Training Money

From Disability Scoop:
"Millions Headed To States For Special Ed Training"

The U.S. Department of Education is shelling out millions in funding to help recruit and train teachers and administrators serving children with disabilities. The federal agency said this week that it’s sending $7 million to seven states to enhance preparation and professional development focused on early intervention, special education and transition services. Grants ranging from about $530,000 to nearly $1.5 million are headed to state education departments in Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina and Oregon.  The funding will help support a variety of projects, the Education Department said, including recruiting and retaining special education teachers and training on ways to help students with disabilities access the general education curriculum. In order to qualify for the funding, federal officials said that states must partner with a college or university, at least one school district and a parent training or resource center in order to implement their professional development program. “It is critical that we support our nation’s educators and elevate the teaching profession by supporting strong teacher and principal preparation and professional development,” U.S. Secretary of Education John King said in announcing the funds. “These awards help educators learn practices that will improve outcomes for all children, including children with disabilities.”

^ This sounds good although it probably should have been given sooner since school is about to start again. ^


https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2016/08/19/millions-special-ed-training/22648/

Opinion

Soldiers' Crimes

From the BBC:
"Bloody Sunday: Police investigators finish interviewing former soldiers"

The police have finished interviewing former soldiers as part of their investigation into Bloody Sunday. Thirteen people were shot dead in Londonderry on 30 January 1972, and a 14th victim died later, after troops opened fire on a civil rights march. A report is now being compiled, which will be sent to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS).  The MLA and veteran civil rights leader Eamonn McCann said it was a significant development. "The news that all the former British soldiers associated with Bloody Sunday have now been interviewed under caution marks another milestone on the long march towards the truth," he said. "The interviews with the surviving soldiers were completed last month. The families shouldn't have to hang on any longer.  "The PSNI had estimated that the current investigation would take four years. Four years have already passed," said Mr McCann. The Bloody Sunday Investigation was set up as part of the Police Service of Northern Ireland's Legacy Investigation Branch.  It re-investigates unsolved murder cases, dating from the beginning of the Troubles in the late 1960s up to 2004. The next step will be for the PPS to look at the final report from the PSNI investigators and make a recommendation as to whether charges should be brought. Det Ch Insp Ian Harrison said: "Police have concluded interviews with former military personnel and are in the process of compiling a report for the PPS. "The families have been informed of this and we will continue to keep them updated in relation to developments," he said. In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron apologised to the Bloody Sunday victims on behalf of the state, after a long-running public inquiry unequivocally blamed the Army for the civilian deaths.

^ Hopefully, the soldiers involved will be charged and the cover-up that started back in 1972 will finally be over. It would also be good if the soldiers had the medals they received for their "service" during the massacre taken back from them - including the ones given by Queen Elizabeth II. ^

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-37128658

TeamLaurel #2

From GoFundMe.com:
"Team Laurel"

The funds raised here will go to help pay for continued treatment related to Laurel's cancer diagnosis.
Thank you all so much for your love and support!
Cancer picked the wrong girl!
#TeamLaurel


^ As I said in an earlier post. This is the daughter of a friend. Please check-out the link below. ^


https://www.gofundme.com/TeamLaurel

Disabled And Elections

From Disability Scoop:
"Disability Could Play Outsized Role In Election"

The number of potential voters with disabilities is on the rise and now exceeds that of either African-Americans or Latinos in this country, according to a new report. Some 35.4 million people with disabilities are expected to be eligible to vote in the presidential election this November. That’s an increase of 7 percent over 2012 and represents nearly one-sixth of the total U.S. electorate. The findings come from a report released this month from the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations which is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and population projections.  “People with disabilities are often overlooked in elections, but they are one of the largest minority groups in the United States,” said Lisa Schur, a co-author of the report. “They often receive messages from society that they are not welcome or expected to participate, but their votes can sway election outcomes.” As their numbers increase, voters with disabilities can edge out other demographic groups that traditionally receive more attention, the report found. African-Americans are expected to account for 28.7 million eligible voters while Latinos represent 29.5 million. Meanwhile, the influence of people with disabilities rises even more when those who live in their households are also factored, bringing the potential number of eligible voters impacted by disability to 62.7 million.

^ This was an interesting piece. I didn't know their were so many disabled voters. I hope they (along with everyone else) goes out to vote in November. Hopefully politicians at every level - local, State and Federal - will also hear about this and start pushing for more awareness and projects to aid the disabled. ^


https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2016/08/16/disability-outsized-role-election/22626/

Schindler Site

From the DW:
"Shut Schindler site could become Holocaust memorial"

The site of Oskar Schindler's factory could become a Holocaust memorial, media report. A Czech foundation has sought for years to turn the factory into a memorial site but first had to deal with property rights issues.  The Endowment Fund Memorial of Shoah and Oskar Schindler has bought a dilapidated factory with a humanitarian history and intends to give it a future as a Holocaust memorial, the Czech newspaper Pravo reported. The foundation, which takes its name from the Sudeten German industrialist and Nazi spy who saved more than 1,200 Jews, will now look at ways to finance the project in the eastern village of Brnenec. The factory had stood out of use and unprotected for a dozen years. Rehabilitating it for use as a memorial is expected to cost millions of euros. "Our main goal is to restore the building and the surrounding area back to its original historical condition, including the watch towers and the hospital," Jaroslav Novak, the head of the foundation, told Pravo. "The money's not here yet," Novak said. "That doesn't mean that it won't be." Novak said he believed his group would receive public funding for the project, as the renovated building could become a tourist magnet. Steven Spielberg told the factory's story in the 1993 film "Schindler's List," which won seven Academy Awards, including the prizes for best picture and best director. Schindler, one of several Germans who defied the Nazi regime, moved his factory and its Jewish forced laborers from the Polish city of Krakow to the Czech site in 1944. By declaring the workers necessary for his wartime production, Schindler saved them from deportation to and slaughter in Nazi Germany's concentration and extermination camps.

^ I'm surprised this wasn't done years ago - especially after "Schindler's List" first came out. ^


http://www.dw.com/en/shut-schindler-site-could-become-holocaust-memorial/a-19476308

Polish "Slurs"

From the BBC:
"Polish jail terms for Nazi camp slurs"

Poland's conservative government says anyone who uses language that implies Polish responsibility for Nazi German atrocities will face jail or a fine. The government has agreed on a new law to criminalise "insulting and slandering the good name of Poland".  The ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) has a clear majority in parliament.  Phrases like "Polish concentration camps" will be punishable by up to three years in jail. Millions died in Nazi German camps on Polish soil.  Under the new law it will be illegal to suggest "publicly and contrary to the facts" that Poles participated in, or bore any responsibility for, the crimes of the Third Reich, a Polish Justice Ministry statement said. Millions of people, mostly Jews, from across Europe were killed in six German-run extermination camps in occupied Poland. Further Holocaust atrocities were committed in Nazi concentration camps and ghettos in Poland.  The country was occupied by the Nazis between 1939 and 1945. The murders wiped out 90% of Poland's pre-war Jewish population. The ministry statement said the new law "will effectively combat the lies detrimental to the good image and good name of Poland, reproduced mainly by foreign media".  There were, however, some Polish atrocities against Jews and other civilians during and after the war. In 1941, Polish villagers in Jedwabne, perhaps at the instigation of the Nazis, rounded up more than 300 of their Jewish neighbours and burned them alive in a barn. And 42 people, most of them survivors of the Holocaust, were murdered in 1946 in Kielce, 150km (93 miles) south of Warsaw.

^ I can understand Poland not wanting to be labelled with starting or running the Holocaust. The concentration and death camps inside Poland were set-up and run by the Germans. I do, however, think it a little extreme to send people to jail for implying that the Poles ran the camps. I can agree with a fine. I have been doing my family tree for years and it goes back to 755 AD and I have Polish  ancestry in my lineage. With that said I also know that there was Anti-Semitism in Poland before World War 2, during World War 2 and during Communist control. The Poles themselves created the Ghetto bench and quota systems before the Germans occupied their country. During the war, as the article states, Poles did massacre Jews. After the war, Poles again did massacre Jewish survivors and the Communist authorities kept an anti-Jewish stance for years. While the camps were not owned or operated by the Poles that doesn't mean Polish-Jewish relations were good (before, during or after World War 2.) I know that many Poles did risk their life to help Jews during the German occupation, but little was done to help the Jews with the Soviets or Communists afterwards. ^

http://www.bbc.com/news/37093943

Hughes Net: Part Deux

Last Friday to last Sunday (36 hours) my Hughes Net Internet was down. Yesterday until just a little while ago (10 1/2 hours) it went out again. My Satellite TV and the regular power stayed on both times so I know it wasn't because of a storm or damage, etc., but from Hughes Net itself. They really need to get their act together.

DPAA

From the Stars and Stripes:

"POW/MIA Accounting Agency to speed up remains identification"

The reorganized agency tasked with accounting for the nation’s missing warfighters has improved its communication with family members and boosted cooperation with outside partners to find and retrieve remains, say some advocates involved in the effort. But those observers also wonder whether the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which reached full operational capacity in January, will flounder with the sudden July departure of its first director, Michael Linnington. While DPAA officials say the overhaul and reforms are well-established, critics contend that inefficiencies and lack of transparency still dog the agency. Linnington stayed for only a year, despite repeated promises to families of missing servicemembers that he was in the job for the long haul. “It’s really hard to say what exactly the positives are,” said Ann Mills-Griffiths, chairman of the board for the National League of POW/MIA Families. “Things were in a state of complete flux at the time that Linnington decided to step out.” Although his departure was a “shock,” DPAA can rebound if his replacement “can handle the complexities of this mission,” she said. The reorganized agency has been trying to improve, though “clumsily” so, Mills-Griffiths said. “I think it has the chance of being better,” she said. “Is it better yet? No, it’s still dysfunctional. It still has a lot of work to be done to make it as productive as I think it could be.” In an interview with Stars and Stripes shortly before he left to head the Wounded Warrior Project, Linnington said he believed the new DPAA had strengthened its relationships with families and members of Congress. “I think it’s really been a year of great change and great progress,” he said. “Are we where we need to be? No, I don’t think any organization can ever fully rest and say they’re where they need to be. We still have some processes we need to look at in terms of maturing them to where they can be most effective. I think we need to continue to improve our ability to provide answers to our families of our missing that ask us those questions.” “Over the hump” was how Brig. Gen. Mark Spindler, DPAA’s deputy director, who heads the Hawaii lab at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, described the agency’s status. “We are focused,” he said. “I think the organization understands the objectives. They understand the mission.” That has not equated to a significant rise in the number of identifications made annually. As of Aug. 8, DPAA has this year identified the remains of 62 missing servicemembers. At that rate, by year’s end, the total would slightly exceed the 100 identifications made in 2015 and 107 made in 2014. “I certainly feel like things are better than they used to be, but things were pretty damn bad,” said Jed Henry, a documentary filmmaker who spearheaded a yearslong quest to repatriate the remains of Army Pvt. 1st Class Lawrence Gordon from an “unknown” grave in France. Henry said DPAA was doing a better job at disinterring and working to identify World War II remains buried as unknowns, which he said had been “virtually impossible” under the management of the three agencies that merged to become DPAA: Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Air Force Life Science Equipment Laboratory. Henry pointed to a successful outcome in the case of John E. Anderson, a World War II sailor who died during the D-Day invasion of 1944 and whose remains ended up in an “unknown” grave at the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, France. With Henry’s help, the Anderson family assembled evidence strongly suggesting the grave belonged to the sailor. The DPAA exhumed the remains and identified them as Anderson in about four months, Henry said, citing briefings he received from Linnington. That was “light-years faster compared to the past,” said Henry, who added that it took about five years for the identification to be made from the time the family became actively involved in the search. Anderson was buried in Minnesota in May. “Until last year, the most disinterments they’ve done in a year was two,” Henry said. “And this year they had a goal of 50 in Europe and 50 in the Pacific. That’s taken a huge step.” Identifying remains from “unknown” gravesites is how the agency intends to reach a 2010 mandate set by Congress for 200 IDs a year, Spindler said. The agency plans to reach that number in the near term by working with outside organizations that often have a niche geographical interest or narrow-but-deep historical knowledge. Among them are History Flight, which specializes in recovering World War II remains, and The BentProp Project, which began by searching for servicemembers killed in Palau, but has expanded. DPAA partnered last year with Archaeologists of the Air, an Italian organization that searches for lost WWII aircraft.  Henry said that general communication with families has improved but credited that to the now-departed director. “Linnington was kind of a soldiers’ general, and he seemed to be very sensitive about remarks about him and other people,” he said. “He was accessible. He called me a couple times. He responded to my emails. He had real answers.” Some families have seen changes for the better at DPAA.Pessimism over Linnington’s untimely departure, however, runs deep. “I think most people felt we had the right people in place, and things were actually going to happen,” Henry said. “But unfortunately, to leave within a year – and while he probably leaves the agency better off than it was before he came in, which is a significant accomplishment – the bad side to that is that whoever comes in next could undo everything he did.”

^ I can not understand why the US Government and the US Military has taken so long (sometimes 70+ years) to finally start to get its act together. There really is no excuse other than a lack of true commitment on the politicians and people who are tasked with identifying the remains. These unknown men and women died while serving their country and the Government and the Military tends to simply forget about their sacrifice or the sacrifice of their families. That is just plain wrong. If Government officials and Military leaders are going to send our men and women around the world to protect us then the least they can do is identify their remains in a timely manner. ^

http://www.stripes.com/news/pow-mia-accounting-agency-to-speed-up-remains-identification-1.423930

Wall Business

From the DW:

"Why the Berlin Wall is still a big business"

More than 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, its leftovers are still being sold. The pieces of concrete are regarded as symbols of freedom, but are they real?  "A piece of living history," says Sarah, pointing to the colorful Berlin Wall pieces that are set up on a table in a souvenir shop in Berlin. Visiting from Sweden, Sarah is strolling down Berlin's Unter den Linden boulevard with her mother and thinks it is "cool" to take a piece of the Berlin Wall back home. As if they were precious stones, the pieces are sealed in plastic bags. Prices vary from 6.99 euros to 23.99 euros ($7.80-26.76). None of the mini chunks is cut smoothly. They're jagged, as if they've just been broken out of the wall. The pieces sell very well. For souvenir vendors in Berlin, they're still a good deal. After refrigerator magnets, they are the second-best selling item, the shop owner says, "One in five visitors buys a piece of the wall." Wieland Giebel, the head of Berlin Story, a bookshop that also sells online, confirms that interest is high. In his four Berlin stores and online shop, he makes hundreds of thousands of euros each year selling bits of the wall, he told DW. He added that demand has remained consistent over the years. Still, Giebel does the bulk of his business with the smaller wall souvenirs. Interest tends to peak around the date of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9. The anniversary of the beginning of the wall's construction, August 13, is less celebrated. According to the Federal Foundation for the Reconciliation of the SED Dictatorship, more than 360 complete segments of the Wall have been sold since it was brought down. "This corresponds to a length of one kilometer," Anna Kaminsky, an expert from the foundation, explained.

Theoretically, that means 154 kilometers (over 95 miles) of the wall should still be available. But many segments were shredded and sold as a building material after 1989. Some pieces landed in the garbage. In total, 241 parts of the wall have been placed in 146 locations around the world, according to the Federal Foundation, of which 57 are in the United States. Whether the fingernail-sized crumbs are genuine can no longer be confirmed, making reliability an important factor in the business. Gerhard Sälter of the Berlin Wall Memorial says he is particularly suspicious of colorfully painted wall parts, which sell better than their grey counterparts. "I suspect that most parts of the wall that we can buy as tourists have been painted afterwards," he estimated. Wilbert Giebel is relaxed when it comes to doubts about the authenticity of his wall pieces. "I personally have never heard of a fake wall part being sold," he said, adding, "You do not have to buy them." But people do buy them. Interest is especially high in the US, "because the wall expresses the German desire for freedom," said Giebel.

^ I doubt that the pieces of the Berlin Wall still being sold after 27 years are really from the one that separated West Berlin and East Berlin or from West Berlin and East Germany. I have a piece of the Inner-German Wall (that separated West Germany from East Germany.) It isn't colorful or have any graffiti on it and I know it is 100% authentic because I got it myself at the former boundary when I lived in Germany. ^

http://www.dw.com/en/why-the-berlin-wall-is-still-a-big-business/a-19461377

Maximilian Kolbe

  From the DW:

"Remembering Kolbe, who stood up to Nazis at Auschwitz"

Seventy-five years ago, the Franciscan priest and future saint Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to take the place of a fellow Auschwitz prisoner sentenced to death. His actions continue to influence humanitarian deeds.  On July 29, 1941, Auschwitz deputy commander Karl Fritzsch ordered that 10 men be starved to death as retribution after three inmates were believed to have escaped. Upon hearing that he was sentenced to die, Franciszek Gajowniczek - a sergeant in the Polish army and father of two - burst into tears, prompting the Franciscan Maximilian Kolbe to approach the commander. "I am a Catholic priest from Poland," Kolbe said, according to inmates who were present. "I would like to take his place because he has a wife and children." Fritzsch accepted Kolbe's offer, and the priest went to Auschwitz's notorious starvation bunker with the nine other inmates, whom he tried to console. Two weeks later, Kolbe and three other prisoners who were still alive were finished off with gas. Their bodies were burned. The future saint was born Raymund Kolbe in 1894, in the Lodz region of the Kingdom of Poland, a territory of the Russian Empire. Devout but poor Catholics, Kolbe's German father and Polish mother sent him and his brother to a Franciscan seminary in Lviv, where he was given the religious name Maximilian. Later, he studied philosophy and theology in Rome. He was no stranger to death: Two brothers died before they were 5, and his father was executed for fighting for Poland's independence from Russia.As a priest, Kolbe founded a monastery near Warsaw that included housing, seminar space, workshops, a printing and publishing house, and its own broadcaster. The complex was soon well-known throughout the region and was home to more than 700 Franciscans by the end of the 1930s. Germany's invasion of Poland ended Kolbe's work in 1939. The Nazis turned the monastery into a jail and turned its inhabitants out to the streets. Kolbe was arrested, freed and in 1941 arrested again and sent to Auschwitz. He was 47 when he died. Kolbe's horrific death inspired his fellow inmates, as well as future resistance. "Among the destruction, terror and evil, he restored hope," Michal Micherdzinski, who was there when Kolbe made his stand, told an interviewer before his death in 2006. Gottfried Bohl, the head of news at Germany's KNA Catholic news agency, said Kolbe's act of self-sacrifice "stands for compassion in the most radical form. He sacrificed his life to save that of another. This shows us that humanity persists even in the darkest and most inhumane moments." In the early 1960s, while postwar and Cold War relations between Germany and Poland were tense, bishops from both countries pushed for Kolbe's canonization. "They worked for reconciliation when no one else did," Bohl said. "And they were greeted with hostility for it." Kolbe was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1971 and canonized as a martyr in 1982 by Poland's John Paul II and later paid tribute to by Germany's Benedict XVI. Both ceremonies were attended by Franciszek Gajowniczek, who lived to 93 thanks to Kolbe. He then traveled around Europe and the United States to promote Kolbe's work. Kolbe is the patron saint of drug users, prisoners and journalists. In Poland this summer, Pope Francis prayed in the cell where Kolbe was martyred. Two active organizations carry on the saint's work in Germany today. Founded in 1973, the Maximilian-Kolbe-Werk is based in the southern city of Freiburg and serves as a relief organization for the survivors of Nazi concentration camps and ghettos, regardless of their faith. And a Berlin-based foundation that bears Kolbe's name supports reconciliation projects in Europe.

^ This is one of those stories that makes you stop and think. I learned about Kolbe's sacrifice years ago, but it still makes me wonder if I would have done the same had I been in his position. Many people would automatically say "yes" they would, but you never really know until you are actually in that position. Not only did Maximilian Kolbe give up his own life, but he did so for a complete stranger. He truly deserves the title of "Saint." ^

http://www.dw.com/en/remembering-kolbe-who-stood-up-to-nazis-at-auschwitz/a-19474219

Wall Anniversary

From the DW:

"Berlin holds ceremony to mark building of Wall in 1961"

German students are often unable to differentiate between democracy and dictatorship, according to the director of the Berlin Wall Foundation. His remarks coincided with the remembrance of the wall's 1961 construction.  Berlin Mayor Michael Müller led a wreath-laying ceremony Saturday at the Bernauer Street memorial, where the last remains of the Berlin Wall still stand 55 years after first being erected by communist East Germany. Alex Klausmeier, who heads the Berlin Wall Memorial Foundation, spoke at the ceremony of the importance of the site in promoting critical historical insight after he had lamented knowledge gaps among present-day German students. He told the "Berliner Zeitung" (BZ) newspaper Saturday that his foundation's seminars with pupils showed repeatedly that their awareness of East Germany's negation of democracy was often "further away" than their knowledge of ancient Pompeii, the Roman city buried in volcanic ash in AD 79. The seminars therefore had to include fundamental teachings on democracy - freedom of expression and division of powers between the legislative, judiciary and executive, said Klausmeier. He is a professor of cultural history who has published a series of books on how the Wall is remembered. On August 13, 1961, as the Cold War deepened, former Soviet-run East Germany (GDR) began erecting the 155-kilometer-long wall, turning US, British and French sectors of West Berlin effectively into an island separated from the then West Germany and connected only via tightly patrolled transit corridors. At least 138 people died trying to escape over the Wall and its East German fortifications until the fall of the East German regime in November 1989. A similar ceremony also took place Saturday at Marienborn - on a key route between Berlin and Hannover - where the GDR regime once ran its largest transit facility along the more than 1,100 kilometers of fortified fence (683 miles) dividing East and West Germany. Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said Saturday he hoped more visitors would come to Marienborn with an "alert eye" for the past and present-day. Marienborn lies close to Helmstadt, once a key reception center in Lower Saxony state in former West Germany. From his foundation's office overlooking the Bernauer Street site, Klausmeier told the BZ that it was gratifying that one million tourists, many of them young, visited the Berlin Wall memorial each year to learn about the fate of its former victims. Asked by the BZ why youth should bother long-term, Klausmeier replied that the foundation not only had the task of documenting the "concrete historical events" involving the Wall and its fall, but also to remind youth about democracy.  "What we experience time and again in our seminars with male and female pupils is that there is hardly any or no knowledge and even awareness of what the difference is between a democracy and a dictatorship," he said. "Many have heard the term Stasi [former East German secret police] from time to time, but they have little to no knowledge about the political persecution by the SED [the-then ruling communist party], the absence of division of powers or the lack of freedom of expression in the GDR,"  Currently, another memorial site overseen by the foundation, the Marienfelde Refugee Center in what was the south of former West Berlin, was housing 700 refugees from Syria, he said. Between 1949 and 1990, 1.3 million East Germans fled through Marienfelde and received residency permits for West Germany.

^ It seems history does like to repeat itself - especially in Germany. If you asked the young people of West Germany in the 1950s or 1960s what Auschwitz or the Holocaust was most would have no idea because it wasn't talked about (probably due to the fact that former Nazis lived in the open and still had high-profile positions in West German society.) It was only after those young people themselves started filling those same positions and started asking questions  (although it still took Germany several more decades to actually really start trying to punish the Nazis rather than looking the other way and paying their government pensions.) The same basic concept is being done with regards to East Germans and the Communists that committed crimes back then. After the Wall fell and Germany became reunited there were a handful of trials of the former Communist elite, but like the trials of the Nazis the criminals received a mere slap on the wrist for what they had done. Then, as is often the case within German society, no one wanted to talk about it anymore - hoping it would all just go away. The parallels between the Germans handling of the Nazis and the Germans handling of the Communists is almost identical and of course the results are also the same. The young people in Germany today don't know what really happened in East Germany by the Communist dictatorship and it probably won't be until those young people come into their own and start asking questions (the way the young people in West Germany did in the 1970s) that things will even begin to change. Hopefully it won't take decades for Germany to then start going after the Communists the way they did the Nazis. You would think that the Germans would have learned from their mistakes in how they handled their Nazi past and not make the same one when dealing with their Communist past - but in the 26 years since Germany reunited they are following the same misguided "logic" of putting their head in the sand. ^

http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-holds-ceremony-to-mark-building-of-wall-in-1961/a-19472947

Michael Phelps

From the BBC:
"Rio Olympics 2016: Michael Phelps bows out of Games with gold in men's relay"

Michael Phelps won his 23rd Olympic gold in what looks like being his final Games, as Britain took silver in the men's 4x100m medley relay.  Phelps, 31, secured his fifth gold of Rio 2016 when he teamed up with Ryan Murphy, Cody Miller and Nathan Adrian to set a new Games record of three minutes 27.95 seconds. "Getting off the bus and walking to the pool tonight, I pretty much felt myself starting to crack," said Phelps. "Last warm-up, last time putting on a suit, last time walking out in front of people, representing my country... it's insane. "This is how I wanted to finish my career. I've lived a dream come true. Being able to cap it off with these Games is just the perfect way to finish." The American legend bowed out with 28 medals from five Olympics after making his debut in 2000. That is 10 more than the next best. Gymnast Larisa Latynina, who competed for the Soviet Union between 1956 and 1964, won 18, nine of them gold.  "This all started with one little dream as a kid to change the sport of swimming and try to do something nobody has ever done," said Phelps. "It turned out pretty cool. I've lived a dream come true. Being able to cap it off with these Games... it's just he perfect way to finish."

^ This is a pretty cool story/achievement (even if he had some set-backs earlier.) ^

http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/36688146

Hughes Net

The Internet finally came back on here after being out for the past 36 hours. We did have a thunderstorm when it went out last Friday night (although it was fast-moving) and then even when it was storming and there was no rain it stayed off. I after the Internet had been off for 10 hours I called Hughes Net and got an Indian guy I could barely understand. He told me it was because of the storms in either my area or in Albuquerque, New Mexico (where their gateway is.) He said I should just look-up the weather there and when it's clear I will know. I told him I was calling him because I had no Internet and that since cell phones don't work on my mountain I can't use the Internet on my phone. He didn't know what to say and told me to call back later. Several hours later I called back and got a woman with a Russian accent (although I could understand he a lot better than the Indian guy.) She told me it was due to storms in my area - even though it wasn't storming or raining - at least I still had Satellite TV and could check the weather on the Weather Channel. I have lived without the Internet before (when I was younger and it was only used by the military and not the general public and when I lived in Russia and could only get it at an Internet café) but I have since become so used to having it (even though it stays on when we get 1 foot of snow and goes out when we get 1 drop of rain - but never for longer than an hour and never 36 hours.) If I could change Internet providers I would, but I am very limited on my Mountain and so can't do much else. Hughes Net clearly needs to update their equipment and infrastructure to stop these outages from happening  (as I already said my Satellite TV stayed on the whole time.)

More Nazis Charged

From the DW:

"Holocaust investigators track down eight more Nazi suspects"

Germany's judicial agency for hunting Holocaust criminals has announced that it has found eight more suspects aged 89 to 98. All worked in the Stutthof concentration camp, outside Gdansk, during World War II.  Germany's judicial "Nazi hunter" agency - or the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes - has said that it has found eight more suspects, who all worked in the Stutthof concentration camp in northern occupied Poland (pictured above). The director of the Ludwigsburg-based Central Office, Jens Rommel, confirmed to DW that all eight suspects, four men and four women born between 1918 and 1927, are German and living in Germany, though their names and towns of residence have not yet been released. The suspects have not yet been informed that they are under investigation, since state prosecutors must now assess their cases. The four men were all guards, while the women worked as typists and telephone operators, at Stutthof, a little-known camp that was set up in 1939 as a "civilian prisoner camp" near the free city state of Gdansk before the German invasion and occupation of Poland. The first prison camp outside Germany's borders, Stutthof was integrated into the concentration camp system following a visit by Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler in 1941 and saw the mass-murder by gassing and shooting of around 27,000 people, mainly Jewish, during the "Final Solution" in the summer and autumn of 1944. The newly discovered suspects, none of whom have faced investigation before, all served at the camp during this period. Stutthof was finally evacuated in January 1945, and the remaining prisoners sent on death marches. The new investigations were precipitated by the conviction in 2011 of John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian POW who became a guard at the Sobibor death camp in eastern occupied Poland. His conviction on 28,000 counts of accessory to murder set a new legal precedent in Germany that allowed rank-and-file participants in the Holocaust to be tried. The most prominent recent trial was that of former Auschwitz guard Oskar Gröning, who was sentenced to four years in prison last July on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder. He is awaiting the result of two appeals, but at the age of 95 is unlikely to serve time. Another former Auschwitz guard, 94-year-old Reinhold H., went on trial in Detmold in February this year, charged with 170,000 counts of accessory to murder. Following these Auschwitz trials, the Central Office turned its attention to other camps where mass-murder had been committed. "The thought was that it was not necessary to have participated in a murder with your own hands, but that it can be sufficient that you were in service during a mass-execution program," Rommel told DW. "We applied this thought to other camps, and confirmed that there was such an execution program at Stutthof, where people were systematically murdered," he said. "Next we tried to find out who was stationed at Stutthof during that time, checked who was still alive, and that's how we came to these eight people." The Central Office trawls archives inside and outside Germany looking for records of former workers in concentration camps. Some of the new suspects were still underage - that is, under 17 - when they were on duty at Stutthof, which means that if the cases do go to trial, they will likely face a trial in a juvenile court. The new suspects certainly were relatively small cogs in the Holocaust's machinery. Rommel admitted that in the case of the women who worked as typists and telephone operators in Stutthof, prosecutors will face a new challenge in securing a conviction. "That certainly is a difficult question - with the guards we think we can justify [the investigation] very well, because they prevented people from escaping," he said. "With the others it is difficult to ascertain whether [operating telephones] will be enough to make someone responsible - but on the other hand, passing on information about when a transport train arrived was of course necessary to carrying out the killings afterwards." Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, welcomed the new announcement, arguing that new Holocaust trials represented a small but important step towards making up for the failures of the German judiciary after the war. "For decades Germany failed to bring former NS criminals to justice," he told the "Jüdische Allgemeine" newspaper. "The judicial reprocessing of these horrible crimes is enormously important, even after so long a time, and can mean a late form of justice." Attorney Cornelius Nestler, who represented Auschwitz survivors and the relatives of victims during Gröning's trial last year, says that if any of the eight new cases go to trial, it will be vital that new co-plaintiffs can be found to testify. "These trials live from the fact that there are co-plaintiffs (relatives of parents and siblings who were murdered in the relevant period in Stutthof), and witnesses (who are often also co-plaintiffs)," Nestler told DW in an email.

^ I have always believed in the statement that those that do nothing are just as guilty as the person who physically committed the crime. That is certainly the case here. It's a good thing that Germany has changed it's ostrich-mentality with regards to the Holocaust. For decades after 1945 there were "no" Nazis in West Germany (in East Germany there really weren't since the Soviets did a real purge) and so members of the Nazi Party from the top-down could live out in the open and even received government pensions for their "service" to the country. That has now changed. Even though it is 70+ years since the war ended and the people being put on trial are in their 80s-100s it shows that the Holocaust was a major and horrible crime that won't go unpunished. It also brings out the truth within Germany when it was kept silent for decades. Even though the majority of these Nazis won't go to prison at least their friends, families and neighbors will know the horrible things they helped with and they (the Nazis) won't be allowed to die in peace as they once thought they could. ^

http://www.dw.com/en/holocaust-investigators-track-down-eight-more-nazi-suspects/a-19464079

Team Laurel

       This is for the daughter of a friend.

Summer Heat

We are having an extreme heat warning today. Not only are our temperatures in the 100s, but the humidity is brutal (oppressive is the term the Weather Channel uses.) People need to remember not to leave animals in the car or even outside for too long. They should also check on: kids, the elderly and the disabled and make sure they are fine. The one good thing about this heat is that it will only last for today and then we get very strong thunderstorms tomorrow that will cool things way-down. Of course we have already had an unusually hot summer with 20 days of 90+ heat (our average is 11 days and last year we had 16 days - of course we still have a lot more Summer to go.)

German Measures

From the BBC:

"Germany: Burka ban to be proposed in security clampdown"

Germany's interior minister will back plans to ban the burka as part of a raft of anti-terror measures, local media say. Thomas de Maiziere also proposes deporting criminals more quickly and relaxing doctor confidentiality rules. He is due to announce some ideas on Thursday, and back some ideas from ministers in his party next week. There have been repeated attacks in German cities recently, some of them related to Islamist terror. In July, an axe-wielding teenager from Afghanistan injured five people on a train in Wuerzburg before he was shot dead by police. The same month, a failed asylum seeker from Syria killed himself and injured 15 people when he set off a bomb outside a music festival in Ansbach. Both attacks were claimed by the so-called Islamic State group.  The burka is a strict Muslim veil for women that covers the full head and body. Not many people in Germany wear it. Burka bans exist in other parts of Europe, notably France, Belgium and some towns in Italy.  On Thursday, Mr de Maiziere is expected to announce the plans for speeding up the deportation process, making being a "threat to public security" grounds for deporting migrants, and relaxing doctors' confidentiality obligations. Next week, he is expected to back a series of measures being considered by a grouping of German states' interior ministers from within his own Christian Democrat party and its Bavarian sister party.

The ministers propose:

• banning the burka
• stopping German people from being allowed to hold dual nationality
• recruiting 15,000 more police officers by 2020
• posting more police on trains and in transport hubs
• making it more difficult for extremist organisations to finance mosques
• deporting foreign hate preachers

German law requires non-EU citizens to give up their existing nationality when applying for German citizenship. Mr de Maiziere says the terror threat to Germany is high. "We live in difficult times," he said on Wednesday. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, a fellow Christian Democrat, has previously said information sharing should be ramped up in the wake of the attacks on Germany this summer.

^ I completely agree that the burqa should be illegal to wear out in public (not just in Germany or Europe, but the US, Canada, etc.) When you travel to a Muslim country you are expected to, and most often forced, adhere to their strict dress codes so why shouldn't the same measures be applied to other countries? The part of the new proposal in Germany I don't agree with is not allowing Germans to hold dual citizenship. Having another nationality doesn't make you a terrorist. I am a dual Canadian-American (or American-Canadian.) We talk about how the world is much smaller nowadays and how easy it is to travel, etc. so holding a second nationality (especially if it is through birth and not naturalization) is very common. Germany has never liked dual nationality and it has nothing to do with terrorism, but their belief that being German is above all other nationalities (Canada had a similar belief until they changed their laws in the 1970s and started allowing dual nationalities.) If someone is considered a native-born German and a native-born citizen of another country they should be allowed to have the same rights as every other native-born citizen. If someone becomes a naturalized citizen that is a little different. So, Germany should ban the burqa in public, add more police and use the police more in public places, but allow dual nationality. ^

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37033286

New Passport

I had to renew my Canadian Passport and finally got it in the mail today. Unlike my old passport which was non-biometric and only valid for 5 years my new one is biometric and valid for 10 years (although you have the choice to get a 5 year one.) One thing that really gets me is that as a Canadian living in the US I had to pay $100 more than a Canadian living within Canada. That is another thing that changed with the new biometric passport. It's not enough that the Canadian Government continues to openly discriminate against Canadians born outside of Canada (native, not naturalized) by refusing them to pass their Canadian Citizenship to their children, but we also have to pay $100 more than a Canadian living within Canada to get out passports and you can't enter Canada without a valid Passport. Not only do we have to pay more, but it also takes longer to get the Passport send to us once it's made. It amazes me how the Canadian Government preaches that Canada is such a modern, open-minded and accepting country and yet they (the Canadian Government) is allowed to openly discriminate against Canadians simply because they were born outside of Canada (even if they were born to Canadian parents.) I have my Canadian Passport just in case I ever go back to Canada, but will use my American Passport when I travel anywhere else in the world. I am considered a native-born Canadian born outside of Canada to the Canadian Government and a native-born American to the American Government.  Unlike Canada that has always discriminated against Canadians like myself, the US Government has not done the same to native-born (vs. naturalized) Americans like me. Canada really needs to rethink its open-door policy of discrimination against its own citizens if they want to portray themselves as a country that is morally superior to all others.

Accusing Russia

From the BBC:

"Russia accuses Ukraine of attempted Crimea 'incursions'"

Russia has accused Ukraine of trying to carry out armed incursions into Crimea - the territory annexed by Russia in 2014 after an unrecognised referendum. The FSB intelligence agency said two attempted incursions had taken place over the weekend and a Russian soldier and an FSB employee had been killed. President Vladimir Putin vowed "further security measures" in response to Ukraine's "stupid and criminal" acts. Ukraine's president described the accusations as "preposterous". "Russian accusations against Ukraine of terrorism in occupied Crimea sound as preposterous and cynical as the statements of the Russian leadership about the absence of Russian troops in the Donbass [region of rebel-held eastern Ukraine]," Petro Poroshenko said. "These fantasies are only a pretext for making more military threats against Ukraine," he added.  Russia accuses. Ukraine denies. So what few things can we say for certain about what happened Crimea at the weekend? We know that on Saturday the Russian authorities in Crimea temporarily closed one of the main crossing points between the territory and mainland Ukraine. Ukrainian sources then claimed that Russia had moved a considerable amount of armour and troops into the peninsular.  Rumours circled on social media (the information war is a crucial dimension in the deterioration of relations between Moscow and Kiev). An unverified video was posted on Twitter, which purported to show Russian military vehicles heading west from the very eastern tip of Crimea, close to the Russian mainland. Now the FSB claims Ukraine's military hatched a plot to attack infrastructure in Crimea. And, true to previous form, Vladimir Putin has not minced his words. Last year, on primetime Russian TV, President Putin admitted he had lied about deploying Russian troops in Crimea when the territory was annexed by Russia in 2014. So whether true or not, the FSB's claims will be viewed with huge scepticism and will probably provoke some anger in Ukraine. Ukraine has managed to contain the Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine and, in purely military terms, it is hard to see what Ukraine has to gain by provoking its larger, much more powerful neighbour. For all the talk about rapprochements and peace in eastern Ukraine, there has been very little concrete progress. Fighting between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainians goes on every day. Just two weeks before Ukraine celebrates 25 years of independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, relations between Moscow and Kiev have taken another turn for the worse.  Kiev is preparing to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ukrainian independence on 24 August, and officials have suggested Moscow may try to disrupt the celebrations. Russia is preparing for a parliamentary election on 18 September.  Mr Putin said there was no point in further negotiations with Ukraine and called on the US and European countries to put pressure on Kiev to change its behavior. About 9,000 people are reported to have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine that followed the Russian annexation of Crimea. The annexation, which was itself largely bloodless, followed a vote to secede at a referendum on self-determination on 16 March 2014 - a ballot which was not recognised internationally. The US and European Union imposed sanctions on Moscow in response to its seizure of the territory.

^ To anyone with even basic thinking ability can see right through this. The Russian Government is doing what it does best - lying. I don't believe that the Ukraine tried to "invade" the Crimea - although it isn't an invasion when you are trying to regain control of your own territory that was illegally invaded, occupied and annexed by another country and which most of the world does not recognize. The Ukrainians wouldn't unilaterally do that and risk loosing the support from the US, the EU and the UN especially when Russia continues to support the ethnic Russian fighters in the Donbass. This is just a way for Russia to get its citizens to forget about all the economic, political and social hardships affecting millions because they decided to break international law and their own treaties and invade, occupy and annex the Crimea. The Russians have lied and eventually admitted it with respects to pre-planning the Crimea take-over long before and "cries for help" from the Crimean people or about having Russian soldiers (ie the Little Green Men) there. Russia likes to portray itself as the victim when 9 out of 10 times they are the aggressor. This is one of those 9 times. Russia will continue to openly lie and use fake propaganda so they will have a "valid" reason to openly invade the rest of the Ukraine (since their ethnic Russian fighters haven't been able to do it themselves.) To hear Putin's speak about all of this "injustice" etc. is laughable. If any country invaded, occupied and annexed a part of Russia than the Russians would fight to the death to get it back, but when Russia invades, occupies and annexes another country they are "shocked" that they meet any resistance. Russia needs to remember that they lost the Cold War and that they can not simply take whatever they want like they used to. The rest of the world needs to remind them of that  fact. ^

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37037401

Bishop Edward Daly

From the BBC:

"Bishop Edward Daly: Bloody Sunday priest dies"

The retired Catholic Bishop of Derry, Dr Edward Daly, whose photograph became the iconic image of Bloody Sunday in 1972, has died aged 82. He had been ill in hospital and died in the early hours of Monday morning. Tributes have been pouring in for the bishop, who was from Ballyshannon, County Donegal. The image of the then Fr Daly waving a handkerchief over one of the Bloody Sunday victims, was one of the most enduring images of the Troubles. He was then a 39-year-old curate at St Eugene's Cathedral in Londonderry having been a priest in the city since June 1962.  He was appointed Bishop of Derry in 1974.  He was forced into full retirement in 1994 after he suffered a stroke but he continued in the role of chaplain to Derry's Foyle Hospice until February, 2016.  The bishop received the Freedom of the City of Derry in 2015.  Bishop Daly was "an iconic figure in the civic and church life of Ireland", said Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, the Catholic primate of Ireland.  "Bishop Edward will be remembered as a fearless peace-builder - as exemplified by his courage on Bloody Sunday in Derry - and as a holy and humble faith leader.   "Bishop Edward's bravery was also apparent in his lived conviction that violence from any side during the Troubles was futile and could never be morally justified."  Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry said: "Bishop Daly served, without any concern for himself, throughout the traumatic years of the Troubles, finding his ministry shaped by the experience of witnessing violence and its effects. "Through this dreadful period he always strove to preach the Gospel of the peace of Christ." Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said Bishop Daly was "a constant right throughout the course of the last 40 odd years in the city through the good times and bad". "Bishop Daly was inherently a shy person, he was not someone who sought the headlines, but he was propelled into the headlines because of Bloody Sunday, as he tried to help Jackie Duddy, for that iconic image," said the Sinn Fein MLA.  "He was a bishop and priest who was very in tune with the local community."

^ I learned about Bishop Edward Daly before my trip to Northern Ireland. During my trip there I saw many tributes to him (especially in Derry/Londonderry) - including the above mural - although I didn't take this picture. I also read his memoirs. Bishop Daly was a great man who helped the people in his community get through The Troubles. The iconic photo of him on Bloody Sunday (January 30, 1972)- when the British Army's 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment massacred 14 innocent men ranging from 17 to 59 years old and wounded 14 others) was shown on British and Irish TV while I was there since it was when the British Prime Minister officially admitted that the British Army had been at fault for the murders - yet nothing has happened to any of the murderers since the report was released. Bishop Daly will always be remembered as the man who witnessed one of the worst massacres carried out by the British Army on their own citizens as well as the man who helped the community in Derry/Londonderry for decades afterwards. ^

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-37005540

175 Compensation

From the DW:

"Repeal of old anti-gay law urged in Germany"

Rapid recompense for thousands of elderly convicted for homosexuality in Germany up until 1994 has been demanded by the opposition Greens. They say it's a scandal that the injustice hasn't long been fixed.  Greens parliamentarians Katja Keul and Volker Beck said Monday they had sent a compensatory draft law to all parliamentary groups in the Bundestag, urging them to remove this "monstrous disgrace" in Germany's legal history. Homosexual acts were criminalized from 1871 under Paragraph 175 in the penal code of the then German empire and sharpened under Hitler from 1935. The paragraph was retained in post-war Germany's law books. It was abolished in former communist East Germany in 1968. Not until 1994 was it abolished in unified Germany, including what had been West Germany. In May, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) welcomed an expert report, saying his ministry would draft legislation to quash convictions and provide compensatory arrangements. He said the German state has burdened itself with guilt because it had made difficult the lives of "so many people." The Funk Media Group, based at Essen in the Ruhr District, quoted Beck and Keul on Monday as saying that legislative steps should be finalized in the coming weeks, before the end of Germany's parliamentary summer recess. "An end must be put to the continuing scandal that men in the Federal Republic of Germany have to live with the stigma of having been convicted because they were homosexual," the Bundestag deputies wrote in a preamble to their draft law. Germany's federal anti-discrimination bureau (ADS) in its report last May estimated that in the post-war era, from 1945 until an easing in 1969, more than 50,000 persons, mostly men, were prosecuted and convicted, some to jail terms lasting years. They often lost their jobs and apartments, and were socially marginalized. Even after 1969, some 3,500 persons were convicted. The report compiled by the Munich constitutional law expert Professor Martin Burgi recommended collective rehabilitation of those convicted via repeal legislation to spare those convicted of facing individual scrutiny. He proposed monetary compensation via a special fund. "These injustices should no longer be tolerated by lawmakers," said ADS director Christine Lüders. Germany's Lesbian and Gay Federation (LSVD) demanded that the repeal be implemented in Germany's current legislative period ahead of next year's federal elections. It said "time is pressing" because the now elderly "victims of persecution of homosexuality" needed the restoration of their dignity before they passed away.

^ This was law in Germany from 1871 until 1994 and so is pretty current. It was not a Nazi law (although the Nazis openly murdered and sterilized homosexuals from 1933-1945) but was a law practiced in: united Germany, the Weimer Republic, the British/French/American/Soviet occupation zones, in East Germany, in West Germany and in a reunited Germany. It was only repealed in 1994 (just 22 years ago.) Germany needs to make amends for this discrimination by compensating the victims as well as giving homosexuals full legal rights (ie gay marriage.) ^

http://www.dw.com/en/repeal-of-old-anti-gay-law-urged-in-germany/a-19455262

Paralympic Ban

From the USA Today:

"Russia is kicked out of Rio Paralympics because of widespread doping"

Paralympics chiefs took the step that the International Olympic Committee shied away from on Sunday — banning the entire Russian team from competing in Rio. The International Paralympic Committee announced at a news conference that Russia would be kicked out of its Games, which will run after the conclusion of the Olympics, from Sept. 7-18. The IPC acted in the wake of a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency and written by Richard McLaren regarding a staggering level of state-sponsored, organized doping across the Russian sports system. "The McLaren report marked one of the darkest days in the history of all sport,” IPC president Sir Philip Craven said. “The actions were a body blow to clean, fair, honest sport. The Russia state-run program of cheating questioned the integrity and credibility of sport as we know it.” While several national sports committees and anti-doping officials called for Russia to be tossed out of the Olympics following the McLaren report, the IOC backed down from that option, instead leaving it up to each individual sport federation to decide whether to allow Russian athletes.  As a result Russia still has one of the largest delegations at the Games, with 271 athletes in Rio. Craven and the IPC were prepared to act far more strongly — and Craven’s comments against the Russian system pulled no punches. “The facts really do hurt,” Craven said. “The system is Russia is broken, corrupted and entirely compromised. Their medals over morals mentality disgusts me. The Russian government has failed its athletes. It shows a blatant disregard for the health and wellbeing of athletes. Their thirst for glory at all costs has damaged all sports.” Before reaching its unanimous decision, the IPC demanded further answers from McLaren and WADA, allowed time for the retesting of samples and invited the Russian Olympic Committee to provide an explanation for its actions. “We had to establish the full facts.” Craven added. “And I cant tell you how sad we were to discover that the state-sponsored doping program extends to Russia para-sports as well. Our decision is driven on the need to hold our members accountable. "(Russia) has shown it is unable to comply with our doping code within its jurisdiction. It can’t fulfill its fundamental obligations as an IPC member. We resolved to suspend Russia with immediate effect.” Russia won a staggering 80 out of 216 available medals at the 2014 Sochi Winter Paralympics, including 30 out of 72 golds. McLaren’s report found that the testing procedures across Russian Paralympic competition had been compromised, with urine samples swapped out to avoid positive tests, described by Craven as an “abhorrent practice.” According to Craven, McLaren provided details of 10 new altered tests this week, and he believes there will be even more evidence of Russian malfeasance soon to emerge. The IPC plans to retest every sample provided by a Russian Paralympic athlete during the Sochi Games.

^  Giving a huge "Молодец!" to the International Paralympic Committee for doing what the International Olympic Committee didn't have the balls to do (pun intended.) I guess the IOC cares more about their kick-backs than the sports. It's great to see the IPC doesn't believe the same thing.The IPC has more morality and justice than the IOC. The IOC, as I have stated numerous times before, is not in it for the sports, but for political and other gain. That is why the IOC did not ban the whole Russian team from competing even when it was clear that Russia openly violated IOC law. I hope the IPC doesn't decide to bow to any outside pressure (I'm looking at you Russia and the IOC) and reverse their ban decision before the Paralympic Games start in September. If they do then they are just as corrupt as the IOC and Russia. ^

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/rio-2016/2016/08/07/russia-kicked-out-rio-paralympics-doping/88363526/

Unionists Change

From the BBC:
"Brexit: Rise of more than 60% in Irish passport applications from NI"

The number of people in Northern Ireland applying for Irish passports rose by more than 60% in July, compared with the same period last year. In the first full month since the UK's vote to leave the EU, there were 6,638 applications for Irish passports from people living in the region. That is 2,568 more than July last year. Applications for Irish passports from people living in Great Britain also increased year on year in July, with a 73% rise. Post Offices in Belfast and elsewhere noted a sharp rise in applications in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote.  But there is some evidence that this has slowed down in more recent weeks. Some unionists who had never previously considered an Irish passport started to apply in the wake of Brexit, but it is impossible to calculate how many.

The statistics released on Friday by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin include:

• a 63% rise in Northern Ireland applications last month (year on year), compared with a 10% rise in June;

• a 73% increase in applications from Great Britain, compared with a 22% rise in June.

^ What I found very interesting is the number of Unionists (those that have long fought for Northern Ireland to stay part of the United Kingdom and not be reunited with Ireland) that are now applying for Irish passports. It seems they have given up their long-held beliefs that they and the UK are superior to Ireland (ie The Troubles from 1968-1998) and are flocking for Irish citizenship so they can stay part of the EU and have freedom of movement. Unionists (who are mostly Protestants) along with the British kept the Catholics in Northern Ireland/Ireland as second-class citizens for centuries. The pyramid went: British (English, Scottish, Welsh) citizens then Irish Protestants and at the bottom came the Irish Catholics. When the southern part of Ireland became free in the 1920s and the British kept Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom they also continued their open discrimination of the Catholics. In the 1960s the Catholics started to seek the same civil rights as all British citizens and that's when the Irish Protestants and the British came together to attack, wound, murder and kept the Catholics from "leaving" their current station. After the British Army massacred innocent people during Bloody Sunday in Derry the Catholics went from passively asking for basic civil rights to demanding them. The resulting 30 year Troubles led to a bitter civil war with the Irish Protestants and British on one side and the Irish Catholics on the other. The EC (which both the UK and Ireland joined in the 1970s) did little to nothing to stop the violence, destruction and murder. Finally, in 1998 the British agreed to give the Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland the same civil rights that the Irish Protestants in Northern Ireland, the Scots, the Welsh and the English had been given decades ago. The "funny" part out of this is now those same people - who once relished in keeping the Irish Catholics subjected to their bottom-post even going so far to terrorize and murder them - are flocking to become citizens of the Republic of Ireland which has a Catholic majority. I don't know if this sudden change is because the ex-militants have seen the error of their ways in the 18 years since The Troubles officially ended or that they are just scared of what the UK will look like when they eventually do leave the EU - will there still be a United Kingdom or will Scotland leave? Etc. It is something that is very interesting and I hope to continue to learn more and more. ^

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-36987993

Rio: Opening

From the DW:

"Color, vibrancy and simplicity: Rio kicks off Olympics in style"

The first ever Olympic Games in South America are underway after an opening ceremony that featured a colorful look at the Brazil's past, a glamorous celebration of its present and a strong environmental message.  An opening ceremony can set the tone for an Olympic Games. Beijing's technological extravaganza in 2008 and London's wild and wonderful journey through its history in 2012 announced that the Olympics had arrived, both in emphatic fashion. On Friday, it was the turn of Rio de Janeiro, and an opportunity for Brazil to draw a line under the protests, political instability and, of course, the Russian doping scandal, all of which have overshadowed the buildup to the Summer Games. From August 5 to August 21, 10,500 athletes from 207 teams will compete, including representatives from Kosovo and South Sudan, countries that are participating for the first time in the Olympics. At 554 participants, the United States has the largest Olympic team. Germany will be represented by 423 athletes. Proceedings began with pyrotechnics from the roof of the iconic Maracana Stadium, the venue for the World Cup final two years ago, before a delicate and understated rendition of the Brazilian national anthem by Paulinho da Viola. All the while, the Brazilian flag was being elevated with the nation's athletes looking on. It was simple, classy and effective. The artistic segment of the ceremony, directed by Fernando Meirelles, who is best known for his 2002 film "City of God," was a brief run through of the history of Brazil. It was a largely nostalgic look at Brazilian history and what life looked like in the country before the Europeans settled - again pulled off elegantly and without the complicated and ambitious routines we've seen in previous opening ceremonies. The introduction of the dance music Brazil is famous for set a party tone for the next segment, which focused on the arrival of the European, African and Middle Eastern settlers. Portugal was, of course, the first to arrive and Meirelles depicted 400 years of slavery in Brazil by showing Africans in shackles. There was also a nod to African art and culture, and the key role it plays in Brazilian society to this very day.# Later, MC Sofia, a 12-year-old rapper from Sao Paulo, rapped about Brazil's history of slavery and racial division. And she did so to a backdrop of traditional types of Brazilian dance, including capoeira. A video of Alberto Santos-Dumont, a pioneer of powered flight, cruising over the Rio night sky was a nice touch as the Maracana cleared the way for a sprinkling of stardust. That stardust came in the form of supermodel Gisele Bündchen, who strutted through the stadium to huge cheers and to a rendition of "The Girl From Ipanema" by Daniel Jobim, the grandson of the song's composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim. And just when you were thinking that one essential ingredient in Brazilian culture, Carnival, was conspicuous by its absence, around 1,500 dancers rushed onto the field. It was officially party time. Audience members were invited to join in and the fun, carefree nature of the entire ceremony was underlined. Nevertheless, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach was not tempted to show off his samba skills. A key political message in the show was climate change, with a video depicting rising temperatures, melting ice caps and Rio de Janeiro becoming submerged as sea levels rise beyond control. The message was that the impact of climate change on the Amazon rainforest is one of the greatest unfolding natural disasters of our time, and Brazil made its point with a somber end to what had been a lively and glamorous segment. A further simple but effective moment was a recital of "A Flor e a Nausea," read by British actress Judi Dench, a poem which announces hope for the future. An abrupt change of pace, given the doom and gloom pronounced moments earlier in the climate change segment. The five Olympic rings were revealed after the procession of athletes, and rather than the traditional colorful rings we are used to seeing, Rio used trees to present them, another nod to the environmental message. Once the athletes had entered the stadium, Brazil's interim President Michel Temer declared open the games to jeers by some in the crowd of 60,000 spectators, a reflection of ongoing political repercussions from the impeachment proceedings against suspended President Dilma Rousseff. Following Temer, IOC President Bach tried to smooth things over with his speech. "We are living in a world of crises, mistrust and uncertainty," he said. "Here is our Olympic answer: The 10,000 best athletes in the world, competing with each other, at the same time living peacefully together in one Olympic Village, sharing their meals and their emotions." The big talking point leading up to the opening ceremony was who was going to light the Olympic flame. Legendary footballer Pele had been widely for the honor, but the 75-year-old's recent poor health led to strong rumors that former world number one tennis player Gustavo Kuerten would have the privilege. But Kuerten was not the man to light the Olympic cauldron in the end. He carried the torch into the stadium, but that honor was reserved for marathon runner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima, a bronze medalist in Athens in 2004. With that the show was over and the Olympics had begun. This will be remembered as an opening ceremony that delivered plenty, despite the fact that it had half the budget London splashed out four years ago. It was simple but effective, with a helping of politics.

^ I watched the Opening Ceremony (as I usually do) and don't really understand why so many people think it was so good. It was pretty low-budget and felt more like watching a "B" movie than an Olympic Opening Ceremony. The organizers of the Ceremony said it would be different from other Opening Ceremonies because they were not going to focus on Brazil, but the world. Most of the Ceremony was all about the history and culture of Brazil. There was a very small Climate Change section that did show the rest of the world, but it wasn't a major aspect of the show. I was expecting something fantastic and something I had never seen before and it was a little bit of a let-down. While it was not the worst Olympic Ceremony I have seen it was not the best. It was so-so. ^

http://www.dw.com/en/color-vibrancy-and-simplicity-rio-kicks-off-olympics-in-style/a-19452537

Vending Pizza

From the DW:
"US school pioneers pizza vending machine on campus"

Students at an Ohio university have reason to cheer. They can soon satisfy their cravings for piping hot pizza around the clock, as a vending machine selling oven-fresh pizza has been put up on campus.  Xavier University in Cincinnati installed the first pizza vending machine across the US on its campus. The device dubbed Pizza ATM holds up to 70 pizzas of different kinds and lets students order their favorite using a touch screen. For around $10 (9 euros) they get an oven-fresh pizza in a cardboard box within three minutes. While the Pizza ATM is only set to start operating in late August for the launch of the new semester, Xavier's women's soccer team already gave the campus novelty a try.

^ I wish they had these when I was in college. ^


http://www.dw.com/en/us-school-pioneers-pizza-vending-machine-on-campus/a-19450277

Fresh Fighting

From the DW:

"With fresh violence in Ukraine, is there hope for a solution?"

The UN has reported a major spike in civilian casualties due to fighting in Ukraine. DW spoke with the OSCE's monitoring mission to find out why the conflict has taken another violent turn and if there is a solution.  UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein this week announced that fighting in eastern Ukraine prompted a surge in civilian casualties in June and July, marking the highest number since August 2015.  The office of the high commissioner documented 69 civilian casualties in June, including 12 dead and 57 injured, "nearly double the figure" of the month before. In July, the toll rose to 73 civilian casualties, including eight dead and 65 injured. "The escalation of hostilities and the accompanying civilian casualties in eastern Ukraine over the last two months are very worrying," al-Hussein said in a statement. "Civilians are once again having to flee to improvised bomb shelters in their basements, sometimes overnight, with increasing frequency - the price of the ceasefire violations is too high for the women, men and children in eastern Ukraine," he noted. At least 9,500 people have been killed in the armed separatist insurgency that erupted in 2014. The conflict followed pro-democracy protests in the capital Kyiv, which effectively led to the ouster of Kremlin-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The fighting has sparked a humanitarian crisis by internally displacing 1 million people and directly affecting over 500,000 children, according to the UN. Minsk II, an agreement signed last year by members of the international community and representatives of conflicting parties, aimed to alleviate tensions in the separatist regions of the east. The agreement aimed to have both parties of the conflict withdraw heavy artillery from the contact line in a bid to bolster the foundation of a bilateral ceasefire. But violence has continued to fuel the conflict, with human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, accusing government forces and separatists of war crimes. Alexander Hug, chief deputy monitor of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, told DW that a pivotal reason for continued violence is the proximity of conflicting parties. "A major reason for this is the close proximity of the conflicting forces in all of the locations where there is still fighting. They're often as close as 50 meters to each other, and that leads to tensions in the area, with these tensions often translating to raging battles," Hug said. "These battlegrounds are not on an open field, they're often - if not in all cases - on the outskirts of towns and villages, and that draws civilians into the conflict when fighting erupts," he added. Hug proposed three initiatives to ensure de-escalation, namely adherence to the ceasefire with accountability for individuals responsible for violating the cessation of hostilities, removal of military equipment and troops near civilian areas, and for both sides to separate from each other to a distance in which engagement is less possible. One thing that would really help the situation is to "move the sides apart to a distance where engagement is less possible. Disengagement, or a separation of forces, is a very efficient tool that has also been used in conflicts to create a sustainable ceasefire," Hug said. Meanwhile, the OSCE reported several instances in which their monitors had been threatened or prevented from doing their work on the ground, while the monitoring mission's unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have been targeted by artillery. "It's also important to realize that if we can't monitor, there will be no verification. Without verification, there will be very little trust built, and without trust, there can't be disengagement, there can't be normalization," Hug said. "So at the beginning of this equation stands the monitoring activity of the OSCE's special monitoring mission," he concluded.

^ This is not surprising considering that most of the world has stopped helping the Ukraine in all but words. More innocent men, women and children will continue to die or  be wounded until NATO, the UN and the EU do a lot more than talk. ^

http://www.dw.com/en/with-fresh-violence-in-ukraine-is-there-hope-for-a-solution/a-19451997

1936 Fate

From the DW:

"Olympics 1936: How the Nazis treated Jewish athletes"

Some top athletes were excluded for no apparent reason; others were allowed to start in Berlin in a fake show of Nazi "tolerance." A new Cologne exhibition explores the fate of 17 Jewish athletes during the Nazi period. Regular athletes can turn into sports heroes overnight. Take, for example, the German national soccer team, winners of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the 2016 German handball team at the European Championships, and tennis player Angelique Kerber after defeating Serena Williams at this year's Australian Open. The Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro are all about participating - and the glory of winning, too. Altogether, 206 nations are competing in 28 sports, all of them intent on bringing home as many medals as possible. Religion doesn't play a role in sports today, nor does the color of one's skin. At the Olympic Games in Germany 80 yeas ago, the situation was quite different. After seizing power in 1933, the Nazis began to systematically persecute and push out Jews - including Jewish athletes. They were excluded from their sports clubs, banned from national teams, titles they had won were taken back and they were prohibited from participating in competitions because they were Jewish. Some were murdered like so many of their fellow Jews. "Between success and persecution," a month-long exhibition at Cologne's German Sports & Olympia Museum sheds light on the careers, lives and fates of Jewish star athletes up to 1933 and after that fateful year. Seventeen life-size Plexiglas sculptures stand right outside the museum on the promenade by the Rhine River, out in the open for everyone to see. Each one of them shows Jewish medalists in action. There's world Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker, bent over a chessboard and pondering his next move, football player Julius Hirsch cheering a goal, and Martha Jacob throwing a discus. Before Hitler took power, these athletes were big stars in the wake of a "huge boom in sports in the 1920s in Germany," historian Hans Joachim Teichler told DW. In 1914, there were about one million gymnasts in Germany and perhaps 100,000 athletes, he said. "In 1933, there were still a million gymnasts - and six million athletes." Before the persecution of the Jews, religion never played a role in public sports clubs, Teichler argued. "They were respected, voted on the board and awarded emblems and honors like the Golden Eagle." But the political and social situation took a drastic turn. Six of the athletes portrayed in the exhibition were killed by the Nazis, including enormously successful track and field athlete Lilli Henoch, the gymnasts and cousins Alfred and Gustav Felix Flatow and soccer star Julius Hirsch. Nine of the athletes portrayed fled abroad, and some managed to continue their careers in their new homes, like fencer Helene Mayer, who was US Champion eight times between 1934 and 1946 and the first woman to win the world  Unlike other Jewish athletes, Mayer was permitted to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, where she won a silver medal. On August 4, 1936 - exactly 80 years before the exhibition opened in Cologne - she made the finals in Berlin. Her participation was meant to show that the Nazi regime was tolerant toward Jewish athletes. The Nazis wanted to appease other countries like the US and avoid a boycott against the Games. However, other Jewish athletes were systematically discriminated against - or weren't allowed to prepare for the Games simply for propaganda reasons. One of them was Gretel Bergmann. Today, the former track athlete is 102 years old and lives in New York. In 1936, she was cut from the Olympic team shortly beforehand for non-transparent reasons. The Nazi regime did everything it could to come across as a good host, "because Hitler and the leaders and also Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels wanted to show the world what Germany was capable of," explained Teichler. But the foreign journalists saw through the act. They noticed "that propaganda boxes with the original inscription 'The Jews are our downfall' had been painted over or removed. And they saw that many anti-Semitic signs had disappeared." For the journalists, it was clear that some of the athletes had been arrested and they continued to report critically about how the Olympic Games were used as a smokescreen. That led to angry letters to the editors since the international audience was seeing a different, not pristine sports event. Online, visitors to the museum can find additional information about individual athletes, the development of sports in Germany, the perfidious propaganda practiced by the Nazis, and the attempts of Jewish sports clubs to organize themselves. A QR code is attached to the back side of the sculptures and takes users to a website with background information, pictures and videos on the topic. In another multimedia feature, visitors are invited to interact live with current German athletes in Rio via a social media tool set up in the museum.

^ I watched the German film "Berlin 36" and it deals with this story (of Gretel Bergmann.) This exhibit in Cologne goes more in-depth with her as well as other Jewish athletes and what happened to them under the Nazis. ^

http://www.dw.com/en/olympics-1936-how-the-nazis-treated-jewish-athletes/a-19451409