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Stephan Moccio
|This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. (April 2011)
|Stephan Moccio
|Birth name
|Stephan Moccio
20 October 1972
St. Catharines, Ontario
Record producer
Recording artist
|Years active
|1995 - present
|Bijou Records
Universal Music Canada
Stephan Moccio (born October 20, 1972) is a Canadian pianist, composer, producer, arranger, conductor and recording artist. He co-wrote and co-produced the two end credit songs for Fifty Shades of Grey and the Fifty Shades of Grey (soundtrack) - Earned It (The Weeknd) and I Know You (Skylar Grey). He also co-wrote Miley Cyrus' single Wrecking Ball from her 2013 studio album Bangerz. He co-wrote Celine Dion's hit "A New Day Has Come" with Aldo Nova, which reached and held the number one spot on the Billboard AC Chart for a record breaking 21 weeks. For the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, Moccio co-wrote the theme song "I Believe" performed by Nikki Yanofsky. He has collaborated with artists such as Seal, The Weeknd, Ellie Goulding, Shaffer "Ne-Yo" Smith, Sarah Brightman, Josh Groban, John Legend, BeBe Winans, Gladys Knight, Skylar Grey, Randy Jackson, DJ Khalil, Carole Bayer Sager, JC Chasez, Fergie, Kardinal Offishall, BC Jean, Planet VI, Boi-1da, as a songwriter, musician and producer. Moccio was one of the three judges on Canada's Got Talent, alongside comedian Martin Short.
- 1 Early life
- 2 Career
- 2.1 University Years-1994
- 2.2 1995-2003: Sony/ATV Music Publishing Canada
- 2.3 2003-2009: Sing Little Penguin
- 2.4 2010-present
- 2.5 Sportsnet
- 3 Sponsorship
- 4 Selected discography as composer, songwriter, producer, musician, arranger, programmer
- 5 Discography as recording artist
- 6 References
- 7 External links
Early life[edit]
Stephan Moccio was born in St. Catharines, Ontario on October 20, 1972 to an Italian-Canadian father and a French-Canadian mother. Moccio is fluent in English and French. Growing up in Niagara Falls, Moccio began his piano studies at the age of 3. His musical style and vocabulary are influenced by the musical genres of Classical, Jazz, Pop, Hip-Hop, Blues, and Dance.
University Years-1994[edit]
Having graduated from Saint Paul Highschool in Niagara Falls Ontario Moccio enrolled at The University of Western Ontario where he studied performance and classical piano studies, under instructors John Paul Bracey and Jack Behrens. It was on campus that Moccio first introduced himself to René Angélil, Celine Dion's manager, while attending a Celine Dion concert. In 1994, after completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in composition and piano performance, he was accepted into the famed Berklee College of Music. However, he chose to focus on developing his professional career and instead signed a publishing deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing at the age of 22. During the early years of his tenure at Sony/ATV, Moccio worked as a session musician, in-house producer and composer, attending rehearsals of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and playing in Toronto jazz clubs and hotel lounges, notably the Four Seasons Hotel's La Serre.
1995-2003: Sony/ATV Music Publishing Canada[edit]
Throughout his nearly 9-year tenure at Sony/ATV, Moccio wrote for several award-winning Canadian and International artists, most notably Celine Dion, Sarah Brightman, and Josh Groban. Moccio spent many months in writing sessions in Nashville, Los Angeles and New York during these years, which culminated in a lengthy catalogue of songs as musician, songwriter, producer and composer. During this time he collaborated with various artists such as Jessica Simpson, JC Chasez, Fergie, and Chantal Kreviazuk. He was a co-writer with top songwriters and musicians including Marc Jordan, Dean McTaggart, Robbie Nevil, Dan Hill, Dave Martin, and Amy Sky.
It was in 1996 that Moccio's special relationship with television programs began, with the theme for the CTV Television Network program Camilla Scott Show, which was written, performed and produced by Moccio. Moccio would go on to write and produce more theme songs for CTV shows including House and Home (1998), ETalk (2008), Vancouver 2010 Olympics Broadcast, and the Marilyn Dennis Show (2010).
A New Day Has Come (2002)[edit]
In 2001, Moccio began work on a melody that would become the chart-topping single "A New Day Has Come" sung by Celine Dion, released on her album (in both a radio mix version and 3/4 time ballad album version), of the same name in February 2002. The song broke records at the time by maintaining the #1 position on the U.S. Hot Adult Contemporary charts for 21 weeks. The single would make it onto numerous compilation CD's and DVD's in North America. In 2003, Celine Dion titled her live residency Las Vegas show "A New Day...". Celine often refers to the song as being representative of the emotional struggle and consequent happiness she experienced upon becoming a first-time mother.
Moccio has relayed the story of his meeting with Celine Dion and the subsequent writing of "A New Day Has Come"; ten years prior to writing the song, Moccio approached René Angélil accompanied by his collaborator and friend Gary McAuley at a concert in London, Ontario and told René that he aspired to write Celine a song one day. Approximately 10 years later in 2001, Moccio was introduced to Aldo Nova by the Vice President of Sony/ATV Music Publishing Canada at the time. Development and production of the song began shortly after.
2003-2009: Sing Little Penguin[edit]
In 2003, Moccio left Sony/ATV Music Publishing Canada to work predominantly under his own publishing company, Sing Little Penguin. He soon moved into his state-of-the-art recording studio in downtown Toronto and it is from this space that Moccio would continue to write, record, produce for both his solo projects and various collaborations with recording artists. It was also at this time that Moccio co-founded Bijou Records with his manager, James Porter. Bijou Records would be the record label on which Moccio would release his solo piano works in 2006 and 2010.
As special projects in 2003 and 2004, Moccio conducted members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, in two separate sessions at the Glen Gould Studios in Toronto. Here he recorded his orchestral arrangements for his pieces "Beautiful Things", "Julienne" and "Hope".
In 2003 Moccio collaborated, as both a writer and musician, with Sarah Brightman on the single "What you Never Know" featured on her album Harem (EMI/Angel). Later that Year, Moccio would go on to write the song "Tears of Hercules" with writer Marc Jordan. The song would be subsequently recorded by Josh Groban, appearing on his limited edition album With You, titled "My Heart was Home Again", released in 2007 on the Hallmark Cards Inc. label.
Olivia Newton-John spent time at Moccio's studio in 2005, where she recorded some vocals for her 2006 album Grace and Gratitude. Olivia recorded Moccio's tune "Instrument of Peace" (co-written with Marc Jordan and Amy Sky) and Moccio played the piano on several songs on the album.
Moccio went on to collaborate with Canadian pop group RyanDan on several songs on their debut album Ryan Dan, including the song "The Face" (written with Mark Masri), released in September 2007. The song was featured in Season 1 of So You Think You Can Dance, Canada and, in 2009, Channing Cooke danced to the song during Week 4, Season 6 of So You Think You Can Dance.
Special Events[edit]
In 2006, Moccio was invited to play at a benefit concert commemorating Bill Clinton's 60th Birthday in Toronto. He shared the stage with Josh Groban, Jon Bon Jovi, Sarah McLachlan and James Taylor. Following these concerts, Moccio received an invitation to perform a private concert for Robert Redford and his family and friends at his Utah Ranch in Sundance in December 2006.
Exposure (2006)[edit]
Moccio released his debut album of solo piano music, entitled "Exposure" on Bijou Records/Universal Music on November 14, 2006. The album was mixed by Juno Award winning engineer Vic Florencia and mastered by Juno nominated João Carvalho. The album has since sold over 42,000 copies and in 2008, became the highest charting instrumental album on the Canadian charts of the last 25 years, since Vangelis' Chariots of Fire in 1982.
Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, "I Believe" and Canada's Got Talent[edit]
Moccio found inspiration in David Foster's theme and music for the 1988 Calgary Winter Games and, upon hearing it for the first time, made a personal commitment to write a theme song for a future Olympic Games in Canada[1]
In 2008 Moccio teamed up with songwriter Alan Frew (Glass Tiger) to write "I Believe", the theme song of CTV's and Rogers Media's Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. In addition to co-writing the theme song, Moccio composed and produced over 250 cues to accompany the Canadian broadcasts of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games,[2] with each cue representing different emotions associated with lead-ins to segments and events, Medal Ceremonies, and with Canadian athletes' profiles and performances at Olympic events, telecast on various CTV and Rogers Media properties throughout the games. Three versions of the theme "I Believe" were written and recorded; an English language version sung by Montreal jazz singer Nikki Yanofsky, a French-language version ("J'imagine") sung by Quebec artist Annie Villeneuve, and an instrumental version by Moccio. On January 26, 2010 an EP titled "I Believe/J'imagine – CTV's 2010 Winter Games Theme Song" was released on iTunes Canada. The EP contained all three versions of the theme which were all produced by Moccio. The strings component of the theme song English language as sung by Nikki Yanofsky involved the orchestral arrangement and conduction of William Ross, at the Fox Studios in Los Angeles. Grammy winning engineer Armin Steiner engineered the recording. Moccio arranged the music and conducted members of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra for the Olympic broadcast cues and Villeneuve's "J'Imagine".
Alongside Moccio on the piano, Villeneuve and Yanofsky performed a bilingual duet in a six-minute video that aired Canada-wide just prior to the commencement of the official closing ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
On March 1, 2010 "I Believe", covered by Nikki Yanofsky, reached 4 x Platinum status (CRIA[3]) in digital sales (over 160,000 digital units sold) in Canada. The same version achieved #1 status on iTunes Canada and Billboard's Canadian Hot 100 for 4 straight weeks in February 2010.
During the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in Montreal on April 2010, Moccio on the piano, along with Nikki Yanofsky and Annie Villeneuve performed "I Believe/J'imagine," as one of the production numbers, and the 2010 Canadian Olympians entered the stage.
Moccio was a judge Canada's Got Talent which aired on Rogers Media's CityTV March - May 2012.
Universal Music Publishing[edit]
In February 2010, Moccio signed a Worldwide Publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group.[4]
Color (2010)[edit]
On November 2, 2010, Moccio released his second album of solo piano music, entitled Color on Bijou Records/Universal Music. As with his previous album, Color was mixed by Juno Award winning engineer Vic Florencia and mastered by Juno nominated João Carvalho. It includes 4 tracks "October", "Life", "Leopold" and "Violette" that featured the orchestral treatment of William Ross as composer, arranger and conductor, recorded at the Fox Studios in Los Angeles. Following the release, Moccio embarked on a 24-day, 12-city promotional and concert tour across Canada from Vancouver to Halifax, during which he was featured on Breakfast Television (BT) in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto and performed on some of Canada's finest stages.
G-20 Summit and other special events[edit]
When the 2010 G-20 Summit arrived in Toronto, Moccio was asked by the Canadian Prime Minister's Office to host and MC the closing Gala. He introduced the world leaders as well as performed live a selection of his songs, including the song "Instrument of Peace" with The Canadian Tenors.
On August 24, 2010 Moccio performed at the annual Hope and Cope Soiree Fantastique in Montreal in support of Montreal's premiere cancer support foundation. Joele Adler, President of Diesel Canada and the Founder of the ONEXONE Foundation, was being honored. Following the event, Moccio headlined, alongside John Legend, the ONEXONE Foundation Gala in Toronto hosted by Matt Damon, where he performed live.
In December 2010, Moccio joined The Canadian Tenors, David Foster, Justin Bieber, Paul Anka, Charice, Jackie Evancho, and others for The Canadian Tenors CBC special "Season of Song: The Canadian Tenors and Friends".
A live performance highlight in 2011 for Stephan was an emotional homecoming concert in St. Catharines, Brock University's Centre for the Arts, Sean O'Sullivan Theatre where on April 21 he performed on piano with orchestra (members of the Niagara Symphony Orchestra) and very special guest, Greek singer Giorgos Perris
On June 25, 2011, yet another superstar Greek singer Mario Frangoulis performed Moccio's song "Beautiful Things", its live debut during the Opening Ceremonies of the Special Olympics in Athens Greece. The response since has been so positive that Mario has decided to record the song for his forthcoming album titled, "Beautiful Things".
In August 2011, Stephan was nominated for his first Gemini Award in the category - Best Performance or Host in a Variety Program or Series (Individual or Ensemble). It was in recognition of his live performance on a CBC program called Solo. Previously, Stephan had been featured on CBC's Creative Block and on "Men of Music" TV series (2003)
Moccio also composes several theme songs for its Sportsnet broadcasts such as the Toronto Blue Jays, Major League Baseball, and the NHL on Sportsnet.
Moccio is Yamaha Artist[5] and performs almost exclusively on Yamaha Pianos. In addition, Armani Canada is a sponsor of Moccio.
Selected discography as composer, songwriter, producer, musician, arranger, programmer[edit]
|Artist (Label)
|A New Day Has Come
|Celine Dion (Sony)
|A New Day Has Come
|co-writer (Aldo Nova),[6] background vocals
|#1 SOCAN Award,[7] BMI Pop Award,[8] SOCAN Classic Song Award,[9] Juno nomination for Single of the Year (2003), Million-air award (over 1,000,000 BDS spins on US radio), Billboard Music Awards - nominated AC Single of the Year • produced by Walter Afanasieff • album 7 weeks at #1 in Canada (6x Platinum - CRIA[10]), #1 US (3xPlatinum - RIAA), #1 Europe (3xPlatinum - IFPI) • 5th best-selling album of 2002 • Vegas show A New Day...
|Edwin (Sony)
|Another Spin Around the Sun
|co-writer, keyboards, string arrangements
|#1 SOCAN Award (2000)[11] • Juno Award in 2001 for Best Video and MMVAs People's Choice Award[12] • Top 10 at Canadian Rock radio, reached #11 at Canadian Top 40 radio • album certified platinum (CRIA[13])
|Art of the Heart
|Joshua Payne (Verve)
|Your Love, My Home
|co-writer (Amy Sky), piano
|produced by Michael Omartian
|Ne-Yo (Motown)
|co-writer, co-producer, piano
|Beautiful Things
|Mario Frangoulis (Sony)
|Beautiful Things
|Fall 2011
|song was performed at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2011 Special Olympics in Athens Greece[14]
|Break My Heart Again
|Sawyer Brown (Curb)
|Drive Me Wild
|album reached #10 Billboard Country Album Chart
|Build My World
|JC Chasez (Jive/Zomba)
|co-writer, keyboards
|album debut #17 on U.S. Billboard 200 • 3rd single from the album
|Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey)
|The Weeknd (Republic)
|Fifty Shades of Grey Soundtrack
|co-writer, co-producer, piano
|#3 US Billboard Hot 100
|The Face
|RyanDan (Decca)
|co-writer, piano
|album Gold certification (CRIA) • Reached #59 Canadian Billboard Hot 100 • (So You Think You Can Dance Canada, featured song) • nomination - Best Mainstream AC Song (Canadian Radio Music Awards) • also recorded by Mark Masri as ""See My Face"" and in French ""Je t'attendrai""
|4 July
|Joanna Pacitti (A&M)
|This Crazy Life
|co-written (Fergie), musician
|produced by Ron Fair
|I Believe
|Nikki Yanofsky (Decca)
|co-writer (Alan Frew), producer, piano
|released as single/EP by CTV/Universal, #1 (4 weeks) Canadian Billboard Hot 100 and certified 4x Platinum (CRIA), nomination - Best AC Song (Canadian Radio Music Awards) • album certified gold (CRIA)
|I Know You
|Holly Hafermann KIDinaKORNER, Interscope
|Fifty Shades of Grey: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
|co-writer / co-production
|I'm Here (A Song for Canada)
|Chantal Kreviazuk
|I'm Here (A Song for Canada) single
|co-writer (C. Kreviazuk, Raine Maida), co-arranger, piano
|featured performance on Canada's Walk of Fame Awards broadcast on Global TV, Oct. 23, 2011
|Instrument of Peace
|Olivia Newton-John (EMI / Green Hill)
|Grace and Gratitude
|2006 / 2010 (reissue)
|co-writer, piano
|The song reached #30 on US Billboard Hot AC chart • album reached #2 US Billboard New Age chart • also recorded by The Canadian Tenors (The Perfect Gift)
|Annie Villeneuve (Entourage)
|Annie Villeneuve
|co-writer, producer, piano
|reached #36 Canadian Billboard Hot 100
|Lose Myself
|JC Chasez (Jive/Zomba)
|co-writer, keyboards/piano, string arranger
|Mon Héros
|Annie Villeneuve (Entourage)
|Annie Villeneuve
|co-writer, producer
|album certified Gold (CRIA) • Reached #7 Canadian soundscan album chart
|My Heart Was Home Again
|Josh Groban (Hallmark/Reprise)
|With You
|album certified Gold (RIAA) • performed Valentine's Day 2007 on The View (U.S. TV series) • produced by David Foster • also performed live by Celtic Women on their recent world tour
|Need you Love You
|Gladys Knight (Shadow Mountain)
|Where My Heart Belongs
|co-writer with Knight and Benjamin "BeBe" Winans
|#8 Billboard Gospel Chart
|Our Leaves Are Green Again
|Randy Bachman
|Jazz Thing
|co-writer (R. Bachman), musician
|also released on Randy Bachman - Live in Toronto (DVD), and Anthology (2006); performed on CBC TV special Bachman-Cummings "Together for the First Time"
|Perfect Gift
|The Canadian Tenors (Decca)
|The Perfect Gift
|co-writer, producer
|album #1 Billboard Cross-over Classical chart, certified Platinum (CRIA) • also released on Canadian Tenors Live at the Royal Conservatory of Music DVD
|selections from Barber, Martinu, Britten (piano / cello)
|Denise Djokic (Sony Classical)
|Denise Djokic
|East Coast Music Award, Classical Recording of the Year
|Various Artists (Effendi Records)
|Berceuses Pour Philou
|writer, producer
|ADISQ (Felix Award), Best Instrumental Album (2009)
|Jacksoul (Sony Music)
|Greatest Hits
|Tears of Hercules
|Marc Jordan (Blue Note/EMI
|Make Believe Ballroom
|co-writer, musician, string arranger, conductor
|Juno nominated song in Songwriter of the Year category for Marc Jordan • also recorded by Laila Biali, Alfie Zappacosta, and Keith Harkin
|To Say Goodbye To You
|Aselin Debison (Epic)
|Sweet Is the Melody
|produced by Peter Asher • also recorded by Murray McLauchlan
|What You Never Know
|Sarah Brightman (Angel/EMI)
|also recorded in French for the Canadian release "Tout Ce Que Je Sais" • album certified Gold (CRIA), reaching #29 US Billboard Top 200 and #7 Canada album charts; #1 Classical US Billboard album chart • #5 best-selling crossover album of 2003 (Billboard)
|What You Never Know (Won't Hurt You)
|Hayley Westenra (Decca)
|Odyssey (Hayley Westenra album)
|album certified Gold (UK - BPI) • #3 US Billboard Classical album chart
|Wrecking Ball
|Miley Cyrus (RCA)
|co-writer Sacha Skarbek, Lukasz Gottwald, Maureen Anne McDonald, Henry Russell Walter, piano
|Produced by Dr. Luke, peaked #1 (3 weeks) on Billboard Hot 100 • British singer-songwriter James Arthur covered this song on Radio Hamburg in Germany in September 2013
Discography as recording artist[edit]
|Album / Single details
(sales threshold)
|Quebec Album Chart
|iTunes Album Chart
|I Believe - Instrumental Theme
|I Believe - Solo Piano
- ^ Muntz Lassonde, Janelle (2010-01-26). "A Musical Olympic Bid Of His Own". Maclean's. Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ Rodriguez, Juan. "Making Our Country Proud". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "Gold Platinum Database". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "UMPG Inks Deal With Stephan Moccio". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "Contemporary Pianos - Stephan Moccio". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ Kawashima, Dale. "Aldo Nova & Stephan Moccio Tell How They Wrote The Big Celine Dion Hit, "A New Day Has Come"". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "SOCAN Award Winners List 1990 to 2010" (PDF). Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "BMI Pop Music Awards: Winners List". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "20th Annual SOCAN Awards Toronto 2009 - Winners List". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "Gold Platinum Database". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "Archived News". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "Member Profiles, Rob Heydon". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "Gold Platinum Database". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- ^ "Mario Frangoulis at the Special Olympics Opening Ceremony". Retrieved October 17, 2011.
- Canada's National Art Centre Stephan Moccio in Concert
- Hope and Cope Foundation Soiree Fantastique
- Stephan Moccio's Profile on Artist Direct
- Kerr, Peter. "Stephan Moccio's I Believe - CTV's Olympic broadcast anthem becomes Canada's 15th "Gold performance". The Montrealer. Retrieved 2011-01-21.
- Christman, Ed (2010-03-05). "UMPG Inks Deal With Stephan Moccio". Billboard. Retrieved 2011-01-21.
- "New Bilingual I Believe / J'Imagine Video To Debut Before Vancouver 2010 Closing Ceremony". CTV. 2010-02-28. Retrieved 2010-03-04.
- Thompson, Robert; Paine, Andre (2010-02-18). "Olympic Anthem Tops Billboard Canadian Hot 100". Billboard. Retrieved 2010-03-04.
- Bradshaw, James (2010-01-20). "Olympic theme song a long time in the making". "Globe and Mail". Retrieved 2010-03-04.
- Billboard Canadian Hot 100
- Stephan Moccio at Sugarcain Entertainment
- Ayroso, Crissandra (2006-10-17). "Stephan Moccio Emerges From Behind The Scenes to Release Solo Debut". Chart. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
- Stephan Moccio at Songwriter Universe
- Debbage, Michael. "Moccio - Color".
- Sage, Amanda. "Stephan Moccio, composer-songwriter-producer-musician".
- "Stephan Moccio".
- Mandel, Mike. ""Color" a New CD by Moccio".
- Terauds, John (November 8, 2010). ""Color" a New CD Review". The Star (Toronto).
External links[edit]


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Intelligence Squared U.S.
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The product of two court decisions, Citizens United and SpeechNow.org v. FEC, Super PAC spending is on course to make 2012 the most expensive presidential election in history. These supercharged political action committees may spend and receive unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations, and unions to advocate for political candidates, as long as they are independent of the candidates' campaigns. How have Super PACs changed the political landscape? Are they good for democracy? For: David Keating, Jacob Sullum. Against: Trevor Potter, Jonathan Soros. Moderator: John Donovan.


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Biography > Noteworthy People > Deaths > 2003 Deaths > G - L
Michael KellyAge: 46
journalist and editor who was killed while covering the war in Iraq as an embedded reporter. He served as editor in chief of Atlantic Monthly magazine from 1999 to 2002 and had also worked for the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the New Republic.Died: Iraq, April 4, 2003
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Epson late Tuesday announced its latest combo projector, the MovieMate 55. The device features a CD/DVD player and speakers in addition to the projector. Music can be played from any MP3 player, while video can be played from iPods. PCs or gaming consoles including Xbox 360, PS3, or Wii can be viewed with the MovieMate. Pictures displayed from picture CDs or USB flash drives can also be projected. A new E-TORL lamp is used and is claimed to output 1200 lumens in both color and white light.
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There are a lot of people here in East Tennessee who help others and then there are those few people who give their whole lives to charity. Father Ragan Schriver is one of those special people.
Father Ragan is also known as Father Rock Star. It might seem like just a cool nickname, but no, he really is a rock star with a ton of energy, a huge heart for helping others and a jam-packed schedule.
And his passionate spirit was there from the very beginning. "I'll never forget this. One day I was up at my uncle's house at the rectory in Gatlinburg and a man came by with a backpack. He obviously had nowhere to live. And my uncle said, 'Well, here come on over here and you can stay in the basement at the rectory or the church.' And so he let him stay in the church there overnight and that stuck with me," says Father Ragan Schriver. "Wow, think about the trust that my uncle had for this guy and think about the trust that the guy had to come and seek help knowing this guy would be able to help him."
That was only the first significant moment that led to his life in the priesthood. He then went to Thomas More College in Cincinnati where he played tennis and was involved in student government.
After graduation, he was trying to figure out what to do with his life and then the moment that truly pushed him down this path came after a meeting with the bishop.
"When we finished talking I said 'Well, I still don't know what I want to do. I wish God still made burning bushes and he'd just tell me what to do,'" says Father Ragan. "I went home that evening and my mom had this card that she had gotten in the mail from somebody. And she said, 'Look at this card I got.' And I looked at it and it had a picture of a burning bush."
And that was it. He entered the seminary. "The state requires four hours of marriage prep to get married for the rest of your life. It took me four or five years to prepare to get not married," says Father Ragan.
And during this time he also got his master's degree in social work. Now, he is jazzed about life and his work not only as Executive Director of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee.
"With a five million dollar budget last year we served almost 24,000 people," says Father Ragan.
He also serves as the Pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Seymour and is a professor at the University of Tennessee. He teaches classes in the College of Social Work.
He's all over the place, but how he takes care of himself is pretty simple.
"Running is the greatest release. I can just go out and run and kind of sweat," says Father Ragan.
And his vegetarian diet is pretty basic.
"It's been rumored that I eat the same thing every day. Salad at night, usually a bagel at lunch," says Father Ragan. "On crazy days I might get a fruit cup like today."
So how does he spend his time away from work? There's not much down time, but he is religious about one thing.
"I usually go for a nice long run on Saturday morning. And then for years relentlessly meet my parents for lunch every Saturday at 11:45 at Panera," says Father Ragan.
Father Ragan Schriver, a rock star in every sense of the word, but this rock star is all about giving back and not taking a thing in return.
One of "Your Stories". There's no place like this one.


text:
Astragal went along to Make's bash last week, held at the derelict Middlesex Hospital.
But before you start leaping to conclusions, Ken Shuttleworth has not taken to staging illegal raves. No, the chosen setting is the site of one of Make's upcoming residential projects, but it was in a rather dilapidated state, with the main room taking on the appearance of an opium den. In fact, it was so dark it was impossible to see the canapés on offer. One could only blindly shovel food into one's face and pray for something nice. Needless to say, after such an astounding spread last year Astragal was rather disappointed. But worry not, the main event was yet to be served. Yes - out came little bowls filled with bangers and mash, small curried delights, and Lord knows what else.
Huzzah! Well done Make, you saved the best till last, and gave yourself a fighting chance for the Canapés of the Year Award.
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text:
Is Storm going to be in X-Men 3?
By the producers and studio request, the weather controlling mutant known as Storm (Ororo Munroe) is currently being included in the X3 film screenplay on a provisional basis. The role is being written with the idea that it can easily be switched out for another character under the circumstances that actress, Halle Berry cannot return. Should the actress return, the role will likely be expanded to that equal of the other main cast members, in future drafts of the screenplay. It is also possible that the role could possibly remain small for a cameo appearance. Or could the role be recast? This is still being worked out, and won't conjeal until main cast members are asked to return.
Good news to hear. I am glad they didn't decide to just ditch the character entirely and I wouldn't mind having another actress come in and play Storm. My pick for an alternate Storm would be Jada Pinkett. We'll have to see what happens.


text:
If there's one thing Joy Gryson knows well, it's handbags. In addition to being the design force behind some of Marc Jacobs' bestselling carryalls from the early 2000s, she's also worked for Coach and Calvin Klein.
It wasn't until 2006 that Joy launched her own namesake collection of luxe leather bags, which soon became so popular that Target tapped the designer to do a capsule collection. She's also got a contemporary collection, Olivia Harris by Joy Gryson, which she named after her daughter.
Joy recently invited me to her showroom to play around with some new spring styles from her collection and chat about her label. Click through the images below to peep the latest Gryson styles and Joy's spring inspiration board—you can even shop the bags straight from the slideshow.
More on Luckymag.com:
- Studio Scout: Karolina Zmarlak
- Five Celebs We Would Love to See at New York Fashion Week
- Designer Alexa Galler of Eighteenth on Making the Basic Tee "Unbasic"
- Mary Katrantzou, Erdem and More Design T-Shirts for Topshop
- The 25 Best Cities for Shopping
Keep up with the Lucky team on Twitter: Follow @LuckyMagazine


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Comments by Sidewinder
God, I really thought that this episode title would be connected with newest Malese's track, which is a loose cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". You should listen to it (available on Youtube), it does not beat the original, but is still pretty entertaining ;]
I loved this episode, but I also thing that there was one scene lacking. I mean, they should simply add one scene with Anna checking if Jeremy's alright. The producers are to blame for not developing this couple. I think that would be great to see Bonnie's struggling with her boyfriend ghostfillia ;] TEAM ANNA! Who agrees with me? :D
Klaus: God, I hope no one would notice that all this hybrid stuff, killing doppelganger and running from the greater enemy is just an excuse to finally see Stefan naked.
Serena: In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight...
Chuck: More champange?...
Nate: Let those who worship evil's might,
Beware my power... Green Lantern's light!
Chuck: ... For me...
Fleur: Still haven't got your letter from Hogwart?
Chuck: Shut up.
Lily: No. Not her.
Blair: I hate that Brooklyn Bimbo.
Serena: Me too. What's she even doing here?
Nate: And OMG, what is she wearing?
All: ...
Jessica: No, mom, I really don't know why everyone is nicer to me right after I quit the show.
Jenny: Seduce and DESTROY.
Chuck: SEDUCE and destroy.
Nate: God, who knew that my feelings for Chuck would make me sacrifice my haircut.
Georgina: Hi, we haven't officialy met. I'm your worst nightmare.
Serena: God, G., that is so 2008. Now help me find someone who could read me "Beatiful and Damned", cause I thought it was with pictures inside.


text:
The Magazine
Ordinary Art
A new appreciation for the maestro of the commonplace.
Jul 27, 2009, Vol. 14, No. 42 • By MAUREEN MULLARKEY
Luis Meléndez
Still life bloomed late among art historical categories. Depictions of prosaic objects have been with us since antiquity, but rarely for their own sake. They served votive purposes or figure compositions submissive to higher themes. Foodstuffs and tableware entered as props for a Last Supper, an edifying banquet, or some festal spread catered by the gods and laced with allegory. Not until the 17th century could the naked facts of a herring, a wine bottle, and a scattering of onions be presented without apology.
What we moderns take for granted as still life lacked even a term for itself until the mid-1600s when stilleven, a matter-of-fact descriptive, started showing up in Dutch inventories. It took another hundred years before the French coined nature morte, a chilly classifier. Spaniards settled upon the homely bodegón, a nod to edible things and the abiding primacy of the kitchen.
Luis Meléndez (1715-1780), one of Spain's greatest still life painters, was the accidental practitioner of a genre just beginning to speak its name. His bodegones, not well known in the United States, are debuting in a traveling exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington. On view are 30 breathtaking transfigurations of the mundane, each one a tribute to the splendor of the overlooked.
The artist's training began in his father's studio. The elder Meléndez, a distinguished painter in the household of Philip V, produced miniature portraits of the royal family for distribution as diplomatic gifts. In addition, he designed illuminated certificates of nobility. (Then, as now, papers mattered.) These were as elaborate as full-sized oil paintings and often combined with religious imagery. Command of the human figure, the capstone of artistic training, was crucial.
The younger Meléndez was among the first to enroll in Philip's fledgling royal academy. Expectations were high for the young artist admitted with the highest marks. His confidence declares itself in the masterful 1746 self-portrait that prefaces the exhibition. Painted in the year of his admittance to the inaugural class, it presents him as a self-possessed caballero. Elegantly dressed, he carries the attributes of a student: a chalk holder (still in use today) and a folio sheet bearing a virtuoso oil rendering of a chalk drawing of a male nude. This drawing-within-the-portrait restates his aptitude for the figure and affirms an equal facility for trompe l'oeil, still life's ancient traveling partner.
His early prospects, intimately aligned with his father's, ran aground on missteps, personality clashes, and plain bad luck. The biographical record, spotty as it is, tells of a proud, ambitious artist gifted in everything but the temperament for advancement within a centralized patronage system. His father, the academy's director of painting, seems to have been a prickly model. Both father and son were soon expelled from the institution, crippling young Meléndez's opportunities for the major figurative projects his talent promised.
Unbowed, the artist reinvented himself as a still life painter. And what a stunning job he made of it. His singular mastery of a minor genre became the vehicle for his eventual breakthrough into court patronage under the prince of Asturias, later Charles IV. In 1771, the prince invited Meléndez to produce an encyclopedic collection of paintings of seasonal foods produced on Spanish soil--a natural history of agricultural Spain.
Meléndez combined rigorous structural design, thematic wit, and a quiet yielding to the facts of a meal. For all their ecstatic detail and horticultural veracity, these works are more than close-range quotations from the world. They are also exquisite enactments of a compelling artistic conscience. Melén-
At a glance, Still Life with Game (c. 1770) is a straightforward tabletop piece. Two dead pigeons lie in front of the copper kettle that waits to braise them. But the turn of their bodies, entwined with unnatural delicacy, telegraphs extra-culinary intention. The downy head of one bird rests sweetly, as if in caress, within the soft hollow of its companion's upturned neck. The staging suggests a tragic couple. (Melén-
To emphasize the poignance, two spice packets lie chastely side by side in the foreground, each twisted at the ends to suggest heads and feet. Or tail feathers. One lifeless pairing echoes another. On one level, Still Life with Fish, Bread, and a Knife (c. 1772) is a plainspoken inventory of the ingredients for a meatless Lenten meal. But in the land of Cervantes, luxuriantly devoted to soldiering, the position of that shining sea bream insinuates a fallen guerrero. Propped improbably on its tail, atop a knife and slumped against an overturned soup pot, the fish--mailed in lustrous scales--impersonates a wounded knight. The knife handle is visible on the fish's left; the blade shows on the right, a charade of impalement. A pink fin, dark red in shadow, mimics a bloody gash. The ensemble is a teasing blend of cultural emblem with genuine feeling for the thing-in-itself.
The vanitas theme threads through the exhibition just as it does through the history of still life. Meléndez's work is a theater of delight in organic form--that heart-stopping cauliflower! a bliss of figs!--but the shadow of memento mori passes over it nonetheless. References to mortality peek from behind the veil of natural description. What is that shattered watermelon, glistening red flesh spilling onto the ground of a darkling landscape, if not an intimation of death on the run? Elsewhere, decay is not far off in bruised, overripe apples and pears. The pity of maturation.
Sly tension between depiction and suggestion exists in several end-of-dinner motifs that include narrow boxes of sweets. Pictorially, these rectangular forms register lighting effects and provide counterpoint to rounded volumes. They also function metaphorically: Made of rough scrap wood, they resemble stacks of coffins. Visible at the corner of one is a bit of wrapper. A hint of winding cloth? Instead of the customary skull, worm, or hourglass, Meléndez features--in miniature--the plain pine box that beckons us all.
Viewed from the narrow angle of our own era, Luis Meléndez exhibits certain pictorial concerns similar to modernist ones. Here are those spatial ambiguities that our own eyes are conditioned to admire. (Is there really room for that bulk on such a narrow shelf?) Eager to show Meléndez in a modern light, the exhibition catalogue flourishes a Morandi still life for comparison. Yet it is precisely Meléndez's distance from modernity that is arresting. His sensibility thrived on the continuity of cultural memory. He worked, as did his contemporaries, in anticipation of discernible meaning and trustful of its reception. His produce medleys are loyal to the seasons; and his unifying theme of the four elements (earth, air, fire, water) assumes an audience whose cultural field extended back, however fitfully, to Empedocles.
Meléndez's repertory of enduring forms--the spoon, jar, bowl, and beaker, together with pantry stuffs--is still with us, triumphant over generational time. In the rhythms and transmitted rituals of meal preparation lies the divide between brute existence and civilized life. So much depends on fresh cauliflower and a loaf of bread.
Maureen Mullarkey writes about art for the New Criterion and other publications.


text:
|Balcones Youth Sports
|Austin (Parmer and Mopac)
|Austin, TX
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|Lake Travis
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|Pflugerville Little League
|Pflugerville, TX
|Round Rock Blaze
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|Round Rock, TX
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|Western Hills
|Rollingwood, TX
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Central Texas Fastpitch Softball Organizations
There are a lot of softball teams in the central Texas area, i.e. Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park, etc. Below is a list of some of the softball organizations. If your league is not on the list, please let me know. Love to hear from you out-of-staters too :)
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text:
"Notre Dame reportedly makes around $9 million per year from NBC, which was a level that made it the top TV revenue school back in 1999. In contrast, ESPN's Outside the Lines reported last week that the Big Ten is currently making $242 million per year in TV revenue which is split equally among the 11 schools, meaning that everyone from Michigan to Northwestern is taking in $22 million per year. Think about that for a second: the vaunted Notre Dame was the #1 TV revenue maker in the entire country up until just a few years ago, yet it's now only #3 in its own home state behind Purdue and Indiana (and less than half as much of each, at that)."
It's not about money with ND. They'd make piles of money MORE in the B1G. It's about independence to them.


text:
This story has been reproduced from today's media. It does not necessarily represent the position of Liverpool Football Club.
Philippe Coutinho will undergo his medical today as Liverpool FC edge closer to completing the £8.5million signing of the Inter Milan midfielder.
The 20-year-old Brazil international, who arrived on Merseyside yesterday afternoon, will then travel to London with club representatives in the hope of securing a work permit.
Coutinho doesn't automatically qualify as he only has one cap but Liverpool are confident a permit will be granted.
An answer is expected from the Home Office either later today or tomorrow. If the request is initially turned down then Liverpool will be able to appeal and argue their case at a personal hearing.
Reds officials don't envisage any problems and Coutinho's arrival should be officially announced by Liverpool in the next 24 hours.
Source: Liverpool Echo
This story has been reproduced from today's media. It does not necessarily represent the position of Liverpool Football Club.
Tagged: Coutinho , Philippe Coutinho
Submit your views in the box below. Alternatively, you can debate these issues with fellow fans on our Message Boards or blog about them on The Kop
The views expressed here are not those of Liverpool Football Club (read more)


text:
Music royalty, Jay-Z and Beyonce, were spotted leaving a vegan-friendly restaurant in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
The "Crazy In Love" couple started a 22-day vegan challenge in December and pledged to go plant-based until Christmas Day. Jay-Z said about the diet change, "One day before my 44th birthday I will embark on a 22 Days challenge to go completely vegan, or as I prefer to call it, plant-based!! This all began a few months back when a good friend and vegan challenged me to embrace a 'plant-based breakfast' everyday. It was surprisingly easier on me than I thought…"
Beyonce and Jay-Z reportedly enjoyed their stay on planet plant-based but did not strictly stay vegan. The couple broke their 22-day vegan challenge with seafood, but they decided to remain mostly plant-based after all. The two superstars enjoyed a meat-free meal on Tuesday at the Crossroads restaurant in Los Angeles, a Mediterranean-themed and vegan-friendly business run by Chef Tal Ronnen. It is a favorite amongst many plant-based celebrities.
We hope to see more celebrities embracing veganism and supporting vegan businesses.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
About Maria MooneyMaria Mooney, MSW, LSW, is a raw vegan licensed social worker, certified holistic health coach, research and editorial assistant at KrisCarr.com and freelance writer. After years of suffering with chronic health conditions, she is healing herself through a plant-based diet, radical self-care and consuming self love, and she wants to teach you how to do the same. She has done it all, including the Gerson Therapy and Hippocrates Health Institute's Life Transformation program. She knows how to make delicious juices, grow wheat grass, sprout anything and everything, create mouth-watering, healthy treats, grow shoots and more! She is also licensed in the mental health field and loves to marry mental health healing with physical healing to teach her clients to be themselves, love themselves and heal themselves. Contact her at MariaMooney.com for a free health consultation today!
View all posts by Maria Mooney →


text: Margaret Yousko Happy 90th birthday Margaret L. Yousko will celebrate her 90th birthday on Sept. 28, 2004. She has a daughter, Bette Coccia; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. She plans to celebrate with her family in Columbus. Cards and well wishes may be sent to Mrs. Yousko at 139 E. High St., P.O. Box 122, Lore City, OH 43755.


text:
Minister Baird Meets with South Korea's Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister, Kim Sung-Hwan
July 22, 2011 - Bali, Indonesia - John Baird, Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, meets with Kim Sung-Hwan, South Korea's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, on July 22, 2011, on the margins of the ASEAN Regional Forum and Post Ministerial Conference in Indonesia.
The two ministers discussed the strong relationship between their two countries and how they can strengthen people-to-people ties. They also discussed regional security, specifically the situation in North Korea.
Ministers Baird and Kim also discussed the recent agreement allowing the reintroduction of Canadian beef into the South Korean market.
Related Links
- Date Modified:


text:
DENVER –Mitt Romney told supporters Monday night that Barack Obama is out of excuses, and on Nov. 6, voters will put him out of office.
The Republican presidential nominee arrived in Denver two days before his first debate with Mr. Obama, and he took the opportunity to test some of his arguments here, laying out his critique of the president's policies. Mr. Romney told the crowd at the rally — estimated by his campaign at about 5,500 — that he is ready to face Mr. Obama.
More In Debates
"I look forward to these debates," Mr. Romney said. "I'm delighted to have three debates. It will be a conversation with the American people that will span almost an entire month."
Romney campaign officials have said that the former Massachusetts governor's central argument during the debates will be that the country can't afford another four years like the last four years. On Monday, Mr. Romney said that American families still are struggling under the Obama administration.
"The middle-class squeeze has been unbearable," he said. "Gasoline prices way up. Food prices up. Electricity prices up. Health insurance prices up."
Mr. Romney said that the president's policies have not worked and have not yielded a real economic recovery. He said that if Mr. Obama is re-elected, the president will push for proposals that would allow unions to overtake small businesses.
More In Colorado
"What the president is doing is bowing to the demands of big labor, to his big contributors," Mr. Romney said. "It's wrong. It would kill our economy. I'll stop that in its track."
The Republican presidential nominee got an assist Monday night from former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway, who offered his endorsement before the event and introduced Mr. Romney to the enthusiastic crowd that gathered at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. On Wednesday, Mr. Romney will debate Mr. Obama at the University of Denver.
An Obama campaign spokeswoman said that with the first debate approaching, Mr. Romney still has not explained to voters how he plans to pay for his tax plan.
"On Wednesday night, he will need more than 'zingers' and attacks on the president," Lis Smith said. "He will need to honor his campaign's promises to get specific and tell the truth to the American people."
Below, video of key moments from debates from 1960 to the present.
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text:
30 for all of them and I will throw in 2 dx discs a dx tee bird and a dx roc
sorry selling only
i will buy the #1 roller for 5 bucks
i heard u were a scammer so not dealing with u
I am interested in the putters, all of them plus the Upshots. What deal can we work out? Thanks, Will


text:
I'm shy until I get to know you Im a fun passionate person. I love music I'm the person u pull up to at a red light and I have my music blasting singing as loud as I can and don't care who's watching I enjoy the little things in life I'm always smiling or laughing its the best medicine there is! I love taking random trips at the last minute unplanned you always get the best adventure that way. I love going to the lake beach or river. I'll do anything for the ones I care about! I'm always told I'm to nice but that's me don't plan on changing it.
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Being me helping people living life keeping a smile on and anything I set my mind to
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My crazy curly hair how tall I am. It's always I know u play basketball right
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I love horror movies, comides and of course romance ! I pretty much listen to any kind of music as long as it has a good beat to it. I love spicy foods and Italian food!
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Think outside the box. Sometimes the little things can say a lot.
My family and friends, loud music , car, cell phone, the beach , summer
I spend a lot of time thinking about
Global warming, lunch, or your next vacation… it's all fair game.
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text:
Gen Art Chicago Film Festival opens with Bart Got A Room
The Second Annual Gen Art Chicago Film Festival will open in Chicago on June 23 with Plum Pictures' comedy Bart Got A Room starring William H Macy and Cheryl Hines.Brian Hecker's film was one of the more popular entries at Tribeca, where it received its world premiere in April, and charts the comical course of events as a high school student tries to find a date for Prom Night. Steven Kaplan plays the lead.Other entries include ...
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text:
It's fashionable to bash soccer in this country. We mostly hate it. Don't get it. Stick our noses in the air. We're soccer snobs. And most Americans only hate soccer because much of the rest of the world likes it. Well, if you didn't like the penalty kick orgasm that was the United States' victory over Brazil on Sunday, you are not only soccer phobic, you don't have a freaking pulse. You're the walking dead.
That was, so far, the best moment in sports in the past year. It was better than watching LeBron James get punk'd or the World Series or even the Green Bay-Pittsburgh Super Bowl. In fact, I've covered about 15 Super Bowls, and this game was more exciting than some 90 percent of the ones I've seen.
There is no grand statement here about how soccer will take more of a foothold now thanks to the excitement of what the U.S. women are doing. We've heard that before, and it never happened. But that's not the point.
What we're seeing now is just enjoyable, brilliant sport -- athletes at the top of their game, taking on the world, and winning with both skill and heart. It's what we want our athletes to do, and they're doing it fearlessly and breathlessly.
The U.S. performance is knocking the wind out of everyone who watches. If you're not seeing this, you're missing a gem. You're missing something that's been better than any sporting event we've seen in America this year.
Blog Entry
Since: Nov 15, 2007
Posted on: August 3, 2011 10:14 pm
World Cup soccer: A thrill a minute
He said Super Bowl XLII AND Cincy vs Pitt game. Those are two different games.
Since: Sep 2, 2006
Posted on: July 11, 2011 6:18 pm
World Cup soccer: A thrill a minute
2009 Cincy Bearcats - Pitt Panthers game.
Um..what super bowl is that?
Since: Jan 4, 2009
Posted on: July 11, 2011 8:21 am
This comment has been removed.
Post Deleted by Administrator
Since: Aug 7, 2009
Posted on: July 11, 2011 12:06 am
World Cup soccer: A thrill a minute
Did you watch this game? I have only seen two football games more xciting. SuperBowl XLII and the 2009 Cincy Bearcats - Pitt Panthers game.
Since: Nov 8, 2006
Posted on: July 10, 2011 9:20 pm
World Cup soccer: A thrill a minute
I don't think you're going far enough. It's the greatest moment in the history of sports.
Soccer bashing? Ever since the men's team did nothing in the last World Cup, yet it was
still all we heard about - I'd say I've had more than enough of soccer coverage to last me
a lifetime. The Bruins just won their first Cup in 40 years not too long ago, and I'm not
even a Bruins fan. I'll take that, thanks...
Since: May 26, 2011
Posted on: July 10, 2011 9:20 pm
World Cup soccer: A thrill a minute
whining, diving, all around cry baby sidney crosby begs to differ
Since: Jul 10, 2011
Posted on: July 10, 2011 9:07 pm
World Cup soccer: A thrill a minute
Spare us SNOB! Noone is begging you to watch or be a fan of soccer. Whats it like to know everything jerk?
Since: Mar 1, 2009
Posted on: July 10, 2011 9:01 pm
World Cup soccer: A thrill a minute
I think you are right. I am a recent(2-3 years) fan of Soccer, and I can't get enough of it. What makes this great is the fact that they are representing our country. This match had so many different factors flying around, it is truly hard to explain to a non-soccer fan how epic this match was. I hope soccer gets a bit more of a foothold here in the USA, but I am not holding my breath. I am just going to enjoy, and the match today...was the absolute best sports moment in the last couple of years(to me, anyway).
Since: May 26, 2011
Posted on: July 10, 2011 8:59 pm
World Cup soccer: A thrill a minute
Like any "thrilling" WNBA game, this was as thrilling as a game can be between two teams that would lose badly to the national U15 boys team or a decent varsity high school team.
Since: Oct 1, 2007
Posted on: July 10, 2011 8:19 pm
World Cup soccer: A thrill a minute
For the low scoring comments... Isn't the best baseball game a 1-0 pitchers duel to a real baseball fan??? Get real buddy


text:
Extracellular heat shock protein 70 inhibits tumour necrosis factor-α induced proinflammatory mediator production in fibroblast-like synoviocytes
1 Department of Pathophysiology, Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, Xiangya Road, Changsha, Hunan 410008, China
2 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Medical College of Taizhou University, Shifu Road, Taizhou, Zhejiang 318000, China
3 Department of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Xiangya Road, Changsha, Hunan 410008, China
4 Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd, Dallas, Texas 75390-9063, USA
Arthritis Research & Therapy 2008, 10:R41 doi:10.1186/ar2399Published: 14 April 2008
It was recently suggested that heat shock protein (HSP)70, an intracellular protein, is a potential mediator of inflammatory disease when it is released into the extracellular compartment. Although elevated HSP70 levels have been identified in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) synovial tissues and RA synovial fluid compared with patients with osteoarthritis and healthy individuals, it remains unclear what role extracellular HSP70 plays in the pathogenesis of RA. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of extracellular HSP70 on the production of RA-associated cytokines in fibroblast-like synoviocytes from patients with RA and to elucidate the mechanisms involved.
IL-6, IL-8 and monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1 levels in culture supernatants were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), such as extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases (ERKs), c-Jun amino-terminal kinase (JNK) and p38 MAPK, was detected using Western blotting. Nuclear translocation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) and degradation of the inhibitory protein IκBα were examined using immunohistochemistry and Western blotting.
Human HSP70 downregulated IL-6, IL-8 and MCP-1 production in RA fibroblast-like synoviocytes induced by tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α in a concentration dependent manner. HSP70 inhibited the activation of ERK, JNK and p38 MAPK in fibroblast-like synoviocytes stimulated by TNF-α. Furthermore, HSP70 also significantly inhibited nuclear translocation of nuclear factor-κB and degradation of IκBα induced by TNF-α.
Extracellular HSP70 has an anti-inflammatory effect on RA by downregulating production of IL-6, IL-8 and MCP-1 in fibroblast-like synoviocytes, which is mediated through inhibited activation of the MAPKs and NF-κB signal pathways.


text:
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The United States Promotes Israeli Genocide Against the Palestinians
(from Tackling America's Toughest Questions -- now at Amazon.com)
As long ago as October 19, 2000, the then United Nations Human Rights Commission (now Council) condemned Israel for inflicting "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" upon the Palestinian people, most of whom are Muslims. The reader has a general idea of what a war crime is, so I am not going to elaborate upon that term here. But there are different degrees of heinousness for war crimes. In particular are the more serious war crimes denominated "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Since the outbreak of the first Intifada in 1987, the world has seen those heinous war crimes inflicted every day by Israel against the Palestinian people living in occupied Palestine: e.g., willful killing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army and by Israel's illegal paramilitary settlers. These Israeli "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention mandate universal prosecution for the perpetrators and their commanders, whether military or civilian, including and especially Israel's political leaders.
But I want to focus for a moment on Israel's "crimes against humanity" against the Palestinian people-as determined by the U.N. Human Rights Commission itself, set up pursuant to the requirements of the United Nations Charter. What are "crimes against humanity"? This concept goes all the way back to the Nuremberg Charter of 1945 for the trial of the major Nazi war criminals in Europe. In the Nuremberg Charter of 1945, drafted by the United States Government, there was created and inserted a new type of international crime specifically intended to deal with the Nazi persecution of the Jewish people: Crimes against humanity--namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated.
The paradigmatic example of "crimes against humanity" is what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish people. This is where the concept of "crimes against humanity" came from. And this is what the U.N. Human Rights Commission determined that Israel is currently doing to the Palestinian people: crimes against humanity. Expressed in legal terms, this is just like what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews. That is the significance of the formal determination by the U.N. Human Rights Commission that Israel has inflicted "crimes against humanity" upon the Palestinian people. The Commission chose this well-known and long-standing legal term of art quite carefully and deliberately based upon the evidence it had compiled.
Furthermore, the Nuremberg "crimes against humanity" are the historical and legal precursor to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention. The theory here was that what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jewish people was so horrific that it required a special international treaty that would codify and universalize the Nuremberg concept of "crimes against humanity." And that treaty ultimately became the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Article II of the Genocide Convention defines the international crime of genocide in relevant part as follows: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
As documented by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in his seminal book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), Israel's genocidal policy against the Palestinians has been unremitting, extending from before the very foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, and is ongoing and even intensifying against the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza. Zionism's "final solution" to Israel's much touted "demographic threat" allegedly posed by the very existence of the Palestinians has always been genocide.
Certainly, Israel and its predecessors-in-law-the Zionist agencies, forces, and terrorist gangs-have committed genocide against the Palestinian people that actually started on or about 1948 and has continued apace until today in violation of Genocide Convention Articles II(a), (b), and (c). For at least the past six decades, the Israeli government and its predecessors-in-law-the Zionist agencies, forces, and terrorist gangs-have ruthlessly implemented a systematic and comprehensive military, political, and economic campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, racial, and different religious (Jews versus Muslims and Christians) group constituting the Palestinian people. This Zionist/Israeli campaign has consisted of killing members of the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(a). This Zionist/Israeli campaign has also caused serious bodily and mental harm to the Palestinian people in violation of Genocide Convention Article II(b). This Zionist/Israeli campaign has also deliberately inflicted on the Palestinian people conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in substantial part in violation of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention.
Article I of the Genocide Convention requires all contracting parties such as the United States "to prevent and to punish" genocide. Yet to the contrary, historically the "Jewish" state's criminal conduct against the Palestinians has been financed, armed, equipped, supplied and politically supported by the "Christian" United States. Although the United States is a founding sponsor of, and a contracting party to, both the Nuremberg Charter and the Genocide Convention, as well as the United Nations Charter, these legal facts have never made any difference to the United States when it comes to its blank-check support for Israel and their criminal mistreatment of the Palestinians--truly the wretched of the earth!
The world has not yet heard even one word uttered by the United States and its NATO allies in favor of "humanitarian intervention" against Israel in order to protect the Palestinian people, let alone a "responsibility to protect" the Palestinians from Zionist/Israeli genocide. The United States, its NATO allies, and the Great Powers on the U.N. Security Council would not even dispatch a U.N. Charter Chapter 6 monitoring force to help protect the Palestinians, let alone even contemplate any type of U.N. Charter Chapter 7 enforcement actions against Israel - shudder the thought!. The doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" so readily espoused elsewhere when U.S. foreign policy goals are allegedly at stake has been clearly proved to be a joke and a fraud when it comes to stopping the ongoing and accelerating Israeli campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people.
Rather than rein in the Israelis-which would be possible just by turning off the funding pipeline-the United States government, the U.S. Congress, and U.S. taxpayers instead support the "Jewish" state to the tune of about 4 billion dollars per year, without whose munificence this instance of genocide - and indeed conceivably the State of Israel itself - would not be possible. What the world witnesses here is (yet another) case of "dishumanitarian intervention" or "humanitarian extermination" by the United States and Israel against the Palestinians and Palestine. In today's world genocide pays so long as it is done at the behest of the United States and its de jure or de facto allies such as Israel.
Of course miracles can always happen. But I anticipate no fundamental change in America's support for the Israeli campaign of genocide against the Palestinians during the tenure of the Obama/Clinton administration.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
War Crime Case Against Tony Blair Now Rock-solid
Citizen's arrest bounty on Blair
Neil Clark: A trial would be warmly welcomed by millions – so what happens next?
By Neil Clark
December 16, 2009 "The First Post" - -- Tony Blair's extraordinary admission on Sunday to the BBC's Fern Britton - that he would have gone to war to topple Saddam Hussein regardless of the issue of Iraq's alleged WMDs - is sure to give fresh impetus to moves to prosecute our former prime minister for war crimes.
The case against Blair, strong enough before this latest comment, now appears rock solid. Going to war to change another country's regime is prohibited by international law, while the Nuremburg judgment of 1946 laid down that "to initiate a war of aggression", as Blair and Bush clearly did against Iraq, "is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole".
Blair's admission, that he "would still have thought it right to remove him [Saddam]" regardless of the WMD issue, is also an acknowledgement that he lied to the House of Commons on February 25, 2003, when he told MPs: "I detest his [Saddam's] regime. But even now he [Saddam] can save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully. I do not want war... But disarmament peacefully can only happen with Saddam's active co-operation."
The view that Blair is a war criminal is now mainstream: when comedian Sandi Toksvig, host of Radio Four's News Quiz, called him one on air, the BBC, according to the Mail on Sunday, did not receive a single complaint.
But while it is easy to label Blair a war criminal, what are the chances of him actually standing trial - and how could it be achieved? Various initiatives have already been launched.
The Blair War Crimes Foundation, set up by retired orthopaedic surgeon David Halpin, has organised an online petition, addressed to the President of the UN General Assembly and the UK Attorney General, which lists 14 specific complaints relating to the Iraq war, including "deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war" and violations of the Geneva Conventions by the occupying powers.
The campaigning journalist George Monbiot, who attempted a citizen's arrest of the former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, for his role in the Iraq war, said at the Hay Literary festival in 2008 that he would put up the first £100 of a bounty payable to the first person to attempt a non-violent citizen's arrest of Blair.
Monbiot has also called for the setting up of national arrest committees in countries which, unlike Britain, have incorporated the 'Crime of Aggression' into their domestic law. These committees would exchange information with one another and make sure that Blair "would have no hiding place".
If Blair is to face an international trial, then the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague - to which Britain is a signatory - would be the likeliest forum. While the ICC has said that it will not conduct prosecutions for the Crime of Aggression until it has been defined by its own working group, the court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, told the Sunday Telegraph in 2007 that he would be willing to launch an inquiry into US/UK war crimes in Iraq. Charges could also be brought against Blair at the ICC for failing to prosecute the war in a "proportionate manner".
From Iraq itself, there are also moves to bring Blair to book. It has been reported that lawyers acting for Tariq Aziz, the former deputy leader of the country, now held in captivity, have written to Britain's top legal adviser asking permission to prosecute Blair for war-crimes, in the light of his latest comments.
Whichever way it comes about, if Blair is forced to stand trial, there can be no underestimating the event's significance. Up to now, the only political leaders who have faced war crimes trials since World War Two are those who fell foul of the west - and in particular the United States of America. But the notion of international justice will never be taken seriously if western politicians are deemed to be exempt from the same rules that leaders in Africa and elsewhere are supposed to adhere to.
The prospect of Teflon Tony finally having to answer for his crimes in a court of law, would be warmly welcomed by millions of people throughout the world, not least all those who marched for peace through central London in February 2003, one month before the Iraq invasion.
There is widespread contempt for a man who has made millions while Iraqis die in their hundreds of thousands due to the havoc unleashed by the illegal invasion, and who, with breathtaking arrogance, seems to regard himself as above the rules of international law.
The next decade will tell us whether that is indeed the case.
Friday, December 25, 2009
The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder--The film
From a recent press release: "Canadian production company, NAFTC Studios has acquired the rights to distribute the controversial documentary The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder based on Vincent Bugliosi's best-selling novel by the same name. The partnership came about following a meeting between Mr.Bugliosi and Windsor native Jim Shaban after Shaban became aware of the intense media black-out in the U.S. of the book and now the film. Mainstream U.S. media outlets that have previously supported Bugliosi have actively blocked the promotion of this latest effort."
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Obama's Af-Pak War is Illegal
December 22, 2009 "ICH" -- President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize nine days after he announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. His escalation of that war is not what the Nobel committee envisioned when it sought to encourage him to make peace, not war.
In 1945, in the wake of two wars that claimed millions of lives, the nations of the world created the United Nations system to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." The UN Charter is based on the principles of international peace and security as well as the protection of human rights. But the United States, one of the founding members of the UN, has often flouted the commands of the charter, which is part of US law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
Although the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was as illegal as the invasion of Iraq, many Americans saw it as a justifiable response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The cover of Time magazine called it "The Right War." Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war but escalating the war in Afghanistan. But a majority of Americans now oppose that war as well.
The UN Charter provides that all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the council passed two resolutions, neither of which authorized the use of military force in Afghanistan.
"Operation Enduring Freedom" was not legitimate self-defense under the charter because the 9/11 attacks were crimes against humanity, not "armed attacks" by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers hailed from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after 9/11, or President Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be "instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the UN General Assembly.
Bush's justification for attacking Afghanistan was that it was harboring Osama bin Laden and training terrorists, even though bin Laden did not claim responsibility for the 9/11 attacks until 2004. After Bush demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden to the United States, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said his government wanted proof that bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks before deciding whether to extradite him, according to the Washington Post. That proof was not forthcoming, the Taliban did not deliver bin Laden, and Bush began bombing Afghanistan.
Bush's rationale for attacking Afghanistan was spurious. Iranians could have made the same argument to attack the United States after they overthrew the vicious Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and the U.S. gave him safe haven. If the new Iranian government had demanded that the U.S. turn over the Shah and we refused, would it have been lawful for Iran to invade the United States? Of course not.
When he announced his troop "surge" in Afghanistan, Obama invoked the 9/11 attacks. By continuing and escalating Bush's war in Afghanistan, Obama, too, is violating the UN Charter. In his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama declared that he has the "right" to wage wars "unilaterally." The unilateral use of military force, however, is illegal unless undertaken in self-defense.
Those who conspired to hijack airplanes and kill thousands of people on 9/11 are guilty of crimes against humanity. They must be identified and brought to justice in accordance with the law. But retaliation by invading Afghanistan was not the answer. It has lead to growing U.S. and Afghan casualties, and has incurred even more hatred against the United States.
Conspicuously absent from the national discourse is a political analysis of why the tragedy of 9/11 occurred. We need to have that debate and construct a comprehensive strategy to overhaul U.S. foreign policy to inoculate us from the wrath of those who despise American imperialism. The "global war on terror" has been uncritically accepted by most in this country. But terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. One cannot declare war on a tactic. The way to combat terrorism is by identifying and targeting its root causes, including poverty, lack of education, and foreign occupation.
In his declaration that he would send 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Obama made scant reference to Pakistan. But his CIA has used more unmanned Predator drones against Pakistan than Bush. There are estimates that these robots have killed several hundred civilians. Most Pakistanis oppose them. A Gallup poll conducted in Pakistan last summer found 67% opposed and only 9% in favor. Notably, a majority of Pakistanis ranked the United States as a greater threat to Pakistan than the Taliban or Pakistan's arch-rival India.
Many countries use drones for surveillance, but only the United States and Israel have used them for strikes. Scott Shane wrote in the New York Times, "For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for targeted killings in a country where the United States is not officially at war."
The use of these drones in Pakistan violates both the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit willful killing. Targeted or political assassinations—sometimes called extrajudicial executions—are carried out by order of, or with the acquiescence of, a government, outside any judicial framework. As a 1998 report from the UN Special Rapporteur noted, "extrajudicial executions can never be justified under any circumstances, not even in time of war." Willful killing is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, punishable as a war crime under the U.S. War Crimes Act. Extrajudicial executions also violate a longstanding U.S. policy. In the 1970s, after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence disclosed that the CIA had been involved in several murders or attempted murders of foreign leaders, President Gerald Ford issued an executive order banning assassinations. Although there have been exceptions to this policy, every succeeding president until George W. Bush reaffirmed that order.
Obama is trying to make up for his withdrawal from Iraq by escalating the war on Afghanistan. He is acting like Lyndon Johnson, who rejected Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's admonition about Vietnam because LBJ was "more afraid of the right than the left," McNamara said in a 2007 interview with Bob Woodward published in the Washington Post.
Approximately 30% of all U.S. deaths in Afghanistan have occurred during Obama's presidency. The cost of the war, including the 30,000 new troops he just ordered, will be about $100 billion a year. That money could better be used for building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and creating jobs and funding health care in the United States.
Many congressional Democrats are uncomfortable with Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. We must encourage them to hold firm and refuse to fund this war. And the left needs to organize and demonstrate to Obama that we are a force with which he must contend.
Marjorie Cohn is the immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where she teaches criminal law and procedure, evidence, and international human rights law. She lectures throughout the world on human rights and US foreign policy. Visit her blog http://marjoriecohn.com
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Film Review: "Vietnam – American Holocaust"
Written, Directed and Produced by
Clay Claiborne
Narrated by Martin Sheen
The premise of Clay Claiborne's new documentary re-examining the great tragedy of the Vietnam War concerns America's continuing reluctance to accept its responsibility for the brutal massacre of as many as 5 million Vietnamese people. Most of those killed by American Forces were civilians, an estimated 4 million from both sides of the North/South line established by the Geneva Convention in 1954. Claiborne then asks the question: how many deaths does it take to qualify for holocaust status? As the United States institutes war making in the Middle East, what lessons can America ever learn from Vietnam if there has been a collective denial of our previous atrocities?
The purpose of Vietnam – American Holocaust is to re-remind us of those atrocities.
In a concise, if not slightly hurried style, Claiborne gives us a short "History of Vietnam" lesson to help us understand the steps and missteps which pulled America into full scale war. He emphasizes Vietnam's long subservient role in Colonialism and their desire for autonomy: ruled for centuries by China, then for 100 years by France in the 1800's and early 1900's, temporarily taken over by Japan during WWII, given back to France for a Ten Year War in the 1950's, and then under military assault from the United States in the 1960's and 70's. When Vietnamese dedication finally outlasted American will in 1975, a reunited nation of Vietnam declared its first independence. Throughout Claiborne's history lesson, he is unafraid of exposing the American Masters of War, along with the true reasons behind their aggressions in the Far East. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all participated in the conquest of Vietnam, each fearing the nationalization of resources and the possible loss of profit from rubber, tin, tungsten, and most importantly, cheap labor. Claiborne focuses much of his time on a bitter and sadistic Lyndon Johnson, who along with Nixon, killed millions with relentless bombing campaigns. Tracing America's gradual participation into war from the early stages of CIA covert activity, Claiborne indicts the familiar major players behind the savagery: Secretary of Defense William McNamara, Generals Curtis LeMay, Alexander Haig and William Westmoreland, and the many weapons and chemical manufacturers promoting the war, GE, Dow Chemical and Monsanto, just to name a few.
But the main focus of Vietnam – American Holocaust, surrounds the graphic footage of the horrific atrocities that occurred during the prosecution of the war. America dropped over 8 million tons of bombs on Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, three times more than all countries combined in WWII. Scenes of American helicopters shooting down running civilians, destroying villages, crops and jungle habitat remind us forty years later of the brutality done to innocent people. Against the military claim of instituting only "surgical bombing," Claiborne offers contrary aerial shots of the killing of innocent people and the intentional destruction of homes, schools and hospitals. He shows American planes in the systematic spraying of eventually 19 million gallons of Agent Orange and other fatal chemicals over Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. In an attempt to destroy the food supply of the Vietcong, the American military poisoned the people, land and water of four nations, not to mention its own soldiers on the ground.
Claiborne's last chilling section of the film centers around a mix of reactions by both American troops and their Vietnamese victims. With cold bravado, some American soldiers recount their stories of "killing contests," of "hunting gooks," of making no distinction between civilian and Vietcong, of cutting ears and being paid by body count through the CIA. Claiborne then moves to clips of testimony from Vietnamese survivors giving accounts of their villages being burned, their daughters raped and their sons shot, only because there was rumor the Vietcong had recently been present. Eventually, Claiborne settles into footage from the historic Winter Soldier testimonies which took place in Detroit in February 1971. There, remorseful soldiers spoke the hard truth about the atrocities they witnessed and participated in during the war. Devastating accounts of brutality, orchestrated from upper levels of command giving "ambiguous orders" to "kill anything that moves," eventually add up to a criminal and moral indictment against the politicians and career brass who forced the drafted soldier into a mentality of slaughter and mass death. As one tearful soldier speaks out in Detroit, "Don't ever let this government do this to you."
87 minutes long, Vietnam – American Holocaust races by and still leaves many questions unanswered. The film begins to make comparisons of Vietnam to the new American wars in the Middle East, briefly showing eerie images of burned to death by white phosphorus victims in Iraq next to similar shots of white phosphorus victims in Vietnam. But Claiborne retreats from this examination, most likely understanding the constraints of film time to make the comparison thoroughly. While maintaining his position that America has fallen into a collective amnesia concerning the holocaust initiated on the Vietnamese people by the United States, Claiborne finishes his study by analyzing that unlike the American public, the American Military Industrial Complex did learn lessons from Vietnam. First, that American citizens would no longer tolerate a draft; and second, that from Vietnam on there would be a whitewashing of the horrors of war. The Pentagon would control all information to reporters and there would never again be an openly televised war. Even returning caskets would be blacked out. Americans were to be forever shielded from both the atrocities committed and the actual truth of history.
Vietnam – American Holocaust is a must see for seekers of truth and for believers of taking our world back from the war mongers. The film concludes with a simple truth: "Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it."
Friday, December 11, 2009
Book review "George W. Bush, War Criminal? "
Reviewed by Will Shapira
I'm always surprised when the former president ventures outside the U.S. as he has done a few times; I fully expect him to be arrested and, in the most extraordinary rendition of all, transported to the International Criminal Court--which he so hated and undoubtedly feared--for indictment and trial for alleged war crimes. Ditto the members of his administration.
Two hundred sixty-nine alleged war crimes, according to Prof. Haas who has meticulously documented them. This not only is a compendium of alleged transgressions by Mr. Bush but a not-so-short course in Constitutional and international law. Fortunately for stupidos like me, you don't have to be an attorney to understand the book; even a mediocre student such as Mr. Bush was in his college days would get the meaning.
Prof. Haas divides the book into two sections: "Identification of War Crimes" and "Prosecution of War Crimes." He explains each of the alleged war crimes one by one and why he believes it is such. All of the names we so recently associated with the Bush Administration are here and some lesser-knowns, too. Seemingly, no one escapes.
Explaining his methodology in the Preface, Prof. Haas says, "I have done little investigative research but instead have mined existing writing on the subject by eyewitnesses, government officials, journalists, lawyers and other observers. I have engaged in what is literally known as 'research'--that is, I have looked back at what has been recorded in order to sort firsthand and secondhand statements into a comprehensive listing of war crimes."
In the Foreword, Benjamin D. Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, says it is Prof. Haas' declared intention "to draw the attention to the enormity of injustices and illegalities that must be addressed before America's tarnished reputation in the world can be restored."
Since the book includes Iraq and Afghanistan, a sequel is likely, whether or not Mr. Bush journeys to The Netherlands or not. And it is not beyond rationality to assume members of succeeding administrations someday may be so charged.
One thing is sure; when it comes to President Bush and the ICC, Prof. Haas and his associates definitely are not tilting at windmills.
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War Crimes Times Statement of Purpose (revised 06/2011)
The War Crimes Times provides compelling, ongoing information on war and the war crimes that invariably accompany war, the many costs of war, the effects of our war culture on our national character and international reputation, and the need to hold accountable those who initiate and conduct illegal wars. Additionally and importantly, we also report on the efforts of the many people who sacrifice their time, money, and comfort to work for peace.
When national leaders initiate hostilities they create the conditions—the extreme use of force coupled with limited accountability—for the war crimes which invariably follow. War crimes are therefore an inherent part of war. The suffering caused and the enmity aroused by war crimes must be regarded as costs of war. Since these and other costs far exceed any benefits of war, we seek to end war as a tool of international policy.
Towards this goal, we believe that holding war criminals accountable will send a strong message to all current and future heads of state to very carefully weigh all the consequences of the decision to go to war. While we recognize that United States has long relied on unlawful military force to further its foreign policy goals, we are particularly concerned with the blatant and egregious violations of international law committed by the United States beginning with the Administration of George W. Bush and now continued and expanded under President Obama.
We endorse any efforts, including impeachment, which would bring war criminals of any administration to justice. The War Crimes Times has resolved to see that Bush, Cheney, Obama, and other government officials and military officers who have committed war crimes are prosecuted—no matter how long it takes.
There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.