Over the years the peace line has become higher, but in the last year murals have softened its appearance

By Arthur Strain and Peter Hamill
BBC
02 July 2009


Over the years the peace line has become higher, but in the last year murals have softened its appearance

The first one went up eight years after construction started on the Berlin Wall, but 20 years after that wall went down, Northern Ireland still has its so-called peace lines.

For people living in the shadow of a concrete wall topped with fencing the peace they bring can help cement divisions rather than heal communities.

Wall number one, which divides the Falls and Shankill roads at Cupar Street, went up in 1969 following rioting and house burnings in west Belfast. Over the years it has risen to more than six metres.

The last one went up last year in the grounds of a north Belfast integrated primary school following a period of local tension.

There are 53 Northern Ireland Office maintained peace lines in four towns and cities in the region - 42 in Belfast, five in Derry, five in Portadown and one in Lurgan.

However, community relations groups say these are not the only peace lines, with other structures and land being used to keep communities apart.

In a survey for the Community Relations Council the Institute for Conflict Research listed a total of 88 peace lines as well as 44 police CCTV cameras.

Some are listed as wasteland being used by housing authorities as buffer zones, others include derelict houses as well as walls and vegetation to the rear of homes in interface areas.

They still make some people feel safe, but others want more work on taking them down.

Tony Macauley used to live under the Shankill peace line and last year he produced a consultancy paper on a process to remove them.

He said that while they initially made him feel safe he quickly realised that they did not stop people crossing over to carry out killings.

He now lives in a seaside town and said that for younger people in interface areas the peace lines have become part of the fabric of their area, as accepted as the murals that adorn gable walls.

"I can remember when the peace walls went up, but there is an entire generation who have known nothing else," he said.

"People who grew up in some of those areas and are under 40 have no idea what it was like before them.

"But they used to be mixed areas, the communities used to live side by side."

The CRC lists some of the peace lines as fences around enclaves and swathes of scrub used as buffers in interface areas.

Others cannot be mapped, as Mr Macauley explained.

"It happens in urban areas, but also in rural ones, where people know they should avoid a certain route to get somewhere or there would be some park they would not go to," he said.

He said that until communities could agree to live without them the walls would have to stay, but his hope is that talking about removing them will eventually lead to them going.

It takes an outsider to be shocked by the sight of the a peace wall and what it is - a means to stop people living in a western democracy at the start of the 21st century attacking each other.

But even on the walls change can be seen. Murals and graffiti art expressing hopes for peace and a brighter future feature on the Belfast wall now.

Photographer Les McLean is a regular visitor to Belfast and has been capturing its people for years.

He said that the peace murals and messages that have been appearing on the walls have helped soften their harsh look, but there is no disguising what they are.

"I like what they are saying now - the message that's coming out of there," he said.

"I've been photographing them for the last two or three years and I have always felt I couldn't understand why they were called a peace line, I've always thought they were more about division," he said.

By Laura Isensee in Los Angeles
Independent.ie
Thursday July 02 2009

Actor Ryan O'Neal led friends and family in a private funeral service for actress Farrah Fawcett, who died last week aged 62 after a long and public battle with cancer.

O'Neal, the long-time companion of the 'Charlie's Angels' star, was one of the pall-bearers and gave a reading at the service at Los Angeles Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

Redmond O'Neal, the 'Love Story' actor's 24-year-old son with Fawcett, was allowed briefly out of jail where he is being held on drugs possession charges to attend the funeral service. Redmond also gave a bible reading, according to a programme made available to the media.

Fellow 'Charlie's Angels' star Kate Jackson, former model Cheryl Tiegs and rocker Rod Stewart's ex-wife Alana Stewart were also among the mourners. Fawcett's Los Angeles cancer doctor, Dr Lawrence Piro, delivered the eulogy with Stewart.

Fawcett's coffin was taken into the church as a quartet of musicians played 'Amazing Grace' and Irving Berlin's love song 'Always', according to the programme.

Outside, a few dozen fans watched as Fawcett's casket was taken inside, covered with sprays of bright yellow flowers that seemed to reflect the sunny smile and golden hair that made Fawcett a worldwide star 30 years ago.

Fawcett died in a Los Angeles hospital on Thursday with O'Neal and Stewart at her side after a long struggle to beat anal and then liver cancer. A personal video diary chronicling her cancer treatments was broadcast on US television in May.

Watching from the street, Karla Dishon (47) said she had come to pay tribute to Fawcett -- a star whose hairstyle she had copied as a teenager like millions of others around the world.

"All the girls did -- wavy, pretty, surfer, California girl hair," Dishon said. "She is an icon and she is a very beautiful woman, and I think it's too bad that we lost her so young."

_____

This poem was printed in Farrah's funeral programme:

At That Hour
--by James Joyce



At that hour when all things have repose,
O lonely watcher of the skies,
Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
The pale gates of sunrise?

When all things repose, do you alone
Awake to hear the sweet harps play
To Love before him on his way,
And the night wind answering in antiphon
Till night is overgone?

Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
Whose way in heaven is aglow
At that hour when soft lights come and go,
Soft sweet music in the air above
And in the earth below.


Image

Angelina Jolie is not far behind, although she is [perhaps] better looking and younger, but I digress.

How many kids do we have in this country here who have lived their whole fecking lives in shitty foster care, yet these two rich white, pampered-ass bitches have to travel with bloated retinue over to Africa to steal kids from other people in order to make a big fecking production out of how supposedly magnanimous and unprejudiced they are, how very 'One World' they are and how fecking maternal --AS IF they actually raised and cared for these children on a day to day, hour by hour basis and not just when they were on a shopping junket being filmed by 'Entertainment Tonight'.

This kind of child exploitation should be outlawed.



Madonna in a rare photo with her clothes ON




Aww...who gets the 20 kids when she and Brad split?

A 620-year-old skeleton discovered under the floor of Stirling Castle has shed new light on the violent life of a medieval knight.

By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
Telegraph.co.uk
29 Jun 2009


Archaeologist David Murray with the skeleton at Stirling Castle (Photo: JAMES STEWART)


Archaeologists believe that bones found in an ancient chapel on the site are those of an English knight named Robert Morley who died in a tournament there in 1388.

Radio carbon dating has confirmed that the skeleton is from that period, and detailed analysis suggests that he was in his mid-20s, was heavily muscled and had suffered several serious wounds in earlier contests.

He appears to have survived for some time with a large arrowhead lodged in his chest, while the re-growth of bone around a dent in the front of his skull indicates that he had also recovered from a severe blow from an axe.

He eventually died when he was struck by a sword that sliced through his nose and jaw. His reconstructed skull also indicates that he was lying on the ground when the fatal blow was delivered.

The knight was laid to rest under the stone-flagged floor of a chapel near the castle's royal apartments and his skeleton was excavated along with 11 others in 1997.

However, it was only recently re-examined following advances in laser scanning techniques that not only revealed the nature of the three wounds, but also showed that the knight had lost teeth, probably from another blow or from falling from his horse.

Gordon Ewart, of Kirkdale Archaeology, which carried out the excavation for Historic Scotland, said: "This is a remarkable and important set of discoveries.

"At first we had thought the arrow wound had been fatal but it now seems he had survived it and may have had his chest bound up."

Mr Ewart said that Morley was by far the most likely candidate. His skeleton also shows the effects of riding on the ankles and muscle injuries caused by lifting heavy loads.

His sturdy upper body and upper right arm are consistent with wielding heavy swords, and his injuries suggest a hard life of hunting, jousting and foot tournaments.

Richard Strachan, Historic Scotland's senior archaeologist, added: "Radio carbon dating is not an exact science, but the date we came up with for this skeleton was 1390. That's only two years difference and quite possible.

"We have been able to look at this skeleton with the benefit of new technology and techniques we didn't have available in 1997. The key may be the teeth analysis. This will hopefully tell us exactly where this person was born and brought up.

"It's to do with oxygen isotopes and shows the water you drink as a child, which creates a sort of 'fingerprint' on the teeth and never changes. This analysis will also hopefully give us some dietary information

"We believe he was aged between 18 and 26 when he died. He was about 5ft 7in tall and was well built, but he clearly had a hard life. These were troubled times."

By MAGGIE GALEHOUSE LIFESTYLE WRITER
http://www.chron.com
June 28, 2009

When someone famous dies, Michael Baden’s phone starts ringing.

The 74-year-old forensic pathologist — who smiles merrily when asked about his “detective of death” nickname — got one of those calls last month, the day after David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room.

The first autopsy said that the cause of death was asphyxiation; the Kung Fu and Kill Bill actor was found naked with a rope around his neck. But the Carradine family wanted a second autopsy when the body was flown back to Los Angeles. Baden agreed to do it.

In 1992, Dr. Michael Baden and others determined that skeletal remains found a year earlier in Siberia were those of Tsar Nicholas II, other members of the Romanov royal family and their servants.

“I was looking for any evidence of homicide or suicide,” says Baden, his large, smooth hands working a cell phone and a plate of quesadillas as he explains the focus of his autopsy. “We ruled out suicide and death by natural causes.”

But he hasn’t ruled out homicide or accidental death due to sexual experimentation.

“We’re waiting for video from the security cameras at the hotel and the electric key usage into the room,” Baden says. “We’re also waiting for the toxicology report.”

“We’re waiting for video from the security cameras at the hotel and the electric key usage into the room,” Baden says. “We’re also waiting for the toxicology report.”

This congenial man, whose cell phone rings the Pink Panther theme song, passed through Texas recently to promote Skeleton Justice, his second mystery novel co-written with his wife, attorney Linda Kenney Baden. The book tour is a relatively low-profile gig for Baden, chief forensic pathologist for the New York State Police and host of the Autopsy documentary specials on HBO.

As the post-mortem Michael Jackson drama demonstrates, the death of a well-known person can captivate the public — especially when questions linger. And Baden has investigated some of the highest-profile deaths of the past century. ( >>Read on )

Na'ima B.Robert
Times
June 26, 2009


Wearing my niqab is a choice freely made, for spiritual reasons

I put on my niqab, my face veil, each day before I leave the house, without a second thought. I drape it over my face, tie the ribbons at the back and adjust the opening over my eyes to make sure my peripheral vision is not affected.

Had I a full-length mirror next to the front door, I would be able to see what others see: a woman of average height and build, covered in several layers of fabric, a niqab, a jilbab, sometimes an abayah, sometimes all black, other times blue or brown. A Muslim woman in 'full veil'. A niqabi.

But is that truly how people see me? When I walk through the park with my little ones in tow, when I reverse my car into a parking space, when I browse the shelves in the frozen section, when I ask how to best cook asparagus at a market stall, what do people see? An oppressed woman? A nameless, voiceless individual? A criminal?

Well, if Mr Sarkozy and others like him have their way [see >>this Guardian article], I suppose I will be a criminal, won't I? Never mind that "it's a free country"; never mind that I made this choice from my own free will, as did the vast majority of covered women of my generation; never mind that I am, in every other respect, an upstanding citizen who works hard as a mother, author and magazine publisher, spends responsibly, recycles and tries to eat seasonally and buy local produce!

Yes, I cover my face, but I am still of this society. And, as crazy as it might sound, I am human, a human being with my own thoughts, feelings and opinions. I refuse to allow those who cannot know my reality to paint me as a cardboard cut-out, an oppressed, submissive, silenced relic of the Dark Ages. I am not a stereotype and, God willing, I never will be.

But where are those who will listen? At the end of the day, Muslim women have been saying for years that the hijab et al are not oppressive, that we cover as an act of faith, that this is a bonafide spiritual lifestyle choice. But the debate rages on, ironically, largely to the exclusion of the women who actually do cover their faces.

The focus on the niqab is, in my opinion, utterly misplaced. Don't the French have anything better to do than tell Muslim women how to dress? Don't our societies have bigger problems than a relative handful of women choosing to cover their faces out of religious conviction? The "burka issue" has become a red herring: there are issues that Muslim women face that are more pressing, more wide-reaching and, essentially, more relevant than whether or not they should be covering with a niqab, burqa or hijab.

At the end of the day, all a ban will do is force Muslim women who choose to cover to retreat even further - it is not going to result in a mass "liberation" of Muslim women from the veil. All women, covered or not, deserve the opportunity to dress as they see fit, to be educated, to work where they deem appropriate and run their lives in accordance with their principles, as long as these choices do not impinge on others' freedoms. And last time I looked, being able to see a woman's hair, legs or face were not rights granted alongside "liberté, egalité et fraternité".

As a Muslim woman living in the UK, I am so grateful for the fact that my society does not force me to choose between being a practising Muslim and an active member of society. I have been able to study, to work, to establish a writing career and run a magazine business, all while wearing a niqaab. I think that that is a credit to British society, no matter what the anti-multiculturalists may say, and I think the French could learn some very valuable lessons from the British approach.

So, three cheers for those women who make the choice to cover, in whatever way and still go out there every day. Go out to brave the scorn and ridicule of those who think they understand the burka better than those who actually wear it. Go out to face the humiliating headlines. Go out to face the taunts of schoolchildren. Go out to fight another day. Go out to do their bit for society and the common good. Because you never know, if Mr Sarkozy and his supporters have their way, there could come a day when these women think twice about going out there into a society that cannot bear the way they look. And, who knows, I could be one of them.

And, while some would disagree, I think that would be a sad day.

• Na'ima B. Robert is the founding editor of SISTERS, a magazine for Muslim women and author of 'From My Sisters' Lips ', a look at the lives of British Muslim women who cover.

From riderless horses disappearing through castle walls mischievous spirits apparently barging into visitors, English Heritage has compiled a new survey of "hauntings" and unexplained events recorded at its sites.

By Jasper Copping
Telegraph
27 Jun 2009


Battle Abbey, close to the site of the Battle of Hastings

The so-called “spectral stocktake” reveals a series of mysterious occurrences, many of which have prompted investigations by staff.

Some incidents are said to have led staff to resign. At one castle, employees have established protocols on how to deal with suspected sightings of ghosts or unexplained events.

One medieval palace is even said to be haunted by a former member of staff.

Many of the events involve staff and visitors seeing mysterious figures, while others involve complaints that people were pinched or pushed, when there was nobody standing near them. Some reports involve items being moved around sites.

At Castle Rising, a 12th century keep in Norfolk, which was once the exile place of Queen Isabella, widow – and alleged murderess – of Edward II, “paranormal investigators” were called in by staff to conduct tests following sightings by visitors, many of whom claimed to have seen figures dressed in monks’ clothes. ( >>Read on )

Al Jazeera
28 June 2009

A public hearing organised by a UN team investigating alleged war crimes by Israel and Hamas during the Gaza war is under way.

As part of its investigations into the December 2008-January 2009 Gaza conflict, the UN fact-finding mission will listen to testimony from victims of the conflict for two days in Gaza City and hold a second round of public hearings on July 6 and July 7 in Geneva.

During the hearing, which began on Sunday and is being screened live for the public and the media, the mission will hear from victims of alleged violations and from experts on the context and impact of the Israeli siege and military operations.

Gaza's reconstruction is being hampered by Israel's blockade of Gaza [EPA]

The public hearings, which are a part of the information-gathering work of the fact-finding mission, will enable victims, witnesses and experts from all sides in the conflict to speak directly to the international community.

In Geneva, the mission will hear from victims of alleged violations in Israel and the West Bank, as well as from experts on a variety of military and legal issues.

Geneva has been chosen as the venue of the second round of hearings since the fact-finding mission has so far not received permission to enter Israel to hold the sessions in southern Israel and the West Bank. ( >>Continued )

I received this in my morning email from Neale Donald Walsch, the author of Conversations with God, and I want to share it with you because I truly believe it, and have felt this way for a long time. If you follow this saying, you will have the power to perform miracles in other's lives by making them believe in themselves. You can probably all think of at least one person in your past who was like this to YOU and to whom you owe a lot of credit for inspiring you to believe in yourself and to be your best.

'...that to find beauty in everyone you must see beauty in everyone, then announce that you see it, for in announcing it, you place it there in their reality.

Do not miss a single chance -- not one single opportunity -- to tell someone how wonderful they are, how special they are, how important to you they are, how incredible as a person they are, how beautiful they are inside and out. Do not miss a single opening in which to insert such a comment, genuinely felt and genuinely meant.

Make it your life's mission today to bring to the attention of another just how extraordinary they are. Say it. Say it. SAY it. Their heart is waiting to know that their own best thought about themselves can be believed.'

Expulsion threat in secret documents

**Poster's Note: Please keep these words in mind when you read the following archived article from 2003: 'Lawyers point to a letter the Vatican sent to bishops in May 2001 clearly stating the 1962 instruction was in force until then. The letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger...' In case you have forgotten, Ratzinger is now the Pope. The time span in this article covers at least 5 popes, including Pope John XXIII, Pope John Paul II and the current man holding the title, Benedict XVI [a.k.a Ratzinger]

I note with interest the stories about how disturbed the Pope was at hearing the clerical abuse report from Ireland. I find this to be sheer hypocrisy, and I also do not think that asking for public apology from anyone even BEGINS to cover what must be done to bring even a tiny amount of justice for the victims. Nothing can ever make up for this obscenity and crime against humanity that has been covered up down through the years.

The reason I am posting this now has to do with the release of the Ryan report in Ireland, detailing the 'Endemic' rape and abuse of Irish children in Catholic care', which was also happening in the North of Ireland.

>>Read the 1962 Vatican document (PDF file)

Antony Barnett, public affairs editor
The Observer
Sunday 17 August 2003

The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.

The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.

( >>Continued )

I have been collecting some good links on David Carradine today and putting them in my diary, but I would like to share them with you because I am tired of all the disrespectful things being said about him by people who dun know for sure what they are talking about or by people who have ulterior motives for being so blatantly vocal.

Judging from the many, many comments by fans I have read about him, David's life and work had a profoundly positive effect on a lot of people the world over. I would like to offer these links in that spirit. The video is short but very good.


The Bill in Kill Bill discusses death, comic books, and more. -- IGN.com


'I blow people's minds with my performances' -- AV Interview with David


Parallax View: Interview - David Carradine -- parallax-view.org


David's own website: The Official David Carradine Website


And this short video where David talks about his life [YouTube video with a TinyUrl]:

'Interview with the Late David Carradine'

And if it all falls apart,
I will know deep in my heart,
the only dream that mattered had come true.
In this life, I was loved by you.

--Collin Raye