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A half-century has passed since Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem was first published. Yet somehow we can't escape it. Even today historians of the Final Solution do battle with her misguided thesis that Adolf Eichmann, the cold-blooded engineer of the Nazi killing machine, was himself but a cog in it, a self-deceived simpleton who made evil seem banal.1 And her cavalier criticism of Jewish leaders who found themselves forced to cooperate with the Nazis in the expropriation, expulsion, internment, and even extermination of their own people still provokes outrage and rebuttals. As sometimes happens in the world of ideas, it is those who think least of Eichmann in Jerusalem who keep it alive by dragging its author out for what is by now ritual trial and conviction. This is how the book survives.
The specter of Hannah Arendt haunts every film Claude Lanzmann has made, beginning with his nine-and-a-half-hour epic Shoah, released in 1985. Arendt believed that the Nazi experience could be understood, and had to be, since only through understanding can "we come to terms with, reconcile ourselves to reality, that is, try to be at home in the world." This would mean reconciling ourselves, in some sense, even to the Holocaust. "To the extent that the rise of totalitarian governments is the central event in our world," she once wrote, "to understand totalitarianism is not to condone anything, but to reconcile ourselves to a world in which these things are possible at all."
Lanzmann refuses to understand the Holocaust, let alone make peace with the world that made it possible. A short essay only three paragraphs long is his most powerful retort to Arendt:
All one has to do, perhaps, is pose the question simply, and ask, "Why were the Jews killed?" This shows its obscenity. There is an absolute obscenity in the project of understanding. Not understanding was my iron law during all the years of preparing and directing Shoah: I held onto this refusal as the only ethical and workable attitude possible…. "Hier ist kein Warum": this, Primo Levi tells us, was the law at Auschwitz that an SS guard taught him on arriving at the camp: "Here there is no why."
What disturbs Lanzmann about standard historical treatments of the Final Solution is that, in trying to comprehend its chronological development, they unwittingly make it look inevitable, given the "factors" involved. Documentaries that begin with Nazis burning books and end two hours later with emaciated prisoners staring out from behind barbed wire leave the impression that everything moved like clockwork. But, he has written, "the six million murdered Jews did not die right on time, and that is why any work that wants to render justice to the Holocaust today must make breaking chronology its first principle." Lanzmann's achronological approach in Shoah may be the secret of its power. We hear victims, killers, and bystanders speaking as if in a vacuum, and experience their shocking words without preparation or anticipation of what is to come. They are simply present. For "the worst crime, moral and artistic, that can be committed when making a work dedicated to the Holocaust is to consider it as past."
It is more than a little surprising, then, to watch Lanzmann's stunning new movie, The Last of the Unjust, and realize that it breaks all these rules. Its genesis was complex. Lanzmann worked for over a decade on Shoah and during that period collected hundreds of hours of recorded material that could not possibly be fit into the film or that struck a discordant note. Several strong interviews from that material were left out and over the past fifteen years he has been releasing them as independent films. The Last of the Unjust, the most recent, is based on a series of interviews he did in 1975 with Benjamin Murmelstein, the controversial head of the Judenrat (council of Jewish elders) who dealt with Nazi officials in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, and the only such figure to have survived the war.
It is also a brief for his defense. Like the ludicrous Jewish elder of the Łódź ghetto Chaim Rumkowski, Murmelstein was widely despised by survivors of Theresienstadt, who considered him a traitor, his guilt sealed by the fact of his survival. Gershom Scholem spoke for many when he wrote in a letter to Hannah Arendt that, "as all the prisoners of the Lager I've spoken with confirm, the Viennese Rabbi Murmelstein of Theresienstadt deserves to be hanged by the Jews."2 But who really knew anything about him? Was he even alive? Lanzmann finally hunted Murmelstein down in Rome, where he had been living in obscurity since the war, and arranged for an interview that ended up lasting a week. And during that time Lanzmann was converted. A text that scrolls down the screen as the movie opens informs us that "during the week I spent with him, I grew to love him. He does not lie."
If Shoah can be viewed as a cinematic response to Arendt's "banality of evil" thesis, Lanzmann's new film is a retort to her unflattering portrait of the Jewish leaders. It is a straightforward, chronological documentary that moves from Murmelstein's work with Austrian Jews after the Anschluss to the history of Theresienstadt, then moves to the two years Murmelstein spent in the camp, the last as head elder (Judenältester). Now, it seems, Lanzmann wants very much for us to understand the Holocaust, through Murmelstein's story. This is a striking turnabout for the filmmaker and makes for a very strong documentary, if not an entirely satisfying one.
Benjamin Murmelstein was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in the Galician city of Lemberg (Lviv) in 1905 and moved to Vienna as a young man to pursue his religious studies, eventually becoming rabbi of a small synagogue there. In 1935, as Hitler's rise stoked Austrian anti-Semitism, Murmelstein gave a speech in Vienna honoring what he called the "unknown Jewish soldiers" of World War I—that is, the soldiers whose names had been removed from German war memorials on Goebbels's orders. This brought him to the attention of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG), the Viennese Jewish community organization, which asked him to write reports for them after the Anschluss. It was in this capacity that he first encountered Eichmann, who had been put in charge of organizing the emigration and expropriation of the Jews, and received Murmelstein's reports.
Between 1938 and 1943 Murmelstein became increasingly responsible for arranging logistics with Eichmann as Nazi policy evolved from forced emigration to forced ghettoization and internment. He cajoled and argued with officials to help Jews obtain exit visas and in 1939 even traveled to London to beg for assistance. By 1941, when the Nazis began sealing the borders, he and the IKG had helped over 125,000 Jews flee Austria. In 1943, though, Murmelstein was himself deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto along with many remaining "prominent Jews" in Vienna.
Theresienstadt was unique in the Nazi camp system and wore nearly as many masks as its creator Eichmann. Set up in 1941 within an eighteenth-century fortress in Czechoslovakia, it was publicized in Germany and abroad as a "model ghetto" for elderly and prominent Jews and the first step toward establishing a separate Jewish homeland in Europe. In fact it almost immediately became a transit camp for Auschwitz-Birkenau, whose purpose was then known to few. Even more perversely, the ghetto was sold to fearful Jews as a spa town whose rooms with mountain views could be booked if they handed their wealth over to Eichmann, which many of them did. They were then sent off in second-class train compartments well stocked with food and medicine, only to disembark at the other end and be attacked by guards and dogs.
When Murmelstein arrived in Theresienstadt he was appointed almost immediately to the Judenrat. Its leader at the time was Jakob Edelstein of Prague, who after a year was deported to Auschwitz and murdered, after first being forced to watch his wife and son being shot. When his successor, Paul Eppstein of Berlin, was summarily executed in the fortress the following year, the office of elder fell to Murmelstein, who held it until the camp was liberated in May 1945.
In the camp, Murmelstein was feared and distrusted, given his constant contact with the Nazis and efficiency in carrying out their orders. Murmelstein was, apparently, an extraordinarily strict man who applied the Nazis' regulations with what seemed appalling inflexibility and heartlessness. He established a seventy-hour work week to help the camp commander reach his production quotas, despite the fact that the population was slowly starving. (It did not help that he was a naturally fat man who also controlled the food supplies.) And when the largest deportations to Auschwitz began in late 1944, he refused to receive requests for exemptions unless the petitioner was willing to take his friend's place on the train.
Even more controversially, Murmelstein helped the Nazis "beautify" the ghetto and turn it into a movie set for propaganda films made in 1942 and 1944. (This strange episode and Murmelstein's role in it are examined thoroughly in Ronny Loewy and Katarina Rauschenberger's book, which also helpfully chronicles his life.) Buildings were painted, flowers were planted, and the sick and crippled were deported so as not to ruin the montage. Lanzmann splices in clips from these films that show inmates working happily, enjoying soccer games, playing chess, and listening to lectures, with klezmer music on the soundtrack. In one heartbreaking scene we see jovial children playing games and munching happily on snacks they no doubt would never see again. It is hard to know what effect if any these films had on public opinion, but the renovation of the ghetto did much to fool officials from the International Red Cross when they inspected it in 1944 and reported nothing out of the ordinary.
Murmelstein's fall was quick and hard. After the camp was liberated by the Russians he was arrested by the Czech government and spent eighteen months in prison while a case was built against him as a collaborator. In the end, prosecutors abandoned it and Murmelstein was allowed to emigrate to Italy, where he spent the rest of his life in relative anonymity with his wife and son in Rome, working as a salesman and occasionally for the Vatican (in what capacity is unclear).
But well before his arrival, rumors about him reached the Roman Jewish community organization, which refused to register him. When Murmelstein died in 1989 his son was not allowed to inter him next to his wife; he was buried instead at the very edge of the Jewish cemetery. His son maintains that Jewish community leaders also forbade him to say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, in Rome's main synagogue. This despite the fact—or because of it—that he was the only Judenältester to survive the war.
The Last of the Unjust begins badly. Rather than plunge us right into the Murmelstein story, Lanzmann weirdly keeps the camera focused on himself for the first half-hour. We see him staring silently and significantly at stations where the transport trains passed, pausing at spots where executions were carried out, and reading from texts on the history of Theresienstadt and from camp memoirs. Similar blunt intrusions punctuate the film. At different points we are shown drawings by ghetto artists, a cantor singing in a rebuilt synagogue, the gravestones in Prague's Jewish cemetery, and, apropos of nothing, a long shot from a car as it approaches the walls of Jerusalem. Lanzmann generally avoided such techniques in Shoah and has criticized other filmmakers for applying schmaltz to the Holocaust, but here he nearly slips into it himself. Then Murmelstein begins to talk and the tenor of the film changes.
The first image of him will jar anyone who thinks he knows Murmelstein's story. Sitting on a terrace overlooking Rome on a splendid day he looks less like a monster than an aging cherubic uncle from the old country, sporting tweeds and tinted glasses and speaking rapid-fire German with an Eastern European accent and slight lisp. Lanzmann seems uncomfortable around him, while Murmelstein is serene and charming, dropping well-worn anecdotes and bons mots, and smiling ironically from time to time. He is well prepared for the director's questions, which at first are mundane. But as the interview gathers steam and the questions become more precise and challenging, Murmelstein responds with equal and astonishing precision, causing Lanzmann to remark on his prodigious memory. From that point on their relation is fixed. Murmelstein talks at length while Lanzmann interrupts occasionally to ask for clarification or shift the conversation in a slightly different direction. This, unlike Shoah, is a one-man show.
What few viewers will know is that many of Murmelstein's detail-filled monologues are drawn, sometimes verbatim, from a book he published in 1961 about his camp experiences, Terezin: Il ghetto-modello di Eichmann (Theresienstadt: Eichmann's Model Ghetto), which has just been reissued to coincide with the film's premiere. Murmelstein must have had high hopes for the book but it received little attention at the time and did nothing to rescue his reputation. When he learned of Eichmann's kidnapping and planned trial he even sent a copy to prosecutors in Jerusalem, along with a letter giving his contact information and stating his willingness to testify. He never received a response.3
Terezin is largely a straightforward history of the camp and Murmelstein's imprisonment. He tends to get lost in the details, but every so often there are extraordinarily vivid and moving passages that express a sensitivity and moral outrage that Murmelstein rarely displays in the film. Here are his impressions on the day he arrived in the ghetto:
In one corner tired workers, in another mothers with babies in their arms. Next to a broken table, work is being prepared for tomorrow; technicians discuss the quantity of water available and the diameter of the tubes. In the corridor the sick lie in agony without hope, in the kitchen girls and grown women give themselves up for a cigarette, and, under the arcade, young people read poetry.
Soon after arrival Murmelstein was put in charge of managing health services, such as they were, and describes the hopelessness of his task:
In this atmosphere even the bacteria are not allowed to develop freely. Epidemics run a strange course because the ghetto's residents, surrounded by all the infections possible and imaginable, finally acquire a certain immunity. Everyone becomes his own cultivator and inhibitor of bacteria.
In another passage he gives an acute analysis of Eichmann's strategy and how it kept the Jews at each others' throats rather than the guards':
This is how Eichmann's experiment developed and was prepared according to a detailed recipe: throw together Jews from different places and with different languages, add a dash of those who were never really Jewish, and bring the whole thing to a boil over a slow flame; strain, making some pass through every once in a while. The rest end up in the oven.
Terezin also describes what Primo Levi called the "gray zone" of concentration camp life that Lanzmann avoids. Up to 50,000 prisoners from very different backgrounds were forced to struggle for survival in a fort that had been built for seven thousand troops, provoking appalling behavior in some and bringing out strange rivalries and even snobbery in others. In a paragraph worthy of Levi, Murmelstein describes a sick inmate who refused care from an Eastern European doctor who visited her. "Excuse me," she said, "but I'm a German woman who cannot be examined by a Jewish doctor." He overhears an argument: "Theresienstadt was given by the Führer to us, the Germans; a Polish ghetto suffices for the Jews." He tells the stories of "prominent" inmates who were under the illusion that their social position would protect them from Nazi racial laws. There is the judge who investigated the Reichstag fire in 1933, as the Nazis demanded, but was sent to the camps when his impure blood was discovered. And there is the Jewish ex-wife of a German noble who divorced her to save his family's honor—then, to ease his conscience, arranged her transfer to the model ghetto Theresienstadt with "a privileged status."
There are no such humanizing touches in Lanzmann's film. Murmelstein is there to defend himself and defend himself he does. He wants to convince his interviewer and the viewer that all his actions, including the most troubling, were intended to beat the Nazis at their own game. If Eichmann's strategy was to create in Theresienstadt a model ghetto that would distract world attention from the mass murders committed elsewhere, Murmelstein's was to maintain that illusion so the camp and its inmates could not be destroyed without setting off an alarm.
If one accepts the soundness of this strategy, his actions appear in a different light. Rules had to be strictly, even brutally enforced to ensure that the Nazis did not transform the ghetto into an extermination camp. To keep the place from succumbing to a typhus epidemic he secretly had all the inmates forcibly vaccinated, denying food to those who refused, so the place appeared healthy. The seventy-hour work week was essential because, at the time he instituted it, the Nazis were worried more about shortages than about world opinion, and Murmelstein wanted the ghetto to appear economically indispensible. "Survival through work," he says, was his version of the Nazi camp motto "Freedom through work."
He offers the same defense of his efforts to beautify the ghetto for the propaganda films. Besides keeping it in the public eye, the beautification program also allowed him to actually improve conditions in the camp: clean the streets, build more accommodations, especially for the elderly, and put windows into windowless buildings. Every one of these actions bought the camp a little more time.
They may have done so. What's fascinating, though, is to witness a man incapable of recognizing the real cost of his strategy, especially in the wider Lager system. Keeping his camp running efficiently and in the public eye saved it as an institution, but also meant that victims could be processed more efficiently on their way to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other places east. Murmelstein, like everyone in the camp, did not learn about Auschwitz until 1944, but no one was ignorant of the fact that transport nach Osten meant unspeakable suffering and nearly certain death. At times, he speaks as if preserving the ghetto was an end in itself, never considering, as Hannah Arendt had suggested, that less efficiency might have meant fewer deaths overall. In the judgment of Holocaust historian Saul Friedländer, "objectively the Judenrat was probably an instrument in the destruction of European Jewry." "But," he added, "subjectively the actors were not aware of this function." Arendt never considered that a healthy capacity for self-delusion may have been necessary for survival in the camps, and that Jewish elders especially would have needed it to continue helping others and not just themselves.
Still, there are moments, when Murmelstein rattles off statistics or recounts the precise dates of meetings or corrects some detail in Lanzmann's questions, that he sounds eerily like the blinkered figure Eichmann pretended to be in Jerusalem, oblivious to the larger drama he was a part of. In the last half-hour of the film Lanzmann finally loses patience with him. After asking Murmelstein what happened to children born in the camp, and being told matter-of-factly that all those born before October 1944 were killed, Lanzmann criticizes his coolness:
Listening to you speak about Theresienstadt, one does not have the impression that Theresienstadt was a place of disaster, that the people were suffering, that thousands perished and that other thousands were deported to Auschwitz…. I have the feeling that you did not have any human feelings.
Murmelstein snaps back:
Imagine a surgeon who cannot stand blood, who is so good-hearted that he starts crying during an operation. Can you imagine that? He would kill the patient. He is hard-hearted, yes, in order to save the patient.
In the transcripts of his original footage Lanzmann is even rougher on Murmelstein, asking him at one point, "You have a fascist temperament, right?"4 But as the interview wears on, it's clear that Lanzmann is coming to believe and even admire him. It's not hard to. What gives Murmelstein's testimony the ring of truth is not his mastery of detail or even self-justifications. It is his ability to evoke, often with striking metaphors, what it was like to be in his position, without the "luxury," as he puts, of being a gentleman. All the Judenälteste were "between hammer and anvil," unable to satisfy either Nazis or Jews and earning the contempt of both. He compares himself to Sancho Panza, the practical man who got things done while the Don Quixotes of the camps perished ineffectively.
He also likens himself to Scheherezade, keeping Theresienstadt alive by telling stories to both Nazis and Jews. When asked about the charge that he was just a marionette, he rejects it—then, on reflection, accepts it:
The Jewish elder was stuck in the position of being a marionette, a ridiculous marionette. But this marionette had to act in such a way that he could influence matters from his laughable position. Nobody could understand that, nobody was supposed to understand that otherwise it would have cost him his head…. Usually marionettes are pulled by wires, but in this case the marionette had to pull his own wires. This was the hard part of being a Jewish elder.
Murmelstein states plainly that he was no hero, just a "tightrope walker." (He also refuses to call the prisoners "heroes," preferring the term "martyrs.") When asked whether he enjoyed having power, he freely admits it. "I am only human…. Who is displeased with power? By which I mean the possibility of accomplishing something, that is a real satisfaction." He also admits to a certain Abenteuerlust, a "thirst for adventure" that kept him at his post in both Vienna and in Theresienstadt. Murmelstein could have tried to escape during his London trip in 1939, and later that year was even offered a pass to Palestine for himself and his family, which he gave instead to a former student. That, in retrospect, was a mistake, and at one point he speaks wistfully of the career he might have made for himself as a rabbi or professor in America. Instead he became, as he calls himself, "the last of the unjust."5
By the film's end Lanzmann appears completely won over. He accepts Murmelstein's friendship and praises his fortitude in the interviews. "Mais vous êtes un tigre!" He then asks what Murmelstein thinks about Israelis' hostility to him, mentioning Scholem's letter to Hannah Arendt. Murmelstein praises Scholem somewhat ironically as a great scholar at the level of Sigmund Freud, then wonders why he didn't use the Murmelstein case as an occasion to do some historical research. Besides, cracking a smile, isn't it strange that Scholem opposed the execution of Eichmann but wants Murmelstein the Jew dead? "The Herr is a bit capricious with hanging, don't you think?"
This conversation, the movie's final scene, was filmed before the Arch of Titus, not far from the Roman Forum, at Murmelstein's request. It is a highly symbolic place. The arch was built by the Emperor Domitian in the first century to commemorate the victories of his brother Titus, who reconquered Jerusalem in 70 CE. A sculptured panel shows this conquest and Roman soldiers carrying off an enormous menorah. One of Titus's aides was the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who as a young man fought against the Romans and, when trapped by them, took part in a collective suicide pact that he alone survived. He later defected to the Roman side and tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a Jewish surrender to save Jerusalem and its temple from destruction, and for this was, and by some still is, considered a traitor and pariah. Murmelstein was always fascinated by Josephus and in 1938, that fateful year, published an anthology of his writings, with an introduction that concludes, "His divided and ambiguous nature turned him into a symbol of the Jewish tragedy." A sentence that reads like an epitaph for Murmelstein himself.
As the film fades into the credits we see Lanzmann walking up a cobblestone street toward the arch, his arm draped over Murmelstein's shoulder, a gesture that seems to say, once again, "he does not lie." Perhaps not. But The Last of the Unjust cannot be the whole truth about this brave, slippery, wise, half-blind man.
Had Lanzmann stuck to the more jumbled, associative style of Shoah he might have been able to capture cinematically the moral shadows that still shroud this historic figure, making a powerful film more powerful still. Instead he sticks to the conventional style of the documentary apologia, which delivers a clear lesson but does not, in the end, disturb. One cannot help feeling that an opportunity was missed. By blocking all the psychological exits Shoah forced us into a genuine experience few viewers will forget. The Last of the Unjust lets us escape before we reach the center of the gray zone, where we might have encountered not only Benjamin Murmelstein but ourselves.
—This is the second of two articles.
See my review of Margarethe von Trotta's film Hannah Arendt, "Arendt and Eichmann: The New Truth," The New York Review, November 21, 2013. ↩
This sentence was excised by Scholem in later publications and translations of the letter, but can be found in his Briefe II: 1948–1970 (Munich: Beck, 1995), p. 98. ↩
This is regrettable on many grounds, given Murmelstein's intimate knowledge, apparent in the book and movie, of Eichmann's independent initiative, cruelty, and financial ploys to feed his ambition. In the film he also drops a bombshell: that on Kristallnacht he found Eichmann in Vienna's Seitenstettengasse synagogue with a crowbar, eagerly directing the SS as they destroyed the place. ↩
These transcripts, which run to hundreds of pages in German and English, along with an hour of excerpts from Lanzmann's raw footage, are available on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. ↩
He is referring ironically to a historical novel about the Jewish predicament that won the Prix Goncourt in 1959, André Schwarz-Bart's Le Dernier des Justes. ↩


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PARIS (AP) - Paris fashion's enfant terrible, Jean Paul Gaultier, has inaugurated his first international exhibit at Europe's largest port: the Dutch city of Rotterdam.
The location is perhaps unsurprising given that the Paris couturier is famed for his nautical stripe motifs.
The "Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier" exhibit at the Dutch port's Kunsthal gallery, which opens Sunday, traces about 35 years of the designer's avant-garde creations.
More than 140 original creations are in the mix, from the 60-year-old Gaultier's haute couture line to his ready-to-wear selections. Also included, on loan, are Gaultier designs such as Madonna's post-feminist conical bra, long the stuff of fashion legend, as well as movie costumes for Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar.
Though Rotterdam is far from Paris, Gaultier brought it a little nearer to home by adding nautical stripes to a Thalys train that links the French capital with the Dutch city 442 kilometers (275 miles) away.
Inaugurating the show Friday, Gaultier joked about his "fixation with stripes, because when I was a child I used to have a striped T-shirt."
The exhibit runs until May 12.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Royals waited out a lengthy rain delay, and then another delay when the stadium lights went out. They also had to watch outfielder Alex Gordon walk off with a scary head injury.
They weren't about to go through all that just to lose.
Eric Hosmer hit a go-ahead homer in the seventh inning, and the Royals held on to beat the Cleveland Indians 6-5 on a wild Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium.
"You endure everything we had to endure tonight and not get the win, it would put you in a pretty grumpy mood," Royals manager Ned Yost said.
Hosmer connected with two outs off Cody Allen (3-1), one inning after Gordon collided with the bullpen fence while tracking a fly ball. The Gold Glove outfielder remained down on the warning track for several minutes before slowly standing up and walking off the field.
Gordon said afterward that he couldn't remember everything that happened on the play.
"I kind of got off balance and that's when I fell into the wall," he said. "I watched the whole game, the great comeback, and Hos hit the home run. It was a huge comeback."
Will Smith (1-1) pitched 1 2-3 innings of scoreless relief, and Greg Holland managed the ninth to help Kansas City snap a three-game skid against the Indians.
Holland worked around an error by shortstop Alicdes Escobar for his 18th save.
"You're here this long," Smith said, "you might as well win the game."
Jason Kipnis ended up with a three-run, inside-the-park homer on the play that Gordon was injured, extending his hitting streak to 14 games. But the bullpen failed to hold the 3-1 lead, ultimately snapping Cleveland's five-game winning streak.
"As exciting as it was to see Kip run the bases, it's hard not to worry," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "(Gordon) plays so hard and is such a good player."
The start of the game was delayed 2 hours, 37 minutes by a stubborn rain cloud that refused to budge from over the stadium, even though there were clear skies not more than a mile away.
The delay caused more problems in the seventh inning, when the clock hit midnight. A glitch in the stadium computer system caused about half of the lights to go out, and it took 12 minutes for them to cool enough to come back on and allow play to resume.
The Royals carried a 1-0 lead into the sixth inning in what was shaping up as a tidy pitching duel between Jeremy Guthrie and Indians counterpart Scott Kazmir.
Michael Bourn and Asdrubal Cabrera led off the sixth with singles, and Kipnis hit a fly ball deep to left field. Gordon was tracking it the whole way but slammed his head into the fencing of the Royals bullpen as he leaped for the ball, crashing into a heap on the warning track.
He remained down while Kipnis rounded the bases for the Indians' first inside-the-park homer since Jhonny Peralta toured the bases against Detroit on July 18, 2010.
Gordon was eventually helped from the field by Royals trainer Nick Kenney. The team said he had a possible concussion and a bruised right hip, and he will be evaluated again on Thursday.
"We'll just monitor it day to day," Yost said.
The Royals regained the lead in the bottom of the sixth, pecking away with five singles and taking advantage of a wild throw on a pickoff attempt. The error was given to first baseman Nick Swisher and allowed Lorenzo Cain to score from third, giving Kansas City a 5-3 lead.
That lead also turned out to be short-lived.
After the lights went out and were finally restored, Guthrie promptly walked Ryan Raburn and Yan Gomes. The right-hander was lifted for Smith, who yielded a run-scoring single by Bourn and a tying sacrifice fly by Cabrera but recovered to keep the game tied.
"It's one of those games that keep going back and forth, back and forth," Kazmir said.
Hosmer put the Royals ahead to stay in the seventh inning. The first baseman turned on a 1-0 pitch and sent it soaring into the night.
Holland struck out Mark Reynolds, and after Escobar's error he got Jason Giambi to fly out and Bourn to strike out shortly after 1 a.m. CT to end the game.
"I think it just showed our competitiveness more than anything else," Yost said. "They don't stop. They keep coming. They keep competing and fighting."
Hosmers homer lifts Royals over Indians, 6-5
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Mike Ehrmann, Getty Images If silver marks a 25th anniversary and gold is for 50, apparently the perfect gift for a 110th anniversary is "rock," and that's exactly what Harley-Davidson will get for their latest milestone celebration as Kid Rock has signed on to play a bash for the company. The vocalist has just announced an exclusive partnership with the iconic motorcycle company that will include his appearance at the Labor Day weekend concert in Milwaukee. In addition, Harley-Davidson has come on board as the main sponsor of Rock's 'Rebel Soul' tour , which launches tonight (Feb. 2) in Kansas City. As part of their backing, Harley-Davidson plan to offer unique fan experiences at each of Rock's 60 planned tour stops. 'What's not to love about Harley?" said Rock. "They are the backbone of American culture, the flagship American brand. I am honored and excited to partner with this legendary icon that has helped define American freedom at home and abroad. In 110 years, no one has done a better job of representing America — there is NOTHING that screams America like Harley-Davidson." Harley-Davidson Chief Marketing Officer Mark-Hans Richter added, "Kid Rock puts on a great show and embodies a lot of what Harley-Davidson and our fans stand for — freedom, independence, self-expression and the rebel spirit. We're excited to take an unprecedented ride with him during the Rebel Soul tour." As part of the partnership, Harley-Davidson will also co-brand Kid Rock's 'Rebel Soul' merchandising featuring the song lyric, " I can't hear you over the rumble of my freedom ." [button href="http://loudwire.com/alice-in-chains-2013-must-see-rock-concerts/" title="Next: Check Out Other 2013 Must-See Rock Concerts" align="center"]
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Kid Rock Partners With Harley-Davidson for 110th Anniversary Celebration


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50. But, again, lest by occasion of this sentence, any one should sin with deadly security, and should allow himself to be carried away, as though his sins were soon by easy confession to be blotted out, he straightway added, "My little children, these things have I written unto you, that ye sin not; and, if one shall have sinned, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and Himself is a propitiation of our sins." 2207 Let no one therefore depart from sin as though about to return to it, nor bind himself as it were by compact of alliance of this kind with unrighteousness, so as to take delight rather to confess it than to shun it. But, forasmuch as even upon such as are busy and on the watch not to sin, there creep by stealth, in a certain way, from human weakness, sins, however small, however few, yet not none; these same themselves become great and grievous, in case pride shall have added to them increase and weight: but by the Priest, Whom we have in the heavens, if by pious humility they be destroyed, they are with all ease cleansed.
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Mesopotamia (mes-uh-puh-TAY-mee-uh from the Greek, "land between the rivers") refers to that region, generally along and between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (in modern Iraq), where civilisation first appeared some time before 3000 B.C.
Located in Western Asia, in fertile areas of Iraq northeast of the desert, this region is known as part of the "Fertile Crescent" that extends along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (including modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria) and the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run southeast into the Persian Gulf. These rivers deposited silt in the surrounding land, creating rich alluvial soil. Today the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are not far from the location of our soldiers in Iraq. However, our soldiers are mostly pictured in sandy areas, while the ancient people would have stayed close to the water. Moreover, ancient floods would have changed the landscape over time.
Genesis 2:8-17 (NAS) describes the beginning in Mesopotamia as follows: "The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. … Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. ... The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates." Using the ages mentioned in the Bible and counting backwards, biblical scholars have dated this as about 6000 years ago, or about 4000 B.C. This is about 500 years before our earliest record of ancient writings.
In the fourth millennium before Christ, between about 3500 and 3000 B.C., two things happened: writing was invented and cities began to sprout up with their own political and economic systems. Both of these developments occurred in southern Mesopotamia. This was known as Sumer, and the occupants were the Sumerians.
We owe a great deal to the work of the Sumerians. They developed the first system of writing (the cuneiform), the first codes of law and the first "city-state" (essentially a nation consisting only of a large city). Their inventions were marvelous: the seed plow, the sailboat, and the potter's wheel. (Distinguish "cuneiforms" from "ideograms", which show ideas with symbols such as arrows for war, from "phonograms", in which symbols represent sounds).
Most workers in Mesopotamia were farmers, but some devoted their time to trade. They had a calendar based on the moon to aid the farmers, and they developed a mathematical system using base 12. They were marvelous inventors, creating complex systems of irrigation and discovering the plow, the cart and the wheel, and used bronze (a mixture of copper and tin) to make good farming tools. Both men and women owned private property, had slaves, and were ruled by a king.
They built cities known as Eridu, Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Isin, Kish, just to name a few. They were smart, and developed Akkadian as their language. One interesting aspect of Akkadian is that it lacks any tense forms such as past or future tense. The verbs expressed the manner of an action rather than its time.
By 3000 B.C. the people had built major canals to channel water, and roads on which to travel. Shepherds had dogs to help them tend the sheep, just as we use today to help herd sheep together. Each city was surrounded by a moat and a wall of brick, with as many as 900 towers inside the city. Soldiers watched entry back and forth, and wagons carried people and goods within the city. By 3000 B.C. mankind had already built a mini-version of Manhattan, without the automobile and steel skyscrapers. But Mesopotamia (unlike Egypt) was not protected by geography, and would constantly face invasion by foreigners.
Do not think there was anything primitive about these ancient cities. They had shipping, fishing, brewers and bakers. They spun wool and traded fine jewelry. They discovered the Pythagorean Theorem, though it was later named after a Greek. In 2500 B.C., the queen of Ur, which was a prominent city, lived in a palace that featured harps and many servants. Slavery existed, but it was typically confined to domestic work in the cities rather than hard labor on the farm. Slaves were given a minimum standard of living and often had the opportunity to rise to freedom through diligent work.
Temples were everywhere. But the people also built stepped mountains known as ziggurats, with a temple on top, and the Bible tells how they tried to build one higher and higher. A massive ziggurat at Ur that is described in Genesis 11:1-9 as the Tower of Babel led to hundreds of different languages in the world. As we shall learn in this course, language is a central part of a society that has much to do with its success or failure. Societies with useful languages prospered; those with difficult-to-use languages failed.
Genesis Chapter 10 places the roots of modern mankind in Noah and his three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. The term "Semitic" means "pertaining to the descendants of Shem," and includes Assyrians, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, Sabaeans, Arabs and Hebrews (now known as Jews). Semitic languages include Hebrew and Arabic. Semitic religions include Judaism, Christianity and Islam. One of Noah's descendants was Abram, who later changed his name as Abraham to reflect his covenant with God.
Both the Bible and many independent sources describe a Great Flood (or "Deluge"), which historians date at about 3000 B.C. Very little of any history, including writings and civilization, has survived from before that time. The biblical account of the Flood is at Genesis 5-8, describing an ark having reasonable dimensions similar to modern ocean steamships. A non-biblical Sumerian (from Sumer in Mesopotamia) account of the Flood was found in the last hundred years, and that account was apparently written about 1600 B.C. Even better, a cuneiform tablet from Babylon was found dating from 3000 B.C., which also described a massive flood in great detail. There are many other ancient accounts of a massive flood found in most other cultures around the world. Fossils and limestone (the result of ocean sediment) are found today on mountaintops and land worldwide at all altitudes. Independent accounts of a great flood can be found in ancient works of India, Britain (Druid) and American Indians, all having striking similar details. See, e.g., http://www.searchgodsword.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T2631 . Recently two scientists at Columbia University published a widely praised book that proved that the Flood did occur, entitled "Noah's Flood," which concludes that the biblical Flood "is surely a true story of the permanent destruction of a land and its people ...." (p. 251). Yet no public school textbook ever mentions a massive flood.
The conflict between the Hebrew (Jewish) and Arab peoples in the Middle East and throughout the world is described by some as a family feud. They are descended from the same father, Abraham, as described in Genesis 16. But Jewish and Arab peoples trace their lineage from different sons of Abraham who were rivals for their father's love. Jewish people claim to be descendants of Isaac, the child of Abraham and Sarah, while Arabs are descended from Ishmael, the son of Abraham (then Abram) and the Egyptian woman Hagar. The Old Testament teaches that Abraham offered to sacrifice Isaac to the Lord, while Islam teaches that Abraham's sacrifice was of Ishmael. Islam teaches that Ishmael helped Abraham build a mosque in Mecca (the venerated Kaaba), and that it was Ishmael (rather than Isaac) who was nearly sacrificed. Regardless, Ishmael went a different way from the rest of Abraham's family, and there have been hard feelings by Ishmael's descendants ever since.
Civilization quickly prospered in Sumeria, the northwest (Akkad) was constantly fighting the southeast (Sumer), and eventually an Akkadian warrior named Sargon conquered Mesopotamia. Sargon was the first person in recorded history to create an empire or multi-ethnic state, from 2334 to 2279 B.C. His empire included the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and also part of what is Turkey today. The capital of his empire was Agade in Akkad. But like many military rulers, his empire collapsed when he died. He did not have a civil (non-military) form of government to pay his soldiers and sustain his empire. Instead, he could only survive as long his soldiers continued to capture and loot. Once the empire stopped expanded upon his death, it collapsed. After Sargon's death, the city of Ur in Sumer was the leading city.
In sum, the Sumerians established many of the things that define civilization today: buildings, engineering, legal codes, written language and a military. The Sumerians also had literature: in 2000 B.C., they wrote "The Epic of Gilgamesh," considered to be oldest fictional story ever written. It was based on a real person, however, who ruled a city-state in Sumer. He struggles with religious issues in the form of multiple gods, and the story seems to draw on some of the wisdom of the Bible. This non-biblical source also describes a great flood.
Inventions: We can thank Mesopotamia (probably Ur) for inventing the wheel in about 3500 B.C., which is the single greatest invention of all time. It is used for much more than transportation. The wheel is essential to manufacturing and even pre-digital watches. No American civilization had the wheel until the Europeans brought it to them.


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Body wraps are beneficial in toning and tightening the skin. Body wraps improve blood circulation and detoxify the body. Body wraps are available in spas; cheaper alternatives include at-home kits and creating your own wrap from a body wrap recipe.
Body wraps result in weight loss, skin firming, target cellulite, and detoxifying. The ingredients in a body wrap work together to produce various desired results. Certain salts are said to detoxify and remineralize; various herbs are said to restore health in numerous ways. Seaweed is known for its skin tightening and slimming properties. The best body wrap ingredients are all natural and 100% organic.
To get the most out of your at-home body wrap experience, warm your room so that you can lie down comfortably and quietly. Light candles, burn essential oils and play some soft relaxation music. Take a warm shower before applying the wrap to open pores. Drink lots of water to help flush out toxins before, during and after the wrap. Have a hot bath a couple of days after the treatment to release accumulated toxins. Avoid caffeine, sugar, fried fatty foods, soda and alcohol for the next 48 hours.
Homemade recipes combine herbs with light compression. Some like to add ace bandages for tighter compression. However, the aim is not for short term water loss from sweating, but detoxifying fat cells and making them smaller. Thus, light compression is sufficient. Simple homemade herbal body wrap recipes blend land herbs, seaweed, aloe and healing salts. Popular herb choices include clary sage, comfrey root, burdock root, dandelion root, rose hips, alfalfa leaf, rosemary and chamomile.
One body wrap recipe combines green clay, olive oil, sea salt, water, essential oils and herbs. Select your choice of herbs and essential oils, such as sage, lemongrass, rosemary, lavender, grapefruit, olive oil, ground basil, rose petal powder, ginger root powder, neem powder, rosehip powder, alfalfa leaf powder. Measure out 1 cup green clay, 2 tablespoons olive oil, ¼ cup sea salt and 2 cups water. Boil the water, stir in the sea salt until it dissolves. Add the olive oil, green clay and selected herbs. Stir until a paste forms and set the mixture aside to cool. Once the paste is cool enough to handle, rub onto your body and cover with towels or sheets cut into strips. Wait one hour before removing.
A second recipe uses cocoa (which is full of antioxidants) to slow the appearance of aging in addition to exfoliating and softening the skin. Combine 1 cup cocoa powder, ½ cup whole milk, and 1/3 cup honey. Brush the mixture onto the skin with a paintbrush and cover with 3-inch-wide strips. Leave for 20 minutes before removing with lukewarm water.


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This is such a super easy project. I love crayons. But I found out that I love NAKED crayons even better!! They are so vibrant!
I actually have a thumbnail injury from peeling off so many crayon wrappers. So pace yourself & take breaks as necessary.
Once you have your crayons peeled, grab a large or mini muffin tin. You can create whatever color combos you want. Break up the crayons & fill it to the top. To make "color cookies" (you'll see them later on) just fill up about 1/3 of the muffin tin.
Here's the mini muffin tin. I would recommend not using your muffin tins again to bake edible goodies in. Keep one strictly for messy craftin'. So, this would be a great excuse to head to the thrift store or a yard sale & pick up a used one!
If you'd like to, you can add ultra fine glitter to your mound of broken crayons. Oooh look! Pink & glitter....two of my favorite things!
Here are the crayons all ready to hop in the oven!
I'm pretty sure I baked my crayons at too hot of a temperature. I am impatient. I baked it at 350degrees. It didn't take long for the crayons to melt. If you cannot keep an eye on your crayons at all times, then lower the temp to about 225 or so & check on it every few minutes. If your pans are not non-stick put a SUPER TINY amount of non-stick spray in the muffin tin.
I pulled out the mini crayon biscuits to show what they looked like "mid-melt".
And here they are all melted! Let them cool for a few minutes.
This is what it will look like as it's setting. Now you can stick it in the freezer to COMPLETELY harden. The cold will also pull the crayons away from the sides of the pan & they'll pop right out!
Here are the finished color cakes.
Here are the color biscuits (made from the mini muffin tin). That pink & brown combo is my favorite!
The second row from the top shows the color cookies.
Pazely tried them out right away! YAY! They work!
These crayons are especially great for making crayon rubbings. We put different leaves & grass under the paper & rubbed with the new crayons.


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Ariana Grande Unveils 'No More Tears' Single Teaser + Cover Art
After the storm comes the rainbow — just look at Ariana Grande's brand new cover art for forthcoming single "No Tears Left to Cry" for proof.
The "Moonlight" singer, who will release her fourth album's first single Friday (April 20), shared a pair of images on Twitter that put her new track's tone into clearer focus. In one pic, released late April 17, Ari's face is featured in profile and ambient rainbow light decorates her eyes, cheeks and forehead. "No Tears left to Cry" is etched into the bottom of the frame upside-down as part of a theme that has been consistent through Ari's current cycle.
In another image released just after midnight on April 19, Ari — dressed in a simple top and denim jacket — crouches on a staircase with one foot descending a step. Again, the featured image is upside-down, and the pic's caption includes a link to Grande's website, where there's an upside-down countdown leading up to the release of "No Tears Left To Cry."
And fans went wild over the teasers.
"O. M. G. YES! This is a slay. And I know this is gonna be a bop. Please save us queen @ArianaGrande we don't deserve you but we need you!" one follower wrote, while another noted "this finna be your best era i can feel it feel it."
Grande also uploaded a brief, heavenly snippet of the track to YouTube.
Grande's next album will be the first since a terrorist detonated a bomb at the end of her show in Manchester, England, killing 22 concert-goers and injuring dozens more. The attack left Grande devastated, but eventually, she put her pain into action, and even instituted a Manchester Memorial concert to raise money for the victims, survivors and their families.
Celebs in 2008 vs. 2018:


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Check out our new advertisers www.cammansion.com and www.eruptionxl.com Follow AdultFYI at twitter@adultfyi1; Follow Gene Ross at twitter@GeneRoss3
from www.gawker.com – This month, Vanity Fair's neverending quest to reanimate the corpse of Marilyn Monroe takes the form of "never-before-published pictures" of Monroe. Billed as "The Lost Nudes" on the magazine's cover, the images are outtakes of photos that appeared twice in Playboy—and now Playboy is irate at the suggestion that the photos were "lost."
Vanity Fair describes the photos on its website:
[T]he very next morning, Marilyn was reported dead at 36. One of her final acts had been to return the nude photo to Schiller, which he found waiting for him at his house. She had written, "Send this to Playboy, they might like it."
Playboy retorts on its website:
And, indeed, we did like it. So much that we ran them 48 years ago, in our January 1964 issue, or again in January 2005. Sorry, Vanity Fair. Sometimes when something is too good to be true, it really is too good to be true.
Schiller's essay actually acknowledges that most of the nude photos appeared in Playboy—but not until the last paragraph of the sprawling article:
The agreement for the purchase of the poolside photos of Marilyn with Playboy was concluded in September 1962, but Hefner, not wanting to exploit the circumstances of Marilyn's death, decided not to publish them immediately. He waited until January 1964 issue, which appeared in late November 1963, the week of President Kennedy's assassination.
A Playboy source grumbled by email, "Yeah I'm sure the fact checker buried that in the back of the piece… but they're touting them as lost and exclusive."
By email, a Vanity Fair spokesperson said 12 of their images (mostly black-and-white proofs) had never been published before. Most are similar to Playboy's photos, because that's sort of the way outtakes work. Vanity Fair splashed the "never-published image" at left across two pages of the magazine. Below, the previously published Playboy version, accessed via the iPlayboy archives.
So, technically, neither party is lying. But everyone is splitting hairs, and the moral of the story is that someone needs to smack Graydon Carter upside the head while screaming, MARILYN MONROE IS DEAD, GET TO THE NEXT STAGE OF YOUR GRIEF CYCLE ALREADY. America has been reduced to watching movies about a guy who spent a few days with Marilyn and obsessing over the same few pictures of Marilyn's under boob that we've been obsessing over for half a century. Let the lady rest.


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There's no better way to kick off a weekend than with some tasty, caption-free food porn. Our pho gallery is a wonderland of sriracha squiggles, paper-thin slices of rare beef and basil leaves. Our banh mi gallery highlights the miracle of pate on a sandwich. Our ramen coverage so far has been acceptable, acknowledging the noodle soup's pivotal role in the survival of the broke and a recipe featuring beer-marinated steak. Now we just need some porn to go with it. Preferably with attractive eggs of the fried, poached and soft-boiled varieties. And a brief trip to the ramen museum in Osaka.
If you end up with anything else for lunch, I'd love to know about it.


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CITRUS citrus-teas/c/citrus/
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Like tea in technicolor, citrus tea delights the palate with bright notes that awaken the senses. A host of premium teas – green, red, herbal, white, and black – are enhanced with a recipe of citrus, herbs, and spices to result in fantastic hot and iced beverages. With flavors like Chamomile Lemon and Cinnamon Orange, these citrus teas will dazzle you with the glory of oranges, lemons, and limes.


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Retail Sales Associate, Delta - Bell
Req Id: 363773
At Bell, we're revolutionizing how Canadians communicate and it all starts in our stores. Every day our Sales Associates have the chance to make a big impact on our customers' lives.
It's an exciting thing and we need you.
As part of the Bell team, you'll work with a high-performing team, get the training you need to be successful, and earn a competitive wage and commission at one of Canada's Top 100 Employers.
Bring your personality to the job
- You love helping people find the products that will make their lives better
- You're passionate about new technology and ready to explain it to anyone, from an expert to a novice
- You thrive in a fast-paced environment and have a flexible schedule
- Experience in Retail Sales, Customer Service or Hospitality is a definite asset
- At Bell, we don't just accept difference—we celebrate it!
Get benefits and build a career path
- We recognize your hard work through incentives, rewards, and employee discounts on services
- Full benefits package for full-time and part-time employees
- Online and in-class training to develop your skills, along with opportunities for career growth and promotions
- We also provide a flexible schedule that offers Full and Part Time hours
- Competitive hourly wage plus commission
Build great customer experiences that keep customers coming back to our stores
- Be able to build a connection with customers to find the right products and services for them
- Provide a great experience and build loyalty with every customer, every day
- Enjoy the challenge of hitting sales targets
- Be excited to learn about new technology and services
- Knowing a second language is a plus! If you're applying for a job in Quebec, you'll need to speak French to do the job
Apply now >>
*This range is not a guaranteed rate. The range presented is an approximation based on current Sales Associate' commissions and base wages. As it is an uncapped structure, associates may make more than presented, though Sales Associates are guaranteed their base wage as outlined by their employment contract.
**Subject to terms and conditions
Bilingualism is an asset (English and French); adequate knowledge of French is required for positions in Quebec.
Additional Information:
Position Type: Retail Stores
Job Location: Canada : British Columbia : Delta
Application Deadline: 04/12/2022
Please apply directly online to be considered for this role. Applications through email will not be accepted.
At Bell, we don't just accept difference - we celebrate it. We're committed to fostering an inclusive, equitable, and accessible workplace where every team member feels valued, respected, and supported, and has the opportunity to reach their full potential. We welcome and encourage applications from people with disabilities.
Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process. For a confidential inquiry, simply email your recruiter directly or email@example.com to make arrangements. If you have questions regarding accessible employment at Bell please email our Diversity & Inclusion Team at email@example.com.
Created: Canada, BC, Delta
Read more about why Bell is considered one of Canada's Top 100 Employers.


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Mayawati: Dalit 'queen', now Brahmin messiah
Bhaujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati is the most intriguing character in the battle unfolding in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
In the past, slogans like Tilak, taraju aur talwar, unko maro juthe char ('Brahmins, traders and the warrior caste should be kicked') used to be the mantra of electoral success when Kanshi Ram, her mentor and the founder of BSP, took his movement to the economically poor and socially condemned Dalits, who were in search of a leader and a political party.
Thirty years on, BSP politics has gifted Mayawati a unique political situation.
In UP, Mayawati, as everyone knows and as the successive elections results have proved, has undisputed hold over the Dalit votes.
In the last election in UP, she secured 98 seats out of 403 seats with 23 per cent of the vote share.
In UP, Dalits constitute around 21 per cent of the electorate and it stands to her credit that she is able to transfer her share of votes to any candidate or party she chooses and that too at her price.
Coverage: The battle for Uttar Pradesh
As a result, paradoxically, she is able to give nominations to non-Dalit candidates.
Mayawati is so confident about the loyalty of her 'vote bank' that in public meetings she has accepted that she takes money from Thakur-Brahmin candidates to run her party.
In the last elections in UP in 2002, she gave a big chunk of the BSP tickets to Thakurs. But Thakurs who got elected on BSP tickets were uncomfortable with 'Dalit politcs' and they deserted her and her party.
This time, too, under the influence of her advisor and party leader Satish Mishra, Mayawati has created history. (Mishra helps her in legal matters related to the 'Taj Corridor Case' in which Mayawati is implicated).
For the first time, she has given tickets to 89 Brahmins. This may seem audacious. It is indeed unprecedented in the caste-ridden society where social prejudices and identities are at the very core of political action-reactions.
An interesting scenario is opening in the coming UP election. Mayawati needs the undivided votes of Brahmins to make a significant impact in UP while her arch rival, Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is counting on Muslims voting en masse in his favour to add to his loyal constituency of Yadavs.
Mayawati has 'transferable votes' -- unlike even Sonia Gandhi. The Congress president enjoys a good image and the admiration of the people but as was proven in the last few elections, her charisma simply doesn't translate into votes at the end of the day. Least of all, Sonia Gandhi is unable to help political allies of her Congress party win elections.
Mayawati is Mayawati
Behanji, as she is known amongst her cadres, Mayawati is a one-woman-army leading the BSP. She has this time found a new slogan � Brahmin shankh bajaega, hathi badhta jaega (Brahmin will blow the bugle and the elephant [BSP's symbol] will make progress).
As we know by now, it is highly probable that the UP elections will result in a hung state assembly.
Rahul Gandhi hits the UP poll trail
But if she is able to grab power by becoming the largest party in the assembly or by making timely post-poll alliances, she would have catapulted herself to a unique pedestal -- helping Brahmins ascend the ladders of power while being a �Dalit queen�.
She has indeed bargained hard and profitably.
She openly asked upper caste candidates, "Mere paas vote hai, aap mujhe kya doge?" ('I have votes, what can you offer me?')
She doesn't care for niceties and sophistication. She is openly contemptuous of middle class sensitivities over issues like corruption.
She thinks quickly, changes tack quickly, and is mindful only that the Dalits are still backing her.
Her big drawback is that she has formed the government twice in the past with the help of Bhartiya Janata Party. Her credibility on issues like secularism, corruption, democratic norms and the constitutional rights of backward classes is not inspiring.
The important Muslim constituency in UP will most likely stick to Mulayam instead of Mayawati because they find her an 'unguided political missile'.
Mayawati is a doer and if she decides to act on law and order or other issues, she can get things done. However, Yadavs and Kurmis dub her 'dictatorial' in her behavior while other backward castes like Kushwaha, Mauryas, Bhar, Nai and Dhobis who are little above Dalits in the social structure have been dissatisfied with her because she is not strongly fighting for quotas and reservations for them.
Mayawati's biggest strength, besides her loyal Dalit votes, is that she is best poised to garner the inevitable anti-incumbency votes against Mulayam Singh Yadav.
If she indeed succeeds in forming the government in Lucknow in mid-May with a combination of Dalit and Brahmin votes, the biggest loser will be the BJP.
And, it stands to reason when she says that Mulayam can only win the forthcoming election with clandestine, tactical help from the BJP.
Text by Sheela Bhatt and Nirmal Pathak


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British historian and columnist Dan Jones has written a beautiful history of England's Plantagenet kings. Starting with Henry II, they ruled from 1154 until the forced abdication of the childless King Richard II in 1399. In those 245 years England emerged "as a vibrant and confident nation," forged in the image of the Plantagenets.
Jones has written less a history than a set of fine vignettes relating dynastic life, death, war, peace, governance and palace intrigues. The result is a history book that frequently reads like a novel and can be opened to any chapter.
Jones is at his best describing how Henry II, the first Plantagenet to wear the crown, became king, and eventually one of England's greatest kings. Jones emphasizes that both Henry and King Stephen, last of the Normans, were more French than English; they spoke French and spent most of their time on the continent.
Although Stephen had two sons, he adopted Henry and named him heir. Henry was the grandson of Henry I, through his mother, Matilda, who was married to Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou; Henry I was Stephen's uncle.
When Stephen died at age 60, Henry, "impish, scruffy" and 21, became king in a peaceful succession. He ruled from 1154 to 1189, "the preeminent ruler in Europe." His domain beyond England included Normandy, Aquitaine, Maine, Anjou and Touraine, with influence in Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
The royal council was established in Westminster, eventually becoming the Court of the King's Bench. Sheriffs took over land disputes; criminal law came under royal control. The Assize of Arms encouraged payments by aristocracy instead of supplying troops and military service, "which helped further demilitarize English barons . . . In the shires of England, the fingers of royal justice were suddenly everywhere. The power of the Crown was now firmly rooted in English soil. . . . Legally and judicially Henry had declared himself master of his own realm."
Henry and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, had nine children, two of whom became kings, Richard I, the Lionheart, and the infamous John, who so vexed his barons that they confronted him at Runnymede in 1215. There, he agreed to the Magna Carta, which established rules between kings and barons and led to Parliament.
The last Plantagenet, Richard II, ruled from 1377 to 1399. His court became a "center for literary and artistic ideas." Though his interest in letters was brief, "his court was at the heart of the invention of England's native tongue as a language of high literature."
Richard's models were an odd sort: the last Saxon king, Edward the Confessor, as well as King John, Henry III and Edward II. "In his own way, Richard had been a worse king than all of them combined," Jones writes. "He had believed that kingship was about prestige and magnificence instead of leadership. And he had ended up with nothing."
The Plantagenets is a brilliant and entertaining study of the roots of today's United Kingdom and its unwritten constitution.
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Explore all your optionsJules Wagman, last book editor of the old Cleveland (Ohio) Press, reviews books in Jacksonville.


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Random Building
1942 – Cathedral of Saints Patrick and Felim, Cavan, Co. Cavan
The original Cathedral of the diocese of Kilmore was situated about four miles south of Cavan town in the present parish of Kilmore. Some time in the 6th century St Felim established a church there. It was rebuilt in th middle of the fifteenth century as a cathedral. During the reformation it was confiscated.
This cathedral was built between the years 1938 and 1942, and was one of the last of the huge Roman Catholic cathedrals built in Ireland from the 1850s onwards. Unlike most Irish cathedrals, it is neo-classical in style with a single spire rising to 230 feet. The portico consists of a tympanum supported by four massive columns of Portland stone with Corinthian caps. The tympanum figures of Christ, St Patrick and St Felim were executed by the Dublin sculptor, Edward Smith.
The interior is vast and quite gloomy. The twenty eight columns in the Cathedral, the pulpit on the south side and all the statues are of Pavinazetto marble and came from the firm of Dinelli Figli of Pietrasanta in Italy. The interior seems unfinished, the chapels to the northern side are finished in better materials than those on the southern, suggesting a budgetry problem. Unusually it still has its altar rails intact.


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Know Your Customer
Imagine walking into your favorite store. The owner greets you by name. Asks how your spouse is doing. Inquires about new events in your life. They get to know their customer.
You'd be pretty impressed, wouldn't you?
This is the type of service I love to receive from the stores I visit. Personal, friendly, hometown.
There's two places locally that I receive this type of service.
The first is an old-time candy shop called Lakeside Emporium. It's run by Gary and Lori. Whenever we walk into the store, a few things happen.
- We're greeted by name
- If my wife is not with me (or I'm not with her) they will ask us where she is and how she's doing
- They ask if I want my regular treat. That would be a bear claw for me


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WE DID IT!!! Yes we are one of the 40% successful projects funded via Kickstarter!
Lets start off by saying a MASSIVE thank you to all who backed the project. It has been an amazing month! We actually reached over 61% of our target. Meaning we can give everyone a fantastic behind the scenes featurette for you all to see how the process is made from start to finish.
So what now. Well, we have just received our funding and the first purchase will be for the featurette, we are buying a good quality SLR camera with HD capabilities for shooting the doc. This will then be our upgrade camera when we work on hopefully the next Dan project.
We have been busy skyping important people working on the project, like Nathan Britton our composer. He is currently working on the first 2 minutes of the film. You can hear Nathan's work here
Our graphics guy David Chaudoir is busy working on the end credits which is going to look fantastic. Not giving anything more away. But take a look at his video below, you'll see what kind of people we are working with. Its amazing!!!
Our 2nd Zombie is being created at the moment by Darren, we are so lucky that with your money we can give him a fully working ball and socket armature for the zombie. We are using the best in the business by Animation Tool Kit, its the famous Ray Harryhausen Armacreature kit. They are fantastic. Dan is already using one, but we are now able to put the zombies in them too.
Andy has been busy working on a unique poster for the film. I think he has come up with a cracker!!! What do you guys think?
I have been busy animating away. We have 2 minutes shot. Another 3 to go so i'm well into it. But we may have an animator on board to help the work flow, watch this space!!!
That's all for now, please keep tweeting and ace booking


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SaLuSa, May 23, 2011
As might be expected prophesies come and go, and you will find that periodically certain groups will feel that they have been guided to one that supports their beliefs. You may wonder how it comes about, and in many instances it is the result of energy given to an event of a religious significance. It can go back hundreds if not thousands of years, gradually becoming so powerful that it will impinge upon the consciousness of its followers who bring it to a conclusion. The factor that results in a non-event is more likely to be because times have changed, along with the levels of consciousness and the Light has become the pacifier. As a result the prediction no longer carries forward and it does not manifest. In other words it is no longer necessary to bring in the changes that were expected, as Humanity has moved on to a new paradigm. The Apocalypse will not therefore take place as expected although there will still be many Earth changes, but no longer associated with mass death and destruction. If possible people should concentrate on the positive aspects of the changes, and as we so often recommend to keep their vision of the New Earth in focus. These times will be confusing to many souls who are not quite sure what to expect, and events are not helped by the activities of the dark Ones. They have planned to stage events that parallel the predictions so fulfilling peoples expectations that would of course fuel the "fear" factor. We are aware of such intentions and within certain limits because of karmic situations, can prevent them from taking place. We have prevented a Third World War, destruction of the Earth, and plagues and diseases of proportions that would have decimated your population. That has been in accordance with our responsibilities to ensure that you safely reach the point of Ascension, and that the opportunity to ascend is not denied you. It might not appear to be so, but you are rising up from the lower vibrations and as you do the degree of dark activities will lessen as the Light is weakening their power. With steps being taken to get our allies into positions of authority, through them we also have more influence as to what is occurring. All in all we progress to our goals to make the big changes that will see the dark Ones removed. So be assured that even if you do not have the details, we are achieving our aims to get matters really moving along. When it commences there cannot be any other outcome, as the Divine Plan will manifest regardless of any outer happenings. It is why we occasionally remind you that the Light has already achieved the victory that you have been promised. There is absolutely no reason to be fearful, and whatever you planned for yourself to go through the end–times, will come to be. We keep you looking straight ahead, as there will come a time when the past will have little influence over you. Once you have ascended and your consciousness levels greatly expanded, you will in effect disconnect from memories of being in the lower vibrations. They will no longer be of importance, but nevertheless the experience you gained will always be with you. You are forever on a spiritual journey finding your way back to the Source, and that applies to all souls with no exception. So you can see that wherever you meet other souls, you will have a lot in common and not least of all that you originally came from the Source. You chose to experience separation from it and take on the challenge of recovering your Light, and levels of consciousness that would restore your subconsciousness memories of your true Self. That has been achieved by many of you, and it was that success that enabled more time to be granted for as many souls as possible to ascend. Otherwise you may not have been here at this time, but have completed your journeys with the coming of the Millennium. So Dear Ones, you can understand the admiration and love that goes out to you from the higher dimensions, as your success has only been achieved by your dedication and strong intent to overcome all obstacles. You are truly magnificent Beings, and in the near future you will stand along side of us as fully conscious Beings. Whatever your earthly experiences do not belittle your selves, as the very reason for being on Earth was to drop into the lower vibrations. What you have learnt from them is the most important factor, and not how it was achieved as you will all have experienced the pull of the dark energies. How else would you learn how to handle them, and fully understand how to overcome them? You are not labeled as sinners as some would have you believe, and life on Earth was meant for living and to choose whatever experiences advanced your understanding and led you back to the Light. You have all had so many lives in duality it is understandable that you now feel it is time for change. For many souls there is not much more you can learn from it, and having re-established a strong link with the Light are ready to rise up. It has been building up to this time for many centuries, and great Beings have walked the Earth to help you understand the truth of your Divinity. Their teachings might have been distorted, but that makes it even more remarkable that you have still found your Light. Love is the keyword to your advancement, whether you receive it or give it out, and when you can reach a point of being able to give without conditions, you are truly One with the Christ Consciousness. We talk of Unconditional Love, and that means giving without judgement and desiring nothing back for doing so. Humans have a tendency to hold a mindset that places conditions for the giving of Love, and that is one lesson to learn as you enter the last period leading to Ascension. Simply do your best and you will find it will become easier to think that way, and it will come with the increases in your consciousness levels. I am SaLuSa from Sirius and trust that with our messages, you have gradually acquired a better understanding of what the Galactic Federation represents. We are you and from your future and you will easily move from your present way of life, to one that will eventually see you take your place as worthy Galactic Beings. We see these times as extremely exciting, at the prospect of inviting you back to where you really belong – as Starseeds. Thank you SaLuSa. Mike Quinsey. Website: Tree of the Golden Light
Would you like to comment on this message? Send us an e-mail! If we find it appropriate, we will place it under this message.
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please let us know and we'll add you to our mailing list. Every Monday night from 8 to 8:55 pm channelings and related matters are being discussed on First Contact Radio. The show is hosted by Dutch lightworker Maarten Horst and is presented in English. |


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Last week, midway through a leisurely Saturday afternoon, I got an email from MSNBC asking me to be on the Melissa Harris Perry Show a week later (July 7th). I was delighted to accept, as MHP is not your usual American journalist. A professor of political science at Tulane University, she is an outspoken African American feminist and a progressive voice in a media landscape dominated by right-wing talking heads. MSNBC is a rare media oasis in the U.S. where one gets to hear some actual critical analysis, so I—mistakenly, it turned out—thought this was going to be one of the few positive experiences I've had working with corporate-controlled media. In all honesty, after many years of being on talk shows in the U.S., I have come to expect very little in terms of integrity from the media. Their job is to boost ratings by making stories entertaining and light, and God help anyone who gets in their way.
I spent a long time on the phone with MHP's producer talking about my research on the harms of porn and the ways women in the industry—especially women of color—are financially exploited and physically and emotionally dehumanized and debased. Given MHP's feminist politics and her scholarly work on the representation of African American women in U.S. history, I was excited to do a show with an interviewer whom I expected would be engaging and thoughtful, in contrast to the usual adolescent sniggering I get from the male journalist who suddenly finds himself in the awkward position of interviewing a feminist who doesn't think porn is fun.
But by the middle of the week things started to go very wrong. My last conversation with the producers was on the Sunday before the show, and I was told that I would get a call by Tuesday to confirm my travel details. Wednesday came, and no call. On Thursday, I got an email saying that the "segment is changing," so they won't need me. "Changing"… not canceled. To the uninitiated this might seem like splitting hairs, but I am an old hand at dealing with the media, and I have been in this position more times than I can count.
Let me explain how it often plays out: I get a call from a producer to do a show about porn, and in our pre-show discussion the producer is shocked to hear about what really goes on in the porn industry. He or she had no idea that hardcore porn (called "gonzo" by the industry and fans) is now mainstream on the Internet, that choking with a penis, slapping, hair pulling, and verbal abuse is the norm. The producer is horrified to hear that women in porn suffer repeatedly from rectal prolapse (because of pounding anal sex), and get diseases such as clamidia of the eye, gonorrhea of the throat, and fecal throat infections (because of the ATM act in which the penis goes from the anus to the mouth without washing). As we talk, I know exactly what is going on in the producer's mind: they see their fun, hot-ratings-driver segment going down the tubes, and they are suddenly in the not-so-fun territory of cruelty, violence, and economic exploitation.
As if this weren't enough, their would-be guest at the other end of the line uses the dreaded word "capitalism," because, of course, there is no way to talk about the porn industry without a thorough analysis of how this predatory industry actually interfaces with credit card companies, banks, information technology, hotels, venture capitalists, and—wait for it—mainstream media. And now we are at a fork in the road. Either the interview is quickly terminated, or the producer is intrigued
and I am booked. But I know that until the moment the camera rolls, there is no guarantee that I will actually be on the show. Most galling is that if I'm replaced, it's usually by some porn shill spouting on about porn as fun, feminist empowerment.
Not for one second did I think this would happen with the MHP show. (Seems I am a slow learner.) As soon as I got the email that the segment was "changing," I could smell a rat. I emailed back and asked if the topic of porn was canceled altogether or if the producer had other plans for the segment. The response was guarded and awkward, so I Googled around to see if the segments of the upcoming show were listed anywhere, but found nothing. I assumed that I would have to wait until Saturday to see just how it had indeed changed, but it turned out that people who are smarter than I am at social media research were digging around to see what was actually going on. Bingo!
They came across a post on Jaclyn Friedman's Facebook page saying that she was going to be on MHP with pornographer Tristan Taorminio. Now I understood what they meant by the "segment is changing." Gone was a critical feminist analysis of the porn industry, and in its place was a "fun" discussion of women's sexual agency, their fantasies, and their empowered choices to make porn. Any discussion of economic exploitation, predatory capitalism, violence, STDs, or rectal prolapses was clearly off the table. We were moving back into ratings nirvana with fluff pieces. Even cynical me was shocked. This was, after all, MHP, not some clueless talk show host.
So I sprang into action and emailed the producer. But this time I copied MHP. I wrote:
Since Dr. Harris Perry is an academic, you should be aware that the currency of our profession is open debate with people representing different positions. You have chosen to do a segment that will draw ratings and titillate, at the expense of a more thoughtful analysis of the role of porn in our culture. Selecting Jaclyn Friedman (who has not studied porn in any rigorous way), and Tristan Taormino (who works for the industry, and has partnered with John Stagliano, a well-known producer of very violent porn) undermines Dr. Melissa Harris Perry's integrity.
My sense is that Dr. Harris Perry is not aware of the level of violence against women in porn, nor the way that women of color are the most degraded and humiliated, as are black men. For example, one of the best selling porn series targeted to white males is called Oh no! There's a negro in my daughter/wife/sister/mom. If she were, I doubt she would want a segment that renders invisible the lives of real women and men in the porn industry in favor of a piece that speaks to the lives of a small group of privileged women.
I also attached a link to my chapter on racism in porn from my book Pornland. Within the hour I get an email back asking "Is there a statement you would like to send me so we could include it in our show please?" To which I replied:
You can't seriously think for one minute that I could offer a statement about the complexities of a global predatory industry that would in any way have an effect given the "direction" you have taken this show.… I find it a little strange that you ask for a statement from me, yet feel fit to give a pornographer such as Tristan Taormino air time.
Surprise! In place of the statement that I refused to make, they used my emails as my statement, without my permission. MHP read them aloud on the show, but not one of the guests or MHP engaged with the content. Instead, they went back to fun feminism, and the (at times incoherent) conversation turned to the need for women to make porn as a way to counter the effects of the multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. Meanwhile, of course, not one person on the show actually pointed out that the overwhelming market for porn is men and that they are very happy, thank you, with their gonzo. And lest we get away from fun, let's not even mention the physical and sexual violence that women in porn endure. Or, heaven forbid, the level of male violence that women outside the porn industry also have to live with.
I remember watching an MHP segment on MSNBC after she saw the movie The Help. I use this clip in my classes on racism in media because her passion and eloquence are so deeply felt. She is upset by the movie, and she is almost in tears when she explains how white-produced images of African American women deny the reality of their lives and render invisible the pain and suffering real black domestics endured at the hands of white employers. In another interview, MHP said that her fear was that The Help will become "the historical record because of its popularity, and that people who see the movie will come to believe that that's really what happened".
Clearly, MHP understands the power of media images to shape the way people think. If this is true of movies, then it is also true of other media genres, including porn. If MHP is upset at The Help for misrepresenting black women's lives, then what about popular porn sites such as Bad Black Babes, Pimp My Black Teen, or Ghetto Gaggers, or any of the thousands of websites that show black women "enjoying" sexual degradation at the hands of black and white men? These images, just like the ones in The Help, are part of the media world that creates ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that undermine all women's rights to full equality, dignity, and justice. I didn't expect Taormino or the other guests to take this on, but I did expect a political science professor to be a little more savvy and intellectually inquisitive about how individual and collective perceptions are formed by cultural institutions.
My only explanation for MHP's lapse in judgment is that she, like all media professionals, is held captive by the commercial imperative of corporate-owned media. This segment was clearly meant to be the lighter part of the show, a little relief from the more depressing issues she normally covers—for example, racism, poverty and inequality—as if these very issues don't create the conditions for women's entry into the sex industry in the first place. Not only did she squander a golden opportunity to do some real journalism; worse, in this segment, MHP went from being an academic to a talk show host, and along the way she compromised her integrity as a feminist.
GAIL DINES is a professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston. Her latest book is Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked our Sexuality (Beacon Press). She is a founding member of Stop Porn Culture (stoppornculture.org).


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Substrates suitable for terrarium animals
To give the terrarium animals a home modelled on nature the terrarium needs to be modelled closely on the animals' biotope. It is crucial that the size of the terrarium suits the animals' requirements, amongst other factors. During the set up it is important to have the right substrate, plants, air circulation, lighting and the temperature in the terrarium.
#Terra Bark