely linked with other technologies in attempt to instantly identify you and me via face recognition, RFIDs, or other technologies. Do we want a society where an innocent individual can't walk down the street without being considered a potential criminal? Do we want a society where people are comfortable with constant surveillance?
Lord God, who in your compassion granted to the Lady Julian many revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek you above all things, for in giving us yourself you give us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.Today is the Feast Day of Julian of Norwich, one of my most favourite spiritual writers and saints. She celebrated God and Nature. If you don't know much about her, why don't you read a bit.
Her book is a tender meditation on God's eternal and all-embracing love, as expressed to us in the Passion of Christ.And you can read more about her here!
She describes seeing God holding a tiny thing in his hand, like a small brown nut, which seemed so fragile and insignificant that she wondered why it did not crumble before her eyes. She understood that the thing was the entire created universe, which is as nothing compared to its Creator, and she was told, "God made it, God loves it, God keeps it."
She was concerned that sometimes when we are faced wiith a difficult moral decision, it seems that no matter which way we decide, we will have acted from motives that are less then completely pure, so that neither decision is defensible. She finally wrote: "It is enough to be sure of the deed. Our courteous Lord will deign to redeem the motive."
A matter that greatly troubled her was the fate of those who through no fault of their own had never heard the Gospel. She never received a direct answer to her questions about them, except to be told that whatever God does is done in Love, and therefore "that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
I think the idea of a bomb attack crossed everybody's mind in the flash of a second at that moment, and I didn't even hear that "bom, bom". It's also neglected that the one part of the crowd got frightened by the panic of the other part of the crowd. My initial fear was getting trampled and trapped in this "stampede" as well as what was going to happen next...It's not as if people were in a moving crowd initally. They were still, silent, in an almost meditative state on what was happening in front of the monument. Just look at the Remembrance ceremony at about 01:13:32 on this (Silverlight) video.
Terrifying. - a witness to the Remembrance Day disruption
Researchers have found that silver nanoparticles can migrate out of fabrics that have been treated with the particles for its antibacterial properties when it is exposed to simulated perspiration, raising concerns about human exposure to nanosilver through skin absorption. This is the first study to use artificial sweat to mimic the conditions of human skin, however it is not clear if the silver materials in sweat would be absorbed through human skin.
Silver has long been used as an antiseptic to reduce bacterial growth on skin, however recent advances in nanoscience (the science and manipulation of chemical and biological materials with dimensions in the range from 1-100 nanometers) led to the development of silver nanoparticles. Due to their small size, these nanoparticles are able to invade bacteria and other microorganisms and kill them, and silver nanoparticles (or nanosilver) are now widely impregnated into a wide range of consumer products, including textiles such as socks, sportswear, underwear and bedding, vacuums, washing machines, toys, sunscreens, and a host of others.[...]
... MORE
The researchers conclude that as nanotechnology becomes increasingly prevalent in consumer products, the potential for exposure to nanoparticles increases. Yet, little is known about how these silver materials may interact with people’s bodies. There is concern that the the tiny particles may be more toxic than other, larger-sized and more traditional types of silver compounds, as the smaller particles could be more easily absorbed and distributed throughout the body.
At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."I have always loved the Gospel reading for the Fifth Sunday of Easter. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Just think what it would mean if the Church, Christians, faithful Christians really took those words to heart! As the priest said in Sunday's homily, if we had love for one another, we might not have had the Inquisition; might not have had the Crusades; might not have had a Hitler. If find if I am hurt by people close to me, irritated by the foibles and idiosyncrasies of my friends or family - I love them but don't particularly like them at a given moment - I remember Christ's words and act as if I loved them, I realise how silly and selfish I have been!
