DAY OF THE SEAFARER [IMO]: JUNE 25, 2014

 

DAY OF THE SEAFARER

Quick Facts

The Day of the Seafarer aims to acknowledge the social, and economic contribution of the millions of seafarers around the world.

Local names

Name Language
Day of the Seafarer English
Día de la Gente de Mar Spanish
יום הימאים Hebrew
يوم من البحارة Arabic
선원의 날 Korean
Tag der Seefahrer German

Day of the Seafarer 2014

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Day of the Seafarer 2015

Thursday, June 25, 2015

June 25 is observed worldwide as the Day of the Seafarer.

The first Day of the Seafarer was observed on June 25, 2011.

©iStockphoto.com/Oleksandr Kalinichenko

In 2010, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), decided to designate June 25th as the International Day of the Seafarer as a way to recognize that almost everything that we use in our daily lives has been directly or indirectly affected by sea transport.

The purpose of the day is to give thanks to seafarers for their contribution to the world economy and the civil society; and for the risks and personal costs they bear while on their jobs.

Background

According to IMO’s estimates, ships transport almost 90 percent of the world’s goods trade. Seafarers are not only responsible for the operations of such ships, but are also responsible for the safe and smooth delivery of the cargo.

The day not only acknowledges the invaluable work of seafarers, but also aims to bring global attention to the issues affecting their work and lives, such as piracy. It calls on governments to develop policies that lead to fair treatment of seafarers at ports, and asks private ship companies and owners to provide their employees proper facilities and comforts while they are at sea.

Observances

Since 2011, the IMO has taken the celebration of the Day of the Seafarer online, calling for the public to use social media such as Facebook and Twitter, to voice their support for seafarers and to thank them for their work.

The United Nations has now included the Day of the Seafarer in its list of observances.

Day of the Seafarer Observances

 

Weekday Date Year Name Holiday type Where it is observed
Sat Jun 25 2011 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance
Mon Jun 25 2012 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance
Tue Jun 25 2013 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance
Wed Jun 25 2014 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance
Thu Jun 25 2015 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance
Sat Jun 25 2016 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance
Sun Jun 25 2017 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance
Mon Jun 25 2018 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance
Tue Jun 25 2019 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance
Thu Jun 25 2020 Day of the Seafarer United Nations observance

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INTERNATIONAL WIDOW’S DAY: JUNE 23, 2014

 

INTERNATIONAL WIDOW’S DAY

Quick Facts

Poverty and injustice against widows is a world-wide problem addressed by International Widows’ Day.

Local names

Name Language
International Widows’ Day English
Día Internacional de las Viudas Spanish
יום האלמנות ‘הבינלאומית Hebrew
اليوم الدولي للأرامل Arabic
국제 과부의 날 Korean
Internationaler Tag der Witwen German

International Widows’ Day 2014

Monday, June 23, 2014

International Widows’ Day 2015

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

International Widows’ Day was introduced to address poverty and injustice faced by widows and their children in many countries. It was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2010 and is observed anually on June 23.

The situation of widows in many countries is desolate.

©iStockphoto.com/jcarillet

What do people do?

The first officially recognized International Widows’ Day on June 23, 2011 was marked with a conference held in the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Public life

International Widows’ Day is a global observance and not a public holiday.

Background

International Widows’ Day was initiated by the Loomba Foundation in 2005. The plight of widows world-wide has been the foundation’s focus since it was established in 1997. According to its founder, Raj Loomba, women in many countries experience great hardship after their husbands die. “They are not looked after by governments or NGOs and they are shunned by society.”

The observance falls on June 23 because Loomba’s mother became a widow on that date in 1954.

External link

Learn more about International Widows’ Day

International Widows’ Day Observances

 

Weekday Date Year Name Holiday type Where it is observed
Thu Jun 23 2011 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 23 2012 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance
Sun Jun 23 2013 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance
Mon Jun 23 2014 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance
Tue Jun 23 2015 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance
Thu Jun 23 2016 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance
Fri Jun 23 2017 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 23 2018 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance
Sun Jun 23 2019 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance
Tue Jun 23 2020 International Widows’ Day United Nations observance

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IN REMEMBRANCE: 6-22-2014

STEPHANIE L. KWOLEK, INVENTOR OF KEVLAR

Stephanie L. Kwolek in an undated photo at the DuPont laboratory in Delaware. Kevlar proved to be a windfall for the company. Credit DuPont
Stephanie L. Kwolek, a DuPont chemist who invented the technology behind Kevlar, a virtually bulletproof fiber that has saved thousands of lives, died on Wednesday in Wilmington, Del. She was 90.

The chief executive of DuPont, Ellen Kullman, announced the death, calling Ms. Kwolek, who spent 15 years in the laboratory without a promotion before her breakthrough, “a true pioneer for women in science.”

Kevlar is probably best known for use in body armor, particularly bulletproof vests. A DuPont spokeswoman estimated that since the 1970s, 3,000 police officers have been saved from bullet wounds through the use of equipment reinforced with Kevlar, which is far stronger and lighter than steel.

The product has found its way into all corners of the modern world. It has been used in car tires, boots for firefighters, hockey sticks, cut-resistant gloves, fiber-optic cables, fire-resistant mattresses, armored limousines and even canoes. It is used in building materials, making them bomb-resistant. Safe rooms have been built with Kevlar to protect a building’s occupants during hurricanes. Kevlar has been used to reinforce overtaxed bridges.

Its popularity has proved a windfall for DuPont. Kevlar has generated several billion dollars in revenue for the company. Ms. Kwolek did not directly benefit from it financially, however; she signed over patent royalties to DuPont.

The research that led to Kevlar began in the early 1960s, when women were a rarity in industrial chemistry. Ms. Kwolek was part of a team at DuPont’s research laboratory in Wilmington that was trying to develop a lightweight fiber that would be strong enough to replace the steel used in radial tires.

The work involved manipulating strings of carbon-based molecules to produce larger molecules known as polymers. At one point, in 1964, Ms. Kwolek was struggling to convert a solid polymer into liquid form and finding the results to be a murky disappointment. Instead of the clear, syrupy mixture she expected, the liquid was thin and opaque.

Ms. Kwolek’s peers suggested that the polymer she had concocted would probably not work as a fiber. But Ms. Kwolek persisted. She persuaded another scientist to “spin” the liquid in the laboratory spinneret, a machine used to remove liquid solvent and leave behind fibers.

In “a case of serendipity,” as she put it, she discovered that polyamide molecules in the solution, a form of liquid crystal, lined up in parallel and that when the liquid was “cold spun,” it produced a fiber of unusual stiffness.

When the fibers were tested in 1965, they were found to be five times as strong as steel of equal weight and resistant to fire. Herbert Blades, Joseph Rivers and others at DuPont soon recognized the market potential for a tough, lightweight fabric and began to consider potential uses for the innovation. They have been credited with making it a mass market product.

DuPont says it spent $500 million to develop Kevlar, what Fortune magazine once called “a miracle in search of a market.” The company initially began developing it for use in tires under the working name “Fiber B” at a pilot plant in Richmond, Va.

Ms. Kwolek later spoke of her uncertainty when testing and retesting the experiment’s findings. “It wasn’t exactly a ‘Eureka!’ moment,” she recalled in 2007.

She added: “I didn’t want to be embarrassed. When I did tell management, they didn’t fool around. They immediately assigned a whole group to work on different aspects” of the fiber’s development.

It took a decade before Kevlar appeared in the form of a vest resistant to bullets fired by handguns. It was made available to police departments in 1975. Later versions increased the layers of Kevlar fabric.

Since the 1990s, the vests have been further reinforced with ceramic plates to withstand rifle fire. Military helmets have been lined with up to 24 layers to make them less vulnerable to penetration by shrapnel.

In 1996, Ms. Kwolek was awarded the National Medal of Technology for her work on synthetic fibers. On Wednesday, the day she died, DuPont announced that the one-millionth vest made with Kevlar technology had been sold.

Stephanie Louise Kwolek was born on July 31, 1923, in New Kensington, Pa., near Pittsburgh. In 1946, she earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry from what is now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The daughter of working-class Polish immigrants, she considered becoming a physician but could not afford the tuition to medical school. After graduating from college, she joined DuPont’s textile chemistry facility in Buffalo before moving to the Wilmington lab in 1950.

She led polymer research at DuPont until she retired in 1986. Information on survivors was not available.

Ms. Kwolek was the recipient of many other honors, including the Lemelson-M.I.T. Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes the nation’s most talented inventors and innovators. In 1995, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in North Canton, Ohio. In 2003, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

She was also inducted, in 2004, into the Plastics Hall of Fame at the National Plastics Center and Museum in Leominster, Mass. There, her plaque hangs alongside those of innovators like Earl Tupper, the creator of Tupperware.

After retirement, Ms. Kwolek tutored high school students in chemistry, paying particular attention to grooming young women for work in the sciences.

Her achievements have become familiar to an even younger generation as well. In 2013, her story, told in 48 pages, became one in a series of children’s books about inventors and innovative ideas. The book, by Edwin Brit Wyckoff, is titled “The Woman Who Invented the Thread That Stops the Bullets: The Genius of Stephanie Kwolek.”

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GERRY GOFFIN, HITMAKING SONGWRITER WITH CAROLE KING

Gerry Goffin and Carole King at the RCA recording studio in New York around 1959. Credit Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty Images
Gerry Goffin, who collaborated with Carole King to write some of the biggest hits of the 1960s, songs that endured through generations and became classics, including “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?,” “Up on the Roof,” “One Fine Day” and “The Loco-Motion,” died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 75.

His death was announced by his wife, Michele. No cause was specified.

Mr. Goffin and Ms. King were students at Queens College when they met in 1958. Over the next decade they fell in love, married, had two children, divorced and moved their writing sessions into and out of 1650 Broadway, across the street from the Brill Building. (The Brill Building pop music of the late 1950s and ‘60s was mostly written in both buildings.)

Together they composed a catalog of pop standards so diverse and irresistible that they were recorded by performers as unalike as the Drifters, Steve Lawrence, Aretha Franklin and the Beatles. They were inducted together into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2004 the Recording Academy presented them jointly with a Trustees Award for lifetime achievement.

Gerry Goffin in 2004. Credit George Pimentel/WireImage, via Getty Images

The couple’s writing duties were clearly delineated: Ms. King composed the music, Mr. Goffin wrote the lyrics — among them some of the most memorable words in the history of popular music.

“His words expressed what so many people were feeling but didn’t know how to say,” Ms. King said in a statement on Thursday.

This was the first verse of the first No. 1 hit they wrote, which the Shirelles recorded in 1960:

Tonight you’re mine completely,

You give your love so sweetly.

Tonight the light of love is in your eyes.

But will you love me tomorrow?

In 1962 the couple had another No. 1 hit, one with a very different feel. It was sung by their babysitter, performing under the name Little Eva:

Everybody’s doing a brand new dance now.

Come on baby, do the loco-motion.

I know you’ll get to like it if you give it a chance now.

Come on baby, do the loco-motion.

In 1963 they reached No. 1 again with “Go Away Little Girl,” sung by Steve Lawrence and dripping with sentiment and strings:

Go away little girl,

Go away little girl.

I’m not supposed to be alone with you.

I know that your lips are sweet

Mr. Goffin, far right, with, clockwise from top, Cynthia Weil, Barry Mann and Ms. King in 1961. Credit William “PoPsie” Randolph

But our lips must never meet.

I belong to someone else, and I must be true.

And so it went for much of the decade. They had a remarkable run of Top 40 hits.

The Animals had a hit with “Don’t Bring Me Down.” The Drifters made “Up on the Roof” a beach music standard. The Chiffons recorded “One Fine Day.” The Monkees recorded “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” Aretha Franklin reached the Top 10 with “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”

Even after they divorced in 1968, the duo continued writing together for a time, although they both wrote for others — and Ms. King, notably, began writing for herself.

She achieved superstardom as a solo artist with the release of her album “Tapestry” in 1971. Three songs on that album, which went on to sell more than 20 million copies, were Goffin-King collaborations, including Ms. King’s updated interpretation of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”

Gerald Goffin was born on Feb. 11, 1939, in Brooklyn and grew up in Jamaica, Queens. He began writing lyrics as a boy — “like some kind of game in my head,” he recalled once — but found he was unable to come up with satisfying music to accompany them.

He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School before enrolling at Queens College. He was three years older than Ms. King, studying chemistry, when they met in the spring of her freshman year.

He asked her to help him write a musical. She was interested in rock ‘n’ roll. They hit it off anyway, and she was pregnant with their first child when they married on Aug. 30, 1959.

“I never knew what I wanted to do,” Mr. Goffin was quoted as saying in “Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era” (2005), Ken Emerson’s book about Goffin-King and other New York songwriting teams of the 1960s. “Neither did Carole, really. She never assumed she would make it. That’s the furthest thing from your mind when you’re a wannabe: actually becoming.”

In addition to his wife, Mr. Goffin’s survivors include four daughters, Louise Goffin, Sherry Goffin Kondor, Dawn Reavis and Lauren Goffin; a son, Jesse Goffin; six grandchildren; and a brother, Al.

Mr. Goffin never achieved the level of success on his own that he did with Ms. King. He released solo albums in 1973 and 1996, but they did not sell well. He did, however, show that he could still write a No. 1 song. Diana Ross’s recording of “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To),” which he wrote with Michael Masser, reached No. 1 in 1976. Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love for You,” another collaboration with Mr. Masser, did the same nine years later. Mr. Goffin also wrote “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” and other songs with Barry Goldberg.

This year the songs of Goffin and King, and the story of their marriage, became the subject of a hit Broadway show, “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” which opened in January. The show depicts not only the years when Ms. King and Mr. Goffin were churning out hits but also the breakup of their marriage, after Mr. Goffin’s infidelity and emotional problems.

Mr. Goffin and his wife were in the audience on opening night, but although Ms. King had attended an early reading, she did not see the show herself until April.

That night she described her reaction as “joyous” and explained why she had not shown up earlier: “I had been too afraid to come and how it would make me feel.”

That was also, she said, why she had left before the end of the reading she attended. “I didn’t get past the first act, when Gerry tells Carole that he wants to sleep with somebody else,” she said. “I was like: ‘O.K., I’ve lived this. I don’t need to see it.’ ”

The show was nominated for a Tony but did not win, although Jessie Mueller, who played Ms. King, did.

The cast of “Beautiful” dedicated Thursday night’s performance to Mr. Goffin.

Correction: June 19, 2014
An earlier version of this obituary misspelled the given name of Mr. Goffin’s wife. It is Michele, not Michelle. It also referred incorrectly to Diana Ross’s recording of the Goffin-Masser song “Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To?)” It reached No. 1 in 1976, not 1975. And it misstated a line from the first verse of the Goffin-King song “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” It is “But will you love me tomorrow?,” not “Will you still love me tomorrow?”SOURCE************************************************

ULTRA VIOLET, WARHOL SUPERSTAR

Ultra Violet, right, in 1968 with Andy Warhol and Viva. Credit Sam Falk/The New York Times

Isabelle Collin Dufresne, the French-born artist, actress and author known as Ultra Violet, the beauty among the superstars of Andy Warhol’s glory days at his studio, the Factory, died on Saturday at a Manhattan hospital. She was 78 and lived in Manhattan and in Nice, France.

The death was confirmed by William Butler, a family friend. A cousin, Carole Thouvard Revol, said the cause was cancer.

In 1973, Ultra Violet had a near-death experience, for which she blamed her habits of excess in the decade before. In the 1980s, she condemned the rampant drug use, orgiastic sex and unchecked egotism at the Factory, repented for her part in it and became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

She worked as an artist until her death. A New York exhibition at the Dillon Gallery in Chelsea this spring, “Ultra Violet: The Studio Recreated,” featured a selection of her paintings, sculptures, prints, film and neon works. The show closed three weeks before she died.

Summing up her artistic abilities in a 2009 video interview, she said: “I have infinite imagination. Maybe I don’t have too much technique.” Much of her recent work had dealt with Sept. 11, using the Roman numerals IX and XI as a graphic palindrome, and with the iconography of Mickey Mouse, whom she often depicted wearing angel wings.

Ultra Violet with Salvador Dalí at the Huntington Hartford Museum in New York in 1969. Credit UltraVioletweb.com

Ms. Collin Dufresne was in her late 20s when she met Warhol while having tea at the St. Regis Hotel with the artist Salvador Dalí, a lover and an earlier mentor. It was 1964, and Warhol immediately expressed interest in having her in his films. She made her screen debut the next year under her real name in Warhol’s “The Life of Juanita Castro,” an improvised black-and-white political comedy.

By the time she appeared in her second Warhol film, “I, a Man” (1967), which also starred Nico and Valerie Solanas (who later shot and seriously injured Warhol), she had taken the name Ultra Violet. But when she was not in character, with some combination of purple hair, purple lipstick, trowel-heavy purple eye shadow and beet juice as cheek color, she looked like the prettiest girl at the prom — a soignée brunette with a shoulder-length bouffant, delicate features and maximum false eyelashes. And she had a French accent.

Isabelle Collin Dufresne was born on Sept. 6, 1935, in La Tronche, France, near Grenoble, to an upper-middle-class family. She often said that when she had shown rebellious tendencies as a teenager, her parents had a Roman Catholic priest perform an exorcism. Apparently, the effects were delayed.

She was also sent to a reform school at one point and studied art in Grenoble before being “shipped off” to New York, as she always said, where it was hoped a new environment might tame her.

As Ultra Violet, Ms. Collin Dufresne appeared in some 17 films, not counting numerous documentaries made later about the period and the Factory regulars. Even those films that were not directed by Warhol or his acolyte Paul Morrissey tended to be Warholian, dealing with the counterculture, drugs or at least fantasy or horror, and her co-stars in those non-Warhol films often included other Factory superstars, as they were known. She was in a 1970 “Cleopatra,” for instance, in which Viva played the title role.

But Ultra Violet also appeared in “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), in a party scene with her fellow Factory habitués Viva, International Velvet and Mr. Morrissey; had a small part in Milos Forman’s “Taking Off” (1971); and played a kinky party guest in Paul Mazursky’s “An Unmarried Woman” (1978), with Jill Clayburgh. Ultra Violet’s final film acting job was in “Blackout” (1994), directed by Paulita Sedgwick, a cousin of Edie Sedgwick, the heiress and Factory starlet who died in 1971 in her 20s.

Ultra Violet in her studio. Dozens of her works were on view at the Dillon Gallery this spring. Credit Lizzy Sullivan

In “Famous for 15 Minutes: My Years With Andy Warhol,” Ultra Violet’s 1988 memoir, she wrote about her return to religion after a nervous and physical breakdown. She kissed and told, naming among her past lovers Rudolf Nureyev, the artist Ed Ruscha and Mr. Forman. And she denounced the person she had been during the Warhol years as an “unleashed exhibitionist chasing headlines.”

“I survived by grace alone,” she told a PBS interviewer in 2005.

Ms. Collin Dufresne, who never married, is survived by two sisters, Catherine Cara and Edwige Merceron-Vicat.

Interviewers often asked her about the decade in which she was at the center of celebrity culture. In a 2011 interview with USA Today, she said, “I mean, it was an exciting era in that there was a cultural revolution going on.” She acknowledged that there was no comparable shake-up underway in the 2000s so far, but added, “I think we are constantly in some kind of a flux.”

She could be a serious interview subject, as when in David Henry Gerson’s 2011 documentary, “Ultra Violet for Sixteen Minutes,” she announced, “As you come closer to your true nature, you are more fulfilled.”

But she could also jab. At an arts festival in Bridgehampton, N.Y., in 2010, she and her longtime Factory friend Taylor Mead were confronted by a young interviewer who appeared to have no idea who they were and simply presented them with generic questions like “Whose work do you like?” and “Why are you here?”

Ultra Violet tossed off one answer, “I like my own work.” And then, as if it were 1965 again, she said, “We are here because we are world-famous.”

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Daniel Keyes, Author of ‘Flowers for Algernon,’ Dies at 86

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Daniel Keyes, author of “Flowers for Algernon.” Credit Miriam Berkley
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Daniel Keyes, the author of “Flowers for Algernon,” the story of a man with an I.Q. of 68 who temporarily becomes a genius after surgery — a book that inspired the film “Charly,” starring Cliff Robertson — died on Sunday at his home in South Florida.  He was 86.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, his daughter Leslie Keyes said.

The premise underlying Mr. Keyes’s best-known novel struck him while he waited for an elevated train to take him from Brooklyn to New York University in 1945.

“I thought: My education is driving a wedge between me and the people I love,” he wrote in his memoir, “Algernon, Charlie and I” (1999). “And then I wondered: What would happen if it were possible to increase a person’s intelligence?

After 15 years that thought grew into the novella “Flowers for Algernon,” which was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959 and won the Hugo Award for best short fiction in 1960.

By 1966 Mr. Keyes had expanded the story into a novel with the same title, which tied for the Nebula Award for best novel that year. The film, for which Mr. Robertson won the Academy Award for best actor, was released in 1968.

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Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom in “Charly,” a 1968 film made from Daniel Keyes’s novel “Flowers for Algernon.” Credit ABC-TV, via Associated Press

“Flowers for Algernon” went on to sell more than five million copies and to become a staple of English classes. It inspired television adaptations, one of which also starred Mr. Robertson, and stage productions, including a musical and a play in Korean.

The story was written as a series of first-person progress reports by Charlie Gordon, a 32-year-old bakery worker with an intellectual disability who is chosen for an experimental operation to increase his intelligence. A white mouse named Algernon had undergone the procedure and had become intelligent enough to solve mazes much faster than Charlie.

Charlie’s early “progris riports” are ungrammatical and filled with childish spelling. But they are hopeful.

“If the operashun werks good Ill show that mouse I can be as smart as he is even smarter,” Charlie writes. “Then Ill be abel to reed better and spell the werds good and know lots of things and be like other pepul.”

The operation makes Charlie a genius but alienates him from others and embitters him. Algernon’s intelligence fades, then he dies, and Charlie realizes that he faces a similar fate. He undergoes a period of fraught self-discovery before his intelligence ebbs, leaving him unable to comprehend the books he relished. The novel ends with Charlie in a home for the mentally disabled, unaware of his former intellectual flights.

Reviewing the book in The New York Times, Eliot Fremont-Smith called the book’s format “a technician’s maze, a collection of nasty little challenges for a writer of fiction.”

“Not every trap is avoided, but the skill shown here is awesome nonetheless,” Mr. Fremont-Smith continued. “One might say that Mr. Keyes runs his maze at least as well as Algernon and Charlie run theirs, which is exciting in itself. And affecting, too — how otherwise explain the tears that come to one’s eyes at the novel’s end?”

Photo

Credit Harcourt, Brace & World

Daniel Keyes was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 9, 1927. He dreamed of becoming a writer as a child but briefly joined the premedical program at N.Y.U.

Mr. Keyes left N.Y.U. and served in the United States Maritime Service. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Brooklyn College in 1950.

He married Aurea Georgina Vazquez in 1952. She died in 2013. In addition to his daughter Leslie, he is survived by another daughter, Hillary Keyes; and a sister, Gail Marcus.

After graduating Mr. Keyes became an editor for pulp fiction magazines before teaching English in New York City public schools. He studied for his master’s in English literature from Brooklyn College at night and wrote on weekends.

He told the Japanese newspaper The Daily Yomiuri in 1999 that the character of Charlie occurred to him while he was teaching a special needs class; a student approached him at the end of the period and asked to be transferred out of the “dummy’s class” because he wanted to be smart.

In 1961 Mr. Keyes completed his master’s, then moved to Detroit to teach creative writing at Wayne State University. He became an English and creative writing professor at Ohio University in 1966. Mr. Keyes wrote four more novels, three of which centered on characters with psychological issues. He also wrote three books of nonfiction, including “The Minds of Billy Milligan” (1981), about a criminal with 24 distinct personalities.

In 1999, 40 years after Mr. Keyes wrote “Flowers for Algernon,” he completed his memoir. He was celebrating with breakfast at a restaurant when he stumbled on an article on the front page of The New York Times that made him drop his fork. The headline read, “Smarter Mouse Is Created in Hope of Helping People.”

Mr. Keyes wrote in an afterword that he contacted Joe Z. Tsien, the neurobiologist who conducted the study, to ask how long it might take before such technology could be applied to human beings.

“After a long pause, Dr. Tsien said, ‘I expect it to happen in the next 30 years,’ ” he wrote.

Correction: June 23, 2014
A picture credit in some editions on Wednesday with an obituary about the author Daniel Keyes misspelled the photographer’s surname. The picture of Mr. Keyes was taken by Miriam Berkley, not Berkeley.SOURCE***************************************************

HORACE SILVER, MASTER OF EARTHY JAZZ

Horace Silver in 1997. Credit Alan Nahigian

His death was announced by Blue Note Records, the company for which he recorded from 1952 to 1979.

After a high-profile apprenticeship with some of the biggest names in jazz, Mr. Silver began leading his own group in the mid-1950s and quickly became a big name himself, celebrated for his clever compositions and his infectious, bluesy playing. At a time when the refined, quiet and, to some, bloodless style known as cool jazz was all the rage, he was hailed as a leader of the back-to-basics movement that came to be called hard bop.

Hard bop and cool jazz shared a pedigree: They were both variations on bebop, the challenging, harmonically intricate music that changed the face of jazz in the 1940s. But hard bop was simpler and more rhythmically driven, with more emphasis on jazz’s blues and gospel roots. The jazz press tended to portray the adherents of cool jazz (most of them West Coast-based and white) and hard bop (most of them East Coast-based and black) as warring factions. But Mr. Silver made an unlikely warrior.

His albums included “Song for My Father,” which featured his father on the cover. Credit Blue Note Records

“I personally do not believe in politics, hatred or anger in my musical composition,” he wrote in the liner notes to his album “Serenade to a Soul Sister” in 1968. “Musical composition should bring happiness and joy to people and make them forget their troubles.”

And Mr. Silver’s music was never as one-dimensional as it was sometimes portrayed as being. In an interview early in his career he said he was aiming for “that old-time gutbucket barroom feeling with just a taste of the backbeat.” That approach was reflected in the titles he gave to songs, like “Sister Sadie,” “Filthy McNasty” and “The Preacher,” all of which became jazz standards. But his output also included gently melodic numbers like “Peace” and “Melancholy Mood” and Latin-inflected tunes like “Señor Blues.” “Song for My Father,” probably his best-known composition, blended elements of bossa nova and the Afro-Portuguese music of the Cape Verde islands, where his father was born.

His piano playing, like his compositions, was not that easily characterized. Deftly improvising ingenious figures with his right hand while punching out rumbling bass lines with his left, he managed to evoke boogie-woogie pianists like Meade Lux Lewis and beboppers like Bud Powell simultaneously. Unlike many bebop pianists, however, Mr. Silver emphasized melodic simplicity over harmonic complexity; his improvisations, while sophisticated, were never so intricate as to be inaccessible.

Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver was born on Sept. 2, 1928, in Norwalk, Conn. His father, who was born John Silva but changed the family name to the more American-sounding Silver after immigrating to the United States, worked in a rubber factory. His mother, Gertrude, was a maid and sang in a church choir.

Although he studied piano as a child, Mr. Silver began his professional career as a saxophonist. But he had returned to the piano, and was becoming well known as a jazz pianist in Connecticut, by the time the saxophonist Stan Getz — soon to be celebrated as one of the leading lights of the cool school — heard and hired him in 1950.

“I had the house rhythm section at a club called the Sundown in Hartford,” Mr. Silver told The New York Times in 1981. “Stan Getz came up and played with us. He said he was going to call us, but we didn’t take him seriously. But a couple of weeks later he called and said he wanted the whole trio to join him.”

Mr. Silver worked briefly with Getz before moving to New York in 1951. He was soon in demand as an accompanist, working with leading jazz musicians like the saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. In 1953, Mr. Silver and the drummer Art Blakey formed a cooperative group, the Jazz Messengers, whose aggressive style helped define hard bop and whose lineup of trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums became the standard hard-bop instrumentation.

After two and a half years, during which Mr. Silver began his long and prolific association with Blue Note, he left the Jazz Messengers, which carried on with Blakey as the sole leader, and formed his own quintet. It became a showcase for his compositions.

Another album by Mr. Silver is “Further Explorations by the Horace Silver Quintet.” Credit Blue Note Records

Those compositions, beginning with “The Preacher” in 1955 — which his producer, Alfred Lion of Blue Note, had tried to discourage him from recording because he considered it too simplistic — captured the ears of a wide audience. Many were released as singles and garnered significant jukebox play. By the early ’60s Mr. Silver’s quintet was one of the most popular nightclub and concert attractions in jazz, and an inspiration for countless other bandleaders.

Like Blakey, Miles Davis (with whom he recorded) and a few others, Mr. Silver was known for discovering and nurturing young talent, including the saxophonists Hank Mobley, Joe Henderson and Michael Brecker; the trumpeters Art Farmer, Woody Shaw, Tom Harrell and Dave Douglas; and the drummers Louis Hayes and Billy Cobham. His longest-lived ensemble, which lasted about five years in the late 1950s and early ’60s, featured Blue Mitchell on trumpet and Junior Cook on tenor saxophone.

As interest in jazz declined in the ’70s, Mr. Silver disbanded his quintet and began concentrating on writing lyrics as well as music, notably on a three-album series called “The United States of Mind,” his first album to feature vocalists extensively. He later resumed touring, but only for a few months each year, essentially assembling a new group each time he went on the road.

“I’m shooting for longevity,” he explained. “The road is hard on your body. I’m trying to get it all over with in four months and then recoup.” He said he also wanted to spend more time with his son, Gregory, who survives him.

In 1981, Mr. Silver formed his own label, Silveto. His recordings for that label featured vocalists and were largely devoted to what he called “self-help holistic metaphysical music” — life lessons in song with titles like “Reaching Our Goals in Life” and “Don’t Dwell on Your Problems” that left critics for the most part unimpressed.

Jon Pareles of The Times wrote in 1986 that Mr. Silver’s “naïvely mystical lyrics” made his new compositions sound like “near-miss pop songs.” On later albums for Columbia, Impulse and Verve, Mr. Silver returned to a primarily instrumental approach.

Mr. Silver was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 1995 and received a President’s Merit Award from the Recording Academy in 2005.

Many of his tunes became staples of the jazz repertoire — a development, he said, that surprised him. “When I wrote them,” he said in a 2003 interview for the website All About Jazz, “I would say to myself that I hope these at least withstand the test of time. I hope they don’t sound old in 10 years or something.”

Rather than sounding dated, his compositions continued to be widely performed and recorded well into the 21st century. And while he acknowledged that “occasionally I hear an interpretation of one of my tunes that I say that they sure messed that one up,” he admitted, “For the most part I enjoy all of it.”

SOURCE

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CARLA LAEMMLE, ACTRESS WITH SILENT SCREEN DEBUT

Carla Laemmle at a screening of “The Phantom Of The Opera” in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2012. Credit Valerie Macon/Getty Images

Her grandniece Rosemary Laemmle Hilb confirmed the death.

A niece of Carl Laemmle, a founder of Universal Studios, Ms. Laemmle (pronounced LEM-lee) had a modest résumé of bit parts, mostly uncredited, in films of the 1920s and ’30s.

Those roles, according to the Internet Movie Database, included Auction Spectator, Coach Passenger and Oyster Shell. And though it was an oyster shell of spectacular proportions (see below), her credits were not the stuff of which careers are made.

But what made Ms. Laemmle a fan favorite at autograph shows and horror-film conventions in recent years was her durable, genial existence, which encapsulated nearly a century of Hollywood history.

Reared on the Universal Studios lot, she had a charmed cinematic girlhood, with the studio sets her playground and animals from Universal’s in-house zoo her de facto household pets.

Carla Laemmle in the 1931 movie “Dracula.” Credit Universal Pictures, via Photofest

A wide-eyed beauty, she made her first screen appearance in “The Phantom of the Opera,” the 1925 Lon Chaney silent. After the coming of sound, she uttered the opening line of the 1931 “Dracula,” starring Bela Lugosi.

The naked abandon of Hollywood before the imposition of the Hays Code in 1930 can also be discerned without difficulty in Ms. Laemmle’s early work. (The oyster shell looms large in this.)

Her last screen appearance of the period came in 1939 with “On Your Toes.” But fittingly for one who got her start in horror films, Ms. Laemmle’s career, after a six-decade hiatus, rose from the dead at the dawn of the 21st century, with credits including the web series “Broken Dreams Blvd.”

The daughter of Joseph Laemmle and the former Carrie Belle Norton, Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle was born in Chicago on Oct. 20, 1909, and began ballet studies as a child. When she was 11, the family moved to California for Joseph’s health at the invitation of his brother Carl.

Carl Laemmle, an immigrant from Germany, had become a successful operator of nickelodeons in early-20th-century America. In 1912, he helped found the Universal Motion Picture Manufacturing Company, a progenitor of Universal Studios.

Three years later, in the countryside near Hollywood, Mr. Laemmle opened Universal City Studios, a self-contained metropolis with its own police and fire departments, hospital, sound stages and zoo. Joseph and his family were installed in a bungalow on the grounds, where they would live for the next decade and a half.

Every morning, as Ms. Laemmle recalled, she was awakened by the roaring of the zoo’s lion. Stepping outside, she might encounter its resident camel, whom she named Houdini for his frequent jailbreaks, breakfasting on the lawn.

“I would go out with a little bowl of oatmeal, and he would follow me very dutifully,” Ms. Laemmle told Los Angeles magazine in 2011. “And then I would go phone the back lot and say I had Houdini and would you please come pick him up?”

Carl Laemmle was renowned for providing work to a bevy of relatives. (“Uncle Carl Laemmle/ has a very large faemmle,” Ogden Nash once said.) Ms. Laemmle was no exception.

When she was a teenager, her ballet training landed her the small role of the prima ballerina on the stage of the Paris Opera House in “Phantom.” (Disliking the name Rebekah, she adopted Carla, in her uncle’s honor.)

In “Dracula,” as a passenger in a Transylvania-bound coach, she reads a sentence from a guidebook that sets the film in motion: “Among the rugged peaks that frown down upon the Borgo Pass are found crumbling castles of a bygone age.”

“I didn’t have to memorize any lines or anything,” Ms. Laemmle said in 2011. “I was supposed to be reading from a little booklet, so it didn’t tax my brains at all.”

Her other films include “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1927), “The Gate Crasher” (1928) and “The Adventures of Frank Merriwell” (1936).

There was also “The Broadway Melody,” a 1929 picture in which Ms. Laemmle emerges from an immense oyster shell to dance before the camera. It is difficult to make out precisely what she is wearing in the scene, not so much because of the quality of the footage but because of the incontrovertible fact that whatever she does have on, there is amazingly little of it.

After the 1930s drew to a close, Ms. Laemmle worked as a dancer in Los Angeles nightclubs and spent decades after that living quietly in the area.

Amid renewed interest in classic horror films, she returned to the screen in 2001 with the video short “The Vampire Hunters Club.” Her later credits include “Pooltime” (2010), “A Sad State of Affairs” (2013) and “Mansion of Blood,” yet to be released.

In “Broken Dreams Blvd,” which stars Danny Aiello, she played the operator of a Hollywood tour company.

Ms. Laemmle was briefly married to a sailor during World War II; she had the marriage annulled upon discovering he had a wife and children elsewhere. Her longtime companion, Raymond Cannon, an actor and screenwriter, died in 1977.

Though Carl Laemmle sold his interest in Universal in 1936, Ms. Laemmle retained a singular association with it to the end of her life.

“I’m so looking forward to Universal’s 100th-anniversary party,” she told an interviewer in 2012, shortly before that event. “I’ll probably be the only one there who’s older than the studio.”

SOURCE

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PUBLIC SERVICE DAY: JUNE 23, 2014

 

PUBLIC SERVICE DAY

Quick Facts

The United Nations’ Public Service Day celebrates the idea that democracy and successful governance depend on a competent civil service.

Local names

Name Language
Public Service Day English
Día de las Naciones Unidas para la Administración Pública Spanish
יום השירות הציבורי של האומות המאוחדות Hebrew
يوم الأمم المتحدة للخدمة العامة Arabic
유엔 공공 서비스의 날 Korean
Tag des öffentlichen Dienstes German

Public Service Day 2014

Monday, June 23, 2014

Public Service Day 2015

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The United Nations’ Public Service Day is held on June 23 each year. It recognizes that democracy and successful governance are built on the foundation of a competent civil service. The day aims to celebrate the value and virtue of service to the community.

UN Public Service Day

Public servants are recognized and praised for their efforts on Public Service Day.

©iStockphoto.com/Jacob Wackerhausen

What do people do?

The United Nations (UN) holds a Public Service Awards ceremony each year. It rewards the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions worldwide. This event promotes the role, professionalism and visibility of public service.  At the same time, Africa Public Service Day is celebrated in Africa to coincide with the United Nations Public Service Day.

Many public service organizations and departments around the world celebrate this day by holding various events to recognize the valuable role that public servants play in making improvements in society. Activities include: information days featuring stalls and booths about the public service; organized lunches with guest speakers; internal awards ceremonies within public service agencies or departments; and special announcements to honor public servants.

Public life

Public Service Day is a global observance and not a public holiday.

Background

On December 20, 2002, the United Nations General Assembly designated June 23 of each year as United Nations Public Service Day (resolution 57/277). It encouraged member states to organize special events on that day to highlight the contribution of public service in the development process.

This day was created to: celebrate the value and virtue of public service to the community; highlight the contribution of public service in the development process; recognize the work of public servants; and encourage young people to pursue careers in the public sector.

Symbols

The United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN) uses a special logo for Public Service Day. It features two columns, one on the left side and one on the right side, and in between are a pair of hands outlined in orange in a flame-like manner. These hands surround three blue human figures. The figure in the middle depicts a woman and the two other figures, one on each side of the woman, are male. The word “Public”, which joins the two columns, is written above the heads of the figures, which are standing on or supported by the word “Service” in capital letters, which joins the two columns. A smaller version of UNPAN’s main logo is located above the word “Public”.

UNPAN’s main logo, in blue and white, is similar to the logo on the UN flag. It features a projection of a world map (less Antarctica) centered on the North Pole, enclosed by olive branches. The olive branches are a symbol for peace, and the world map represents all the people of the world.

Public Service Day Observances

 

Weekday Date Year Name Holiday type Where it is observed
Mon Jun 23 2003 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Wed Jun 23 2004 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Thu Jun 23 2005 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Fri Jun 23 2006 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 23 2007 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Mon Jun 23 2008 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Tue Jun 23 2009 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Wed Jun 23 2010 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Thu Jun 23 2011 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 23 2012 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Sun Jun 23 2013 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Mon Jun 23 2014 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Tue Jun 23 2015 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Thu Jun 23 2016 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Fri Jun 23 2017 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 23 2018 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Sun Jun 23 2019 Public Service Day United Nations observance
Tue Jun 23 2020 Public Service Day United Nations observance

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AMERICAN EXPERIENCE (PBS): “MURDER IN MISSISSIPPI” – 50 YEARS AGO TODAY

Murder in Mississippi

 

50 years ago today, Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman disappeared near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi after visiting the burned Mt. Zion Baptist Church which had been targeted by Klan members. The three civil rights workers were arrested after local law enforcement identified their station wagon as a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) vehicle. The FBI would uncover their bodies six weeks later, buried in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia.  Learn more about the investigation and trial that ensued after the discovery on our website.

Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner

Courtesy of Bettmann/CORBIS

 

Freedom Summer @ 50

“We went to Mississippi to try and make the world a better world. We accomplished some things, but we didn’t do the whole job.” – Mark Levy

Mark Levy - The Teacher

While attending Queens College, Mark Levy volunteered for Freedom Summer and was recruited by CORE staff members Mickey and Rita Schwerner to become a coordinator for the Freedom Schools in Meridian, Mississippi. Though fearful after the disappearance of Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman, Levy recalls his determination to do what he believed was right in one of the ten short videos produced in conjunction with the broadcast of  Freedom Summer, premiering Tuesday at 9/8c. Watch it here.

Broadcast Schedule
(New titles are in bold)

Freedom Summer: Premiering June 24, 2014

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THE PROPER WAY TO HANG A CONFEDERATE FLAG

Flag Controversy

The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag, by John Sims. Art installation consisting of a Confederate flag hanging from a noose at a 13 foot gallows. Shown here, in 2007, at the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science, Tallahassee, FL.

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HATEWATCH: WEST VIRGINIA KLAN LEADER CLAIMS RETURNING MILITARY WILL HELP THEM TRAIN FOR ‘THE UPCOMING BATTLE’

West Virginia Klan Leader Claims Returning Military Will Help Them Train for ‘the Upcoming Battle’

By David Neiwert on June 13, 2014 – 1:34 pm

 

A scene from the documentary

A British television crew filming a gathering of Ku Klux Klansmen in West Virginia this spring recorded one of the group’s leaders discussing a plan to use returning military veterans to train KKK members in combat techniques for “the upcoming battle” – presumably the “coming race war” that the Klan and other white supremacists have long predicted.

The nine-minute video documentary by Barcroft TV is a striking portrait of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization based in Pelham, N.C., with chapters throughout the South, including this one in West Virginia. It includes some appalling insights into their children’s upbringing and their certainty about a looming social apocalypse.

But most disturbing is the segment in which the hooded Klansman leading the rally tells the crowd about the group’s future plans:

We’re looking at something a little different for probably the next couple of years, trying to get our men and women ready for the upcoming battle that we’re about to take upon us. And this is something that no Klan has ever done, and we’re going to start it. All our boys are finally coming back home from the military, which is good. And we’re getting a lot more military members joining, which is good, as we’re going to start doing a lot more military training.

Now that we got our Marines and our Army back, they’re going to start showing us how to skin, how to survive off the land. We’re going to try to move in another direction with the Loyal White Knights, and that is starting armed training, hand-to-hand combat, and stuff like that, just for the upcoming battle.


The Klansman is not correct, of course – this has been attempted previously by other KKK organizations. Indeed, the presence of far-right extremists within the military is a longstanding problem and frequently involves a Klan recruiter joining the armed forces.

 

The plan described by the Klan leader in the video is exactly the type of scenario that the Department of Homeland Security warned about in a 2009 law enforcement bulletin:

Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists. DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.

At the time, the conservative media erupted in anger, wildly distorting the bulletin’s contents on one talk show after another, notably at Fox News. The reportage there – or more precisely, the shouting from their pundits – described the bulletin as specifically singling out veterans and targeting them for suspicion of far-right extremism; claimed that there was no similar bulletin regarding Islamist extremists from the DHS (there was); and said the report was based on nothing but speculation. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly said the report was “unnecessary,” cooked up by a bevy of myopic “far-left” bureaucrats who chose to ignore Al Qaeda while pinning the terrorism label on ordinary conservatives.

Eventually, the furor drove DHS to disavow the report and discontinue its task force assigned to monitoring right-wing extremism. In the ensuing years, the DHS bulletin has nonetheless proven to have been remarkably on-target, particularly in the wake of such domestic terrorism incidents involving former military members as the massacre at a Sikh temple in 2012 and the formation of the murderous “FEAR Militia” in Georgia, all of whom fit the bulletin’s profile perfectly.

The Southern Poverty Law Center first drew attention to the issue in 1986, and after a period during which the military subsequently clamped down on extremists within its ranks, the problem returned during the Iraq War, as a 2006 SPLC report explained in detail. A later report in 2008 explored how the problem was worsening with racist skinheads signing up for service overseas.

The FBI drew up its own assessment in July 2008, and pinpointed the potential danger then: “The military training veterans bring to the [white supremacist] movement and their potential to pass this training on to others can increase the ability of lone offenders to carry out violence from the movement’s fringes.”

As criminologist Brian Levin explains in his interview with the Barcroft TV reporters: “I think the real danger does not lie with the Klan being some kind of widespread army that has tentacles across the United States. That’s not going to happen. But what we do have to worry about is individuals, autonomous cells, or duos committing terrorist acts on their own because they get training, they get inspiration, and they get knowhow from being in the orbit of these hate groups,” Levin said. “Loose radicals coming out of that orbit represent a threat of continuing terrorism here in the United States.”

Near the end of the video, one of the Klansmen expresses his own hopes for what they all call “the upcoming battle”: “White people, we’re all getting tired of the government,” he says. “And pretty soon you’re gonna see the government collapse. And when the government keeps on sending their money over to Israel and it finally collapses, you’re gonna see the Klan take it back, and we’re gonna make this nation the way it needs to be.”

SOURCE

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“We’re looking at something a little different for probably the next couple of years, trying to get our men and women ready for the upcoming battle that we’re about to take upon us. And this is something that no Klan has ever done, and we’re going to start it. All our boys are finally coming back home from the military, which is good. And we’re getting a lot more military members joining, which is good, as we’re going to start doing a lot more military training.

Now that we got our Marines and our Army back, they’re going to start showing us how to skin, how to survive off the land. We’re going to try to move in another direction with the Loyal White Knights, and that is starting armed training, hand-to-hand combat, and stuff like that, just for the upcoming battle.”

Okay, so let me get this straight.

Returning American vets (Blacks, Whites, Native Americans, Arab Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, etc.) are all going to be fighting each other in your much-hoped-for “race war”? You do know that White vets are not the only ones with skills, or are you that incredibly stupid?

Or, are you saying that only White vets are Americans, and have more value than vets of other ethnicities?

What about women vets?

You do know that they exist?

What will you do towards them———–keep ’em barefoot and pregnant? Lobby to keep them from obtaining work for the skills they have acquired in the military?

“Now that we got our Marines and our Army back”………………..alright; what about your Navy and Air Force boys? No racist terrorists signed up for those branches? What, being such stout racists they couldn’t hack it in the Navy or Air Force. They weren’t competent enough to work on carriers, submarines, or jets?

“Fox’s Bill O’Reilly said the report was “unnecessary,” cooked up by a bevy of myopic “far-left” bureaucrats who chose to ignore Al Qaeda while pinning the terrorism label on ordinary conservatives.”

No.

Domestic terrorists are a fact in America. Squalling and snotting and crying about this truth changes nothing. One form of terrorism does not cancel out another. Terrorism is terrorism, no matter what hateful form it comes in, and all terrorist should be dealt with as the criminals that they are, be they foreign and domestic terrorists.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center first drew attention to the issue in 1986, and after a period during which the military subsequently clamped down on extremists within its ranks, the problem returned during the Iraq War, as a 2006 SPLC report explained in detail. A later report in 2008 explored how the problem was worsening with racist skinheads signing up for service overseas.”

Any military personnel who commits to racist hatred and attacks against their nation while serving under any branch of the United States’ armed forces is guilty of treason, and a traitor.

And you know what they do to traitors when found guilty.

hanging gallows

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WORLD REFUGEE DAY: JUNE 20, 2014

 

WORLD REFUGEE DAY

Quick Facts

The United Nations’ World Refugee Day honors refugees’ courage, strength and determination.

Local names

Name Language
World Refugee Day English
Día Mundial de los Refugiados Spanish
יום הפליטים הבינלאומי Hebrew
يوم اللاجئ العالمي Arabic
세계 난민의 날 Korean
Weltflüchtlingstag German

World Refugee Day 2014 Theme: “Take 1 Minute to Support a Family Forced to Flee”

Friday, June 20, 2014

World Refugee Day 2015

Saturday, June 20, 2015

The United Nations’ (UN) World Refugee Day is observed on June 20 each year. This event honors the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence.

UN world Refugee Day

World Refugee Day honors the spirit and courage of millions of refugees worldwide.

©iStockphoto.com/David Snyder

What do people do?

People honor the spirit and courage of millions of refugees worldwide on World Refugee Day. It is a day to recognize the contributions of refugees in their communities. Organizations such as Amnesty International and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) often get involved in various activities for the day. They may include:

  • Activist protests against using former prisons to detain migrants and asylum seekers.
  • Screenings of films about the lives of asylum seekers living in a western country.
  • Organization members visiting asylum seekers in detention to offer moral support.
  • Letters or petitions to governments on the treatment of asylum seekers in detention.

Some communities dedicate an entire week that includes World Refugee Day to encourage people to think about the lives of refugees and the human right to a secure place to that one can see as “home”.

Public life

World Refugee Day is a global observance and not a public holiday.

Background

For years, many countries and regions have been holding their own events similar to World Refugee Day. One of the most widespread events is Africa Refugee Day, which is celebrated on June 20 in many countries. the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to express its solidarity with Africa on December 4, 2000.

The resolution noted that 2001 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees, and that the Organization of African Unity (OAU) agreed to have International Refugee Day coincide with Africa Refugee Day on June 20. The Assembly therefore decided that June 20 would be celebrated as World Refugee Day from 2001 onwards. This day was designated by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to bring attention to the plight of approximately 14 million refugees around the world.

Symbols

The UN Refugee Agency’s (UNCHR) logo is often associated with the day. The colors used are either white on a blue background or blue on white background. The logo features olive branches that symbolize peace surrounding or protecting two hands facing each other, and in the middle a figure of a person protected by these hands. The logo is sometimes featured with the words “UNHCR”, followed by “The UN Refugee Agency” in smaller text to mark the logo.

The UNHCR in Canada uses a special World Refugee Day logo that features two figures – one smaller figure on the left and a taller figure on the right. They are protected by brackets or half circles. The words “World Refugee Day” are placed at the centre top of the figures, and “20 June” is placed at under the figures at the centre. All elements of the logo are the one color – green.

World Refugee Day Observances

 

Weekday Date Year Name Holiday type Where it is observed
Wed Jun 20 2001 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Thu Jun 20 2002 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Fri Jun 20 2003 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Sun Jun 20 2004 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Mon Jun 20 2005 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Tue Jun 20 2006 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Wed Jun 20 2007 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Fri Jun 20 2008 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 20 2009 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Sun Jun 20 2010 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Mon Jun 20 2011 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Wed Jun 20 2012 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Thu Jun 20 2013 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Fri Jun 20 2014 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 20 2015 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Mon Jun 20 2016 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Tue Jun 20 2017 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Wed Jun 20 2018 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Thu Jun 20 2019 World Refugee Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 20 2020 World Refugee Day United Nations observance

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WORLD DAY TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION AND DROUGHT: JUNE 17, 2014

 

WORLD DAY TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION AND DROUGHT

Quick Facts

The United Nations’ World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is observed worldwide on June 17 each year.

Local names

Name Language
World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought English
Día Mundial de Lucha contra la Desertificación y la Sequía Spanish
יום עולמי למאבק במדבור והתייבשות Hebrew
اليوم العالمي لمكافحة التصحر والجفاف Arabic
사막화와 가뭄에 대처하기 위해 세계 일 Korean
Welttag für die Bekämpfung der Wüstenbildung und der Dürre German

World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought 2014 Theme: “Land Belongs to the Future – Let’s Climate-Proof It”

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought 2015

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

The United Nations’ World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is annually observed on June 17 to highlight the urgent need to curb the desertification process. It also aims to strengthen the visibility of the drylands issue on the international environmental agenda.

UN desert awarenes day

World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought highlights the need to reduce desertification and combat drought.

©iStockphoto.com/James Margolis

What do people do?

Individuals and organizations in various countries, such as Australia, Algeria, Canada, China, Ghana, and the United States, have participated in the day in recent years. Many events focus on educational activities to help combat problems relating to desertification and drought.

Promotional activities may include the distribution of awareness raising materials, such as calendars, fact sheets, posters and postcards, to educational institutions and the general public. The day may also feature educational case studies, forums or discussions on drought and desertification, its implications on society and ways to minimize the problem.

However, the effort to fight against desertification and drought does not occur only on this day. Many countries have been making a progressive effort in proactively addressing the issue and looking for solutions. For example, the Algerian Government resorted to a French research and engineering firm, in view of elaborating a national plan to protect the agricultural lands and to fight desertification. Pilot projects in Lebanon resulted in villagers producing za’atar and other traditional delicacies to tackle the agricultural decline caused by years of drought and desert expansion.

Public life

World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought is a global observance and not a public holiday.

Background

In December 1994, the United Nations General Assembly declared June 17 the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. The assembly acknowledged that desertification and drought were global problems because they affected all regions of the world. The assembly also realized that joint action by the international community was needed to combat desertification and drought, particularly in Africa.

States were invited to devote the World Day to promoting awareness of the need for international cooperation to combat desertification and the effects of drought, and on the implementation of the Convention to Combat Desertification.  Since then, country parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), non-governmental organizations and other interested stakeholders celebrate this particular day with outreach activities worldwide on June 17 each year.

Symbols

In March 2005 the UN agencies involved in celebrating the 2006 International Year of Deserts and Desertification organized a logo competition for that particular year. Krishen Maurymoothoo, a graphic designer from Mauritius, won the contest. The winning design featured three elements: a tree, which covers the logo as a protective roof; the sun, which acts as a symbol of warmth and life; and the dunes, which were formed of several colors relating to the earth’s land. The current UNCCD logo, although different in some aspects, shares some similarities with Maurymoothoo’s logo: trees that protect the earth; the sunlit sky, which brings about warmth in the background; and the land. Both logos use earth-based colors, which include green and brown.

World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought Observances

 

Weekday Date Year Name Holiday type Where it is observed
Sat Jun 17 1995 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Mon Jun 17 1996 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Tue Jun 17 1997 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Wed Jun 17 1998 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Thu Jun 17 1999 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Sat Jun 17 2000 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Sun Jun 17 2001 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Mon Jun 17 2002 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Tue Jun 17 2003 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Thu Jun 17 2004 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Fri Jun 17 2005 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Sat Jun 17 2006 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Sun Jun 17 2007 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Tue Jun 17 2008 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Wed Jun 17 2009 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Thu Jun 17 2010 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Fri Jun 17 2011 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Sun Jun 17 2012 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Mon Jun 17 2013 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Tue Jun 17 2014 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Wed Jun 17 2015 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Fri Jun 17 2016 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Sat Jun 17 2017 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Sun Jun 17 2018 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Mon Jun 17 2019 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance
Wed Jun 17 2020 World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought United Nations observance

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WORLD ELDER ABUSE AWARENESS DAY: JUNE 15, 2014

 

WORLD ELDER ABUSE AWARENESS DAY

Quick Facts

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day attempts to shine a light on the problem of physical, emotional, and financial abuse of elders.

Local names

Name Language
World Elder Abuse Awareness Day English
Día Mundial de Toma de Conciencia de Abuso y Maltrato en la Vejez Spanish
יום מודעות התעללות בקשישים העולם Hebrew
اليوم العالمي للتوعية إساءة معاملة المسنين Arabic
세계 노인 학대 인식의 날 Korean
Welttag gegen die Misshandlung älterer Menschen German

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day 2014

Sunday, June 15, 2014

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day 2015

Monday, June 15, 2015

The United Nations (UN) has designated June 15 as World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD).

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day brings together senior citizens, their caregivers, and governments to combat the problem of elder abuse.

©iStockphoto.com/Melpomenem

The day aims to focus global attention on the problem of physical, emotional, and financial abuse of elders. It also seeks to understand the challenges and opportunities presented by an ageing population, and brings together senior citizens, and their caregivers, national and local government, academics, and the private sector to exchange ideas about how best to reduce incidents of violence towards elders, increase reporting of such abuse, and to develop elder friendly policies.

Background

Currently, the world is undergoing significant demographic changes. Estimates indicate that by 2050, the global population of people above the age of 60 will exceed the number of younger people. These changes have led to a worldwide recognition of the problems and challenges that face the elderly. Research has shown that elderly abuse, neglect, violence, and exploitation is one of the biggest issues facing senior citizens around the world. World Health Organization data suggests that 4 to 6 per cent of elderly suffer from some form of abuse, a large percentage of which goes unreported.

The purpose of the WEAAD is to encourage communities to recognize the problem of elderly abuse, and for countries to create policies that foster respect for elders and provide them the tools to continue to be productive citizens.

Observances

The first WEAAD was observed in 2012, and was marked by meetings and conferences at the UN headquarters in New York.

In addition to the WEAAD, the UN also observes an International Day of Older Persons on October 1 every year to recognize the contributions of older persons and to examine issues that affect their lives.

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day Observances

 

Weekday Date Year Name Holiday type Where it is observed
Fri Jun 15 2012 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 15 2013 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day United Nations observance
Sun Jun 15 2014 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day United Nations observance
Mon Jun 15 2015 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day United Nations observance
Wed Jun 15 2016 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day United Nations observance
Thu Jun 15 2017 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day United Nations observance
Fri Jun 15 2018 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day United Nations observance
Sat Jun 15 2019 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day United Nations observance
Mon Jun 15 2020 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day United Nations observance

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