text:
Everyone is in Dallas this week, but I'm working from home because I'm due to have a baby any day now! I'm hearing good things about the show though, and hoping it's been a success for everyone. It does feel a bit odd to be here missing out on all the hubbub. I miss the excitement of getting that first peek at next year's toys and picking up on the early emerging trends. If you're at the show, I hope you were able to snag a copy of our September/October issue. Inside, you'll get a look at a lot of the toys being exhibited this week in Dallas for 2010. In addition, Bruce Lund, inventor of some of the hottest toys the industry has seen, was so kind as to write our cover story for us this month. If you've ever wanted an inside look at the life of a toy inventor, be sure to check out his article.
If you were in Dallas this week, let me know how the show was for you!

subset: commoncrawl


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So you want to know....
by Matt Lee Contributions — Published on Feb 12, 2005 11:05 AM
What's a free software job?
A free software job is any job centered on the creation, promotion, oversight, support, sales, marketing or installation of free software.
Here are some common examples of free software jobs:
- GNU/Linux systems administrator
- Web developer using free software like PHP, Python, Ruby, Django and Apache
- Organizer working to install GNU/Linux or Open Office in elementary schools
- BSD installation and support, coupled with hardware sales
- MySQL database administration
- Bounties or short-term free software coding jobs
- On-site instructor for free software like Plone or MySQL
Here are some examples of jobs that don't fit the criteria:
- 20% GNU/Linux sysadmin and 80% internal support for desktops running a proprietary operating system
- Developing proprietary software applications, even if they run on the GNU/Linux operating system
- Jobs focused on proficiency with proprietary applications, even if some free software is involved
- Jobs that don't have anything to do with software at all
If you've got a free software job that you're ready to list, just email it to email@example.com and we'll post it just as soon as payment is received.


text:
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran requested on Monday a special meeting of a U.N. committee on the United States' refusal to grant a visa to Tehran's new U.N. ambassador appointee, describing the decision as a dangerous precedent that could harm international diplomacy.
The United States said on Friday it would not grant a visa to Hamid Abutalebi because of his links to the 1979-1981 Tehran hostage crisis when radical Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Abutalebi has said that he acted only as a translator.
"This decision of the U.S. government has indeed negative implications for multilateral diplomacy and will create a dangerous precedence and affect adversely the work of intergovernmental organizations and activities of their Member-States," Iran's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Hossein Dehghani wrote to the U.N. Committee on Relations with the Host Country.
"It requires to be well addressed in the Committee on Relations with the Host Country. The Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran requests that the committee addresses this issue in an extraordinary and urgent manner," he said.
Cyprus U.N. Ambassador Nicholas Emiliou, who chairs the 19-member committee dealing with issues including immigration and security, said a meeting would likely be held next week.
"They have specified that they do not request any action on the part of the committee. They simply wish to brief us for the time being at least," Emiliou said of Iran's request.
In the letter Iran expressed its "serious concern over the clear indication of refusal of granting visa by the Host Country authorities in breach of their legal obligations under international law and the Headquarters Agreement."
Iran also asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to circulate the letter to the 193-member U.N. General Assembly.
Officials, diplomats and academics could not recall past cases of the United States denying a U.N. ambassador's visa.
Under a 1947 "headquarters agreement," the United States is generally required to allow access to the United Nations for foreign diplomats. But Washington says it can deny visas for "security, terrorism, and foreign policy" reasons.
A 1947 Joint Resolution of Congress said nothing should be seen as "diminishing, abridging, or weakening the right of the United States to safeguard its own security and completely control the entrance of aliens" into any part of the United States aside from the U.N. headquarters.
President Barack Obama had come under strong pressure not to allow Abutalebi into the country to take up his position. Former hostages raised objections to Abutalebi, and a normally divided Congress passed legislation that would ban him.
The White House is still reviewing the legislation, which would bar any U.N. representative deemed to be behind acts of terrorism or espionage against the United States. It would need Obama's signature to become law.
Tehran has steadfastly stuck by its choice for U.N. ambassador, describing Abutalebi as a seasoned diplomat. He has served as ambassador to Italy, Belgium and Australia and is not known as a hardliner or for having staunch anti-Western views.
Iran had said on Saturday it would take action against Washington at the United Nations.
In 1988, Washington denied a visa for Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, who wanted to address a U.N. debate on Palestine. U.S. secretary of state at the time, George Schultz, said Arafat was denied entry because he condoned terrorist attacks on Americans.
U.N. lawyers reported to the Committee on Relations with the Host Country that the United States was obligated to grant the visa under the U.N. headquarters' agreement.
The lawyers also said the headquarters agreement "does not contain a reservation of the right to bar the entry of those who represent, in the view of the host country, a threat to its security."
The headquarters agreement says disputes should be referred to a tribunal of three arbitrators: one each chosen by the United Nations and United States and the third agreed by both or appointed by the International Court of Justice president.
This dispute mechanism was used in 1988 after the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 declared the PLO a terrorist group and outlawed it from operating in the United States. Under this law the United States tried to shut down the PLO U.N. mission.
The United Nations declared the bid a "clear violation" of the headquarters agreement and tried to start the dispute settlement process with the United States.
The United States refused to take part in the arbitration with the United Nations, saying it would "not serve a useful purpose." The United Nations then requested a legal advisory from the International Court of Justice, which found that Washington was obligated to enter into arbitration.
The PLO also took legal action in the United States and Washington dropped its bid to shut down the PLO U.N. mission only when a U.S. Federal Court judge ruled that the mission's status was protected by the host country agreement.
Additional reporting by Michelle Moghtader in Dubai; Editing by Yara Bayoumy, Louise Ireland, Cynthia Osterman and Mohammad Zargham


text:
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text: Here's Florio, on Schwartz-Harbaugh: "Not that long ago, all coaches exuded a sense of dignity toward the game and respect toward each other. From Tom Landry to Chuck Noll to Bud Grant to John Madden to Don Shula, coaches didn't treat each other like opponents in the main event of the next pro wrestling pay-per-view." And here, about 20 seconds into this clip of Seahawks-Oilers from the 1987 AFC playoffs, is a look back at Noll wagging his finger, cursing at and threatening Jerry Glanville as the two shook hands after a Steelers-Oilers game from two weeks earlier. [h/t to @vitostellino]


text:
Leon Trotsky Лев Давидович Троцкий; born Lev Davidovich Bronstein; Лев Давидович Бронштейн (26 October O.S., 7 November) 1879 - 21 August 1940) Russian Marxist, intellectual, and revolutionary. In the early Soviet Union, he founded the Politburo, served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and created and led the Red Army. After Lenin's death, Trotsky was exiled for his opposition to Joseph Stalin's policies. His 1940 assassination in Mexico was carried out by a Soviet agent at Stalin's behest.
Categories: Activists, Atheists, Political leaders, Russians, Jews, Socialists, Communists, 1940s deaths, Soviets
Quotes: 80 sourced quotes total (includes 1 misattributed, 33 about)
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A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified. (Also quoted as "The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.")
When Victor Adler objected to Berchtold, foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, that war would provoke revolution in Russia, even if not in the Habsburg monarchy, he replied: "And who will lead this revolution? Perhaps Mr. Bronstein [Trotsky] sitting over there at the Cafe Central?"
Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes. But at present even the handling of a hammer is taught with the help of a mirror, a sensitive film that records all the movements. Photography and motion-picture photography, owing to their passive accuracy of depiction, are becoming important educational instruments in the field of labor. If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one resconstruct oneself or one's life, without seeing oneself in the "mirror" of literature? Of course no one speaks about an exact mirror. No one even thinks of asking the new literature to have mirror-like impassivity. The deeper literature is, and the more it is imbued with the desire to shape life, the more significantly and dynamically it will be able to "picture" life.
Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.
The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies.
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces — in nature, in society, in man himself.
Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain — at least in a poor country like Russia — and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.
Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.
Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.
There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.
Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service.
The struggle against war and its social source, capitalism, presupposes direct, active, unequivocal support to the oppressed colonial peoples in their struggles and wars against imperialism. A 'neutral' position is tantamount to support of imperialism.
When one considers the elaborate forgeries that have been committed in order to show that Trotsky did not play a valuable part in the Russian civil war, it is difficult to feel that the people responsible are merely lying. More probably they feel that their own version was what happened in the sight of God, and that one is justified in rearranging the records accordingly.
For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth.
Repression for the attainment of economic ends is a necessary weapon of the socialist dictatorship.
We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life.
The struggle against war, properly understood and executed, presupposes the uncompromising hostility of the proletariat and its organizations, always and everywhere, toward its own and every other imperialist bourgeoisie...
To the very end Trotsky remained a blind, pitiless (even when pitiable) giant, defending the right of the minority vanguard of the proletariat -- the Party -- to exercise its dictatorship over 'the backward layers of the proletariat' -- i.e., those who disagreed with the self-designated vanguard.
As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!
A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified, From the Marxist point of view, which expresses the historical interests of the proletariat, the end is justified if it leads to increasing the power of man over nature and to the abolition of the power of man over man.
The road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state … Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction...
(On the American Civil War) "History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!"
Dialectical thinking is related to vulgar thinking in the same way that a motion picture is related to a still photograph. The motion picture does not outlaw the still photograph but combines a series of them according to the laws of motion. Dialectics does not deny the syllogism, but teaches us to combine syllogisms in such a way as to bring our understanding closer to the eternally changing reality.
Socialist authors promise not only wealth for all, but also happiness in love for everybody, the full physical and spiritual development of each individual, the unfolding of great artistic and scientific talents in all men, etc. Only recently Trotsky stated in one of his writings that in the socialist society "the average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise." 1 The socialist paradise will be the kingdom of perfection, populated by completely happy supermen. All socialist literature is full of such nonsense. But it is just this nonsense that wins it the most supporters.
A sledgehammer breaks glass but forges steel.
An ally has to be watched just like an enemy.
Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to man.
Proof of Trotsky's farsightedness is that none of his predictions have come true yet.
The life of a revolutionary would be quite impossible without a certain amount of "fatalism."
Trotsky explained that a nationalised planned economy needs democracy as the human body needs oxygen.
It was as the supreme expression of the mediocrity of the apparatus that Stalin himself rose to his position.
Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction; from the point of view of the proletariat the difference between the types of reaction is meaningless.
Despite the unquestionable greatness of the Anglo-Saxon genius, it is impossible not to see that the laws of revolutions are least understood precisely in the Anglo-Saxon countries.
'''''The concrete is a combination of abstractions'' — not an arbitrary or subjective combination but one that corresponds to the laws of the movement of a given phenomenon.'''
Here's to the day when the complete works of Leon Trotsky are published and widely distributed in the Soviet Union. On that day the USSR will have achieved democracy!
[Trotsky] was an intellectual who never asked himself such a simple question as: 'What reason do I have to believe that the economic condition of workers under socialism will be better than under capitalism?'
All anti-Stalinist forces had been wiped out … Trotskyism, Zinovievism, and Bukharinism, all drowned in blood, had, like some Atlantis, vanished from all political horizons … and he himself was now the sole survivor of Atlantis.
In Stalin each [Soviet bureaucrat] easily finds himself. But Stalin also finds in each one a small part of his own spirit. Stalin is the personification of the bureaucracy. That is the substance of his political personality.
In not more than a month's time terror will assume very violent forms, after the example of the great French Revolution; the guillotine... will be ready for our enemies... that remarkable invention of the French Revolution which makes man shorter by a head.
Maxim Gorki, supposedly citing a quote from Trotsky, told some journalists in 1924: "From Mussolini's governmental actions I have got to know his energy and I admire him, but I prefer Trotsky's opinion: Mussolini has made a revolution, he is our best student."
In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their own powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes toward a great avenger and liberator who someday will come and accomplish his mission.
The CPUSA [i.e., Communist Party of the USA] would do literally anything for Moscow, even kill: Party members were intimately involved in assassination plots against the heretic Bolshevik Leon Trotsky, and later they would assist in unsuccessful KGB plots to break his murderer out of jail.
The tacit assumption underlying the Lenin-Trotsky theory of dictatorship is this: that the socialist transformation is something for which a readymade formula lies completed in the pocket of the revolutionary party, which needs only to be carried out energetically in practice. This is, unfortunately or – perhaps fortunately – not the case.
The theory that the struggle between Bolshevism and Menshevism is a struggle for influence over an immature proletariat is not a new one. We have been encountering it since 1905 in innumerable books, pamphlets, and articles in the liberal press. Martov and Trotsky are putting before the German comrades liberal views with a Marxist coating...
The German soldiers, that is, the workers and peasants, will in the majority of cases have far more sympathy for the vanquished peoples than for their own ruling caste. The necessity to act at every step in the capacity of 'pacifiers' and oppressors will swiftly disintegrate the armies of occupation, infecting them with a revolutionary spirit.
We can only be right with and by the Party, for history has provided no other way of being in the right... And if the Party adopts a decision which one or other of us thinks unjust, he will say, just or unjust, it is my party, and I shall support the consequences of the decision to the end.
[Trotsky] knew Yiddish, and if at a later date, in his autobiography, he pretends to know nothing about Jews and Judaism, then this is nothing but a plain lie. He who had visited at Cafe Arkaden [in Vienna] for years on end must have mastered both these matters to perfection. The language in greatest use at that Cafe was - besides 'Viennese-German' - Yiddish.
The obliging Trotsky is more dangerous than an enemy! /.../ Trotsky has never yet held a firm opinion on any important question of Marxism. He always contrives to worm his way into the cracks of any given difference of opinion, and desert one side for the other. At the present moment he is in the company of the Bundists and the liquidators.
What, however, is our relation to revolution? Civil war is the most severe of all forms of war. It is unthinkable not only without violence against tertiary figures but, under contemporary technique, without murdering old men, old women and children... There is no impervious demarcation between 'peaceful' class struggle and revolution. Every strike embodies in an unexpanded form all the elements of civil war.
In the early 1920s, the Communists believed, a priori, that Germany and other European countries were ripe for internal revolution, and indeed Germany was not far from going Communist in these years. But later on, these hopes died, and Stalin, particularly after the ouster of the fanatic Trotsky, who always wanted immediate revolutions everywhere, settled down to calm concentration on "socialism in one country."
Lenin's methods [of "hard" centralism and mistrust of the working class] lead to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party, the central committee substitutes itself for the organization, and, finally, a "dictator" substitutes himself for the central committee. … The party must seek the guarantee of its stability in its own base, in an active and self-reliant proletariat, and not in its top caucus … which the revolution may suddenly sweep away with its wing.
[W]idespread public perceptions about the role of Jews in the new government [of the Bolsheviks in the early Soviet Union] led to aggressive surveillance and repression of anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior, including the execution of Russian nationalists who expressed anti-Jewish attitudes. These public perceptions also motivated Jews to adopt a lower profile in the regime, as with Trotsky, who refused the post of commissar of internal affairs because it might lend further ammunition to the anti-Jewish arguments.
Natasha and I said more than once that one may arrive at such a physical condition that it would be better to cut short one's own life or, more correctly, the too slow process of dying … But whatever may be the circumstances of my death I shall die with unshaken faith in the communist future. This faith in man and in his future gives me even now such power of resistance as cannot be given by any religion.
When Trotsky, in the first weeks of his regime, threatened opponents with an ingenious gadget that shortens a person "only by the length of a head," one may have dismissed the remark as a bad joke from a temperamental orator trying to cut the figure of a Robespierre. A few months passed and the tasteless joke became harsh reality, the difference being that, in "liberated" Russia, now instead of the chop of the bourgeois guillotine, "socialist" bullets whistle from Latvian rifles.
...quite in keeping with Trotsky's passion for ideas, his generous indignation at injustice, was his sense of personal rectitude, his idealistic approach to life. All who knew him intimately even when he was one of the rulers of Russia speak of it. Max Eastman and also Souvarine, who, a fierce opponent of Trotsky's politics, has said of him that there was nothing "mesquin" in his character, not a trace of rascality. It is a noticeable characteristic of many great writers and philosophers, but a fatal weakness in a politician.
If one accepts that anti-Semitism was most potently driven by anxiety and fear, as distinguished from contempt, then the extent to which Trotsky became a source of preoccupation with anti-Semites is significant. Here, too, Johnson's words are suggestive: He writes of Trotsky's "demonic power"—the same term, revealingly, used repeatedly by others in referring to Zinoviev's oratory or Uritsky's ruthlessness. Trotsky's boundless self-confidence, his notorious arrogance, and sense of superiority were other traits often associated with Jews. Fantasies there were about Trotsky and other Bolsheviks, but there were also realities around which the fantasies grew.
I know well enough, from my own experience, the historical ebb and flow. They are governed by their own laws. Mere impatience will not expedite their change. I have grown accustomed to viewing the historical perspective not from the stand point of my personal fate. To understand the causal sequence of events and to find somewhere in the sequence one's own place – that is the first duty of a revolutionary. And at the same time, it is the greatest personal satisfaction possible for a man who does not limit his tasks to the present day.
The Jews practically always backed the wrong horse. The Jews of Russia who worked for the destruction of monarchy found themselves finally in the grips of a brutal religious persecution which hit them harder than the Christians. Their most brilliant exponents among the Communists were exiled, slaughtered, or assassinated in exile. The fate of Trotzki [sic] is symbolic for Russian Jewry. The Jews, with their ardent sympathies for the Soviet Union, had the same grim awakening when they learned of the Stalin Hitler pacts as the Spanish Jews who had backed the Moors instead of the Christians.
Virtually all members of [radical] groups sincerely believe that they are fighting the Establishment. In reality they are an indespensible ally of the Establishment in fastening Socialism on all of us. The naive radicals think that under Socialism the "people" will run everything. Actually, it will be a clique of Insiders in total control, consolidating and controlling all wealth. That is why these schoolboy Lenins and teenage Trotskys are allowed to roam free and are practically never arrested or prosecuted. They are protected. If the Establishment wanted the revolutionaries stopped, how long do you think they would be tolerated?
Leon Trotsky (Braunstein) was an East Sider [in New York City]. The forces which fostered what he stood for centered in the Kehillah and the American Jewish Committee. Both were interested in the work he set out to do - the overthrow of an established government, one of the allies of the United States in World War One. Russian Bolshevism was helped to its objective by Jewish gold from the United States - and by the ignorance and indolence of the Gentile citizens of the United States whose crimes of omission are almost as grave as those of bolshevik commission.
If it is a question of seeking formal contradictions, then obviously we must do so on the side of the White Terror, which is the weapon of classes which consider themselves "Christian," patronize idealist philosophy, and are firmly convinced that the individuality (their own) is an end-in-itself. As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the "sacredness of human life." We were revolutionaries in opposition, and have remained revolutionaries in power. To make the individual sacred we must destroy the social order which crucifies him. And this problem can only be solved by blood and iron.
What is the ethic of the parasite-host relationship? Is it immoral? No, it is natural for the parasite to seek a host on which it can feed, and it is natural for the host to attempt to dislodge him. The Jew is obeying his God when he fulfills his life mission of being a parasite, of finding and controlling a host. It is the sense of his own historical rightness, as Trotsky formulated it in Communism, which led the Jew to believe that he was indeed a Chosen People, born to live off the work of others, and to take their goods and lands.
The bourgeoisie today is a falling class... by its imperialist methods of appropriation [it] is destroying the economic structure of the world and human culture generally. Nevertheless, the historical persistence of the bourgeoisie is colossal. It holds to power, and does not wish to abandon it. Thereby it threatens to drag after it into the abyss the whole of society. We are forced to tear it off, to chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish. If the White Terror can only retard the historical rise of the proletariat, the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie.
[I]t is clear from the relevant writings of the leaders -- in particular Lenin, Trotsky, and Bukharin -- that they all envisioned this economic policy [of 'war communism' from 1918-1921] (the abolition of free trade, coercive requisitioning of 'surplus' -- i.e., whatever the local leadership considered to be surplus -- from the peasants, universal rationing, forced labour) as a permanent achievement of the new society, and that it was eventually abandoned not because the war conditioned which had made it necessary no longer existed, but as a result of the economic disaster it had caused. Both Trotsky and Bukharin were emphatic in their assurances that forced labour was an organic part of the new society.
I thank warmly the friends who remained loyal to me through the most difficult hours of my life. I do not name anyone in particular because I cannot name them all. However, I consider myself justified in making an exception in the case of my companion, Natalia Ivanovna Sedova. In addition to the happiness of being a fighter for the cause of socialism, fate gave me the happiness of being her husband. During the almost forty years of our life together she remained an inexhaustible source of love, magnanimity, and tenderness. She underwent great sufferings, especially in the last period of our lives. But I find some comfort in the fact that she also knew days of happiness.
Stalin, aware of the state of his regime and in what a tottering world he lived, did not count Trotsky's meagre following and then sit back in comfort. He knew that as long as Trotsky lived and could write and speak, the Soviet bureaucracy was in mortal danger. In a conversation just before war broke out. Hitler and the French ambassador discussed the perils of plunging Europe into conflict and agreed that the winner of the second great war might be Trotsky. Winston Churchill hated him with a personal malevolence which seemed to overstep the bounds of reason. These men knew his stature, the power of what he stood for, and were never lulled by the smallness of his forces.
Mussolini called attention to the fact that Lenin—a prisoner of circumstances, some of which he had himself created—was fully prepared to reconstruct the state, with all its appurtenances, after its initial destruction at the hands of his "socialists." In opposition to all that had been said by Marxism's foremost theoreticians, Lenin gave every evidence, not only of reconstructing the state, but of recreating an army, as traditional in form and function as any that supported "bourgeois" rule throughout modern history. **The Red Army of Leon Trotsky was sent not only to defend the political boundaries of the new state—like every bourgeois army before it—but it forcibly, and without compensation, requisitioned goods from the people in order to sustain its deployments.**
From the days of Adam (Spartacus) Weishaupt, to those of Karl Marx to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxemburg and Emma Goldman. This worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstruction of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steadily growing … There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international, and for the most part, atheistic Jews. It is certainly a very great one: it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders.
The dialectics of history have already hooked him and will raise him up. He is needed by all of them; by the tired radicals, by the bureaucrats, by the Nepmen, the upstarts, by all the worms that are crawling out of the upturned soil of the manured revolution. He knows how to meet them on their own ground, he speaks their language and he knows how to lead them. He has the deserved reputation of an old revolutionist, which makes him invaluable to them as a blinder on the eyes of the country. He has will and daring. He will not hesitate to utilize them and to move them against the Party. Right now he is organising himself around the sneaks of the party, the artful dodgers.
Finally, lest this explanation seem too radical [i.e., the thesis that American financiers aided and abetted the Bolshevik coup d'état in order to create a vast captive market in Russia], remember that it was Trotsky who appointed tsarist generals to consolidate the Red Army; that it was Trotsky who appealed for American officers to control revolutionary Russia and intervene in behalf of the Soviets; that it was Trotsky who squashed first the libertarian element in the Russian Revolution and then the workers and peasants; and that recorded history totally ignores the 700,000-man Green Army composed of ex-Bolsheviks, angered at betrayal of the revolution, who fought the Whites and the Reds. In other words, we are suggesting that the Bolshevik Revolution was an alliance of statists: statist revolutionaries and statist financiers aligned against the genuine revolutionary libertarian elements in Russia.
In these pages, I continue the struggle to which my whole life is devoted. Describing, I also characterize and evaluate; narrating, I also defend myself, and more often attack. It seems to me that this is the only method of making an autobiography objective in a higher sense, that is, of making it the most adequate expression of personality, conditions, and epoch. Objectivity is not the pretended indifference with which confirmed hypocrisy, in speaking of friends and enemies, suggests indirectly to the reader what it finds inconvenient to state directly. Objectivity of this sort is nothing but a conventional trick. I do not need it. Since I have submitted to the necessity of writing about myself — nobody has as yet succeeded in writing an autobiography without writing about himself — I can have no reason to hide my sympathies or antipathies, my loves or my hates.
[I]t is obvious to anyone who thinks dialectically that actions which are ostensibly the same kind of actions can be right or wrong depending on the circumstances -- or rather, on the cause in the name of which they were performed. Both Lenin and Trotsky were quite explicit on this point. Is there, for instance, anything wrong with slaughtering children? No. It was right, argued Trotsky, to slaughter the children of the Russian czar because it was politically expedient. (Presumably it was not right to kill Trotsky's sons, however, because Stalin did not represent the historical interests of the proletariat; Trotsky, as far as I know, did not deal with this question directly, but such an answer would be in keeping with his fanatical mentality). If we reject the principal that the end justifies the means, we can only appeal to higher, politically irrelevant moral criteria; and this, Trotsky says, amounts to believing in God.
The part which Stalin played in the Nazis' seizure of power in Germany was considerable. As Leon Trotsky said in 1936: 'Without Stalin there would have been no Hitler, there would have been no Gestapo!' (Bulletin of the Opposition (BO), Nos. 52-53, October 1936) Another statement he made in November 1938 reveals Trotsky's shrewdness and his knowledge of the point at issue. 'Stalin finally untied Hitler's hands, as well as those of his enemies, and thereby pushed Europe towards war.' He said this at a time when Chamberlain was rejoicing that there would be no war, Mussolini was regarding himself as a peacemaker and Hitler still had no intention of issuing a directive to attack Poland, even less France. At the moment when Europe was heaving a sigh of relief in the belief that there would be no war, Trotsky already knew both that war would quickly come and who would be to blame for it.
I do not measure the historical process by the yardstick of one's personal fate. On the contrary, I appraise my fate objectively and live it subjectively, only as it is inextricably bound up with the course of social development. Since my exile, I have more than once read musings in the newspapers on the subject of the "tragedy" that has befallen me. I know no personal tragedy. I know the change of two chapters of the revolution. One American paper which published an article of mine accompanied it with a profound note to the effect that in spite of the blows the author had suffered, he had, as evidenced by his article, preserved his clarity of reason. I can only express my astonishment at the philistine attempt to establish a connection between the power of reasoning and a government post, between mental balance and the present situation. I do not know, and I never have, of any such connection. In prison, with a book or a pen in my hand, I experienced the same sense of deep satisfaction that I did at the mass-meetings of the revolution. I felt the mechanics of power as an inescapable burden, rather than as a spiritual satisfaction.
Reference to the conditions that have developed in Russia and Hungary under Soviet rule proves nothing. What we have there is nothing but a picture of the destruction of an existing order of social production, for which a closed peasant household economy has been substituted. All branches of production depending on social division of labor are in a state of entire dissolution. What is happening under the rule of Lenin and Trotsky is merely destruction and annihilation. Whether, as the liberals hold, socialism must inevitably draw these consequences in its train, or whether, as the socialists retort, this is only a result of the fact that the Soviet Republic is attacked from without, is a question of no interest to us in this context. All that has to be established is the fact that the Soviet socialist commonwealth has not even begun to discuss the problem of economic calculation, nor has it any cause to do so. For where things are still produced for the market in Soviet Russia in spite of governmental prohibitions, they are valued in terms of money, for there exists to that extent private ownership of the means of production, and goods are sold against money. Even the government cannot deny the necessity, which it confirms by increasing the amount of money in circulation, of retaining a monetary system for at least the transition period.
Comrade Trotsky completely misinterpreted the main idea of my book, What Is To Be Done? when he spoke about the Party not being a conspiratorial organization. He forgot that in my book I propose a number of various types of organizations, from the most secret and most exclusive to comparatively broad and 'loose' organizations. He forgot that the Party must be only the vanguard, the leader of the vast masses of the working class, the whole (or nearly the whole) of which works 'under the control and direction' of the Party organizations, but the whole of which does not and should not belong to a 'party.' Now let us see what conclusions Comrade Trotsky arrives at in consequence of his fundamental mistake. He had told us here that if rank after rank of workers were arrested, and all the workers were to declare that they did not belong to the Party, our Party would be a strange one indeed! Is it not the other way round? Is it not Comrade Trotsky's argument that is strange? He regards as something sad that which a revolutionary with any experience at all would only rejoice at. If hundreds and thousands of workers who were arrested for taking part in strikes and demonstrations did not prove to be members of Party organizations, it would only show that we have good organizations, and that we are fulfilling our task of keeping a more or less limited circle of leaders secret and drawing the broadest possible masses into the movement.
During my youth I rather leaned toward the prognosis that the Jews of different countries would be assimilated and that the Jewish question would thus disappear, as it were, automatically. The historical development of the last quarter of a century has not confirmed this view. Decaying capitalism has everywhere swung over to an intensified nationalism, one aspect of which is anti-Semitism. The Jewish question has loomed largest in the most highly developed capitalist country of Europe, Germany.[…] The Jews of different countries have created their press and developed the Yiddish language as an instrument adapted to modern culture. One must therefore reckon with the fact that the Jewish nation will maintain itself for an entire epoch to come. […] We must bear in mind that the Jewish people will exist a long time. The nation cannot normally exist without common territory. Zionism springs from this very idea. But the facts of every passing day demonstrate to us that Zionism is incapable of resolving the Jewish question. The conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine acquires a more and more tragic and more and more menacing character. I do not at all believe that the Jewish question can be resolved within the framework of rotting capitalism and under the control of British imperialism.[…] Socialism will open the possibility of great migrations on the basis of the most developed technique and culture. It goes without saying that what is here involved is not compulsory displacements, that is, the creation of new ghettos for certain nationalities, but displacements freely consented to, or rather demanded, by certain nationalities or parts of nationalities. The dispersed Jews who would want to be reassembled in the same community will find a sufficiently extensive and rich spot under the sun. The same possibility will be opened for the Arabs, as for all other scattered nations. National topography will become a part of the planned economy. This is the great historic perspective as I see it. To work for international Socialism means to work also for the solution of the Jewish question.
You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. This was attributed to Trotsky in an epigraph in Night Soldiers: A Novel (1988) by Alan Furst but it may actually be a revision of a statement earlier attributed to Trotsky: "You may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in you." Only a very loose translation of "the dialectic" would produce "war." : Such translation is possible via an intermediate Greek translation, or simply for someone with a knowledge of Greek, where the word πόλεμος carries a dual connotation of both dialectic and war (evident in the adjective form πολεμικός). Compare translations of Heraclitus's Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι ("War is the father of all") by David MyattDavid Myatt, "Heraclitus – translations of some fragments". Quote: Polemos our genesis, governing us all to bring forth some gods, some mortal beings with some unfettered yet others kept bound.David Myatt, "Heraclitus – translations of some fragments". Quote: I have deliberately transliterated (instead of translated) πόλεμος, and left δίκη as δίκη – because both πόλεμος and δίκη should be regarded like ψυχή (psyche/Psyche) as terms or as principles in their own right (hence the capitalization), and thus imply, suggest, and require, interpretation and explanation, something especially true, in my opinion, regarding δίκη. To render such Greek terms blandly by English terms such as 'war' and 'justice' – which have their own now particular meaning(s) – is in my view erroneous and somewhat lackadaisical. and by Martin Heidegger.Steven Burik, "The end of comparative philosophy and task of comparative thinking. Heidegger, Derrida, and Daoism" (State University of New York, 2009), page 30. Quote: Heraclitus is well known for having allegedly said in fragment 53 that "war is the father of all things." Heidegger thinks again that this interpretation is mistaken or at least one-sided. There is again a more originary way of looking at the fragment, which starts with πόλεμος πάντων μὲ ν πατήρ ἐστι. Heidegger translates "Confrontation (Auseinandersetzung) is indeed the begetter of all (that comes to presence) . . ." This is already a huge difference from normal translations, but even more important is the continuing sentence which isusually left out: . . . πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς, which Heidegger translates as ". . . but (also) the dominant preserver of all." So[,] far from trying to say that war is the father of all things, Heidegger says that confrontation, as Auseinandersetzung, is the begetter and keeper of all things.Heidegger, Martin (1953). "Einführung in die Metaphysik." Quote: Auseinandersetzung is allem (Anwesendem) zwar Erzeuger, allem aber (auch) waltender Bewahrer. Also see translation in German Wikipedia.Wikipedia:DE:Liste griechischer Phrasen/Pi#Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι. Quote: Auseinandersetzung ist aller Dinge Vater, aller Dinge König, die einen erweist er als Götter, die andern als Menschen, die einen macht er zu Sklaven, die anderen zu Freien. The notability of the Greek connection (between "war" and "the dialectic") is further augmented by the fact that the Heraclitean logic of war underpins Hegelian dialectics,Georg Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume I ← via Lars Aagaard-Mogensen, Translator (1998), An Introduction to Hegel's Logic pages: 16–17, publisher: Hackett Publishing, ISBN: 0-87220-424-3 ← via Wikipedia:Hegel#Heraclitus. Quote: There is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my logic. a modern precursor to dialectical materialism and, consequently, Trotsky's doctrine. In a later work, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (2000) by Michael Walzer, the author states: War is most often a form of tyranny. It is best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." This statement on dialectic itself seems to be a paraphrase, with the original in In Defense of Marxism Part VII : "Petty-Bourgeois Moralists and the Proletarian Party" (1942) — where Trotsky publishes a letter to Albert Goldman (5 June 1940) has been translated as "Burnham doesn't recognize dialectics but dialectics does not permit him to escape from its net." More discussion on the origins of this quotation can be found at The Semi-Daily Journal of Economist Brad DeLong: Fair and Balanced Almost Every Day.


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Outlived or Lived Out?
Many years ago I was privileged to know several great men of faith in the generation just preceding my own. I regarded these men with deep respect and even held them in awe because of their great knowledge and even …Read More
Gordon Reed
After fifty years in pastoral ministry, Dr. Gordon K. Reed has "retired" into a supply pastorate at Longtown Presbyterian Church in Ridgeway, South Carolina.


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To discover your African American ancestors online, you can access ProQuest's African American Heritage database while visiting the Genealogy Center. The database is divided into four categories: Search the Collections, Visit the AfriGeneas™ Community, Explore Black Genesis, and Consult Reference and How-to's.
Search the Collections focuses your search on African American ancestors in the 1860-1930 Census, 1865-1874 Freedman's Bank Records, and World War I and II Draft Registration Cards.
Visit the AfriGeneas™ Community searches the AfriGeneas website for census, marriage, death, and slave records.
Explore Black Genesis, a State-by-State Resource Guide by Dr. James M. Rose and Dr. Alice Eichholz provides information on records and repositories for African American resources available within the United States, Canada, and the West Indies.
Consult Reference and How-to's searches books on African American research methods.


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LONDON - Up to 100,000 Britons suffering from cancer and rare diseases are to have their genetic codes fully sequenced and mapped as part of government plans to build a DNA database to boost drug discovery and development.
Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday he wanted Britain to "push the boundaries" of scientific research by being the first country to introduce genetic sequencing into a mainstream health service.
His government has set aside 100 million pounds for the project in the taxpayer-funded National Health Service (NHS) over the next three to five years.
"Britain has often led the world in scientific breakthroughs and medical innovations, from the first CT scan and test-tube baby through to decoding DNA," he said in a statement.
"It is crucial that we continue to push the boundaries and this new plan will mean we are the first country in the world to use DNA codes in the mainstream of the health service."
The government said building a database of DNA profiles will give doctors more advanced understanding of a patient's genetic make-up, their illness and their treatment needs. This should help those who are sick get access to the right drugs and more personalised care more quickly.
The database should also help scientists develop new drugs and other treatments which experts predict "could significantly reduce the number of premature deaths from cancer within a generation", Cameron's office said in a statement,
"By unlocking the power of DNA data, the NHS will lead the global race for better tests, better drugs and above all better care," Cameron said.
"If we get this right, we could transform how we diagnose and treat our most complex diseases not only here but across the world, while enabling our best scientists to discover the next wonder drug or breakthrough technology."
Some critics of the project, known as the "UK genome plan", have voiced concerns about how the data will be used and shared with third parties, including with commercial organisations such as drug companies.
Genewatch, a campaign group fighting for genetic science and technologies to be used in the public interest, has said anyone with access to the database could use the genetic codes to identify and track every individual on it and their relatives.
Cameron's office stressed, however, that the genome sequencing would be entirely voluntary and patients will be able to opt out without affecting their NHS care. It added the data would be "completely anonymised before it is stored".
The government's chief medical officer Sally Davies said the new project and the 100 million pounds of funding for it "opens up the possibility of being able to look at the three billion DNA pieces in each of us so we can get a greater understanding of the complex relationship between our genes and lifestyle."


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Surviving Teenage Motherhood: Myths and Realities
Palgrave Macmillan, Sep 22, 2010 - Philosophy - 241 pages
This bookĀexplores the experiences of pregnant teenagers, their partners, and midwives, from pregnancy realisation through the early years of motherhood.ĀIt examines changing attitudes to female sexuality and moral discourses on adolescent subjectivity especially as these pertain to teenage motherhood.
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Teenage Pregnancy Motherhood and Family Life
Introducing the Teenagers and their Significant Others
Through Pregnancy
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text: Upson County came into being in 1824, its lands taken from parts of Pike and Crawford counties. Its name honors Stephen Upson, a lawyer and legislator of renown during the antebellum period. Thomaston, the county seat, is named for General Jett Thomas, leader of the state militia in 1812 and builder of the state capitol at Milledgeville.


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how bout Jeremy Sowers????
in his last 10 starts, here are some stats---
he gave up more than 3 runs once(4)
and went 6-1 over that span.
pitched 65 2/3 innings
era of 2.34
only gave up 3 hr
his k #'s are not great but he can give quality starts.he was shut down early and will be starting this year. Any thoughts on him???


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ProceedingsFirst (conference proceedings)
- Coverage Dates: 1993 - present
- Update Frequency: Semiweekly (twice a week)
The ProceedingsFirst (Proceedings) database is an index of worldwide conference proceedings. It covers every published congress, symposium, conference, exposition, workshop, and meeting received by The British Library Document Supply Centre. Each ProceedingsFirst record contains a list of the papers presented at each conference.
- Database Provider: OCLC
Express Link (bookmark): http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zop1


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5. Add text over the top - as directed - start with showing me the video with NO text and then I will tell you what text to add.
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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says Public Advocate Bill de Blasio—the leading Democrat vying to replace him—is running a "racist" campaign because campaign literature highlights his multi-racial family!
"I mean he's making an appeal using his family to gain support. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone watching what he's been doing. I do not think he himself is racist. It's comparable to me pointing out I'm Jewish in attracting the Jewish vote. You tailor messages to your audiences and address issues you think your audience cares about."
Mr. de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, is Black and bisexual, and discussed her sexuality in a groundbreaking interview with ESSENCE. Their teenage son, Dante, has appeared in his father's campaign adverts and has become an internet sensation because ads and photos prominently feature his fabulous afro.
Also in the extensive interview with New York magazine: The bilionaire Bloomberg also slams de Blasio for running a "left-wing" and "class-warfare" campaign ... and claims the city's poor "ain't poor" because they have air-conditioning and cars.
The question you've got to ask yourself is, are we spending money to help those that are struggling? We spend $22,000 per year per student. No other city in the country spends that. We have a commitment to having a park within a ten-minute walk of everybody. I don't think any administration has done as much to help the whole spectrum of people who live here. ...
So if that's what you describe as income inequality—that's just not an apt description. One of the things that's different today is the poor—80 percent [nationally] have air-conditioning. Seventy percent have cars. When we grew up we didn't have air-conditioning. Air-conditioning in the schools, the subways. Are you crazy? Now, by most of the world's standards, you ain't poor. The old measure just looked at your income. It didn't look at what services you need. I'm not being cavalier about it, but most places in the world our poor are wealthy. There's a lot of tragedy around the world.
Bloomberg's heated rhetoric is probably in response to the latest poll numbers which show de Blasio soaring above his rivals in the September 10 primary. de Blasio is polling at 43 percent "an astonishing climb that puts him past the 40 percent threshold needed to avoid a primary runoff," reports the Daily News.
While far out-pacing his next closest rivals Bill Thompson and Christine Quinn — locked in a statistical dead heat at 20 and 18 percent, respectively — de Blasio is also siphoning off votes in what should be their bases of support, the Quinnipiac poll found.
He trounces Quinn — vying to become the city's first woman mayor — with women, 44 percent to her 18 percent, according to the poll of 750 likely voters. That poll also shows de Blasio drawing nearly double the support from black voters as Thompson, the only African American in the race, with 47% of black voters telling pollsters they back de Blasio and compared to 25% backing Thompson.
The New York City mayoral primary is Tuesday, September 10.


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The Guard - a Time-out
By Alfred Opp, Vancouver, British Columbia
Edited by Connie Dahlke, Walla Walla, Washington
This story is sad, and a little peculiar, as it turned out. Its importance lies in showing how the good in life balances the bad - how events even out. This happened in my life, and I was able to regain
my peace and trust in mankind.
After Mom and Dad had been taken away from us, my brother and I were on our own in the apartment in Bromberg, Poland. I was not yet 15, and my brother was 8 years old. We had to meet all kinds of difficulties to stay alive. It was winter, and very cold. We severely rationed the small supply of food that was in the apartment. We had no one that we could rely on to help us. Although the Polish people in our apartment complex did not report us, for a time they were afraid to help us since we were Germans..
After being on our own for a month or so, a Polish policeman came to our apartment and took us away. I was aware that this would eventually happen, and had prepared myself for it. I had packed a backpack and two carrying bags with clothes, half a loaf of bread and some documents - whatever I thought we would need. The policeman who came to take us away was quiet and said little. He took me and my brother to a compound about 10 minutes away from our apartment. I recognized the place that once housed circus animals. We had often played on this large field near the canal - it was our playground! But now the buildings had been made into a prison for German women, children and old men, and it was fenced in with four strands of barbed wire - more was not needed. Where could
one go? If anyone tried to escape, he or she was shot on the spot - no hesitation!
We soon learned that this place had been made into a prison about a month before we got there. The buildings were already packed with German refugees caught in the war - mostly women and children. It was in a populated area of Bromberg, with apartment buildings close by that overlooked the area, including a tree-lined walkway that followed the canal.
The policeman turned us over to a guard who took us to a stable where the circus animals used to be. The place was packed with women and crying, hungry children. We barely found a spot to lay down. A kind old man moved over to make room for me, and my brother got a spot close by
beside a lady with two kids. The floor was thickly covered with straw that made a comfortable bed. The shouting of the guards and the crying of the children went on all day and night. It was a frightening place.
I soon realized that I had forgotten to bring blankets with me. Nor were we supplied with dishes or utensils. This was not a hotel! The old man shared his blanket with me, and the woman shared her blanket with my brother Oskar. The next day when it was time to go to the soup-line for lunch, we had no bowls or spoons. So the old man went first, and then I took my turn with the old man's bowl and spoon..The lady and Oskar used the same arrangement. It wasn't all that bad. Besides, going at the end of the line meant that we got the thicker soup from the bottom of the pot.
About the second or third day, I met a chap that was my age. Being 14 years old, we were the oldest males in the camp besides the frail and the very old. Boys 16 years and older were already conscripted into the military. The guy I met had been in the prison camp for a while and was starving. When I told him that I lived around the corner and we still had a few potatoes in our apartment, he jumped at the chance to go there. At the time I didn't realize that as soon as we left the place we would be shot.
One night after we checked everything out, we went under the barbed wire. The guards were having a good time playing cards, all was quiet, and it looked safe. We had barely left the camp when someone shouted HALT. Now what? We slowly walked toward him, expecting to get a beating, be shot, or thrown into a hole. Nothing happened. The guard took us to our place without punishing us, not even a slap in the face, or even saying a word. Nothing happened the next morning either. By then I was scared stiff and in a cold sweat.
The next day, early in the afternoon, he came with the other boy to see me. He had his rifle with him. He signaled us to walk over to the sand pile. I can't remember much of what he did. Oskar and the other inmates were watching, and so were some of the people in the nearby apartments. Once we were standing on the sand pile, he started making moves with his rifle. Then he told us to stay put. Then more maneuvers. While that was going on, I noticed a man in a black suit and a white collar walking on the path along the canal. The guard also noticed, and he and the man in the black suit waived at each other, very friendly-like. Again the guard told us to wait, then he walked over to talk to the man. By then I was frozen in mind and soul - it seemed as though my blood stopped flowing.
I was motionless, with all feelings gone. No sound came out of my mouth, nor from the guy standing next to me.
After a while the guard came back and signaled us to move on back to the compound. He did nothing to us - no hit, no kick in the butt, nothing except to motion us to get back to our place. My little brother understood what was going on and calmly stood by me. That night and the next I didn't sleep. I couldn't eat or even talk. I just stared at the wall.
The day after that a farmer came looking for a farm worker. It was that same guard that called me over and told me I was going to work for the farmer, but that the farmer did not need my brother. At that point, I was not afraid anymore. I firmly said that I was not going without Oskar. If I got beaten or shot, I couldn't care less - let's get it over with. Then the farmer changed his mind and said he could use my brother too.
Before we left for the farm, the guard called me into his office and ordered me to take off my boots. He then gave me shoes that were badly worn. The boots he took from me were in good shape. We then left with the farmer for the train station. Before I left Poland, I had to tie those shoes onto my feet because the soles were falling off.
At the farm one night, I woke up with nightmares. It was then that I cried out loud - I couldn't stop it. I felt abandoned and was so discouraged. But again I had to regroup my inner strength and pick up
the pieces to save my brother.
How does one get over such a thing? I had to learn to forgive. I have forgiven the guard, and I'm so glad I could. I try to remember* *that it was the guard who chose me to leave that camp with the farmer and let my brother come with me without a fuss. Living with the farmer was hard work, but at least we got food to eat. We were out of danger and our lives were safe for the time being.
Perhaps the guard saw in us a symbol of the German occupation of Poland. He decided to punish us with raw fear without laying a hand on us. But who was the man in the black suit with the white collar? He looked like a priest. Perhaps that priest, or another one, had taught forgiveness to the guard, and so he let us go. A hand reached us from somewhere*.* I am convinced of that In my heart. I know that my Guard and I walked away with the feeling of peace. That is exactly why I have forgiven my tormenter. It didn't come overnight - it took me years to learn the goodness of God's doing. But I could not live my life having no trust in humanity - I would have failed. Fear and unforgiveness were like a cage to me. Thanks to God, I got out of the cage.
Alfred Opp is the author of "Pawns on the World Stage" - the memoirs of his childhood in Teplitz, Bessarabia and the experiences of his family in war-torn Europe (Poland during 1941-1945 before they fled to East Germany in 1945, then the reconstruction of West Germany 1945-1955).


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Any body interested in playing some rallies somewhere around Richardson?
I have started playing recently and would like to improve my game and also get good workout!!!
I generally play at Mimosa park in Richardson
Timing are weekdays after 6pm and any time weekends.
If you are interested please shoot me an email: email@example.com
Take care!!!
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Hi Ashley,
I live in Plano near GB & Park. I have played in Mimosa park.
I am usually available M-Thu or weekends. Call me at 214 208 9078.
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Famous for being Backstreet Boy Nick Carter's kid brother, Aaron Carter is now a grown man.
Here's the 12-year-old back in 2000 (left) -- and nine years later, the 21-year-old version in Toronto this weekend (right).
It's amazing what not having your music or acting career takeoff can do for a guy.
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Phantom Charity Takes Flight Leaves Veterans Stranded
Published 12/01/2010
** Update 2013**
Bobby Thompson was captured by U.S. Marshals in Portland, Oregon after being on the run for close to two years. After his arrest authorities found numerous fraudulent ID's in his possession, as well as a suitcase with $980,000 worth of cash. Thompson later admitted that his real name is John Donald Cody. Mr. Cody has been described as a Harvard-educated lawyer and a former Army intelligence officer. In November 2013 an Ohio court convicted him on 23 counts including stealing, identity theft, money laundering and record tampering. He received a 28-year prison sentence and a $6 million fine. In an interview with Reuters, CharityWatch President Daniel Borochoff said "No one has ever made a bigger mockery of veterans, politicians and charity as Bobby Thompson did with his U.S. Navy Veterans Association."
From the December 2010 Watchdog Report
Leaves Veterans Stranded
The United States Navy Veterans Association (USNVA) certainly looked like a legitimate organization on the surface. This multi-million dollar charity, operating since 1927, was registered with the IRS, run by ex-military men, and had dozens of chapters and 66,000 members nationwide. Legitimate, that is, until media investigations revealed that the charity was not in operation until 2002, had only one member or charity official that could be located, was run out of an individual's duplex in Florida, and appears to have consisted of one man using a fake name for whom no record of U.S. military service could be found.
A man we will refer to as "John Doe" stole the name, social security number, and birth date of another man, Bobby Thompson, according to an August 2010 article in the Roanoke Times. He then used this fake identity to set up a sham charity and bilk donors out of nearly $100 million over a seven year period. Authorities have since charged him with identity fraud and issued a nationwide warrant for his arrest. "The real Bobby Thompson, whose identity was stolen…has absolutely no connection to the U.S. Navy Veterans Association," according to a news release on Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray's website. While John Doe abandoned his former residence and has yet to be located by authorities, he will not soon be forgotten by the donors, government lobbyists, politicians, and fundraisers he had dealings with, or by his former lawyers and cohorts he left behind.
Trouble started for John Doe when the St. Petersburg Times (SP Times) began a six-month investigation into USNVA in late 2009. When attempting to locate the charity's national headquarters using the same address the group filed on its tax form and listed on its web site, only a "rented mailbox…at a UPS shipping store" was found, according to the paper. The SP Times had no better luck when trying to locate many of the charity's chapters throughout the country, or any of the officers and directors reported on the charity's tax return and state registration documents. It found that "most state chapter addresses…also are rented mailboxes," and that "none of the three officers listed in Florida registration papers could be found." One officer's address was non-existent, one was the address for the Hilton hotel in Miami, and the last was the address of a condo owned by someone with a different name. Among other searches, the paper looked for the physical address of the commander of the New Mexico chapter, Howard Bonifacio, but found the address did not exist. If it did, it "would sit on a parking lot adjacent to a car dealership," reported the SP Times. For six months the paper conducted "hundreds of searches of directories, online public records databases and newspaper and broadcast stories going back more than 25 years" and reported it was unable to locate 84 of the 85 officers or directors named in the charity's IRS filings.
The only charity representative the paper could locate was John Doe, who apparently ran the charity's operations out of his Florida duplex, but he was not a big fan of transparency. "We are a great charity," he told the SP Times, citing the paper's "character assassination" and "McCarthy-like witch hunts" as an explanation for why the USNVA's state officers and executive board did not want to disclose their whereabouts or respond to the reporter's inquiries. Searches for the charity's internal auditor, Deborah Johns, were also unfruitful. The paper reported in its March 20th, 2010, article that when it asked USNVA for Johns' contact information, John Doe said the charity would release a copy of her audit when "pigs fly."
USNVA was registered with the IRS under a special section of the tax code that exempted it from some of the public disclosure requirements most public charities must follow. For example, USNVA had to report its total expenses each year but did not have to publicly disclose how much it was spending on its programs vs. fundraising and other overhead. For John Doe, however, even this level of transparency was too much for his taste. When asked by the SP Times to supply copies of USNVA's tax returns and IRS exempt status application, which it is required to do within 30 days under IRS rules, John Doe falsely claimed that his charity was exempt from this rule.
If you do not like the rules, change them. This seemed to be John Doe's attitude when he hired attorney Samuel F. Wright to lobby Senator Patsy Ticer of Virginia. The state of Virginia has a large military presence, making it a key fundraising area for veterans and military charities. The vast majority of U.S. states, including Virginia, require charities to register financial and other information with oversight agencies as a condition of being allowed to solicit contributions from residents in their state. Ticer reported to the SP Times that Wright showed up at her office with another Northern Virginia lobbyist whom she knew and that Wright asked her to sponsor legislation that would exempt certain veterans groups like USNVA from registration. She agreed to sponsor the bill, and it passed the state Senate and House unanimously in February and March 2010, respectively. By the time Ticer became aware of the serious problems at USNVA and wanted to squash her bill, it was too late to prevent Governor Robert McDonnell from signing it.
USNVA "has never made a contribution to any candidate for office, ever," John Doe told the SP Times, according to the paper's March 20th, 2010, article. Contributions were definitely made by John Doe to various politicians and officeholders in Virginia, but with so little accountability over the charity's finances, it is difficult to confirm whether he used the charity's funds or his own. Among campaign donations to politicians in that state, $1,000 went to Senator Ticer; $5,000 went to Governor McDonell; $2,000 went to House Speaker Bill Howell, and the largest donation, $55,500, went to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Once major issues at USNVA were brought to light, most quickly agreed to donate the contributions they received to other veterans charities, except for Cuccinelli, who held out for about two months before publicly stating he would do the same.
The information on USNVA's web site, navyvets.org, made the group seem impressive, even if its low quality design could have clued donors in that something was amiss. In addition to boasting of its 66,000 members and dozens of state chapters throughout the U.S., it also cited substantial contributions from several foundations, and claimed to have received an award for international news reporting. According to the SP Times, USNVA "refused to provide addresses or phone numbers for the foundations." The paper could not locate any "tax records, web sites, or news stories" about the Irene T. Boyar Foundation, the John F. Kearney Foundation, or the Deborah & Charles Pissot Foundation, nor could it find them listed "in major reference directories of U.S. foundations." As for the Jill Dando Award the charity claimed to have received in 2003, an official from this institution told the SP Times it had "no record of giving any award to the U.S. Navy Veterans Association."
Perhaps most disturbing are the countless thank-you notes and other praise the charity posted on its web site from soldiers who had supposedly received care packages from the group. Disturbing because the SP Times confirmed that many of the notes of praise were substantively copied without permission from the web site of anysoldier.com, an organization that helps Americans connect with active duty soldiers and send them care packages. "Everyone in the unit who received a package from you wants to thank you so much. And for your [web] site," reads a thank you letter on USNVA's web site from Gina Pronzati, U.S. Navy, Afghanistan. The paper reported finding seven thank-you letters on USNVA's web site that "were near duplicates of messages written to anysoldier.com or anysailor.com." According to a June 2010 article in the SP Times, Pronzati told the paper that she never received a package from USNVA, and never wrote the group a thank-you. "I knew immediately it was some sort of scam, because it was exactly what I posted on anysailor.com. It's a pretty horrible thing for someone to do," said Pronzati.
Throughout the SP Times' investigation, USNVA communicated with the paper primarily through its attorney, Helen MacMurray, who also happens to be former Chief of the Consumer Protection Section of the Ohio Attorney General's Office, the department that oversees charity regulation in that state. In response to the paper's allegations that USNVA lifted soldiers' thank-you notes from other web sites, the charity responded through MacMurray that "sometimes out of haste, negligence or simply a belief that charity is its own reward," they did not always include something in the care packages that would identify them as coming from USNVA. For this reason, the group claims that when it saw a thank-you note posted on anysoldier.com from care package recipients, it "felt justified in changing some language and advertising that thank-you message as its own," reported the SP Times.
USNVA made efforts to legitimize the organization in the eyes of donors by associating itself with all things veterans and military related. For example, until recent events compelled the Department of Veterans Affairs to remove the charity from its list, USNVA was listed on the Department's web site as a resource for veterans. John Doe referred to himself as "Commander Bobby Thompson" on the charity's web site and told the SP Times he was a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserves. Assisted by the nonprofit veterans rights group, the POW Network, the paper searched for Bobby Thompson's military service records but could find none. The charity's tax records listed "Jack Nimitz" as the group's "Director & CEO," who shares a familiar last name with Chester William Nimitz, a well-known five-star admiral in the U.S. Navy during World War II for whom the famous USS Nimitz ship was named. According to the SP Times, the charity "would not say" if Jack Nimitz was related to Admiral Nimitz, and "provided no help locating him…" when the paper requested to speak with him directly.
As bad press drew more and more negative attention to the group, pressure mounted and USNVA scrambled to show that it was doing something charitable. It recruited several acquaintances to pose for photos to be posted on the charity's web site to show that real people were involved with the organization, and rushed out a handful of grants to various charities. While these grants were likely appreciated by the charities that received them, they are surely of little comfort to the donors who contributed millions to the group and for whom little evidence exists that much of what they gave was ever used for the charitable purposes they intended. The charity reports in its 2008 tax return that its national office spent over $2.6 million of its $4.2 million budget on "grants and other assistance to individuals in the U.S." When the SP Times could find no evidence that such assistance was actually provided, it asked the charity for backup. USNVA responded that it can account for the funds, but was not willing to share any of the documentation with the SP Times.
USNVA's last-ditch efforts to provide charity were too late for some state regulators, who by that time had launched their own investigations into the charity or had barred it from soliciting in their respective states. Florida ordered USNVA to cease operations in its state, and launched an investigation into its "potentially unfair and deceptive trade practices." Hawaii began an investigation to find out whether the association fabricated its chapter officials and deceived the public. New Mexico ordered the charity to cease and desist operations in its state after finding that the addresses the association provided in its registration documents are fictional. In May 2010 Senator Jim Webb of Virginia made a request to the IRS that it launch a federal level investigation which would look into USNVA's activities nationwide.
Things began to unravel quickly from here. USNVA's attorneys, MacMurray, Petersen & Shuster LLP, told the SP Times that John Doe "disappeared" around June 20th, 2010, and shortly thereafter the law firm broke ties with the group. The charity's professional fundraisers soon followed suit. On July 30th, 2010, federal and state agents seized documents and computer records from a Florida mother and daughter who were associates of John Doe, according to a SP Times article of the same date. Nancy Contreras and her mother, Blanca Contreras, a former citrus processing plant employee, had signed registration papers in several states claiming to hold official positions at USNVA ranging from acting vice president, to chief financial officer, to acting secretary, according to the SP Times. They had also been described as association members and were featured in photographs on the charity's web site. Months earlier the SP Times had attempted to contact one of the associates, Nancy Contreras, 20, and was warned by USNVA's then attorney, Helen MacMurray, that any future attempt on the paper's part to contact her might "constitute criminal 'stalking'," according to the paper.
Of the nine states currently investigating USNVA, Ohio has arguably been the most aggressive, freezing the charity's bank accounts and shutting down its fundraising in the state. Its investigation into the charity uncovered that John Doe, in addition to stealing the identity of "Bobby Thompson," also stole the identity of a leader of another veterans charity in New Mexico. On October 15th, 2010, an Ohio grand jury indicted both John Doe and Blanca Contreras on corruption, theft, and money laundering charges, according to a SP Times article of the same date. Contreras was arrested in a Charlotte, North Carolina airport, according to the paper, and booked into jail there on an Ohio warrant. John Doe has yet to be located by authorities as of the date this article was published.
The story of John Doe and the U.S. Navy Veterans Association is an unfortunate example of how easily the public can be duped out of millions of charitable dollars by failing to properly research a charity before deciding to give. Many donors automatically assume that a charity is "legitimate" if it is registered with the IRS and are too often impressed by the claims made by a charity in its solicitations, on its web site, or in self-reported tax filings. It is tragic that a large portion of the donations USNVA collected over the years will unlikely be recovered and used to help deserving veterans.
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Lightning look to shore up by adding in net, on 'D'by Mike G. Morreale
One season removed from battling all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, the Tampa Bay Lightning took a significant step backward in 2011-12 when they finished eight points back of the conference's final playoff spot.
Lightning coach Guy Boucher told reporters on breakup day that the unexpected success of the previous season may have created unrealistic expectations.
"The reality is we didn't have the same team and we had injuries to start the year, so you have to be scared a little bit of the results," Boucher told the team's website. "I felt we were overconfident at the start of the year as a group. We weren't arrogant, just a little too overconfident."
The Lightning lost 321 man-games to injury, their highest total since losing 351 during the 2008-09 season. Key losses came in all areas, including defensemen Mattias Ohlund and Victor Hedman; forwards Vincent Lecavalier, Ryan Malone and Adam Hall; and goalie Mathieu Garon.
The first order of offseason business general manager Steve Yzerman attended to was upgrading the back end -- the club ranked 30th in the NHL with 278 non-shootout goals allowed. Yzerman acquired goalie Anders Lindback in a trade with the Nashville Predators and signed the 24-year-old to a two-year contract. The idea, it seems, is to have Lindback grow into the No. 1 role while splitting duty with Garon.
Lindback spent a portion of the work stoppage in Finland playing for Ilves Tampere. In 16 games last season with the Predators, he was 5-8-0 with a 2.42 goals-against average and .912 save percentage as the backup to Pekka Rinne. The 6-foot-6, 203-pound goalie has appeared in 38 NHL games, all with Nashville, going 16-13-2 with a 2.53 GAA and .914 save percentage.
"My dream all my life has been to be a No. 1 goalie in the NHL and I think I have a great opportunity to be that in Tampa Bay," Lindback said over the summer.
Tampa Bay also bolstered its prospect pool between the pipes at the 2012 NHL Draft, choosing Andrey Vasilevskiy with the 19th selection. The 6-foot-3, 204-pound Russian helped his country to a silver medal at the 2012 World Junior Championship, going 4-1 with a 2.01 GAA, .953 save percentage and two shutouts, and followed that up by posting a 1.81 GAA and .950 save percentage as Russia captured bronze at the recently completed 2013 WJC.
Yzerman also signed defensemen Sami Salo, Matt Carle and Matt Taormina. With the acquisitions of Salo and Carle, the GM locked up a pair of top-four defenders. Carle, who spent the previous four seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers, was signed to a six-year deal.
"We are comfortable with him in our top four. [Carle] can play in all situations and he takes pressure off some of our younger guys," Yzerman said during the summer.
The Lightning also added forwards B.J. Crombeen, Benoit Pouliot and Kyle Wilson via trades, and re-signed Teddy Purcell, who was coming off a career season with 24 goals and 65 points skating primarily alongside Lecavalier.
Pouliot, acquired from the Boston Bruins in exchange for forward Michel Ouellet and a 2012 fifth-round pick, signed a one-year deal July 1.
"He's a big guy (6-3, 199) who can skate, who has good hands and who is still relatively young," Yzerman said of Pouliot, 25. "We think he can play among the top nine and really help us, and we still think he has potential to become better."
In addition to Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay was thrilled to land defenseman Slater Koekkoek of the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League with the 10th pick at the draft -- the first of its two first-round picks.
"He's a terrific skater, a very good puck-mover and he's a puck-rusher, he can play on the power play, he gets his shot through to the net or gets it into the passing lanes, and he's a terrific 1-on-1 player defensively who keeps a real tight gap," Lightning director of amateur scouting Al Murray said. "He keeps his stick on pucks and finishes his checks very well."
Forward J.T. Brown, who scored 24 goals in 39 games last season for the University of Wisconsin and added an assist in five games for the Lightning after signing as a free agent, suffered a broken collarbone in an AHL game on Dec. 28 and could miss up to eight weeks.
Tampa Bay's top affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, has been among the AHL's top teams this season with Brett Connolly ranking second on the club in scoring with 28 points (12 goals) in 31 games. Connolly, the No. 6 pick in 2010 by the Lightning, played 68 games last season in the NHL as a 19-year-old, recording four goals and 15 points, but will stay in the AHL for now. Goaltender Dustin Tokarski, who has played in seven NHL games with the Lightning, is among the AHL leaders in wins.


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Good feelings getting easier
Same old Pirates.
Unlucky old Pirates.
Poor old Pirates.
Last week, the Pittsburgh baseball club caught a bit of bad fortune when its prized offseason possession caught some rawhide off the eye.
Already tabbed to be the Opening Day starter for the Bucs, A.J. Burnett won't be making his black and gold debut until at least late May/early June as he recovers from his orbital fracture.
Frankly, nothing. For the Pirates, it was more about what could go right.
Andrew McCutchen helped everybody forget about losing one star by assuring that another is sticking around for a while.
The 25-year old superstar also help put to bed some scrutiny that the Bucco brass has built up over the years. Many fans thought this day would never come, some thought it, but never really held out hope. Cutch is secure, Cutch is home and he is going to be a Pittsburgh Pirate until 2018.
As risky as it is for a franchise like the Pirates to lock up a player for a long time, they did it the smart way.
Jason Kendall, Brian Giles and even a guy named Pat Mears were in this situation, too. They were promising players who got thrown a lot of money and never really produced. Through injury and lack of production, they never really quite lived to their billing and, frankly, weren't worth the payroll.
It's easy to say that McCutchen will be different, but the only guarantee is the $52 million he will accrue.
What does separate him, though, from the lackluster "stars" of the early-2000's is that he signed at a bargain.
McCutchen is just entering into the prime of his career. He may not light the world on fire to be a .300/30/100 player year in and year out, but he'll come close. He is highly regarded as a top-5 centerfielder in the big leagues and is developing into a true 5-tool guy with his speed, bat and skills in the field. McCutchen provides a sense of reliability and assurance because he has been the face of the organization and will continue to be for at least the next six years. Also, as Pittsburgh isn't the most lucrative location for top-flight free agents, the signing proves to doubting players that the Buccos mean business. A new wave is coming in and behind it is a committment to winning. If nothing else, it should at least ensure players give the Pirates a second look.
I guess what he does best is give the faithful a pretty good feeling…
And things are still getting easier.
Spring Training has come, baseball talk is in the air and my Pirates season tickets are in hand.
Maybe it was in honor of his extension which was signed the day before because Cutch's smiling face is planted on the Opening Day ticket.
Which, by the way, is just 26 days away.
If that doesn't give you a good feeling, I don't know what will.
Photo/video credits: rantsports.com, espn.com, yahoo.com, youtube.com (via NASHCENTER), captainsblog.info.