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Nice to see my timber wolf photo in this beautiful calendar

Hey, don't get huffy-- I asked and got permission to take the photo. (Then I got yelled at while taking the photo. (Then I got backed up from another yell from the other side of the restaurant saying that I'd asked and it was OKAY.))

 

www.shopsins.com

 

Published at onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.typepad.com/only_the_blog_knows_... and at http://www.absurdintellectual.com/2009/03/04/a-restaurant-that-i-would-love-to-emulate/

 

ASTR

Webster Hall

November 19th, 2015

New York City

© 2015 LEROE24FOTOS.COM

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED,

BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.

published in sonntagszeitung, 2011-03-20

Received my Dutch Book with this photo in it.

© sergione infuso - all rights reserved

follow me on www.sergione.info

 

You may not modify, publish or use any files on

this page without written permission and consent.

 

-----------------------------

 

Davide, Enrica, Giosada e gli Urban Strangers, i quattro finalisti di #XF9, in diretta dal Mediolanum Forum di Assago, Milano, giovedì 10 Dicembre 2015, avranno l’onore di condividere lo stesso palco con giganti della musica come i Coldplay, in vetta alle classifiche in 53 paesi. Chris Martin & Co si esibiranno live in esclusiva per l’Italia proprio sul palco della Finale per regalare al pubblico ben due successi del nuovo album: "A Head Full of Dreams" e "Adventure of a Lifetime".

 

X Factor Italia vuole siglare un altro primato: l’intera giuria si esibirà sulle note dei propri successi e con le proprie band: Elio e le Storie Tese, Skunk Anansie e Fedez e Mika.

 

Alessandro Cattelan vi racconterà questo grandissimo evento musicale scandendo i ritmi di una serata che si preannuncia veramente intensa. Avrete modo di assistere a una sfida davvero speciale tra Enrica, Davide, Giosada e Urban Strangers al fianco di un grande artista italiano: Cesare Cremonini. Dopo 34 date del Logico Tour, la pop star bolognese accompagnerà al pianoforte i ragazzi nella prima manche dedicata ai duetti, al termine della quale uno di loro lascerà la gara, oltre ad eseguire "Lost in weekend".

 

La sfida proseguirà con la manche degli inediti, appena presentati e già in cima alla classifica iTunes. Per lo scontro decisivo, i due super finalisti si giocheranno il podio con un brano scelto da ciascuno di loro tra quelli interpretati durante il lungo percorso ad X Factor. Solo uno di loro si aggiudicherà un contratto con Sony Music Italia e la possibilità di pubblicare un album.

 

Non finisce qui: un inedito duetto infiammerà il Forum, quello di Fedez & Mika, che si esibiranno per la prima volta live nel loro "Beautiful Disaster". Elio e le Storie Tese si porteranno al Forum uno dei classici storici della band, "Servi della gleba", mentre gli Skunk Anansie la nuovissima "Love Someone Else".

 

Il vincitore della nona edizione di X Factor Italia è Giosada.

It's a terrible photo but I had to post it.

 

Backstory:

I was contacted by a Pediatrician in Italy who was writing a book on Motherhood and the bond between Mother and Child. She asked if she could use a photo I took of my best friend and her baby that she found on Flickr and honored, I gave her permission.

 

The book was published a few months ago and while on Holiday in Florence we went to a bookstore and found the book with my photo on the cover. It's in Italian so unfortunately I can't read it but it's pretty exciting to say the least!

 

Info on the Book and the Author:

www.sonoquiconte.it/libro/

 

Original Photo here:

flickr.com/photos/redshoes00/1801033762/

Published by Sphere in 1982

I don't know what it is but it's nice.

 

Houndings Lane, Sandbach, Cheshire.

 

17/01/2021

 

[Published in the Crewe Chronicle 03/02/2021]

The Postcard

 

A postally unused postcard that was printed and published by J. Arthur Dixon, with photography by Anwar Hussein. The card, which has a divided back, was printed in Great Britain.

 

The Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer

 

The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer took place on Wednesday 29th. July 1981 at St Paul's Cathedral in London. The groom was the heir to the British throne, and the bride was a member of the Spencer family.

 

The ceremony was a traditional Church of England wedding service. The Dean of St Paul's Cathedral Alan Webster presided at the service, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie conducted the marriage.

 

Notable figures in attendance included many members of other royal families, republican heads of state, and members of the bride's and groom's families. After the ceremony, the couple made the traditional appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

 

The United Kingdom had a national holiday on that day to mark the wedding. The ceremony featured many ceremonial aspects, including use of the state carriages and roles for the Foot Guards and Household Cavalry.

 

Their marriage was widely billed as a 'Fairytale Wedding' and the 'Wedding of the Century'. It was watched by an estimated global TV audience of 750 million people.

 

Events were held around the Commonwealth to mark the wedding. Many street parties were held throughout the United Kingdom to celebrate the occasion.

 

However the couple separated in 1992, and divorced in 1996 after fifteen years of marriage.

 

The Tragic Death of Diana, Princess of Wales

 

Diana, Princess of Wales died after a high-speed car crash at the age of 36 on the 31st. August 1997 at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.

 

When Diana married Charles, she was a naïve yet hopeful young woman seeking true love. But by the time she died, Diana was jaded, bitter, and impossibly scarred by her disastrous marriage and being hounded by the media.

 

Twenty years after Princess Diana's funeral, people recall the iconic moments, from the sea of flowers and mementos left outside Kensington Palace to the heart-breaking image of Prince William and Prince Harry walking behind their mother's casket.

 

Diana’s younger brother Charles, the ninth Earl Spencer, held nothing back during his funeral oration. Funeral attendees may have been expecting a tearful remembrance of Diana’s life. Instead, they felt the full brunt of her brother’s fury at those he felt were responsible for her death.

 

In paying tribute to his sister, the 9th Earl Spencer reportedly angered the Queen and created a rift in the royal family that has only begun to heal in recent years with the births of Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

 

What Charles Spencer said in Westminster Abbey is as follows:

 

Charles Spencer's Funeral Speech

 

'I stand before you today, the representative of a family in grief in a country in mourning before a world in shock.

 

We are all united not only in our desire to pay our respects to Diana but rather in our need to do so.

 

For such was her extraordinary appeal that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service all over the world via television and radio who never actually met her, feel that they too lost someone close to them in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer her today.

 

Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity. All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.

 

Today is our chance to say thank you for the way you brightened our lives, even though God granted you but half a life. We will all feel cheated always that you were taken from us so young, and yet we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now that you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without, and we want you to know that life without you is very, very difficult.

 

We have all despaired at our loss over the past week and only the strength of the message you gave us through your years of giving has afforded us the strength to move forward.

 

There is a temptation to rush to canonise your memory, there is no need to do so. You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities not to need to be seen as a saint. Indeed to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being, your wonderfully mischievous sense of humour with a laugh that bent you double.

 

Your joy for life transmitted where ever you took your smile and the sparkle in those unforgettable eyes. Your boundless energy which you could barely contain.

 

But your greatest gift was your intuition, and it was a gift you used wisely. This is what underpinned all your other wonderful attributes and if we look to analyse what it was about you that had such a wide appeal, we find it in your instinctive feel for what was really important in all our lives.

 

Without your God-given sensitivity we would be immersed in greater ignorance at the anguish of AIDS and H.I.V. sufferers, the plight of the homeless, the isolation of lepers, the random destruction of landmines.

 

Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected. And here we come to another truth about her. For all the status, the glamour, the applause, Diana remained throughout a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom.

 

The world sensed this part of her character and cherished her for her vulnerability whilst admiring her for her honesty.

 

The last time I saw Diana was on July the 1st., her birthday in London, when typically she was not taking time to celebrate her special day with friends but was guest of honour at a special charity fund-raising evening. She sparkled of course, but I would rather cherish the days I spent with her in March when she came to visit me and my children in our home in South Africa. I am proud of the fact apart from when she was on display meeting President Mandela we managed to contrive to stop the ever-present paparazzi from getting a single picture of her -- that meant a lot to her.

 

These were days I will always treasure. It was as if we had been transported back to our childhood when we spent such an enormous amount of time together -- the two youngest in the family.

 

Fundamentally she had not changed at all from the big sister who mothered me as a baby, fought with me at school and endured those long train journeys between our parents' homes with me at weekends.

 

It is a tribute to her level-headedness and strength that despite the most bizarre-like life imaginable after her childhood, she remained intact, true to herself.

 

There is no doubt that she was looking for a new direction in her life at this time. She talked endlessly of getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment that she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don't think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media, why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling. My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this -- a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.

 

She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys William and Harry from a similar fate and I do this here Diana on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair.

 

And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned.

 

We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role. But we, like you, recognise the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead. I know you would have expected nothing less from us.

 

William and Harry, we all cared desperately for you today. We are all chewed up with the sadness at the loss of a woman who was not even our mother. How great your suffering is, we cannot even imagine.

 

I would like to end by thanking God for the small mercies he has shown us at this dreadful time. For taking Diana at her most beautiful and radiant and when she had joy in her private life. Above all we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister, the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds'.

Not too sure about this 'New, new Flickr' thing... my brain hurts..!

My first published shots. The Formula Una babes are a little incentive by Red Bull Racing (the F1 team), to get more women to the different Grand Prix. These are "our" (Belgian) Formula Una's. Note: In the middle is the lovely "Zorha" (a 'famious' Belgium beaty). I could link to the article, if I could just find out how that works in Flickr. Without a doubt my favorite personal shot with my Canon 400D. I wanted it to be overexposed and it worked out. It's hardly edited actually.

Woodcut by W.J.Linton.

Published in "The Lake Country" by E.Lynn Linton, 1864.

These are two of my pieces that are published in the winter 2011 issue of "Belle Armoire Jewelry"

Designer: Deepk Perwani

Published in Brides & You Volume 05, Issue 04

 

The program that was published when this building was dedicated in 1912 included the following:

 

History of the NSGW Building

by Lewis F. Byington, Past Grand President

 

The new Native Sons’ Building, just completed and situated on the east side of Mason Street, between Geary and Post Streets, is unquestionably the best appointed and arranged fraternal building in California, and for the lodge and social purposes the most centrally located of any in San Francisco. It stands on the same block as the St. Francis Hotel and within a radius of two blocks are Union Square at the heart of the city, the Hotel Bellevue, the Stewart Hotel, the Olympic Club, the Bohemian Club, the Union League Club, and the Elks’ Club, the Columbia, Alcazar and Orpheum Theatres, and most of the leading hotels, clubs, restaurants, and places of amusement in San Francisco.

 

It is a “Class A,” steel frame structure, eight stories in height, with a beautiful and ornamented façade of granite, terra cotta and brick. Around the two main entrances to the building are placed medallions of distinguished men, who are thus honored and commemorated for their services in connection with the discovery and civilization of California. They are: Cabrillo, discoverer of California; Father Junipero Serra, civilizer and founder of missions; General John A. Sutter, typical pioneer; General John C. Fremont, U.S.A., the Pathfinder; Admiral John Drake Sloat, U.S.N., who raised the American flag at Monterey; James W. Marshall, the discoverer of gold; Peter Burnett, the first American governor of California; General M. G. Vallejo, typical Hispano-Californian; General A. M. Winn, Founder of the Order of the Native Sons of the Golden West.

 

Set in the front of the building at the height of the second story are six terra cotta panels, the work of Domingo Mora and his son, Joseph J. Mora, artistically designed and depicting important historical events, namely: “The Discovery of California”; “Civilization”; “The Raising of the Bear Flag”; “The Raising of the American Flag”; “The Pioneers”; “The Discovery of Gold.” The sculptured heads of grizzly bears, which mark the line of the third floor, have been designed as emblematic of California, while the sculptured phoenix, placed over the doorways, typifies San Francisco.

 

The phoenix was a wonderful bird, fabled to exist for 500 years, the only of its kind. It built a funeral pile of spices and aromatic gums, lighted the pile with the fanning of its wings, and was burned upon it, but from its ashes revived in the freshness of youth. It is the emblematic bird of San Francisco, adopted and placed upon its seal in early days after the city had been four times destroyed by fire. During a recent visit to Europe, Mr. James D. Phelan, the president of the Hall association, found in the Vatican at Rome the most ancient sculptured representation of the phoenix and which is attributed to the famous Greek sculptor Praxiteles. Mr. Phelan secured a splendid reproduction in marble of this work of art and presented it to the Hall Association, and it is now in the new building.

 

The building contains one of the largest and best-appointed assembly halls for dances, concerts and entertainments in California; also fourteen well-lighted, handsomely furnished, and artistically arranged lodge rooms; the offices of the Grand Secretary; Library and Reading Rooms. Over the main assembly hall is the largest steel truss ever built in California, and which supports the floors above. The eighth floor is arranged for club room purposes and is admirably designed for this object. The rooms are spacious, high and well lighted, both from above and from the front and sides. In the front an artistic loggia has been placed from which the city to the west may be viewed, while at the rear a pergola, over which vines will be twined, furnishes an artistic, sheltered, open-air places for the members to sit. The Grand Parlor has taken steps to secure all books, data and records bearing upon the history and development of California and these doubtless will be stored here. In time, an Historical Museum will also be maintained within the building.

 

In the main hall are twenty circular windows, which it has been decided to use for art glass portraits of twenty Native Sons and Native Daughters who have won distinction in the arts and sciences, literature and drama. The names of the following have so far been selected: Gertrude Atherton, literature; Sybil Sanderson, music; Mary Anderson, drama. Upon the walls of the upper floors will be hung portraits of the distinguished men and women, not natives of California, who have in this State won distinction in literature, science and the arts. The grandeur of the Yosemite and our mountains and lakes may also be depicted upon other windows and these features will add materially to the beauty of our building and will make it unique among the structures of the country. The building will stand as the home of the Order in the State, and as the noblest and most enduring monument to the perpetuity of the organization and for the advancement of its principles of Friendship, Loyalty and Charity.

 

The architects of the building are Righetti and Headman (E.H. Hildebrand, associate). The superintendant of construction was Mr. P.J. Walker and his foreman Mr. J.S. Fifield.

 

Since the destruction of the Native Sons’ Building by the fire of April 18, 1906, it has been the desire of the members to see erected in this city, and upon the lot where that building stood, a home for the fraternity, within which the local lodges may meet and where members from all over California may find an hospitable welcome amidst pleasant and comfortable surroundings. That desire has now been realized.

 

The Hall Association of the Native Sons of the Golden West was incorporated April 5, 1893, for the purpose of securing a site upon which to erect a home for the Order. The first Board of Directors selected was composed of the following members of the fraternity: John H. Grady, Henry Lundstedt, Dr. C.W. Decker, W.W. Shannon, T.E. Keough, George D. Clark, John T. Greany, John A. Steinbach, W.H. Miller, J.R. Kropp, Adolph Eberhart, Lewis F. Byington, T. C. Conmy, John H. Nelson, T.P. Leonard, Joseph B. Keenan, H..J. Seitz, G.H.S. Dryden, W. J. Wynn, W. E. Foley, Daniel Suter, C.H. Hobson, J.P. Donovan, R. Horber, C.H. Mass, J.W. Reinfeld, H.G.W. Dinkelspiel, Sol. Bloom, J.R. Howell, Louis Nonnenmann, H.E. Coffey, Jas. P. Sweeney, L.L. Dennery, L.M. Bannan, W.P. Johnson, and A.E. Holmes.

 

The Association purchased from the Congregation Ohabai Shalome, for $42,500, the lot located on the east side of Mason Street, sixty-eight feet and nine inches north of Geary Street, and having a frontage of sixty-eight feet and nine inches and a depth of one hundred and thirty-seven feet and six inches. One of the first synagogues erected in this city stood upon the lot.

 

Competitive plans for a lodge building were invited and those submitted by Mr. A.C. Lutgens were selected and the handsome five-story “Class C” building erected which stood until destroyed in the early morning of April 19, 1906, by the disastrous fire which then swept the city. It was erected at a cost of about $82,000, and contained a large assembly hall, the offices of the Grand Secretary, the Library and Reading Room and seven lodge rooms. The corner stone was laid on Washington’s birthday, 1895, and the building was dedicated February 9, 1896. Shortly after its completion, Irving M. Scott presented to the Hall Association a magnificent painting by William Keith, California’s greatest landscape artist. It depicted one of California’s fruitful valleys and was entitled “The Heritage of the Native Sons.” It was burned with the building.

 

When the Association concluded to rebuild upon the old site, it was determined to erect a “Class A” building in line with the spirit of progress which animated the citizens of the new San Francisco. The capital stock of the Association was, therefore, increased to $400,000 (50,000 shares of a par value of $8.00 each).

 

The corner stone of the new building was laid February 22, 1911. It is the old corner stone saved from the fire with a new stone covering it. Upon the old stone appears the inscription:

 

HALL OF

NATIVE SONS OF THE GOLDEN WEST

WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY

A.D. 1895”

 

And upon the stone above is carved:

 

BUILDING DESTROYED BY FIRE, APRIL 19, 1906

CORNER STONE RELAID FEBRURARY 22, 1911

 

“Program: Dedication of NSGW Building 1912”. Published by NSGW, San Francisco, Cal.

BRINGING IN THE FEED

The crew at EC Farms loads bales in the Rural Municipality of Lorne in southern Manitoba.

Icones plantarum Indiae Orientalis

Madras :published by J.B. Pharoah for the author,1840-1853.

biodiversitylibrary.org/page/781582

published in Xpozé, 01-Jan-08

One piece of a Jigsaw puzzle themed installation

  

Out and About at Vivid 2015

The Postcard

 

A postally unused postcard that was published by The South African Garrison Institutes. The card was printed by Whitehead, Morris & Co. Ltd. of Cape Town. The card has a divided back.

 

Windhoek

 

Windhoek is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around 1,700 metres (5,600 ft) above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre.

 

The population of Windhoek in 2020 was 431,000 which is growing continuously due to an influx from all over Namibia.

 

Windhoek is the social, economic, political, and cultural centre of the country. Nearly every Namibian national enterprise, governmental body, educational and cultural institution is headquartered there.

 

The city developed at the site of a permanent hot spring known to the indigenous pastoral communities. It developed rapidly after Jonker Afrikaner, Captain of the Orlam, settled here in 1840 and built a stone church for his community.

 

In the decades following, multiple wars and armed hostilities resulted in the neglect and destruction of the new settlement. Windhoek was founded a second time in 1890 by Imperial German Army Major Curt von François, when the territory was colonised by the German Empire.

 

Herero and Nama Genocide

 

The Herero and Nama genocide was a campaign of ethnic extermination and collective punishment waged by the German Empire against the Herero and the Nama in German South West Africa.

 

It was the first genocide of the 20th. century, occurring between 1904 and 1908.

 

In January 1904, the Herero and Nama people rebelled against German colonial rule. On the 12th. January they killed more than 100 German settlers in the area of Okahandja, although women, children, missionaries and non-German Europeans were spared.

 

In August, German General Lothar von Trotha defeated the Hereros in the Battle of Waterberg and drove them into the desert of Omaheke, where most of them died of dehydration. In October, the Nama people also rebelled against the Germans, only to suffer a similar fate.

 

Between 24,000 and 100,000 Hereros and 10,000 Nama died in the genocide. The first phase of the genocide was characterised by widespread death from starvation and dehydration, due to the prevention of the Herero from leaving the Namib desert by German forces.

 

Once defeated, thousands of Hereros and Namas were imprisoned in concentration camps, where the majority died of diseases, abuse, and exhaustion.

 

In 1985, the United Nations' Whitaker Report classified the aftermath as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South West Africa.

 

In 2004, the German government recognised and apologised for the events, but ruled out financial compensation for the victims' descendants.

 

In July 2015, the German government and the speaker of the Bundestag officially called the events a "genocide". However, it still refused to consider reparations. Despite this, the last batch of skulls and other remains of slaughtered tribesmen which were taken to Germany to promote racial superiority were taken back to Namibia in 2018.

 

In May 2021, the German government agreed to pay €1.1 billion over 30 years to fund projects in communities that were impacted by the genocide.

 

Background to the Genocide

 

The Herero, who speak a Bantu language, were originally a group of cattle herders who migrated into what is now Namibia during the mid-18th. century. The Herero seized vast swaths of the arable upper plateaus which were ideal for cattle grazing.

 

Agricultural duties, which were minimal, were assigned to enslaved Khoisan and Bushmen. Over the rest of the 18th. century, the Herero slowly drove the Khoisan into the dry, rugged hills to the south and east.

 

The Hereros were a pastoral people whose entire way of life centred on their cattle. The Herero language, while limited in its vocabulary for most areas, contains more than a thousand words for the colours and markings of cattle. The Hereros were content to live in peace as long as their cattle were safe and well-pastured, but became formidable warriors when their cattle were threatened.

 

According to Robert Gaudi:

 

"The newcomers, much taller and more fiercely warlike

than the indigenous Khoisan people, were possessed

of the fierceness that comes from basing one's way of

life on a single source: everything they valued, all wealth

and personal happiness, had to do with cattle.

Regarding the care and protection of their herds, the

Herero showed themselves utterly merciless, and far

more 'savage' than the Khoisan had ever been.

Because of their dominant ways and elegant bearing,

the few Europeans who encountered Herero tribesmen

in the early days regarded them as the region's 'natural

aristocrats.'"

 

By the time of the Scramble for Africa, the area which was occupied by the Herero was known as Damaraland.

 

The Nama were pastorals and traders, and lived to the south of the Herero. 

 

In 1883, Adolf Lüderitz, a German merchant, purchased a stretch of coast near Lüderitz Bay (Angra Pequena) from the reigning chief. The terms of the purchase were fraudulent, but the German government nonetheless established a protectorate over it. At that time, it was the only overseas German territory deemed suitable for European settlement.

 

Chief of the neighbouring Herero, Maherero rose to power by uniting all the Herero. Faced with repeated attacks by the Khowesin, a clan of the Khoekhoe under Hendrik Witbooi, he signed a protection treaty on the 21st. October 1885 with Imperial Germany's colonial governor Heinrich Ernst Göring (father of World War I flying ace and World War II convicted war criminal Hermann Göring), but did not cede the land of the Herero.

 

This treaty was renounced in 1888 due to lack of German support against Witbooi, but it was reinstated in 1890.

 

The Herero leaders repeatedly complained about violation of this treaty, as Herero women and girls were raped by Germans, a crime that the German judges and prosecutors were reluctant to punish.

 

In 1890 Maherero's son, Samuel, signed a great deal of land over to the Germans in return for helping him to ascend to the Herero throne, and to subsequently be established as paramount chief.

 

German involvement in ethnic fighting ended in tenuous peace in 1894.  In that year, Theodor Leutwein became governor of the territory, which underwent a period of rapid development, while the German government sent the Schutztruppe (imperial colonial troops) to pacify the region.

 

German Colonial Policy

 

Both German colonial authorities and European settlers envisioned a predominately white "new African Germany," wherein the native populations would be put onto reservations and their land distributed among settlers and companies.

 

Under German colonial rule, colonists were encouraged to seize land and cattle from the native Herero and Nama peoples and to subjugate them as slave laborers. 

 

Resentment understandably brewed among the native populations over their loss of status and property to German ranchers arriving in South West Africa, and the dismantling of traditional political hierarchies. Previously ruling tribes were reduced to the same status as the other tribes they had previously ruled over and enslaved. This resentment contributed to the Herero Wars that began in 1904.

 

Major Theodor Leutwein, the Governor of German South West Africa, was well aware of the effect of the German colonial rule on the Hereros. He later wrote :

 

"The Hereros from early years were a freedom-loving

people, courageous and proud beyond measure. On

the one hand, there was the progressive extension of

German rule over them, and on the other their own

sufferings increasing from year to year."

 

The Dietrich Case

 

In January 1903, a German trader named Dietrich was walking from his homestead to the nearby town of Omaruru to buy a new horse. Halfway to Dietrich's destination, a wagon carrying the son of a Herero chief, his wife, and their son stopped by. As a common courtesy in Hereroland, the chief's son offered Dietrich a ride.

 

That night, however, Dietrich got very drunk and after everyone was asleep, he attempted to rape the wife of the chief's son. When she resisted, Dietrich shot her dead.

 

When he was tried for murder in Windhoek, Dietrich denied attempting to rape his victim. He alleged that he awoke thinking the camp was under attack, and had fired blindly into the darkness. The killing of the Herero woman, he claimed, was an unfortunate accident. The court acquitted him, alleging that Dietrich was suffering from "tropical fever" and temporary insanity.

 

The murder aroused extraordinary interest in Hereroland, especially since the murdered woman had been the wife of the son of a Chief and the daughter of another. Everywhere the question was asked:

 

"Have white people the right

to shoot native women?"

 

Governor Leutwein intervened. He made the Public Prosecutor appeal Dietrich's acquittal. A second trial took place (before the colony's supreme court), and this time Dietrich was found guilty of manslaughter and imprisoned.

 

The move prompted violent objections of German settlers who considered Leutwein a "race traitor".

 

Rising Tension

 

In 1903, some of the Nama clans rose in revolt under the leadership of Hendrik Witbooi. A number of factors led the Herero to join them in January 1904.

 

(a) Land Rights

 

One of the major issues was land rights. In 1903 the Herero learned of a plan to divide their territory with a railway line and to set up reservations where they would be concentrated.

 

The Herero had already ceded more than a quarter of their 130,000 km2 (50,000 sq mi) territory to German colonists by 1903,  before the Otavi railway line running from the African coast to inland German settlements was completed.

 

Completion of this line would have made the German colonies much more accessible, and would have ushered in a new wave of Europeans into the area.

 

Historian Horst Drechsler states that there was discussion of establishing and placing the Herero in native reserves, and that this was further proof of the German colonists' sense of ownership over the land.

 

Drechsler illustrates the gap between the rights of a European and an African; the Reichskolonialbund (German Colonial League) held that, in regards to legal matters, the testimony of seven Africans was equivalent to that of one colonist.

 

(b) Racial Tensions

 

There were also racial tensions underlying these developments; the average German colonist viewed native Africans as a lowly source of cheap labour, and others welcomed their extermination.  The German settlers often referred to black Africans as "baboons" and treated them with contempt.

 

One missionary reported:

 

"The real cause of the bitterness among the Hereros

toward the Germans is without question the fact that

the average German looks down upon the natives as

being about on the same level as the higher primates

('baboon' being their favourite term for the natives),

and treat them like animals.

The settler holds that the native has a right to exist only

in so far as he is useful to the white man. This sense of

contempt led the settlers to commit violence against

the Hereros."

 

The contempt manifested itself particularly in the concubinage of native women. In a practice referred to in Südwesterdeutsch as Verkafferung, native women were taken by male European traders and ranchers both willingly and by force.

 

(c) Debt Collection

 

A new policy on debt collection, enforced in November 1903, also played a role in the uprising. For many years, the Herero population had fallen in the habit of borrowing money from colonist moneylenders at extremely high interest rates.

 

For a long time, much of this debt went uncollected, and it accumulated, as most Herero had no means to pay. In order to correct this growing problem, Governor Leutwein decreed with good intentions that all debts not paid within the following year would be voided.

 

In the absence of hard cash, traders often seized cattle, or whatever objects of value they could get their hands on, as collateral. This fostered a feeling of resentment towards the Germans on the part of the Herero people. Resentment escalated to hopelessness when they saw that German officials were sympathetic to the moneylenders who were about to lose what they were owed.

 

Revolts

 

In 1903, the Hereros saw an opportunity to revolt. At that time, there was a distant Khoisan tribe in the south called the Bondelzwarts, who resisted German demands to register their guns. The Bondelzwarts engaged in a firefight with the German authorities which led to three Germans being killed and a fourth wounded.

 

The situation deteriorated further, and the governor of the Herero colony, Major Theodor Leutwein, went south to take personal command, leaving almost no troops in the north.

 

The Herero revolted in early 1904, killing between 123 and 150 German settlers, as well as seven Boers and three women, in what Nils Ole Oermann calls a "desperate surprise attack".

 

The timing of their attack was carefully planned. After successfully asking a large Herero clan to surrender their weapons, Governor Leutwein was convinced that they and the rest of the native population were essentially pacified, and so withdrew half of the German troops stationed in the colony.

 

Led by Chief Samuel Maherero, the Herero surrounded Okahandja and cut railroad and telegraph links to Windhoek, the colonial capital.

 

Maharero then issued a manifesto in which he forbade his troops to kill any Englishmen, Boers, uninvolved peoples, women and children in general, or German missionaries. 

 

The Herero revolts catalysed a separate revolt and attack on Fort Namutoni in the north of the country a few weeks later by the Ondonga.

 

A Herero warrior interviewed by German authorities in 1895 had described his people's traditional way of dealing with suspected cattle rustlers, a treatment which, during the uprising, was regularly extended to German soldiers and civilians:

 

"We came across a few Khoisan whom of course

we killed. I myself helped to kill one of them.

-- First we cut off his ears, saying, 'You will never

hear Herero cattle lowing.'

-- Then we cut off his nose, saying, 'Never again

shall you smell Herero cattle.'

-- And then we cut off his lips, saying, 'You shall

never again taste Herero cattle.'

And finally we cut his throat."

 

According to Robert Gaudi:

 

"Leutwein knew that the wrath of the German Empire

was about to fall on them and hoped to soften the

blow. He sent desperate messages to Chief Samuel

Maherero in hopes of negotiating an end to the war.

In this, Leutwein acted on his own, heedless of the

prevailing mood in Germany, which called for bloody

revenge."

 

The Hereros, however, were emboldened by their success and had come to believe that the Germans were too cowardly to fight in the open. They rejected Leutwein's offers of peace.

 

One missionary wrote:

 

"The Germans are filled with fearful hate. I must really

call it a blood thirst against the Hereros. One hears

nothing but talk of 'cleaning up,' 'executing,' 'shooting

down to the last man,' 'no pardon,' etc."

 

According to Robert Gaudi:

 

"The Germans suffered more than defeat in the early

months of 1904; they suffered humiliation, their brilliant

modern army unable to defeat a rabble of 'half-naked

savages.'

Cries in the Reichstag, and from the Kaiser himself, for

total eradication of the Hereros grew strident. When a

leading member of the Social Democratic Party pointed

out that the Hereros were as human as any German and

possessed immortal souls, he was howled down by the

entire conservative side of the legislature."

 

Leutwein was forced to request reinforcements and an experienced officer from the German government in Berlin. Lieutenant-General Lothar von Trotha was appointed commander-in-chief (German: Oberbefehlshaber) of South West Africa, arriving with an expeditionary force of 10,000 troops on the 11th. June 1904.

 

Leutwein was subordinate to the civilian Colonial Department of the Prussian Foreign Office, which was supported by Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, while General Trotha reported to the military German General Staff, which was supported by Emperor Wilhelm II.

 

Leutwein wanted to defeat the most determined Herero rebels and negotiate a surrender with the remainder in order to achieve a political settlement.  Trotha, however, planned to crush the native resistance through military force. He stated that:

 

"My intimate knowledge of many central African

nations (Bantu and others) has everywhere

convinced me of the necessity that the Negro

does not respect treaties, but only brute force."

 

By late spring of 1904, German troops were pouring into the colony. In August 1904, the main Herero forces were surrounded and crushed at the Battle of Waterberg. 

 

Genocide

 

In 1900, Kaiser Wilhelm II had been enraged by the killing of Baron Clemens von Ketteler, the Imperial German minister plenipotentiary in Beijing, during the Boxer Rebellion. The Kaiser took it as a personal insult from a people he viewed as racially inferior, all the more because of his obsession with the "Yellow Peril".

 

On the 27th. July 1900, the Kaiser gave the infamous Hunnenrede (Hun speech) in Bremerhaven to German soldiers being sent to Imperial China, ordering them to show the Boxers no mercy, and to behave like Attila's Huns.

 

General von Trotha had served in China, and was chosen in 1904 to command the expedition to German South West Africa precisely because of his record in China.

 

In 1904, the Kaiser was made furious by the latest revolt in his colonial empire by a people whom he also viewed as inferior, and took the Herero rebellion as a personal insult, just as he had viewed the Boxers' assassination of Baron von Ketteler.

 

The tactless and bloodthirsty language that Wilhelm II used about the Herero people in 1904 is strikingly similar to the language he had used about the Chinese Boxers in 1900. Nevertheless, the Kaiser denied, together with Chancellor von Bülow, von Trotha's request to quickly quell the rebellion.

 

No written order by Wilhelm II ordering or authorising genocide has survived. In February 1945 an Allied bombing raid destroyed the building housing all of the documents of the Prussian Army from the Imperial period.

 

Despite this fact, surviving documents indicate that Trotha used the same tactics in Namibia that he had used in China, only on a much vaster scale. It is also known that throughout the genocide, Trotha sent regular reports to both the General Staff and to the Kaiser.

 

Historian Jeremy-Sarkin Hughes believes that regardless of whether or not a written order was given, the Kaiser must have given General von Trotha verbal orders. According to Hughes, the fact that Trotha was decorated and not court-martialed after the genocide had become public knowledge lends support to the thesis that he was acting under orders.

 

General von Trotha stated his proposed solution to end the resistance of the Herero people in a letter, before the Battle of Waterberg:

 

"I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated,

or, if this is not possible by tactical measures, have to be

expelled from the country. This will be possible if the water-

holes from Grootfontein to Gobabis are occupied.

The constant movement of our troops will enable us to

find the small groups of this nation who have moved

backwards, and destroy them gradually."

 

Trotha's troops defeated 3,000–5,000 Herero combatants at the Battle of Waterberg on 11th. and 12th. August 1904, but were unable to encircle and annihilate the retreating survivors. 

 

The pursuing German forces prevented groups of Herero from breaking from the main body of the fleeing force, and pushed them further into the desert. As exhausted Herero fell to the ground, unable to go on, German soldiers killed men, women, and children. Jan Cloete, acting as a guide for the Germans, witnessed the atrocities committed by the German troops, and deposed the following statement: 

 

"I was present when the Herero were defeated in a

battle in the vicinity of Waterberg. After the battle all

men, women, and children who fell into German hands,

wounded or otherwise, were mercilessly put to death.

Then the Germans set off in pursuit of the rest, and all

those found by the wayside and in the sandveld were

shot down and bayoneted to death.

The mass of the Herero men were unarmed and thus

unable to offer resistance. They were just trying to get

away with their cattle."

 

A portion of the Herero escaped the Germans and went to the Omaheke Desert, hoping to reach British Bechuanaland; fewer than 1,000 Herero managed to get there, where they were granted asylum by the British authorities.

 

To prevent them from returning, Trotha ordered the desert to be sealed off. German patrols later found skeletons around holes 13 m (43 ft) deep that had been dug in a vain attempt to find water. Some sources also state that the German colonial army systematically poisoned desert water wells.

 

Maherero and 500–1,500 men crossed the Kalahari into Bechuanaland where he was accepted as a vassal of the Batswana chief Sekgoma.

 

On the 2nd. October 1904, Trotha issued a warning to the Herero:

 

"I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this

letter to the Herero. The Herero are German subjects

no longer. They have killed, stolen, cut off the ears

and other parts of the body of wounded soldiers, and

now are too cowardly to want to fight any longer.

I announce to the people that whoever hands me one

of the chiefs shall receive 1,000 marks, and 5,000

marks for Samuel Maherero.

The Herero nation must now leave the country. If it

refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube'

[cannon].

Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or

without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare

neither women nor children. I shall give the order to

drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words

to the Herero people."

 

Trotha further gave orders that:

 

"This proclamation is to be read to the troops at roll-call,

with the addition that the unit that catches a captain will

also receive the appropriate reward, and that the shooting

at women and children is to be understood as shooting

above their heads, so as to force them to run away.

I assume absolutely that this proclamation will result in

taking no more male prisoners, but will not degenerate

into atrocities against women and children. The latter will

run away if one shoots at them a couple of times. The

troops will remain conscious of the good reputation of

the German soldier." 

 

Trotha gave orders that captured Herero males were to be executed, while women and children were to be driven into the desert where their death from starvation and thirst was to be certain.

 

Trotha argued that there was no need to make exceptions for Herero women and children, since these would "infect German troops with their diseases."

 

Trotha explained that:

 

"The insurrection is and remains

the beginning of a racial struggle."

 

After the war, Trotha argued that his orders were necessary, writing in 1909 that:

 

"If I had made the small water holes accessible

to the womenfolk, I would run the risk of an African

catastrophe comparable to the Battle of Beresonia." 

 

The German general staff were aware of the atrocities that were taking place; its official publication, named Der Kampf, noted that:

 

"This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant

light the ruthless energy of the German command

in pursuing their beaten enemy.

No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating

the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a

wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from

one water-hole to the next, until finally he became

the victim of his own environment.

The arid Omaheke Desert was to complete what

the German army had begun: the extermination of

the Herero nation."

 

Alfred von Schlieffen (Chief of the Imperial German General Staff and architect of the Great War Schlieffen Plan) approved of Trotha's intentions in terms of a "racial struggle" and the need to wipe out the entire nation or to drive them out of the country, but had doubts about his strategy, preferring their surrender.

 

Governor Leutwein, later relieved of his duties, complained to Chancellor von Bülow about Trotha's actions, seeing the general's orders as intruding upon the civilian colonial jurisdiction, and ruining any chance of a political settlement. 

 

According to Professor Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University, opposition to the policy of annihilation was largely due to the fact that colonial officials looked at the Herero people as a potential source of labour, and thus economically important.  For instance, Governor Leutwein wrote that:

 

"I do not concur with those fanatics who want to

see the Herero destroyed altogether. I would

consider such a move a grave mistake from an

economic point of view. We need the Herero as

cattle breeders, and especially as labourers.

 

Having no authority over the military, Chancellor Bülow could only advise Emperor Wilhelm II that:

 

"Trotha's actions are contrary to Christian and

humanitarian principle, economically devastating

and damaging to Germany's international

reputation". 

 

Upon the arrival of new orders at the end of 1904, prisoners were herded into labor camps, where they were given to private companies as slave labourers, or exploited as human guinea pigs in medical experiments.

 

Concentration Camps

 

Survivors of the massacre, the majority of whom were women and children, were eventually put in places like Shark Island concentration camp, where the German authorities forced them to work as slave labour for the German military and settlers.

 

All prisoners were categorised into groups fit and unfit for work, and pre-printed death certificates indicating "death by exhaustion following privation" were issued. The British government published their well-known account of the German genocide of the Nama and Herero peoples in 1918.

 

Many Herero and Nama died of disease, exhaustion, starvation and malnutrition. Estimates of the mortality rate at the camps are between 45% and 74%.

 

Food in the camps was extremely scarce, consisting of rice with no additions.  As the prisoners lacked pots and the rice they received was uncooked, it was indigestible. Horses and oxen that died in the camp were later distributed to the inmates as food. 

 

Dysentery and lung diseases were common.  Despite the living conditions, the prisoners were taken outside the camp every day for labour under harsh treatment by the German guards, while the sick were left without any medical assistance or nursing care.  Many Herero and Nama were worked to death.

 

Shootings, hangings, beatings, and other harsh treatment of the forced labourers (including use of sjamboks) were common. A sjambok is a long, stiff whip, originally made from rhinoceros hide.

 

A 28th. September 1905 article in the South African newspaper Cape Argus detailed some of the abuse with the heading:

 

"In German S. W. Africa: Further Startling

Allegations: Horrible Cruelty".

 

In an interview with Percival Griffith, "an accountant of profession, who owing to hard times, took up on transport work at Angra Pequena, Lüderitz", related his experiences:

 

"There are hundreds of them, mostly women and

children and a few old men. When they fall they are

sjamboked by the soldiers in charge of the gang,

with full force, until they get up.

On one occasion I saw a woman carrying a child

of under a year old slung at her back, and with a

heavy sack of grain on her head - she fell.

The corporal sjamboked her for certainly more

than four minutes and sjamboked the baby as well.

The woman struggled slowly to her feet, and went

on with her load.

She did not utter a sound the whole time, but the

baby cried very hard."

 

During the war, a number of people from the Cape (in modern-day South Africa) sought employment as transport riders for German troops in Namibia. Upon their return to the Cape, some of these people recounted their stories, including those of the imprisonment and genocide of the Herero and Nama people. Fred Cornell, an aspiring British diamond prospector, was in Lüderitz when the Shark Island concentration camp was being used. Cornell wrote of the camp:

 

"Cold – for the nights are often bitterly cold there –

hunger, thirst, exposure, disease and madness

claimed scores of victims every day, and cartloads

of their bodies were every day carted over to the

back beach, buried in a few inches of sand at low

tide, and as the tide came in the bodies went out,

food for the sharks."

 

Shark Island was the worst of the German South West African camps. Lüderitz lies in southern Namibia, flanked by desert and ocean. In the harbour lies Shark Island, which then was connected to the mainland by only a small causeway.

 

The island is now, as it was then, barren and characterised by solid rock carved into surreal formations by the ocean winds. The camp was placed on the far end of the relatively small island, where the prisoners would have suffered complete exposure to the strong winds that sweep Lüderitz for most of the year.

 

German Commander Ludwig von Estorff wrote in a report that approximately 1,700 prisoners (including 1,203 Nama) had died by April 1907.

 

In December 1906, four months after their arrival, 291 Nama died (a rate of more than nine people per day). Missionary reports put the death rate at 12–18 per day; as many as 80% of the prisoners sent to Shark Island eventually died there.

 

There are accusations of Herero women being coerced into sex slavery as a means of survival.

 

Trotha was opposed to contact between natives and settlers, believing that the insurrection was "the beginning of a racial struggle," and fearing that the colonists would be infected by native diseases. 

 

Benjamin Madley has concluded that although Shark Island is referred to as a concentration camp, it in fact functioned as an extermination camp or death camp.

 

Medical Experiments and Scientific Racism

 

Prisoners were used for medical experiments, and their illnesses or their recoveries from them were used for research.

 

Experiments on live prisoners were performed by Dr. Bofinger, who injected Herero who were suffering from scurvy with various substances including arsenic and opium; afterwards he researched the effects of these substances via autopsy.

 

Experimentation with the dead body parts of the prisoners was rife. Zoologist Leonhard Schultze (1872–1955) noted taking "body parts from fresh native corpses" which according to him, was "a welcome addition." He also noted that he could use prisoners for that purpose.

 

An estimated 300 skulls were sent to Germany for experimentation, in part from concentration camp prisoners. In October 2011, after three years of talks, the first 20 of an estimated 300 skulls stored in the museum of the Charité were returned to Namibia for burial. In 2014, 14 additional skulls were repatriated by the University of Freiburg.

 

The Number of Victims

 

A census conducted in 1905 revealed that 25,000 Herero remained in German South West Africa.

 

According to the Whitaker Report, the population of 80,000 Herero had been reduced to 15,000 "starving refugees" by 1907. In 'Colonial Genocide and Reparations Claims in the 21st. Century: The Socio-Legal Context of Claims under International Law by the Herero against Germany for Genocide in Namibia' by Jeremy Sarkin-Hughes, the number of 100,000 victims is given. Up to 80% of the indigenous population were killed.

 

A political cartoon on German South West Africa was run in 1906 with the following caption:

 

"Even if it hasn't brought in much profit and

there are no better quality goods on offer,

at least we can use it to set up a bone-

grinding plant."

 

Newspapers in 2004 reported 65,000 victims when announcing that Germany officially recognized the genocide.

 

Aftermath of the Genocide

 

With the closure of the concentration camps, all surviving Herero were distributed as labourers for settlers in the German colony. From that time on, all Herero over the age of seven were forced to wear a metal disc with their labour registration number. They were also banned from owning land or cattle, a necessity for pastoral society. 

 

About 19,000 German troops were engaged in the conflict, of which 3,000 saw combat. The rest were used for upkeep and administration.

 

The German losses were 676 soldiers killed in combat, 76 missing, and 689 dead from disease.  The Reiterdenkmal (English: Equestrian Monument) in Windhoek was erected in 1912 to celebrate the victory and to remember the fallen German soldiers and civilians. Until after Independence, no monument was built to the killed indigenous population. It remains a bone of contention in independent Namibia.

 

The campaign cost Germany 600 million marks. The normal annual subsidy to the colony was 14.5 million marks. In 1908, diamonds were discovered in the territory, and this did much to boost its prosperity, though it was short-lived. 

 

In 1915, during the Great War, the German colony was taken over and occupied by the Union of South Africa, which was victorious in the South West Africa campaign. South Africa received a League of Nations mandate over South West Africa on the 17th. December 1920.

 

Link Between the Herero Genocide and the Holocaust

 

The Herero genocide has commanded the attention of historians who study issues of continuity between the Herero genocide and The Holocaust of WWII. It is argued that the Herero genocide set a precedent in Imperial Germany that would later be followed by Nazi Germany's establishment of death camps.

 

According to Benjamin Madley, the German experience in South West Africa was a crucial precursor to Nazi colonialism and genocide. He argues that personal connections, literature, and public debates served as conduits for communicating colonialist and genocidal ideas and methods from the colony to Germany.

 

Tony Barta, a research associate at La Trobe University, argues that the Herero genocide was an inspiration for Hitler in his war against the Jews, Slavs, Romani, and others whom he described as "non-Aryans".

 

According to Clarence Lusane, Eugen Fischer's medical experiments can be seen as a testing ground for medical procedures which were later followed during the Nazi Holocaust.

 

Fischer later became chancellor of the University of Berlin, where he taught medicine to Nazi physicians. Otmar von Verschuer was a student of Fischer; Verschuer himself had a prominent pupil, Josef Mengele.

 

Franz Ritter von Epp, who was later responsible for the liquidation of virtually all Bavarian Jews and Roma as governor of Bavaria, took part in the Herero and Nama genocide.

 

Mahmood Mamdani argues that the links between the Herero genocide and the Holocaust are beyond the execution of an annihilation policy and the establishment of concentration camps as there are also ideological similarities in the conduct of both genocides. He focuses on a written statement by General Trotha:

 

"I destroy the African tribes with streams

of blood. Only following this cleansing can

something new emerge, which will remain." 

 

Mamdani takes note of the similarity between the aims of the General and of the Nazis. According to Mamdani, in both cases there was a Social Darwinist notion of "cleansing", after which "something new" would "emerge". 

 

Reconciliation

 

In 1985, the United Nations' Whitaker Report classified the massacres as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South West Africa, and therefore one of the earliest cases of genocide in the 20th. century.

 

In 1998, German President Roman Herzog visited Namibia and met Herero leaders. Chief Munjuku Nguvauva demanded a public apology and compensation. Herzog expressed regret but stopped short of an apology. He pointed out that international law requiring reparation did not exist in 1907, but he undertook to take the Herero petition back to the German government.

 

On the 16th. August 2004, on the 100th, anniversary of the start of the genocide, a member of the German government, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany's Federal Minister for Economic Development and Cooperation, officially apologised and expressed grief about the genocide, declaring in a speech that:

 

"We Germans accept our historical and

moral responsibility and the guilt incurred

by Germans at that time.

 

She ruled out paying special compensation, but promised continued economic aid for Namibia which in 2004 amounted to $14M a year. This amount has been significantly increased since then, with the budget for the years 2016–17 allocating a sum total of €138M in monetary support payments.

 

The Trotha family travelled to Omaruru in October 2007 by invitation of the royal Herero chiefs and publicly apologised for the actions of their relative. Wolf-Thilo von Trotha said,

 

"We, the von Trotha family, are deeply ashamed

of the terrible events that took place 100 years

ago. Human rights were grossly abused that time."

 

Negotiations and Agreement

 

The Herero filed a lawsuit in the United States in 2001 demanding reparations from the German government and Deutsche Bank, which financed the German government and companies in Southern Africa.

 

With a complaint filed with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in January 2017, descendants of the Herero and Nama people sued Germany for damages in the United States. The plaintiffs sued under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 U.S. law often invoked in human rights cases. Their proposed class-action lawsuit sought unspecified sums for thousands of descendants of the victims, for the "incalculable damages" that were caused.

 

Germany seeks to rely on its state immunity as implemented in US law as the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, arguing that, as a sovereign nation, it cannot be sued in US courts in relation to its acts outside the United States. In March 2019, the judge dismissed the claims due to the exceptions to sovereign immunity being too narrow for the case.

 

In September 2020, the Second Circuit stated that the claimants did not prove that money used to buy property in New York could be traced back to wealth resulting from the seized property, and therefore the lawsuit could not overcome Germany's immunity. In June 2021, the Supreme Court declined to hear a petition to revive the case.

 

Germany, while admitting brutality in Namibia, at first refused to call it a "genocide", claiming that the term only became international law in 1945.

 

However, in July 2015, then foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier issued a political guideline stating that the massacre should be referred to as a "war crime and a genocide". Bundestag president Norbert Lammert wrote an article in Die Zeit that same month referring to the events as a genocide. These events paved the way for negotiations with Namibia.

 

In 2015, the German government began negotiations with Namibia over a possible apology, and by 2016, Germany committed itself to apologizing for the genocide, as well as to refer to the event as a genocide; but the actual declaration was postponed while negotiations stalled over questions of compensation.

 

On the 11th. August 2020, following negotiations over a potential compensation agreement between Germany and Namibia, President Hage Geingob of Namibia stated that the German government's offer was "not acceptable", while German envoy Ruprecht Polenz said:

 

"I am still optimistic that a

solution can be found."

 

On the 28th. May 2021, the German government announced that it was formally recognizing the atrocities committed as a genocide, following five years of negotiations. The declaration was made by foreign minister Heiko Maas, who also stated that Germany was asking Namibia and the descendants of the genocide victims for forgiveness.

 

In addition to recognizing the events as a genocide, Germany agreed to give as a "gesture of recognition of the immeasurable suffering" €1.1 billion in aid to the communities impacted by the genocide.

 

Following the announcement, the agreement needs to be ratified by both countries' parliaments, after which Germany will send its president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to officially apologize for the genocide. The nations agreed not to use the term "reparation" to describe the financial aid package.

 

The agreement was criticized by the chairman of the Namibian Genocide Association, Laidlaw Peringanda, who insisted that Germany should purchase their ancestral lands back from the descendants of the German settlers and return it to the Herero and Nama people.

 

The agreement was also criticized because negotiations were held solely between the German and Namibian governments, and did not include representatives of the Herero and Nama people.

 

Repatriation of the Skulls

 

Peter Katjavivi, a former Namibian ambassador to Germany, demanded in August 2008 that the skulls of Herero and Nama prisoners of the 1904–1908 uprising, which were taken to Germany for scientific research to claim the superiority of white Europeans over Africans, be returned to Namibia.

 

Katjavivi was reacting to a German television documentary which reported that its investigators had found more than 40 of these skulls at two German universities, among them probably the skull of a Nama chief who had died on Shark Island.

 

In September 2011 the skulls were returned to Namibia. In August 2018, Germany returned all of the remaining skulls and other human remains which were examined in Germany to scientifically promote white supremacy. This was the third such transfer, and shortly before it occurred, German Protestant bishop Petra Bosse-Huber stated:

 

"Today, we want to do what should have been

done many years ago – to give back to their

descendants the remains of people who

became victims of the first genocide of the

20th. century."

 

As part of the repatriation process, the German government announced on the 17th. May 2019 that it would return a stone symbol it took from Namibia in the 1900's.

 

The Genocide in the Media

 

-- A BBC documentary, 'Namibia – Genocide and the Second Reich' (2005), explores the Herero and Nama genocide and the circumstances surrounding it.

 

-- In the documentary '100 Years of Silence', filmmakers Halfdan Muurholm and Casper Erichsen portray a 23-year-old Herero woman, whose great-grandmother was raped by a German soldier. The documentary explores the past and the way Namibia deals with it now.

 

-- Mama Namibia, a historical novel by Mari Serebrov, provides two perspectives of the 1904 genocide in German South West Africa. The first is that of Jahohora, a 12-year-old Herero girl who survives on her own in the veld for two years after her family is killed by German soldiers. The second story is that of Kov, a Jewish doctor who volunteered to serve in the German military to prove his patriotism. As he witnesses the atrocities of the genocide, he rethinks his loyalty to the Fatherland.

 

-- Thomas Pynchon's novel 'V'. (1963) has a chapter that included recollections of the genocide; there are memories of events that took place in 1904 in various locations, including the Shark Island concentration camp.

 

-- Jackie Sibblies Drury's play, 'We Are Proud To Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia Between the Years 1884–1915', is about a group of actors developing a play about the Herero and Nama genocide.

Published in 2013 by the late Graham de Chastelain

I submitted 4 images to 7x7 magazine (a local monthly magazine about San Francisco) for a feature they were doing about NOPA, the neighborhood that i live in, and they chose to run 3 of them!! Very excited!

Published by W O Saul, Southbourne-on-Sea; printed in Germany.

Postally unused. I have two more: one postally unused and the other postmarked Westbourne, 1906.

Published by Nai. Design by Mevis and Van Deursen.

Also published in the Book: 101 Ways to Do More with Your Dog: Make Your Dog a Superdog with Sports, Games, Exercises, Tricks, Mental Challenges, Crafts, and Bonding by Kyra Sundance. See it on page 60.

 

Additional photos available at: www.FrankFennemaPhotography.com

A truck strategically parked outside 200 George Street building site

Grace Beverly Jones (b19 May 1948) is a Jamaican singer, songwriter, supermodel, record producer, and actress. Born in Jamaica, she moved when she was 13, along with her siblings, to live with her parents in Syracuse, New York. Jones began her modelling career in New York state, then in Paris, working for fashion houses such as Yves St. Laurent and Kenzo, and appearing on the covers of Elle and Vogue. She worked with photographers such as Jean-Paul Goude, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Hans Feurer, and became known for her distinctive androgynous appearance and bold features.

In 1977, Jones secured a record deal with Island Records, initially becoming a star of New York City's Studio 54-centered disco scene. In the early 1980s, she moved toward a new wave style that drew on reggae, funk, post-punk and pop music, frequently collaborating with both the graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude and the musical duo Sly & Robbie. Her most popular albums include Warm Leatherette (1980), Nightclubbing (1981), and Slave to the Rhythm (1985). She scored Top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart with "Pull Up to the Bumper", "I've Seen That Face Before", "Private Life", and "Slave to the Rhythm". In 1982, she released the music video collection A One Man Show, directed by Goude.

Jones appeared in some low-budget films in the US during the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1984, she made her first mainstream appearance as Zula in the fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sarah Douglas, and subsequently appeared in the 1985 James Bond movie A View to a Kill as May Day. In 1986, she played a vampire in Vamp, and acted in and contributed a song to the 1992 Eddie Murphy film Boomerang. She appeared alongside Tim Curry in the 2001 film Wolf Girl. For her work in Conan the Destroyer, A View to a Kill, and Vamp, she was nominated for Saturn Awards for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1999, Jones ranked 82nd on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll, and in 2008, she was honored with a Q Idol Award. Jones influenced the cross-dressing movement of the 1980s and has been an inspiration for artists including Annie Lennox, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Lorde, Róisín Murphy, Brazilian Girls, Nile Rodgers, Santigold, and Basement Jaxx. In December 2016, Billboard magazine ranked her as the 40th most successful dance artist of all time.[10]

1948–73: Early life, and modeling career

Grace Jones was born in 1948 (though most sources say 1952) in Spanish Town, Jamaica, the daughter of Marjorie (née Williams) and Robert W. Jones, who was a local politician and Apostolic clergyman The couple already had two children, and would go on to have four more.[19] Robert and Marjorie moved to the East Coast of the United States,[19] where Robert worked as an agricultural labourer until a spiritual experience during a failed suicide attempt inspired him to become a Pentecostal minister.[20] While they were in the US, they left their children with Marjorie's mother and her new husband, Peart.[21] Jones knew him as "Mas P" ('Master P') and later noted that she "absolutely hated him"; as a strict disciplinarian he regularly beat the children in his care, representing what Jones described as "serious abuse".[22] She was raised into the family's Pentecostal faith,[23] having to take part in prayer meetings and Bible readings every night.[24] She initially attended the Pentecostal All Saints School,[25] before being sent to a nearby public school.[26] As a child, shy Jones had only one schoolfriend and was teased by classmates for her "skinny frame", but she excelled at sports and found solace in the nature of Jamaica.[27]

"[My childhood] was all about the Bible and beatings. We were beaten for any little act of dissent, and hit harder the worse the disobedience. It formed me as a person, my choices, men I have been attracted to... It was a profoundly disciplined, militant upbringing, and so in my own way, I am very militant and disciplined. Even if that sometimes means being militantly naughty, and disciplined in the arts of subversion. ."

— Grace Jones, 2015.[28]

Marjorie and Robert eventually brought their children – including the 13 year old Grace – to live with them in the US, where they had settled in Lyncourt, Salina, New York, near Syracuse.[29][30] It was in the city that her father had established his own ministry, the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, in 1956.[31] Jones continued her schooling and after she graduated, enrolled at Onondaga Community College majoring in Spanish.[32][33] Jones began to rebel against her parents and their religion; she began wearing makeup, drinking alcohol, and visiting gay clubs with her brother.[34] At college, she also took a theatre class, with her drama teacher convincing her to join him on a summer stock tour in Philadelphia.[35][33] Arriving in the city, she decided to stay there, immersing herself in the Counterculture of the 1960s by living in hippie communes, earning money as a go-go dancer, and using LSD and other drugs.[36] She later praised the use of LSD as "a very important part of my emotional growth... The mental exercise was good for me".[37]

She moved back to New York at 18 and signed on as a model with Wilhelmina Modelling agency. She moved to Paris in 1970.[33][38] The Parisian fashion scene was receptive to Jones' unusual, androgynous, bold, dark-skinned appearance. Yves St. Laurent, Claude Montana, and Kenzo Takada hired her for runway modelling, and she appeared on the covers of Elle, Vogue, and Stern working with Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Hans Feurer.[39] Jones also modelled for Azzedine Alaia, and was frequently photographed promoting his line. While modelling in Paris, she shared an apartment with Jerry Hall and Jessica Lange. Hall and Jones frequented Le Sept, one of Paris's most popular gay clubs of the 1970s and '80s, and socialised with Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld.[40] In 1973, Jones appeared on the cover of a reissue of Billy Paul's 1970 album Ebony Woman.

1974–79: Transition to music, and early releases

Jones was signed by Island Records, who put her in the studio with disco record producer, Tom Moulton. Moulton worked at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, and Portfolio, was released in 1977. The album featured three songs from Broadway musicals, "Send in the Clowns" by Stephen Sondheim from A Little Night Music, "What I Did for Love" from A Chorus Line and "Tomorrow" from Annie. The second side of the album opens up with a seven-minute reinterpretation of Édith Piaf's "La Vie en rose" followed by three new recordings, two of which were co-written by Jones, "Sorry", and "That's the Trouble". The album finished with "I Need a Man", Jones' first club hit.[41] The artwork to the album was designed by Richard Bernstein, an artist for Interview.

In 1978, Jones and Moulton made Fame, an immediate follow-up to Portfolio, also recorded at Sigma Sound Studios. The album featured another reinterpretation of a French classic, "Autumn Leaves" by Jacques Prévert. The Canadian edition of the vinyl album included another French language track, "Comme un oiseau qui s'envole", which replaced "All on a Summers Night"; in most locations this song served as the B-side of the single "Do or Die". In the North American club scene, Fame was a hit album and the "Do or Die"/"Pride"/"Fame" side reached top 10 on both the US Hot Dance Club Play and Canadian Dance/Urban charts. The album was released on compact disc in the early 1990s, but soon went out of print. In 2011, it was released and remastered by Gold Legion, a record company that specialises in reissuing classic disco albums on CD.[42] Jones' live shows were highly sexualized and flamboyant, leading her to be called "Queen of the Gay Discos."[4]

Muse was the last of Jones' disco albums. The album features a re-recorded version "I'll Find My Way to You", which Jones released three years prior to Muse. Originally appearing in the 1976 Italian film, Colt 38 Special Squad in which Jones had a role as a club singer, Jones also recorded a song called "Again and Again" that was featured in the film. Both songs were produced by composer Stelvio Cipriani. Icelandic keyboardist Thor Baldursson arranged most of the album and also sang duet with Jones on the track "Suffer". Like the last two albums, the cover art is by Richard Bernstein. Like Fame, Muse was later released by Gold Legion.[43]

1980–85: Breakthrough, Nightclubbing, and acting

With anti-disco sentiment spreading, and with the aid of the Compass Point All Stars, Jones transitioned into new wave music with the 1980 release of Warm Leatherette. The album included covers of songs by The Normal ("Warm Leatherette"), The Pretenders ("Private Life"), Roxy Music ("Love Is the Drug"), Smokey Robinson ("The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game"), Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ("Breakdown") and Jacques Higelin ("Pars"). Sly Dunbar revealed that the title track was also the first to be recorded with Jones.[44][45] Tom Petty wrote the lyrics to "Breakdown", and he also wrote the third verse of Jones' reinterpretation.[46] The album included one song co-written by Jones, "A Rolling Stone". Originally, "Pull Up to the Bumper" was to be included on the album, but its R&B sound did not fit with the rest of the material.[47] By 1981, she had begun collaborating with photographer and graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude, with whom she also had a relationship.[48]

The 1981 release of Nightclubbing included Jones' covers of songs by Flash and the Pan ("Walking in the Rain"), Bill Withers ("Use Me"), Iggy Pop/David Bowie ("Nightclubbing") and Ástor Piazzolla ("I've Seen That Face Before"). Three songs were co-written by Jones: "Feel Up", "Art Groupie" and "Pull Up to the Bumper". Sting wrote "Demolition Man"; he later recorded it with The Police on the album Ghost in the Machine. "I've Done It Again" was written by Marianne Faithfull. The strong rhythm featured on Nightclubbing was produced by Compass Point All Stars, including Sly and Robbie, Wally Badarou, Mikey Chung, Uziah "Sticky" Thompson and Barry Reynolds. The album entered in the Top 5 in four countries, and became Jones' highest-ranking record on the US Billboard mainstream albums and R&B charts.

Nightclubbing claimed the number 1 slot on NME's Album of the Year list.[49] Slant Magazine listed the album at No. 40 on its list of Best Albums of the 1980s.[50] Nightclubbing is now widely considered Jones' best studio album.[51] The album's cover art is a painting of Jones by Jean-Paul Goude. Jones is presented as a man wearing an Armani suit jacket, with a cigarette in her mouth and a flattop haircut. While promoting the album, Jones slapped chat-show host Russell Harty live on air after he had turned to interview other guests, making Jones feel she was being ignored.[52]

Having already recorded two reggae-oriented albums under the production of Compass Point All Stars, Jones went to Nassau, Bahamas in 1982 and recorded Living My Life; the album resulted in Jones' final contribution to the Compass Point trilogy, with only one cover, Melvin Van Peebles's "The Apple Stretching". The rest were original songs; "Nipple to the Bottle" was co-written with Sly Dunbar, and, apart from "My Jamaican Guy", the other tracks were collaborations with Barry Reynolds. Despite receiving a limited single release, the title track was left off the album. Further session outtakes included "Man Around the House" (Jones, Reynolds) and a cover of "Ring of Fire", written by June Carter Cash and Merle Kilgore and popularized by Johnny Cash, both of which were included on the 1998 compilation Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions. The album's cover art resulted from another Jones/Goude collaboration; the artwork has been described as being as famous as the music on the record. It features Jones' disembodied head cut out from a photograph and pasted onto a white background. Jones' head is sharpened, giving her head and face an angular shape.A piece of plaster is pasted over her left eyebrow, and her forehead is covered with drops of sweat.

Jones' three albums under the production of the Compass Point All Stars resulted in Jones' One Man Show, a performance art/pop theatre presentation devised by Goude and Jones in which she also performed tracks from the albums Portfolio ("La Vie en rose"), Warm Leatherette, ("Private Life", "Warm Leatherette"), Nightclubbing ("Walking in the Rain", "Feel Up", "Demolition Man", "Pull Up to the Bumper" and "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)") and from Living My Life, "My Jamaican Guy" and the album's title track. Jones dressed in elaborate costumes and masks (in the opening sequence as a gorilla) and alongside a series of Grace Jones lookalikes. A video version, filmed live in London and New York City and completed with some studio footage, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Long-Form Music Video the following year.

After the release of Living My Life, Jones took on the role of Zula the Amazonian in Conan the Destroyer (1984) and was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 1985, Jones starred as May Day, henchman to main antagonist Max Zorin in the 14th James Bond film A View to a Kill; Jones was also nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. That same year, she was featured on the Arcadia song "Election Day". Jones was among the many stars to promote the Honda Scooter; other artists included Lou Reed, Adam Ant, and Miles Davis Jones also, with her boyfriend Dolph Lundgren posed nude for Playboy.

After Jones' success as a mainstream actress, she returned to the studio to work on Slave to the Rhythm, the last of her recordings for Island. Bruce Woolley, Simon Darlow, Stephen Lipson and Trevor Horn wrote the material, and it was produced by Horn and Lipson. It was a concept album that featured several interpretations of the title track. The project was originally intended for Frankie Goes to Hollywood as a follow-up to "Relax", but was given to Jones.All eight tracks on the album featured excerpts from a conversation with Jones, speaking about many aspects of her life. The interview was conducted by journalist Paul Morley. The album features voice-overs from actor Ian McShane reciting passages from Jean-Paul Goude's biography Jungle Fever. Slave to the Rhythm was successful in German-speaking countries and in the Netherlands, where it secured Top 10 placings. It reached number 12 on the UK Albums Chart in November 1985 and became the second-highest-ranking album released by Jones. Jones earned an MTV Video Music Award nomination for the title track's music video.

After her success with Slave to the Rhythm, Island released Island Life, Jones' first best-of compilation, which featured songs from most of her releases with Island (Portfolio, Fame, Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing, Living My Life and Slave to the Rhythm). American writer and journalist Glenn O'Brien wrote the essay for the inlay booklet. The compilation charted in the UK, New Zealand and the United States.The artwork on the cover of the compilation was of another Jones/Goude collaboration; it featured Jones' celestial body in a montage of separate images, following Goude's ideas on creating credible illusions with his cut-and-paint technique. The body position is anatomically impossible.

The artwork, a piece called "Nigger Arabesque" was originally published in the New York magazine in 1978, and was used as a backdrop for the music video of Jones' hit single "La Vie en rose". The artwork has been described as "one of pop culture's most famous photographs". The image was also parodied in Nicki Minaj's 2011 music video for "Stupid Hoe", in which Minaj mimicked the pose.

1986–89: Slave to the Rhythm, Island Life, further films, Jones teamed up with music producer Nile Rodgers of Chic, whom Jones had previously tried to work with during the disco era.[67] The album was recorded at Skyline Studios in New York and post-produced at Atlantic Studios and Sterling Sound. Inside Story was the first album Jones produced, which resulted in heated disputes with Rodgers. Musically, the album was more accessible than her previous albums with the Compass Point All Stars, and explored different styles of pop music, with undertones of jazz, gospel, and Caribbean sounds. All songs on the album were written by Jones and Bruce Woolley. Richard Bernstein teamed up with Jones again to provide the album's artwork. Inside Story made the top 40 in several European countries. The album was Jones' last entry to date on US Billboard 200 albums chart. The same year, Jones starred as Katrina, an Egyptian queen vampire in the vampire film Vamp. For her work in the film, Jones was awarded a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 1987, Jones appeared in two films, Straight to Hell, and Mary Lambert's Siesta, for which Jones was nominated for Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress. Bulletproof Heart was released in 1989, produced by Chris Stanley, who co-wrote, and co-produced the majority of the songs, and was featured as a guest vocalist on "Don't Cry Freedom". Robert Clivillés and David Cole of C+C Music Factory produced some tracks on the album.

1990–2004: Boomerang, soundtracks, and collaborations

In 1990, Jones appeared as herself in the documentary, Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol. 1992 saw Jones starring as Helen Strangé, in the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang, for which she also contributed the song "7 Day Weekend" to its soundtrack. Jones released two more soundtrack songs in 1992; "Evilmainya", recorded for the film Freddie as F.R.O.7, and "Let Joy and Innocence Prevail" for the film Toys. In 1994, she was due to release an electro album titled Black Marilyn with artwork featuring the singer as Marilyn Monroe. "Sex Drive" was released as the first single in September 1993, but due to unknown reasons the record was eventually shelved. The track "Volunteer", recorded during the same sessions, leaked in 2009.[68]

In 1996, Jones released "Love Bites", an up-tempo electronic track to promote the Sci-Fi Channel's Vampire Week, which consisted of a series of vampire-themed films aired on the channel in early November 1996. The track features Jones singing from the perspective of a vampire. The track was released as a non-label promo-only single. To this day, it has not been made commercially available.[69] In June 1998, she was scheduled to release an album entitled Force of Nature, on which she worked with trip hop musician Tricky.[70] The release of Force of Nature was cancelled due to a disagreement between the two, and only a white label 12" single featuring two dance mixes of "Hurricane" was issued at the time;[71] a slowed-down version of this song became the title track of her comeback album released ten years later while another unreleased track from the album, "Clandestine Affair" (recycling the chorus from her unreleased 1993 track "Volunteer"), appeared on a bootleg 12" in 2004.[72] Jones recorded the track "Storm" in 1998 for the movie The Avengers, and in 1999, appeared in an episode of the Beastmaster television series as the Umpatra Warrior.

The same year, Jones recorded "The Perfect Crime", an up-tempo song for Danish TV written by the composer duo Floppy M. aka Jacob Duus and Kåre Jacobsen. Jones was also ranked 82nd place on VH1's "100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll".[citation needed] In 2000, Jones collaborated with rapper Lil' Kim, appearing on the song "Revolution" from her album The Notorious K.I.M. In 2001, Jones starred in the made-for-television film, Wolf Girl (also known as Blood Moon), as an intersex circus performer named Christoph/Christine. In 2002, Jones joined Luciano Pavarotti on stage for his annual Pavarotti and Friends fundraiser concert to support the United Nations refugee agency's programs for Angolan refugees in Zambia. In November 2004, Jones sang "Slave to the Rhythm" at a tribute concert for record producer Trevor Horn at London's Wembley Arena

  

This is a look into a brochure that introduces a collection of 130 CDs, called "Musik in Deutschland 1950-2000", published by the "Deutscher Musikrat" two decades ago.

 

But who, may you well ask, is the "Deutscher Musikrat"? The name sounds uncannily Orwellian, as if it were a secretive government agency that dictates what kind of music should be made and heard in Germany. The reality is not quite that sinister. "Rat" doesn’t mean "rat". It is an NGO, they have a website and they have even answered my e-mail. But they do have the mysterious smell of a secret society. After 20 years I still don’t really know who they are and what they are up to.

 

I know only one thing: The CDs promoted here constitute a monument to German post-war music and I am proud to own the whole set. No other country has done that. It would take almost a week to listen to the 1750 pieces of music - 6 days and 17 hours non-stop. If these were vinyl records the set would comprise of more than 200 LPs. Every CD comes with a booklet of up to 32 pages with informative text, scores of scores, photos and almost all the lyrics. The booklets alone would be a valuable document for everybody interested in modernist culture. Reading them I learnt a lot not only about music, but also about poetry, literature, dance, theatre, film and other forms of art.

 

The curators of the collection were careful to present composers from both German states without bias and prejudice. Thanks to this you can hear many gems that would otherwise be forgotten and impossible to find, even in the age of the mouse click. Where else can you hear "Socialist Realism"? I knew examples of Socialist Realism in painting, sculpture and architecture but never heard Socialist Realism music before – but, hey, now I can listen to recitals of Stalinist propaganda as well as speeches of Lenin and Honnecker put into grandiose song arrangements.

 

Where else can you hear music from an electronic opera, written by the Chinese-born composer Boris Blacher in 1966? And where else can you enjoy a live recording of a hilarious Wolf Vostell performance of 1969?

 

This is all good news. Now for the snags.

 

It is always easy to complain about the selection on a music compilation. It goes without saying that not all 1750 pieces are good and there a hundreds that I don’t care much about, but let’s not dwell on this, because there are less forgivable problems:

 

Every booklet starts with an introduction that says that the curators had to do a "strict selection", but it does not disclose what their selection criteria were (secret society again!). May there be a clue in the title of the collection "Musik in Deutschland 1950-2000" perhaps? No! All criteria in that name are violated. Many of the featured musicians and composers are not German, some recordings were made in other countries and some works were created long before 1950. The most recent work is "Fälschung" by Orm Finnendahl - written in 2003 (but a great piece, so it’s fine with me)! Some tracks are not even music. At one point Oskar Pastior is reading his poems, one of the aesthetic nadirs of the set, if you ask me.

 

Could it be that the selection focuses on what was widely heard by the people of Germany after the 2nd World War? Wrong again! I am sure that 99% of Germans have never listened to any of the music in this collection. This is because it has a strong focus on what most people would call "classical music" (I personally would prefer to call it "music by modernist composers" or "art music" because much of it is not "classical" at all) which is enjoyed by only a small minority of music lovers. True, there is one box with jazz and one with pop music, but the jazz is mostly of the "artsy" kind (often not very different from the “classical” music of the same period) and the pop box is only an afterthought and not really part of the set (it is, for example, not mentioned in the brochure shown above). I have no problem with this, but I still don’t know what the selection criteria were.

 

The worst mistake in any music compilation would be to include a song more than once, particularly when strict selection criteria are claimed. But even this mistake has been made - twice: The "Fünf Neapolitanische Lieder" by Hans Werner Henze are presented twice, and so are 2 "Hölderin Fragments" by Wolfgang Rihm, although on different CDs and performed by different singers.

 

Even worse are the editing problems. The booklets are informative and well written, but look cheap. A terrible sans-serif typeface is used throughout and typos are not unheard of. Formatting is awful. The captions are printed onto the photos with disregard of the background and often impossible to decipher. It is obvious that the authors are experts, but no professional editor was involved. The beautiful line "it was evening all afternoon" by Wallace Stevens is clumsily translated as "Es war den Nachmittag über Abend" instead of the more accurate and elegant "Am ganzen Nachmittag war Abend", to give just one example of the many mistranslations.

 

The whole set is organised in a complex multi-layered system, which is explained at the back of each CD. It says that there are 19 boxes of CDs, structured in 6 categories and 26 sub-categories. That sounds simple. But the actual CDs are difficult to align with this system. At the same time there is another underlying structure: Every category (or sub-category?) is sub-divided into „Serie“ and „Portraits“. Don’t waste your precious time trying to understand the difference, because whatever the rationale behind this is, it brakes down with the box "Angewandte Musik", if not earlier. It is obvious that the concept of this project has changed several times during its short lifetime and there were multiple attempts to categorise the music - all failed. The names of the categories and the discs must have changed several times as well, and some CDs were announced but have never materialised (e.g. "Musizieren im Alltag") whereas others do exist but seem to never have been part of the plan (e.g. "Free Jazz" - appropriately, because free jazz abhors planning). The names of some CDs even change between the cover and the disc inside. A CD called "Solo & Klavier" contains a few songs with guitar (instead of piano).

 

It seems that the publishers were overwhelmed by their own complex system and the multiple layers of categories they tried to establish.

 

However, by far the worst problem with this collection is the marketing - how it was sold. When it all started at the beginning of the millennium the discs were sold one by one. I first bought one, to see if it is any good and then more and more. When I had a few dozen CDs they stopped selling them individually and you could only buy whole boxes, containing 5 to 10 discs each. At that time I had decided to collect the whole set, which meant that I had to start buying boxes with CDs that I already owned. That was annoying - but it got worse. In 2010 they stopped selling the boxes and you could only buy the whole set. I had already bought 14 of the 19 boxes at that stage.

 

So, with a heavy heart and after long hesitation, I bought the whole set in 2011 although at that time only a third of the CDs were still missing in my shelf. Shortly after that, the whole series was taken off the market and became unavailable in any form. I don’t regret the purchase, it’s a great thing to have, even in a time when CDs have become an obsolete format. Today some of the CDs are sold on the second hand market for more money than I paid for the entire set of 130 items, even if you include the money I wasted on the single discs and boxes.

 

Any reference to this comprehensive compilation has been deleted from the Musikrat’s website although this must have been one of the most impressive and interesting projects they have ever done. I cannot imagine how many hours of hard work went into this, but in the end it must have been a huge financial disaster for everybody involved. I’m sure they had a grandiose vision when it all started, with ideas aplenty, but the implementation lacked continuity, leadership and there was no demand. Although they finally managed to publish all 130 CDs it is, in hindsight, an excellent case study of an over-ambitious and failed endeavour. We can learn from this, not only about business and project management, but about human nature.

 

Some statistical analysis: The most extensively featured composer is Hans Werner Henze with 57 works, adding up to more than 5 hours playing time. Paul Dessau comes second with 50 pieces in the set, but they are mostly short (3½ minutes on average) so he comes only 7th when considering playing time (a bit less than 3 hours). Friedrich Schenker is second in terms of time (3½ hours of his music can be heard in the collection) and the Argentinian Mauricio Kagel comes third with 3 hours and 17 minutes. He and Wolfgang Rihm both have 36 pieces of music in the compilation.

 

Mr. Karlheinz Stockhausen, the most famous German post-war composer, is an also-run with only 10 works in the set. They add up to 2 hours, which is not much, if you compare him to less-known composers like Georg Katzer (2½ hours) and Friedrich Goldmann (3 hours). I can think of 2 reasons. One is probably the restrictive copyright protection of the Stockhausen œuvre (the same reason why Kraftwerk is conspicuously absent in the pop box). But I believe another one to be the determination of the curators to represent both German states equally, which led to an over-representation of the East-German music scene, simply because there was less of it. Just as Wartburg would be more dominant than Borgward in a book about the German post-war car industry that tries to represent both German states in a balanced way.

 

Having listened to the whole set several times, I am now able to draw wide-reaching, sweeping and judgemental conclusions about German post-war culture. Here are examples:

 

(1)

At first the differences between the cultures of capitalist West Germany and the East German one-party-state seem obvious. A superficial listening suggests that the East was being restricted by political diktat and a closed society, while the West was open for experimentation and inspiration from everywhere and everything. But after a while you realise that the reality was more complicated and on this compilation you find surprisingly daring works from the East as well as a fair share of conservative dullness from the West. Overall, I found it more interesting to note what the two states had in common. For example:

 

(2)

The old prejudice that German culture is heavy and humourless is, all in all, confirmed. It is difficult to find any light-hearted melody in this set. Admittedly, there is some humour, some of it by composers of non-Germanic provenance (Ligeti and Kagel), but this is clownish stuff that hasn’t stood the test of time and wasn't really funny in the first place.

 

(3)

More than in any other epoch, in post-war Germany composers felt the need to put their works into a political and sociocritical context – on both sides of the fence. Even creators of completely abstract instrumental compositions tried to express sophisticated views with their music, which is, most of the time, not obvious to the listener until he reads the booklet.

 

(4)

In the West as well as in the East two types of artists dominate: Leftist intellectuals and confessing Christians. And surprisingly it’s the Christians who are often more daring in their musical experiments. Even more surprisingly, Marxist views are as dominant among western composers as they are in the East. An opera about free trade, entrepreneurship and representative democracy would have been as taboo in 1960s Western Germany as it would have been in the East. I know why, but I stop now. I talk too much...

via John Currin (JC - Ex RNZN) - Google+ Public Posts ift.tt/1Gy9q92

 

New post (Construction begins on new Royal Navy warship) has been published on Naval, Military, and Marine Life

Posted on 8 Oct 2015 by Callum Bentley

The 90 metre OPV is based on a proven BAE Systems design, which is already in service with the Brazilian Navy and Royal Thai Navy.

Construction has begun on a new warship for the Royal Navy as the Minister of State for Defence Procurement, Philip Dunne MP cut the first steel in Glasgow this week.

HMS TRENT is the third of three River Class Batch 2 Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) designed and constructed by BAE Systems. Employees, as well as representatives of the Royal Navy and local community, joined the Minister as he switched on a plasma cutting machine in a formal ceremony in Govan.

Defence Minister, Philip Dunne, said: “These new ships will provide an important capability to the Royal Navy and our Armed Forces‎.They will perform vital tasks in defending the nation’s interests around the world.

“This investment forms part of over £160 billion in our 10 year Equipment Plan which is funded out of the newly protected Defence budget.

“Manufacture of these ships sustains over 800 quality engineering jobs here in Scotland, ensuring that the shipyards on the Clyde continue to sit at the heart of a thriving naval shipbuilding capability. They are paving the way for work to begin on our new T26 frigates next year.”

Mick Ord, managing director of BAE Systems Naval Ships, said: “It is a very proud moment for us to see the first steel for HMS TRENT moving through the production line, which means the entire class of ships is now under construction. This design of offshore patrol vessel builds on the Royal Navy’s existing River Class ships with variants already in service in Brazil and Thailand where they are making a huge impact delivering maritime security. These vessels are already proven to be highly capable and testament to the tremendous skill and dedication of employees on the programme.

“With investments in new technologies, cutting-edge processes, new ways of working and improved facilities we are transforming the way we design and build warships. This will enable us to deliver equipment of the highest quality at the lowest possible cost, helping to secure the long-term future of our highly skilled industry in the UK.”

HMS TRENT is the third of three River Class Batch 2 Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV)

The first vessel, HMS FORTH, is already taking shape in the ship build hall where pipes are being fitted and last month the heart of the ship, her engine, was installed. The second ship, HMS MEDWAY, will begin assembly alongside it by the end of this year.

The 90 metre OPV is based on a proven BAE Systems design, which is already in service with the Brazilian Navy and Royal Thai Navy. Engineers at BAE Systems have modified the design to meet the requirements of the Royal Navy in support of UK interests both at home and abroad. The OPVs will be globally deployable and capable of ocean patrol with a range of in excess of 5,000 nautical miles and a maximum speed of 24 knots.

The vessels will include a modified flight deck capable of operating the latest Merlin helicopters, larger stores and more accommodation for embarked troops. They will also be the first ships to be built with a BAE Systems designed operating system called Shared Infrastructure, which will be rolled out across the Royal Navy’s surface fleet over the next 10 years. The Shared Infrastructure hardware solution provides a smart, easily-updatable operating system for warships enabling all the systems needed to operate a ship to be loaded onto a single console.

The manufacturing contract for the three ships was announced in August 2014 and construction of first of class HMS FORTH began in October 2014. Second of class, HMS MEDWAY, began in June 2015. The first ship is due to be delivered to the Royal Navy in 2017.

– See more at: ift.tt/1LBnAhd

Posted by - David Arkwright

 

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My brothers / sisters, saw the tragedy of Muslims in Gaza because of the war of the Jews to them through a photo exhibition file Gaza through the site of Islam:

 

www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery/

  

Please publish in the forums and sites to see what the West overshadowed by its media

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إخواني / أخواتي ، شاهدوا مأساة المسلمين في غزة بسبب حرب اليهود عليهم من خلال معرض صور ملف غزة بموقع طريق الإسلام :

  

www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery/

   

يرجى نشره في المنتديات والمواقع الغربية لمشاهدة ما تحجبه عنهم وسائلهم الإعلامية

   

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Mes frères et soeurs, a vu la tragédie des musulmans dans la bande de Gaza en raison de la guerre des Juifs à travers une exposition de photos dossier de Gaza par l'intermédiaire du site de l'Islam:

www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery/

S'il vous plaît publier dans les forums et les sites à voir ce que l'Occident éclipsé par ses médias

  

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Meine Geschwister, sah die Tragödie der Muslime in Gaza wegen des Krieges der Juden, die ihnen durch eine Foto-Ausstellung Gaza-Datei über die Webseite des Islam: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery/

Sie veröffentlichen in den Foren und Websites zu sehen, was der Westen überschattet durch die Medien

  

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मेरे भाई / बहनों, उन्हें एक फोटो प्रदर्शनी के माध्यम से इस्लाम की साइट के माध्यम से गाजा फ़ाइल यहूदियों का युद्ध की वजह से गाजा में मुसलमानों की त्रासदी को देखा: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery/

कृपया मंचों और साइटों में क्या पश्चिम इसकी मीडिया द्वारा overshadowed देखने के लिए प्रकाशित

  

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Мои братья / сестры, увидел трагедию мусульман в Газе из-за войны евреев к ним через фотовыставка файл Газа через сайт Ислам: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery/

Просьба публиковать в форумах и сайтах, чтобы узнать, что Запад в тени ее средства массовой информации

  

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Mis hermanos, vio la tragedia de los musulmanes en Gaza a causa de la guerra de los Judios a ellos a través de una exposición de fotografías de archivo de Gaza a través del sitio del Islam: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery/

Por favor, publicar en los foros y sitios para ver lo que Occidente eclipsado por sus medios de comunicación

  

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Anh em của tôi / sisters, thấy thảm kịch của người Hồi giáo ở Gaza vì lý do chiến tranh của các Jews cho họ thông qua một triển lãm ảnh Gaza tập tin thông qua các trang web của Hồi giáo: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery/

Xin vui lòng xuất bản trong các diễn đàn và các trang web để xem những gì phương Tây overshadowed của các phương tiện truyền thông

  

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אזור האחים / אחיות, ראו את הטרגדיה של המוסלמים בעזה בגלל המלחמה של היהודים אליהם באמצעות קובץ תמונה התערוכה עזה באמצעות האתר של האיסלאם: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery/

אנא פרסם בפורום ואתרים לראות מה הגדה overshadowed התקשורת שלה

  

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Mina bröder / systrar, såg tragedin muslimer i Gaza på grund av kriget av judar till dem genom en fotoutställning fil Gaza genom webbplatsen för islam: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery

Vänligen publicera i forum och platser för att se vad Västbanken i skuggan av sin media

  

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Moja braća / sestre, vidio tragedija muslimana u Gazi zbog rata od Židova da ih kroz foto izložba slika Gaze kroz site islama: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery

Molimo vas da objavite na forume i web stranice da vidite što je Zapad zasjenjen svojim medijima

  

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Veljeni / sisaret näkivät tragedia muslimien Gazassa, koska sodan juutalaiset niiden kautta valokuvanäyttely tiedosto Gazan sivuston kautta islamin: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery

Ole hyvä ja julkaisee foorumeissa ja paikkojen nähdä mitä West varjoon joukkoviestimistä

  

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Saya brothers / sisters, melihat dari tragedi umat Islam di Gaza karena perang orang-orang Yahudi kepada mereka melalui pameran foto file Gaza melalui situs Islam: www.islamway.com/gaza/gallery

Harap publikasikan di forum dan situs untuk melihat apa yang Barat overshadowed oleh media

Published by Diário da Noite, Brazil 1946

I'm so excited I just had to share one of my photos has been published on the coupons for the 17th Annual Carolina Renaissance Festival in Huntersville, NC.

 

My photo is the lower left one of Serendipity (lady in Red blowing bubbles) and the little girl trying to catch them. Serendipity is from clan Tynker

 

You can see my original photo here www.flickr.com/photos/grantbrummett/3363299133/

 

Thanks so much Ron for letting me know these hit the streets, you can see Ron's wonderful work at www.flickr.com/photos/45019444@N07/

 

My image taken originally taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera and Canon EF 85mm F/1.2L II USM Lens.

Altagracia Nova

A-Nova Music

Saturday, Desember 3rd, 2016

"El Barrio" (NYC)

© 2016 LEROE24FOTOS.COM

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED,

BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.

Published by A Noite, Brazil 1934

A one-foot space at the bottom of the windbreak keeps snow and ice from piling up.

Note: this photo was published in an undated (Jan 3, 2011) Everyblock NYC zipcodes blog titled "10036."

 

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As I noted in this Flickr set a year ago, no New Yorker in his right mind goes to Times Square on New Year's Eve. Nobody from Manhattan, anyway -- you can never tell about those crazy people in the remote boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, or the Bronx (and we won't even try to imagine what those crazy folks in New Jersey might do). Actually, even some residents of Manhattan have experienced the New Year's Eve count-down once in their lives, if only so they can speak with some authority about the subject. In my case, it was back in 1969; and it was only because I had had a pleasant dinner at a fancy restaurant a couple blocks from Times Square, and had to walk to the subway when no taxis could be found. There I was, in the midst of it all ... and once was more than enough.

 

Why do New Yorkers do their best to stay away from Times Square on New Year's Eve? Well, have you ever looked at a TV report from Times Square in the midst of all that mayhem? There are a gazillion other people out there, jammed against each other, shoulder to shoulder — and they're all drunk (or at least they look that way), and they're all screaming at the top of their lungs. You can't just drive to a nearby corner and park your car, with a plan of getting back in your car and fleeing after you've seen what a crazy idea it was. And you can't take a taxi right to the middle of Times Square — at least, not after mid-afternoon on New Year's Eve. Even worse, there are no public bathrooms anywhere to be found, so you're in trouble if you drink too much beer ... except that the cops do their best, quite understandably, to make sure nobody in the Times Square area (which, on this special night, is broadly defined to cover the area from 34th Street to 59th Street, and from Sixth Avenue to Eighth Avenue) is drinking or doing anything that might look dangerous. Or carrying a backpack that might contain dangerous things.

 

Consequently, it often seems that most of the crowd has chosen to get roaring drunk before they arrive on the scene. All of which might be great fun if the weather is clear, and the temperature is somewhere above the freezing mark. But if it's 30 degrees or lower, and it's drizzling or raining or snowing, this is not a place where you want to spend six or eight hours standing around with two million of your best (drunken) friends...

 

Thus, it should not surprise you to hear that I was not in Times Square to watch the ball drop at midnight on New Year's Eve of 2010 (or, for that matter, any other year going back to 1969). However, I remembered that my visit to Times Square in the early afternoon of Dec 31, 2009 had been somewhat interesting, and since the weather forecasters were predicting mild, mostly-sunny skies this year, I thought it might be interesting to try it again.

 

I took the IRT subway down to Times Square, and then spent the next two hours wandering north up Broadway to about 49th Street, and then back toward 42nd St. again. Even at 1:30 PM, the streets were already crowded with families and tourists, and what seemed to be an even larger number of police. It also seemed like almost everyone was wearing a party hat, or a set of "2011" fake eyeglasses, or some other kind of celebratory costume or adornment. There were also gazillions of digital cameras, and an equal number of Blackberries and cellphones. I wonder how many millions and millions of digital images and video clips were shot during the course of the afternoon.

 

Perhaps the funniest sight during the afternoon was the frequent appearance of delivery guys wearing bright, colorful, and instantly recognizable Domino's Pizza uniforms, wandering through the crowds with large, insulated "thermal" bags that probably carried half a dozen pizzas. In a couple cases, they were peering anxiously at individuals at a specific street corner; my assumption was that someone had called Domino's from their cell phone, requesting delivery to that exact spot. But in other cases, it looked far more likely that the delivery guys were just wandering around, looking for hungry people that were probably willing to pay a premium price for a good hot slice of pizza ... or the whole darn pie.

 

Around 2:45 PM, I was wandering south on Broadway once again, but when I got as far as 44th Street, I could see that the cops had completely closed off the next two blocks, and that even the sidewalks were impassable. I knew that they were cordoning the crowd into fenced-in rectangular areas, and that (a) each person allowed into such a rectangular area was first searched by a cop for booze, weapons or other contraband, and (b) once inside the fenced-in area, you weren't allowed out unless you left for good.

 

As more people arrived, the cops kept moving northwards, filling up one rectangular area after another. The obvious strategy for me, then, was to turn around and head north -- toward the local IRT subway stop at Broadway and 50th Street. But I got no further than 46th Street before everything stopped, and I could make no further progress along the sidewalk, even though I had been hugging the sides of the buildings along the way to avoid the throngs everywhere else. Fortunately, I was only about 10 feet from the corner of Broadway and 46th; but it took a good, solid 15 minutes to actually reach the corner -- at which point I heard the cops yelling to the crowd that they were closing everything down, and that anyone who wanted to go elsewhere would have to take the "side street" (i.e., 46th Street) over to 8th Avenue, in order to navigate further northward.

 

There were more barricades at 8th Avenue and 46th Street, and the narrow passageways onto 8th Avenue itself were being closed down. I managed to squeeze through, got onto 8th Avenue, and then easily walked up to 50th Street. Back over to Broadway, and I could look down the avenue all the way to the tower on 42nd Street where the ball would drop later tonight. And turning around, I could look several blocks north up Broadway, and see that (a) they were all empty, and (b) the cops had cordoned them off, too. By now, it was about 3:15 PM, and I got the sense that it wouldn't be long before the fenced-in crowds would be all the way up to where I was, and then further north, perhaps all the way up to Central Park at 59th Street.

 

In any case, it was clearly time to go home. I uploaded the 800+ photos that I had taken during the afternoon, enjoyed a delicious New Year's Eve dinner at home, and then settled down to watch the revelry on television as the countdown came to an end. As I noted at the end of last year's Flickr set of Times Square images, the TV coverage was obviously far more extensive than what I could accomplish with just one DSLR camera; and it was also infinitely more sophisticated, with high-end TV cameras located on strategic vantage points all around the square. On the other hand, the TV images appear, and then disappear, often leaving no lasting impression. By contrast, these still images will hopefully be interesting to look at months, if not years, from now. For better or worse, they'll be here whenever you'd like to see them...

 

Note: this photo was published in a Jan 5, 2010 blog titled "Here's to 2010, the Year of the Job." And it was published in a Feb 12, 2010 blog titled "Four Reasons Why Google Buzz is Doomed." It was also published in a May 27, 2010 blog titled "Short Circuit: is being connected burning you out?" And it was published in an undated (mid-Nov 2010) Digital Camera Super Shop blog, with the same title and detailed notes as what I had written on this Flickr page.

 

Moving into 2011, the photo was published in a Jan 6, 2011 blog titled "5 Most Popular Really Natural Posts of 2010." It was also published in a Feb 16, 2011 blog titled "Mobile sites vs. mobile queries."

 

Moving into 2012, the photo was published in a Jan 24, 2012 blog titled "EL WI-FI, FUTURO ESCUDERO DE INTERNET EN EL MÓVIL."

 

Moving into 2013, the photo was published in a Jan 18, 2013 blog titled "WYOD (wear your own device): “Get Smart” meets “Mr. Gadget”."

 

Moving into 2014, the photo was published in an undated (mid-Sep 2014) Australian blog titled "Joggers: beware of SODs syndrome."

 

******************************************

 

New Yorkers will tell you that nobody in his or her right mind goes to Times Square on New Year's Eve. Well, anyway, nobody from Manhattan -- you can never tell what those crazy folks in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, or the Bronx might do (and we won't even try to imagine what those crazy folks in New Jersey might do). Actually, even residents of Manhattan have been known to experience the New Year's Eve count-down once in their lives, just so they can tell everyone else that they know what they're talking about. In my case, I think it was back in 1969; at this point, I can't even remember for sure which year it was ...

 

Why do New Yorkers do their best to stay away from Times Square on New Year's Eve? Well, have you ever looked at the television screen in the midst of all that mayhem? There are a gazillion other people out there, jammed against each other, shoulder to shoulder — and they're all drunk, and they're all screaming at the top of their lungs. You can't just drive to a nearby corner and park your car, with a plan of getting back in your car and fleeing after you've seen what a crazy idea it was. And you can't take a taxi right to the middle of Times Square — at least, not after mid-afternoon on New Year's Eve. Even worse, there are no public bathrooms anywhere to be found, so you're in trouble if you drink too much beer ... except that the cops do their best, quite understandably, to make sure nobody in the Times Square area (which is broadly defined to cover an area of several square blocks) is drinking or doing anything that might look dangerous.

 

Consequently, it often seems that most of the crowd has chosen to get roaring drunk before they arrive on the scene. All of which might be great fun if the weather is clear, and the temperature is somewhere above the freezing mark. But if it's 30 degrees or lower, and it's drizzling or raining or snowing, this is not a place where you want to spend six or eight hours standing around with two million of your best (drunken) friends...

 

Thus, it should not surprise you to hear that I was not in Times Square to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve of 2009 (or, for that matter, any other year going back to 1969). However, I had a business meeting in mid-town Manhattan, in the late morning of Dec 31st; and on the chance that something interesting might be going on, I brought my camera with me. To reach my meeting, I took a subway to Times Square, and it was snowing heavily when I came out of the station; thus, I was hoping for some dramatic scenery when my meeting ended and I had a little free time before heading back uptown to my office.

 

Alas, the snow had pretty much been replaced by a combination of drizzle and occasional raindrops when I finished my meeting and walked over to Times Square. Hence you won't see any dramatic blizzard-like shots in this Flickr set; no views of frozen revelers with zillions of snowflakes falling all around them. But there were some interesting people wandering around, and it was interesting to see how many foreign tourists had arrived to spend all afternoon, all evening, and potentially all night in what has become the most well-known site of New Year's celebrations in the U.S., if not the world. It was also interesting to see that the cleaning crews were already beginning to assemble, and that other workers were dragging along large bundles of balloons, hats, and other novelties to be distributed to the crowds later on...

 

... and later on, after a very pleasant dinner in Greenwich Village with several family members, I ended up back at home, watching the revelry on television as the countdown came to an end. The TV coverage was obviously far more extensive than what I could accomplish with just one DSLR camera; and it was also infinitely more sophisticated, with high-end TV cameras located on strategic vantage points all around the square. On the other hand, the TV images appear, and then disappear, often leaving no lasting impression. By contrast, these still images will hopefully be interesting to look at months, if not years, from now. For better or worse, they'll be here whenever you'd like to see them...

Published by O Globo, Brazil 1937-1952

An alert friend/contact V.I.D.S sent me this, this morning!

 

The total circulation of the magazine includes 7.4 million copies being shipped to members' homes and 600,000 available in Sam's Club locations nationwide.

Published by Diário de Noite, Brazil 194

Some pictures of mines are published in Jean-Paul Delahaye's newest book.

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