Monday, February 28, 2011

Branch Davidian Siege in Waco, Texas Mount_Carmel

U.S. Department of Justice Washington, D.C. 20530 Evaluation of the Handling of the Branch Davidian Stand-off in Mount_Carmel, Waco, Texas February 28 to April 19, 1993 Edward S.G. Dennis, Jr. October 8, 1993 Redacted Version.

INTRODUCTION

This is a critical retrospective evaluation of the activities of the United States Department of Justice ("Department") and the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") during the fifty-one day stand-off at the Branch Davidians' Mt. Carmel compound near Waco, Texas which ended on April 19, 1993 when fire consumed the compound, killing David Koresh and most of his followers. To make this evaluation, I have reviewed the procedures followed by the Department and the FBI, giving particular attention to the means employed, the alternatives considered and the decisions made in attempting to resolve the stand-off.

I have not been called upon to conduct a de novo factual inquiry. A comprehensive factual report is being prepared by the Department and the FBI. I have primarily relied upon the record gathered by the Department as the basis for the conclusions in this Report, supplemented by a number of follow-up interviews. However, I am satisfied that the factual inquiry by the Department was conducted in a thorough and objective manner.

Prior to my appointment, the Department had completed over 800 field interviews and gathered pertinent documentation. They continued to gather documents and conduct interviews thereafter. I have been afforded access to documents gathered in that effort and to the reports of interviews conducted for the factual investigation. In addition, since my appointment I participated in a number of Department interviews. I have also conducted independent interviews of some witnesses. The scope of this Report is confined to the activities of the Department and the FBI.

I have not been asked to evaluate and I make no judgments about the activities of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ("ATF") leading up to the February 28, 1993 gun battle at Mount Carmel. I have been assisted in my investigation and writing of this Report by Ms. Suzan E. DeBusk, Esq. whose invaluable contribution, I gratefully acknowledge.

Branch Davidian Siege in Waco, TexasBranch Davidian Siege in Waco, Texas

This file is a work of a solider or employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the file is in the public domain.

Generally speaking, works created by U.S. Government employees are not eligible for copyright protection in the United States. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF from the U.S. Copyright Office.

From Branch Davidian investigator shared FBI photos with Carolmooredc


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

After reviewing the stand-off at Waco, including the progress of the negotiations and the conception, approval and implementation of the tear gas plan on April 19, 1993, this Report concludes as follows.

The fire on April 19, 1993 was deliberately set by persons inside the compound and was not started by the FBI's tear gas insertion operations. It is not certain, however, whether a substantial number of the persons who died in the compound on April 19 remained inside voluntarily, were being held in the compound against their will or were shot in order to prevent their escape from the fire. Preliminary medical reports are that a substantial number of individuals had died of gunshot wounds. Among those shot were young children. Koresh's body was found with a gunshot wound to the forehead. The FBI did not fire on the compound during the tear gas operation, although shots were fired at the FBI from the compound. The FBI did not fire on the compound at any time during the fifty-one day stand-off.

The evidence forecasting David Koresh's intention to orchestrate a mass suicide was contradictory. Koresh and his followers repeatedly assured the negotiators that they did not intend to commit suicide. On several occasions agents were told that suicide was against the Davidians' religious beliefs. However, one released member said there was a suicide plan. Other released members denied there was a suicide plan. In any event, the risk of suicide was taken into account during the negotiations and in the development of the gas plan.

The FBI developed a coherent negotiating strategy to talk the Davidians out. However, the negotiators had strong objections to pressure tactics they felt were counterproductive. The use of pressure tactics immediately after Koresh sent out Davidians from the compound may have undermined the negotiators' credibility and blunted their efforts to gain the Davidians' trust and to discredit Koresh in the eyes of his followers. Nevertheless, tactical actions designed to increase the safety margin for agents were appropriately given priority over negotiating considerations. I conclude that the events of April 19 were the result of David Koresh's determined efforts to choreograph his own death and the deaths of his followers in a confrontation with federal authorities to fulfill Koresh's apocalyptic prophesy.

The deaths of Koresh, his followers and their children on April 19th were not the result of a flaw in the gas plan or the negotiation strategy. The FBI used many qualified experts, including its own FBI behavioral experts to evaluate Koresh. Their assessments were thorough and many proved quite accurate.

TEXT CREDIT: www.justice.gov

Sunday, February 27, 2011

31st Academy Awards (Oscars) 1959

Crowd lining street under the marquee of the Pantages Theater at the 31st Academy Awards in 1959.

Published caption: BIG NIGHT -- Crowd stands outside the RKO Pantages Theater in Hollywood as stars arrive for 31st Academy Awards presentation show.

Best Picture

* Arthur Freed - Gigi - Winner
* Jack L. Warner - Aunt Mame
* Lawrence Weingarten - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
* Stanley Kramer - The Defiant Ones
* Harold Hecht - Separate Tables

Actor

* David Niven - Separate Tables - Winner
* Paul Newman - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
* Tony Curtis - The Defiant Ones
* Sidney Poitier - The Defiant Ones
* Spencer Tracy - The Old Man and the Sea

Actress

* Susan Hayward - I Want to Live! - Winner
* Rosalind Russell - Mame aunt
* Elizabeth Taylor - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
* Deborah Kerr - Separate Tables
* Shirley MacLaine - Some Came Running

31st Academy Awards (Oscars) 1959Publication: Los Angeles Times. Publication date: Tuesday, April 7, 1959.

This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 with a copyright notice, and its copyright was not renewed.

Note about non-renewal of copyright.

Best Supporting Actor

* Burl Ives - White Canyon - Winner
* Lee J. Cobb - The Brothers Karamazov
* Theodore Bikel - The Defiant Ones
* Arthur Kennedy - Some Came Running
* Gig Young - Prymus

Best Supporting Actress

* Wendy Hiller - Separate Tables - Winner
* Peggy Cass - Aunt Mame
* Cara Williams - The Defiant Ones
* Maureen Stapleton - Lonelyhearts
* Martha Hyer - Some Came Running

Best Director

* Vincente Minnelli - Gigi - Winner
* Richard Brooks - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
* Stanley Kramer - The Defiant Ones
* Robert Wise - I Want to Live!
* Mark Robson - the Sixth Happiness

Original Screenplay

* Nedrick Young , Harold Jacob Smith - The Defiant Ones - Winner
* Paddy Chayefsky - The Goddess
* Melville Shavelson , Jack Rose - Houseboat
* William Bowers , James Edward Grant - One against all
* Fay Kanin , Michael Kanin - Prymus

Best Adapted Screenplay

* Alan Jay Lerner - Gigi - Winner
* Richard Brooks , James Poe - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
* Alec Guinness - The Horse's Mouth
* Nelson Gidding , Don Mankiewicz - I Want to Live!
* Terence Rattigan , John Gay - Separate Tables

Cinematography (black and white)

* Sam Leavitt - The Defiant Ones - Winner
* Daniel L. Fappani - Desire Under the Elms
* Lionel Lindon - I Want to Live!
* Charles Lang - Separate Tables
* Joseph MacDonald - Young Lions

Cinematography (color)

* Joseph Ruttenberg - Gigi - Winner
* Harry Stradling Sr. - Aunt Mame
* William H. Daniels - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
* James Wong Howe - The Old Man and the Sea
* Leon Shamroy - South Pacific

Set design and interior decorations

* William A. Horning , Preston Ames , Henry Grace , Keogh Gleason - Gigi - Winner
* Malcolm C. Bert , George James Hopkins - Aunt Mame
* Cary Odell , Louis Diag - Black magic in Manhattan
* Lyle R. Wheeler , John DeCuir , Walter M. Scott , Paul S. Fox - A smile
* Hal Pereira , Henry Bumstead , Sam Comer , Frank R. McKelvy - Vertigo

Costumes

* Cecil Beaton - Gigi - Winner
* Jean Louis - Black magic in Manhattan
* Ralph Jester , Edith Head , John Jensen - Corsair
* Charles Le Maire , Mary Wills - A smile
* Walter Plunkett - Some Came Running

The sound

* Fred Hynes (Todd-AO Sound Department) - South Pacific - Winner
* Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD) - I Want to Live!
* Leslie I. Carey (Universal-International SSD) - The time of life and time of death
* George Dutton (Paramount SSD) - Vertigo
* Carlton W. Faulkner (20th Century-Fox SSD) - Young Lions

Assembly

* Adrienne Fazan - Gigi - Winner
* William H. Ziegler - Aunt Mame
* William A. Lyon , Al Clark - Cowboy
* Frederic Knudtson - The Defiant Ones
* William Hornbeck - I Want to Live!

Special Effects

* Tom Howard - Tom Thumb
* A. Arnold Gillespie , Harold Humbrock - Torpedo gone! - Winner

Song from a Movie

* "Gigi" - Gigi - Music by Frederick Loewe , lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner - Winner
* "A Certain Smile - A smile - Music by Sammy Fain , lyrics: Paul Francis Webster
* "Almost in Your Arms" - Houseboat - Jay Livingston , Ray Evans
* "A Very Precious Love" - Marjorie Morningstar - Music by Sammy Fain , lyrics: Paul Francis Webster
* "To Love and Be Loved" - Some Came Running - Music by Jimmy Van Heusen , lyrics: Sammy Cahn

Film music in drama / comedy

* Dimitri Tiomkin - The Old Man and the Sea - Winner
* Jerome Moross - White Canyon
* David Raksin - Separate Tables
* Oliver Wallace - White wilderness
* Hugo Friedhofer - Young Lions

Film music in the musical

* Andre Previn - Gigi - Winner
* Yuri Faier , Gennadi Rozhdestvensky - The Bolshoi Ballet
* Ray Heindorf - What Lola wants
* Lionel Newman - Mardi Gras
* Alfred Newman , Ken Darby - South Pacific

Short animated film

* John W. Burton - Knightly Knight Bugs - Winner

Short Film Board of Canada

* Walt Disney - Grand Canyon

Short documentary film

* Ben Sharpsteen - Ama Girls

Best Documentary

* Ben Sharpsteen - White Wilderness

Saturday, February 26, 2011

UFO From CIA Files



CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90 A Die-Hard Issue, Historical Document by Gerald K. Haines who is the National Reconnaissance Office historian.

An extraordinary 95 percent of all Americans have at least heard or read something about Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), and 57 percent believe they are real. Former US Presidents Carter and Reagan claim to have seen a UFO. UFOlogists--a neologism for UFO buffs--and private UFO organizations are found throughout the United States. Many are convinced that the US Government, and particularly CIA, are engaged in a massive conspiracy and coverup of the issue. The idea that CIA has secretly concealed its research into UFOs has been a major theme of UFO buffs since the modern UFO phenomena emerged in the late 1940s.

In late 1993, after being pressured by UFOlogists for the release of additional CIA information on UFOs, DCI R. James Woolsey ordered another review of all Agency files on UFOs. Using CIA records compiled from that review, this study traces CIA interest and involvement in the UFO controversy from the late 1940s to 1990. It chronologically examines the Agency's efforts to solve the mystery of UFOs, its programs that had an impact on UFO sightings, and its attempts to conceal CIA involvement in the entire UFO issue. What emerges from this examination is that, while Agency concern over UFOs was substantial until the early 1950s, CIA has since paid only limited and peripheral attention to the phenomena.

UFO From CIA FilesPassoria New Jersey, July 31, 1952.

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The emergence in 1947 of the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union also saw the first wave of UFO sightings. The first report of a "flying saucer" over the United States came on 24 June 1947, when Kenneth Arnold, a private pilot and reputable businessman, while looking for a downed plane sighted nine disk-shaped objects near Mt. Rainier, Washington, traveling at an estimated speed of over 1,000 mph. Arnold's report was followed by a flood of additional sightings, including reports from military and civilian pilots and air traffic controllers all over the United States. In 1948, Air Force Gen. Nathan Twining, head of the Air Technical Service Command, established Project SIGN (initially named Project SAUCER) to collect, collate, evaluate, and distribute within the government all information relating to such sightings, on the premise that UFOs might be real and of national security concern.

The Technical Intelligence Division of the Air Material Command (AMC) at Wright Field (later Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) in Dayton, Ohio, assumed control of Project SIGN and began its work on 23 January 1948. Although at first fearful that the objects might be Soviet secret weapons, the Air Force soon concluded that UFOs were real but easily explained and not extraordinary. The Air Force report found that almost all sightings stemmed from one or more of three causes: mass hysteria and hallucination, hoax, or misinterpretation of known objects. Nevertheless, the report recommended continued military intelligence control over the investigation of all sightings and did not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial phenomena

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Read Across America steps of the New York Public Library

A large display filled with Dr. Seuss books on the steps of the New York Public Library for Target's Read Across America launch event, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011. The celebration honored Dr. Seuss' birthday, March 2,1904, and promoted Target's free in store reading events that will take place from 9 to 11 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011.

As part of the festivities, families will be able to enjoy Dr. Seuss classics including The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham and I Can Read with My Eyes Shut. The in-store events will include a Dr. Seuss-inspired reading nook, readings by Target team members and giveaways. Every child who attends will also receive a reusable bag filled with Dr. Seuss reading activities, a pack of crayons and snacks.

To kick off the program and build excitement around the free in-store events, Target will unveil a 26-ft tall "READ" installation on the steps of the New York Public Library. Following the opening ceremony, several celebrities will join Target for reading activities throughout the morning, and at the end of the event, Target will donate 25,000 Dr. Seuss books to New York schools, thanks in part to a book grant from Random House Children's Books.

Lily Eskelsen, Vice President, National Education Association. "Through our partnership with Target, we are bringing reading to life for children across the country and celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday in a fun, interactive way."





About Target

Minneapolis-based Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) serves customers at 1,750 stores in 49 states nationwide and at Target.com. In addition, the company operates a credit card segment that offers branded proprietary credit card products. Since 1946, Target has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs; today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week.

About The National Education Association

The National Education Association is the nation's largest professional employee organization, representing 3.2 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators and students preparing to become teachers.

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If These image is subject to copyright in your jurisdiction, i (sookietex) the copyright holder have irrevocably released all rights to it, allowing it to be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited in any way by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, with or without attribution of the author, as if in the public domain.

RELATED: New York Public Library Lions Patience and Fortitude

Oliver Cromwell

It has been said that for Oliver's boyhood there is "nothing but unlimited conjecture and most dubious legend ;" and Carlyle tells us that the boy "went through the universal destinies which conduct all men from childhood to youth, in a way not particularized by an authentic record." But there is one authentic record which even Carlyle's careful search did not secure. In the parish book which records the baptism of Oliver is also a notice of his having been subjected to some sort of ecclesiastical discipline at the age of seventeen, for an offense which he had committed. What the offense was is not indicated, but it probably was connected in some way with the church or its services. The date of the record is a little — perhaps a year — before the time when 41

Laud was made Archdeacon of Huntingdon, his first promotion; and it is not unlikely, trained as Oliver had been by his parents and by his schoolmaster, Dr. Beard, a Low Churchman, that he manifested some dislike of changes which he noticed in the manner of conducting the services, or in the chancel arrangements of the church.

Perhaps Oliver had not an appreciating eye for the new ecclesiastical garments which were then coming into fashion, or perhaps he did not like to see the communion table to which his mother had become accustomed changed and made into an altar; and, boy-like, was a little imprudent in speech or actions. We do not know, and we never shall know, what the trouble was, or what the punishment was; but the record stands, and has stood for nearly three hundred years, on the parish book, telling that Oliver had done something wrong; and as this is the only indication of the kind connected with his life, the only proof adverse to his good character, it can do his memory no special harm to mention it here.

Oliver CromwellOliver Cromwell, After the original by Samuel Cooper (died 1672).


Title: Oliver Cromwell. Author: Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Publisher: Longmans, Green, and co., 1901. Original from: the University of Michigan. Digitized: Oct 4, 2007. Length: 319 pages. Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Historical Great Britain History / Europe / Great Britain.

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, where Works published prior to 1978 were copyright protected for a maximum of 75 years. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF. Works published before 1923, in this case 1901, are now in the public domain.

This image is also in the public domain in countries that figure copyright from the date of death of the artist (post mortem auctoris), in this case Samuel Cooper (died 1672). , and that most commonly runs for a period of 50 to 70 years from the last day of that year.

Oliver was born in Huntingdon, a small hamlet about fifteen miles from Cambridge, on the twenty-fifth of April, 1599. The house in which he spent his early days is still standing, but it has been much changed. His family, at the time of his birth, was not an obscure one. His father and three of his uncles had sat in the Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth. A royalist uncle, Oliver's godfather, who lived in the great, and even then, historical house, called Hinchinbrook, only half a mile from Oliver's home, was so prominent a man that King James nearly ruined him, financially, by his visits. The Hinchinbrook mansion still remains, and its external appearance is now much as it was three hundred years ago.

Besides the uncle, Sir Oliver, the boy had many relatives who were prominent in English society. One of his aunts was Mrs. Hampden, the mother of John Hampden, who was a great man, and at one period of his life the most talked of, and the most revered, of all the men in England. The social position, then, of Oliver's family was that of the English gentry, between the nobility and the yeomanry; his relations were people of property, education and good breeding. But "better than all social rank," Oliver's father "is understood to have been a wise, devout, steadfast and worthy man; and to have lived a modest and manful life." Even in "Cromwelliana," we read that Mr. Robert Cromwell was " a gentleman who went no less in esteem and reputation than any of his ancestors for his personal worth, until his unfortunate production of his son and heir;" and of Oliver's mother it is only necessary here to say that she imparted to her son some of her own good qualities, that she deeply loved her son, and that Oliver tenderly watched over her from the time when she became a widow in 1617, till, in 1654, she died in Whitehall Palace at the age of ninety-four.

His parents were religious after the Puritan type, and from them he doubtless first learned that Bible language which clung to him through life, and which in his use of it was not cant, but the simplest and most natural form of speech. Oliver received his home-training at a time when a Puritan was what the name indicates; when the name was one of reproach; when it suggested persecution, and when there was no advantage to be gained in being a hypocrite under it. There were but few, if any, hypocritical Puritans before the time of the Long Parliament, forty-one years after he was born; there were many of them when Puritanism became a power in the government, and a title to favor and rewards.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The First Flag Raising on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima

Photo #: NH 104150 Iwo Jima Operation, 1945

"The First Flag Raising on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima", 23 February 1945
Marines of the 28th Regiment, Fifth Marine Division, hoist the U.S. flag on a piece of pipe, at about 1020 Hrs. on 23 February 1945, after they had captured the summit of Mount Suribachi. This was some seventeen minutes before the famous flag-raising immortalized by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.

Holding the flagpole are Sergeant H.O. Hansen, Platoon Sergeant E.I. Thomas, and First Lieutenant H.G. Schrier. In the foreground Private First Class J.R. Michaels stands guard with an M-1 Carbine. Corporal C.W. Lindberg is behind him. (details from Morison: Vol. XIV, frontispiece and page 61)
.
Taken by Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery, USMC, staff photographer for "Leatherneck" magazine.

The original photograph came from the illustrations package for Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison's "History of United States Naval Operations in World War II", volume XIV: "Victory in the Pacific" (frontispiece).

Official U.S. Marine Corps Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Muammar al-Gaddafi (Muammar al-Qaddafi)

Muammar al-Qaddafi Muammar al-Gaddafi 090202-N-WR307-534.

Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan chief of state, gives his first speech as Chairperson of the African Union in the Plenary Hall of the United Nations building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during the 12th African Union Summit Feb. 2, 2009. The assembly elected Qaddafi to replace Kikwete as chair of the organization. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jesse B. Awalt/Released)

Photographer's Name: MC2 Jesse AwaltLocation: Addis Ababa. Date Shot: 2/2/2009Date Posted: 2/13/2009VIRIN: 090202-N-WR307-53.

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This file is a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the file is in the public domain.

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Gaddafi was born in a Bedouin family near Sirt. As a teenager, Gaddafi was an admirer of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Arab socialist and nationalist ideology. Gaddafi took part in anti-Israel demonstrations during the 1956 Suez Crisis.

He began his first plan to overthrow the monarchy while in military college. He received further military training in Hellenic Military Academy in Athens, Greece and the United Kingdom.

TEXT RESOURCE: Muammar al-Gaddafi

Monday, February 21, 2011

Fallout Shelter Sign

The fallout shelter sign was introduced by DOD in December 1961 to indicate Federally-approved shelter space. The design was perfected by Mr. R.W. Blakeley.

As the 1960s wore on, close to a million signs would be affixed to buildings and in hallways and lobbies around the country.

President Kennedy concluded by proposing “a nationwide long-range program of identifying present fallout shelter capacity and providing shelter in new and existing structures.”

To accomplish these goals, Kennedy issued Executive Order 10952 on July 20, 1961, which divided the Office of Civil Defense and Mobilization into two new organizations: the Office of Emergency Planning (OEP) and the Office of Civil Defense. OEP was part of the President’s Executive Office and tasked with advising and assisting the President in determining policy for all nonmilitary emergency preparedness, including civil defense. OCD was part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and was tasked with overseeing the nation’s civil defense program. The responsibility for carrying out the fallout shelter program was among the program operations assigned to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

The President emphasized the importance of fallout shelters as a means to save lives. The goal was to provide maximum protection through cost effective means by utilizing existing buildings.

He stressed that identifying and stocking existing shelters with food and medicine should be made a priority. Congress ultimately approved more than $200 million that Kennedy asked for the project.

With the appropriated funds, OCD began a nationwide survey of all existing shelters.121 In order to be designated a public shelter, a facility had to have enough space for at least 50 people, include one cubic foot of storage space per person, and have a radiation protection factor of at least 100. The materials division of DOD, called the Defense Supply Agency, furnished shelter supplies to local governments, which were then responsible for stocking all shelters in their regions. By 1963, 104 million individual shelter spaces had been identified and of those 47 million had been licensed, 46 million marked, and 9 million individual spaces had been stocked with supplies.

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If These image is subject to copyright in your jurisdiction, i (sookietex) the copyright holder have irrevocably released all rights to it,

allowing it to be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited in any way by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, with or without attribution of the author, as if in the public domain.

FACT SHEET (Hand written above the title)

NATIONAL FALLOUT SHELTER SIGN

The National Fallout Shelter Sign will be a familiar sight all over the United States next year. It will mark buildings and other facilities as areas where 50 or more persons can be sheltered from radioactive fallout resulting from a nuclear attack.

The fallout sign will be used only to mark Federally approved buildings surveyed by architect-engineer firms under contract to the Department of Defense.

In awarding the contract for design of the sign to graphic arts studios it was designated the services of a psychologist be obtained to recommend a visual symbol that could be easily identified and remembered. The sign had to meet the psychological requirements of simplicity, easy identification, retention, and arresting color combination.

It had to be simple enough to be easily identified by children, non-English speaking persons or others who may not be able to read. The color combination, yellow and black, is considered as the most easily identified attention getter by psychologists in the graphic arts industry. The sign can be seen and recognized at distances up to 200 feet.

The shelter symbol on the sign is a black circle set against a yellow rectangular background. Inside the circle, three yellow triangles are arranged in geometric pattern with apex of the triangle pointing down.

Below the fallout symbol, lettered in yellow against black, are the words Fallout Shelter in plain block letters. Yellow directional arrows are located directly underneath the lettering which will indicate the location of the shelter.

# (hand written)

(The following text is crossed out in the original document) The sign was produced as a result of Department of Defense directives to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks to conduct an immediate national fallout shelter survey and marking program.

RESOURCES:

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Solar Flare

How Space Weather Affects Real-time Technology What happens when the Sun flares up.

Economies around the world have become increasingly vulnerable to the ever-changing nature of the sun. Solar flares can disrupt power grids, interfere with high-frequency airline and military communications, disrupt Global Positioning System (GPS) signals, interrupt civilian communications, and blanket the Earth’s upper atmosphere with hazardous radiation.

Monitoring and forecasting solar outbursts in time to reduce their effect on space-based technologies have become new national priorities. And NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), part of NOAA’s National Weather Service, is the nation’s official source of space weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings.

“The Space Weather Prediction Center is critical to our economy because each time we use a cell phone or pager, check a GPS locator, turn on a light, or take an over-the-pole flight, space weather could have an effect,” said Jack Hayes, Ph.D., director of NOAA’s National Weather Service.

Looking Toward the Sun

To monitor events on the sun, SWPC staff utilize a variety of ground- and space-based sensors and imaging systems to view activity at various depths in the solar atmosphere.

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A worldwide network of USAF-sponsored optical observatories also provides space weather forecasters with detailed, plain-language information about activity in and around sunspot groups, as well as other areas of interest on the sun.

Space weather forecasters also analyze the 27-day recurrent pattern of solar activity. Based on a thorough analysis of current conditions, comparing these conditions to past situations, and using numerical models similar to weather models, forecasters are able to predict space weather on times scales of hours to weeks.

With effective alerts and warnings, we can minimize the hazards to technology. For example, satellite operations can be adjusted, power grids can be modified, and polar flights can be rerouted.
A Brighter Future

Scientists and forecasters work closely with government and university partners to develop prediction models and other tools to improve services to the nation’s space weather community. SWPC also helps move the latest computer models of solar dynamics and sun-Earth interactions into the daily operations of space weather prediction.
NOAA and partner agencies in the National Space Weather Program are leading the way in this new era of space weather awareness to provide timely, accurate information and forecasts to help keep our advanced-technology global economy moving forward.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Constantin Brancusi portrait of Mile Pogany

Constantin Brancusi February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957 was a Romanian-born sculptor, portrait of Mile Pogany — so simple, so severe in its beauty.

Of this head and two other pieces of sculpture exhibited by Brancusi in July, 1913, at the Allied Artists' Exhibition in London, Roger Fry said in "The Nation," August 2:

Constantin Brancusi's sculptures have not, I think, been seen before in England. His three heads are the most remarkable works of sculpture at the Albert Hall. Two are in brass and one in stone. They show a technical skill which is almost disquieting, a skill which might lead him, in default of any overpowering imaginative purpose, to become a brilliant pasticheur. But it seemed to me there was evidence of passionate conviction; that the simplification of forms was no mere exercise in plastic design, but a real interpretation of the rhythm of life. These abstract vivid forms into which he compresses his heads give a vivid presentment of character; they are not empty abstractions, but filled with a content which has been clearly, and passionately apprehended.
Futurist sculpture, like Futurist painting, starts with a fundamental departure.

All sculpture, classic as well as Impressionistic and PostImpressionistic, deals with an object or a group of objects. It models and reproduces them detached from their environment.

Constantin Brancusi portrait of Mile PoganyTitle: Cubists and post-impressionism. Author: Arthur Jerome Eddy. Publisher: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1914. Original from: Harvard University. Digitized: Jul 10, 2007. Length: 253 pages. Subjects: Art / History / General, Art / History / Modern (late 19th Century to 1945), Cubism, Impressionism (Art), Post-impressionism (Art).

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, where Works published prior to 1978 were copyright protected for a maximum of 75 years. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF. Works published before 1923, in this case 1914, are now in the public domain.

Futurist sculpture seeks to reproduce a figure or an object attached to and a pr.rt of its fleeting and flowing surroundings, its atmosphere, its medium.

It goes further; it seeks to convey not only the impression of the truth that a figure is a part of its environment, but that its atmosphere and environment flows through the figure and the figure through the environment, that nothing is segregated but everything fusing.

The philosophical thought is old, as old as the earliest Greek philosophy, but the attempt to express the thought in stone, wood, bronze, is new.

We may feel sure the attempt is futile, that it cannot succeed, but our scepticism is no reason why a sculptor in his enthusiasm should not make the attempt.

It is when we come to the work of Brancusi and Archipanko that we find the most startling examples of the reaction along purely creative lines.

Nature is purposely left far behind, as far behind as in Cubist pictures, and for very much the same reasons.

Of Brancusi something has been said already.

Of all the sculpture in the International Exhibition the two pieces that excited the most ridicule were Brancusi's egg-shaped portrait of Mile. Pogany and "Family Life" by Archipanko.

Both are creative works, products of the imagination, but in their inspiration they are fundamentally different.

In his symmetrical oval head with the spiral masses where the neck would be, it is apparent the sculptor's interest is in the play of line and relation of masses, no profound human problem troubled him. That there is a relation between the strange shape of the head and his theories of life and art no serious observer of his other work could doubt, but his unusual technic over-shadows other interest.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Aromatic Aster Aster oblongifolius

Title: Aromatic Aster a species of Aster native to parts of eastern and central United States. Alternative Title: Aster oblongifolius. Contact mailto:nctcimages@fws.gov. Creator: Dr. Thomas G. Barnes, Description: Shot of many purple and white flowers with yellow or red centers.

Subject: Flowering plants, Plants. Publisher: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Contributors: Dr. Thomas G. Barnes / University of Kentucky. Date of Original: 1980's. Type: Still Image. Format: JPG. Item ID: IMG0017.jpg. Source: NCTC Image Library. Language: English. Audience: General. Date created: 2006-07-28. Date modified: 2008-07-21

Rights: Public Domain.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Digital Library is a searchable collection of selected images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and video and that are in the public domain. You are free to use them as you wish - no permission is necessary. We do ask that you please give credit to the photographer or creator and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This file is a work of a employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the file is in the public domain.
Aromatic AsterGenerally speaking, works created by U.S. Government employees are not eligible for copyright protection in the United States. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF from the U.S. Copyright Office.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Scottish Deerhound

The Scottish Deerhound 0r just Deerhound is one of the most decorative of dogs, impressively stately and picturesque wherever he is seen, whether it be amid the surroundings of the baronial hall, reclining at luxurious length before the open hearth in the fitful light of the log fire that flickers on polished armour and tarnished tapestry; out in the open, straining at the leash as he scents the dewy air, or gracefully bounding over the purple of his native hills. Grace and majesty are in his every movement and attitude, and even to the most prosaic mind there is about him the inseparable glamour of feudal romance and poetry. He is at his best alert in the excitement of the chase; but all too rare now is the inspiring sight that once was common among the mountains of Morven and the glens of Argyll of the deep-voiced hound speeding in pursuit of his antlered prey, racing him at full stretch along the mountain's ridge, or baying him at last in the fastness of darksome corrie or deep ravine. Gone are the good romantic days of stalking beloved by Scrope. The Highlands have lost their loneliness, and the inventions of the modern gunsmith have robbed one of the grandest of hunting dogs of his glory, relegating him to the life of a pedestrian pet, whose highest dignity is the winning of a pecuniary prize under Kennel Club rules.

Historians of the Deerhound associate him with the original Irish Wolfdog, of whom he is obviously a close relative, and it is sure that when the wolf still lingered in the land it was the frequent quarry of the Highland as of the Hibernian hound. Legend has it that Prince Ossian, son of Fingal, King of Morven, hunted the wolf with the grey, long-bounding dogs. "Swift-footed Luath" and "White-breasted Bran" are among the names of Ossian's hounds. I am disposed to affirm that the old Irish Wolfhound and the Highland Deerhound are not only intimately allied in form and nature, but that they are two strains of an identical breed, altered only in size by circumstance and environment.
Scottish Deerhound Mrs. Armstrong's Deerhound CH. TalsmanTitle: Dogs and all about them. Author: Robert Leighton. Publisher: Cassell and company, ltd., 1910. Original from: the University of California. Digitized: Dec 1, 2007. Length: 344 pages. Subjects: Dogs
Pets / Dogs / Breeds, Pets / Dogs / General
This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, where Works published prior to 1978 were copyright protected for a maximum of 75 years. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF. Works published before 1923, in this case 1910, are now in the public domain.

Whatever the source of the Highland Deerhound, and at whatever period it became distinct from its now larger Irish relative, it was recognised as a native dog in Scotland in very early times, and it was distinguished as being superior in strength and beauty to the hounds of the Picts.

From remote days the Scottish nobles cherished their strains of Deerhound, seeking glorious sport in the Highland forests. The red deer belonged by inexorable law to the kings of Scotland, and great drives, which often lasted for several days, were made to round up the herds into given neighbourhoods for the pleasure of the court, as in the reign of Queen Mary. But the organised coursing of deer by courtiers ceased during the Stuart troubles, and was left in the hands of retainers, who thus replenished their chief's larder.

The revival of deerstalking dates back hardly further than a hundred years. It reached its greatest popularity in the Highlands at the time when the late Queen and Prince Albert were in residence at Balmoral. Solomon, Hector, and Bran were among the Balmoral hounds. Bran was an especially fine animal—one of the best of his time, standing over thirty inches in height.

Two historic feats of strength and endurance illustrate the tenacity of the Deerhound at work. A brace of half-bred dogs, named Percy and Douglas, the property of Mr. Scrope, kept a stag at bay from Saturday night to Monday morning; and the pure bred Bran by himself pulled down two unwounded stags, one carrying ten and the other eleven tines. These, of course, are record performances, but they demonstrate the possibilities of the Deerhound when trained to his natural sport.

TEXT CREDIT: Dogs and all about them By Robert Leighton

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Sinking of USS Maine, 15 February 1898

USS Maine, a second-class battleship built between 1888 and 1895, was sent to Havana in January 1898 to protect American interests during the long-standing revolt of the Cubans against the Spanish government. In the evening of 15 February 1898, Maine sank when her forward gunpowder magazines exploded. Nearly three-quarters of the battleship's crew died as a result of the explosion.

While the cause of this great tragedy is still unsettled, contemporary American popular opinion blamed Spain, and war followed within a few months. Maine's wreck was raised in 1912 to clear the harbor and to facilitate an investigation into the cause of her sinking. Her remains were subsequently scuttled in deep waters north of Havana.

The Spanish-American War (21 April to 13 August 1898) was a turning point in the history of the United States, signalling the country's emergence as a world power. The blowing up of the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor on the evening of 15 February was a critical event on the road to that war. In order to understand the role the ship's destruction played in the start of the war, one must know the context in which the event took place.

Tensions between Spain and the United States rose out of the attempts by Cubans to liberate their island from the control of the Spanish. The first Cuban insurrection was unsuccessful and lasted between 1868 and 1878. American sympathies were with the revolutionaries, and war with Spain nearly erupted when the filibuster ship Virginius was captured and most of the crew (including many American citizens) were executed. The Cuban revolutionaries continued to plan and raise support in the United States.
USS MaineUSS Maine (1895-1898)

Passing Morro Castle as she entered Havana harbor, Cuba, on 25 January 1898. She was destroyed by explosion there some three weeks later, on 15 February. Halftoned original image.

Photo #: NH 48619
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The second bid for independence by Cuban revolutionaries began in April 1895. The Spanish government reacted by sending General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau with orders to pacify the island. The "Butcher," as he became known in the U.S., determined to deprive the rebels of support by forcibly reconcentrating the civilian population in the troublesome districts to areas near military headquarters. This policy resulted in the starvation and death of over 100,000 Cubans. Outrage in many sectors of the American public, fueled by stories in the "Yellow Press," put pressure on Presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley to end the fighting in Cuba. American diplomacy, along with the return of the Liberal Party to power in Spain, led to the recall of General Weyler. However, beset by political enemies at home, the new Spanish government was too weak to enact meaningful reforms in Cuba. Limited autonomy was promised late in 1897, but the U.S. government was mistrustful, and the revolutionaries refused to accept anything short of total independence.

When pro-Weyler forces in Havana instigated riots in January 1898, Washington became greatly concerned for the safety of Americans in the country. The administration believed that some means of protecting U.S. citizens should be on hand. On 24 January, President McKinley sent the second class battleship USS Maine from Key West to Havana, after clearing the visit with a reluctant government in Madrid.

The battleship arrived on 25 January. Spanish authorities in Havana were wary of American intentions, but they afforded Captain Charles Sigsbee and the officers of Maine every courtesy. In order to avoid the possibility of trouble, Maine's commanding officer did not allow his enlisted men to go on shore. Sigsbee and the consul at Havana, Fitzhugh Lee, reported that the Navy's presence appeared to have a calming effect on the situation, and both recommended that the Navy Department send another battleship to Havana when it came time to relieve Maine.

At 9:40 on the evening of 15 February, a terrible explosion on board Maine shattered the stillness in Havana Harbor. Later investigations revealed that more than five tons of powder charges for the vessel's six and ten-inch guns ignited, virtually obliterating the forward third of the ship. The remaining wreckage rapidly settled to the bottom of the harbor. Most of Maine's crew were sleeping or resting in the enlisted quarters in the forward part of the ship when the explosion occurred. Two hundred and sixty-six men lost their lives as a result of the disaster: 260 died in the explosion or shortly thereafter, and six more died later from injuries. Captain Sigsbee and most of the officers survived because their quarters were in the aft portion of the ship.

Spanish officials and the crew of the civilian steamer City of Washington acted quickly in rescuing survivors and caring for the wounded. The attitude and actions of the former allayed initial suspicions that hostile action caused the explosion, and led Sigsbee to include at the bottom of his initial telegram: "Public opinion should be suspended until further report."

The U.S. Navy Department immediately formed a board of inquiry to determine the reason for Maine's destruction. The inquiry, conducted in Havana, lasted four weeks. The condition of the submerged wreck and the lack of technical expertise prevented the board from being as thorough as later investigations. In the end, they concluded that a mine had detonated under the ship. The board did not attempt to fix blame for the placement of the device.

When the Navy's verdict was announced, the American public reacted with predictable outrage. Fed by inflammatory articles in the "Yellow Press" blaming Spain for the disaster, the public had already placed guilt on the Spanish government. Although he continued to press for a diplomatic settlement to the Cuban problem, President McKinley accelerated military preparations begun in January 1898 when an impasse appeared likely. The Spanish position on Cuban independence hardened, and McKinley asked Congress on 11 April for permission to intervene. On 21 April, the President ordered the Navy to begin a blockade of Cuba, and Spain followed with a declaration of war on 23 April. Congress responded with a formal declaration of war on 25 April, made retroactive to the start of the blockade.

The destruction of Maine did not cause the U.S. to declare war on Spain, but it served as a catalyst, accelerating the approach to a diplomatic impasse. In addition, the sinking and deaths of U.S. sailors rallied American opinion more strongly behind armed intervention.

In 1911 the Navy Department ordered a second board of inquiry after Congress voted funds for the removal of the wreck of Maine from Havana Harbor. U.S. Army engineers built a cofferdam around the sunken battleship, thus exposing it, and giving naval investigators an opportunity to examine and photograph the wreckage in detail. Finding the bottom hull plates in the area of the reserve six-inch magazine bent inward and back, the 1911 board concluded that a mine had detonated under the magazine, causing the explosion that destroyed the ship.

Technical experts at the time of both investigations disagreed with the findings, believing that spontaneous combustion of coal in the bunker adjacent to the reserve six-inch magazine was the most likely cause of the explosion on board the ship. In 1976, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover published his book, How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed. The admiral became interested in the disaster and wondered if the application of modern scientific knowledge could determine the cause. He called on two experts on explosions and their effects on ship hulls. Using documentation gathered from the two official inquiries, as well as information on the construction and ammunition of Maine, the experts concluded that the damage caused to the ship was inconsistent with the external explosion of a mine. The most likely cause, they speculated, was spontaneous combustion of coal in the bunker next to the magazine.

Some historians have disputed the findings in Rickover's book, maintaining that failure to detect spontaneous combustion in the coal bunker was highly unlikely. Yet evidence of a mine remains thin and such theories are based primarily on conjecture. Despite the best efforts of experts and historians in investigating this complex and technical subject, a definitive explanation for the destruction of Maine remains elusive.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Saint Valentine baptizing St. Lucilla

ST.) VALENTINE'S DAY— (February 14th). On St . Valentine's eve pin five bay-leaves on your pillow one in each corner and the other in the middle and you will dream of your Valentine.

If on St. Valentine's day the first person you meet is tall of stature and you sow flax that year, it will grow long and tall, but if the person is short, the flax will grow short and low.

All young ladies should be warned not to entertain gentlemen on the eve of St. Valentine's day, for if they do, they will lose their social position.

If you look down the well on the 14th of February you will see your sweetheart.

If the girl peeps through the keyhole on St. Valentine's Day and sees a cock and hen together, it is a sign that she will be married before the year is out .

If a girl looks out into the street the first thing on St. Valentine's morning, the number of animals which she sees, will tell her just how many years it will be before she marries.

If a girl in old Derbyshire did not have a kiss from a sweetheart the first thing on St. Valentine's morning, it was because she was "dusty" and they swept her well with a broom. This would bring her a lover.
Saint Valentine baptizing St. LucillaSaint Valentine baptizing St. Lucilla by Jacopo Bassano (c. 1510 – 13 February 1592), also known as Jacopo da Ponte,

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, where Works published prior to 1978 were copyright protected for a maximum of 75 years. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF. Works published before 1923, in this case c1500s, are now in the public domain.

These images are also in the public domain in countries that figure copyright from the date of death of the artist (post mortem auctoris), in this case Jacopo Bassano (c. 1510 – 13 February 1592), and that most commonly runs for a period of 50 to 70 years from the last day of that year.
All who walk on St. Valentine's day should wear a yellow crocus; it is the Saint's especial flower and will ward off all evil in love.

If you chance on that day to meet a goldfinch or any yellow bird it is extremely lucky.

If you meet a bird in a scarlet vest on St. Valentine's day, you will follow your love to the beat of the drum.

It is very lucky to find your Valentine asleep. If you can steal a kiss, you will surely wed him or her.

If a girl receives a valentine and wishes to find out who sent it, let her write her name on the back of it and right below, the names of the persons whom she imagines might have sent it, then say the following verse:—

"If he who sent this valentine
Is named above with mine,
I pray good saint that by this line
I may his name divine."

Place this under the pillow and she will surely see the one who sent it.

If a maid walks abroad in the morning of St. Valentine's day, she may decide her future husband's position by the aid of the birds. If she first sees:

A blackbird: she will marry a clergyman.

A redbreast: a sailor.

A bunting: a sailor.

A goldfinch: a millionaire.

A yellowbird: a rich man.

A sparrow: love in a cottage.

A bluebird: poverty.

A crossbill: a quarrelsome husband.

A wryneck: she will never marry.

A flock of doves: good luck.

Never sign a valentine even with your own name, it will not be successful.

St. Valentine's Day is the 14th of February and singularly ominous to lovers. Saint Valentine is said to have been a bishop who suffered martydom under the Roman emperor, Claudius, or else under Aurelian in 271. Like many another semi-Christian custom the day set aparfto the memory of Saint Valentine in the Christian Calender is an old pagan festival, upon which our ancestors believed that the birds chose their mates for the coming year. This, at least, is the commonly received version of our modern custom of "choosing a valentine" on the 14th of February, and of sending a billet-doux or a fancy "valentine" through the mail to some favored one. Valentine is by several authorities believed to be a corruption of galantin (a lover, a dangler) and St. Valentine was chosen as the patron saint of the lovers on account of his name.

In old Rome the 15th of February was the festival of Juno Februata (Juno the fructifyer), and the Roman Church substituted St. Valentine for the heathen goddess. At that festival, called "Lupercalia" (q. v.), it was customary among other ceremonies, to put the names of young women into a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed. The Christian clergy, finding it difficult or impossible to extirpate the pagan practice and in accordance with their general principle to eradicate the vestiges of pagan superstition by retaining the ceremonies, but modifying their significance, gave it a religious aspect by substituting the names of particular saints for those of the women. The saints whose names were drawn were proposed for imitation to the persons who received the slips of paper whereon they were written, and in many religious houses, where this custom still prevails, each member of the community preserves his billet during the year, as an incitement to imitate the virtues and invoke the special intercession of his holy Valentine.

This innovation, however, namely the substitution of the names of saints for the names of lovers, could not please the young people forever. Though the clergy repeatedly forbade the custom of Valentines and ordered the use of cards with Saints' names, the old pagan custom could not be abolished. The boys and girls triumphed over the Saints, and in he end the girls triumphed over the boys wresting from them their exclusive privilege of choosing mates.

This old custom of drawing names is to this day observed in many parts of England and Scotland in the following manner:

A number of slips of paper with the names of an equal number of men and women are shuffled and drawn, so each young man has a valentine in the person of a young maiden, and each maiden draws a young man whom she calls hers. The valentines give each other gifts, and often this little sport ends in love and marriage.

The first young man or maid you meet on the morning of St. Valentine's day will be your future husband or wife.

TEXT CREDIT: Encyclopaedia of superstitions, folklore, and the occult sciences of the world

Sunday, February 13, 2011

American Lotus (Nelumbo lutea)

Title: American Lotus. Alternative Title: Nelumbo lutea. Contact: mailto:nctcimages@fws.gov. Creator: Dr. Thomas G. Barnes,; Description: An image of a white flowering plant. Subject: Flowering plants. Plants

Publisher: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Contributors: Dr. Thomas Barnes, Universtiy of Kentucky. Date of Original: 1980's. Type: Still Image. Format: JPG. Item ID: B1IMG0038.jpg. Source: NCTC Image Library. Language: English. Audience: General. Date created: 2006-08-11.

Rights: Public Domain. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Digital Library is a searchable collection of selected images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and video and that are in the public domain. You are free to use them as you wish - no permission is necessary. We do ask that you please give credit to the photographer or creator and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in a format similar to this example. Credit: John Doe, USFWS.

Generally speaking, works created by U.S. Government employees are not eligible for copyright protection in the United States. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF from the U.S. Copyright Office.

The native distribution of the species is the southeastern United States, Mexico, Honduras, and the Caribbean. It has apparently been distributed northwards in the United States by Native Americans who carried the plant with them as a food source

American Lotus (Nelumbo lutea)Like the Asian species Nelumbo nucifera, the American Lotus is an emergent aquatic plant. It grows in lakes and swamps, as well as areas subject to flooding. The roots are anchored in the mud, but the leaves and flowers emerge above the water's surface. The petioles of the leaves may extend as much as 2 m (6.6 ft) and end in a round leaf blade (13–17 in) in diameter. Mature plants range in height from (2.6 to 4.9 ft).

TEXT RESOURCE: Nelumbo lutea

Saturday, February 12, 2011

The Rev. Dr. Henry Highland Garnet

The Rev. Dr. Henry Highland Garnet, the first African American to address the U.S. House of Representatives on 12 February 1865.

On the 12th of February, 1865, at the request of the Chaplain, the Rev. Wm. H. Channing, the Rev. Henry H. Garnet preached to an overflowing audience in the House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. The following, from the pen of an eye-witness, * gives an admirable description of the scene:

"I arrived at the Hall of Representatives, at 11 A. M., and found every seat upon the floor occupied, and the galleries filled to overflowing. "The choir of the Rev. gentleman's church, which, by the way, is one of the very best we have in the country, was also invited to serve on this occasion, and crowned itself with honor. It was a strange sight, in the presence of the assembled wisdom, and, I may add, if not of the old prejudice, certainly of the feeling which always succeeds it—it was a strange sight, I say, to see this little band of vocalists, stand up in places where but one year ago only white persons were allowed to stand, and there chant up hymns of praise to God for his goodness and his wonderful works to the children of men; and it was a sight stranger still to see this colored divine stand up in the dignity of his high oflice as a priest of the Most High in that Speaker's desk.
The Rev. Dr. Henry Highland GarnetTitle: A memorial discourse. Author: Henry Highland Garnet. Contributor: James McCune Smith. Publisher: J.M. Wilson, 1865. Original from: Harvard University. Digitized: Sep 8, 2006. Length: 77 pages. Subjects: Slavery, Slavery in the United States, Slaves, Social Science / Slavery.

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, where Works published prior to 1978 were copyright protected for a maximum of 75 years. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF. Works published before 1923, in this case 1865, are now in the public domain.
"But, we are assembled; white and colored—all mingled and all seemingly comfortable. Perhaps it is always thus when we occupy the highest places at the feast. It is then, that our white friends, even the most fastidious of them, feel truly comfortable, and it is only natural that they should. But we are all seated, or positioned on our feet, as the case may be, and are as still as the lake at even-tide. All eyes are turned toward the reverend gentleman, who in that quiet dignity which impresses every one, rose and offered up a fervent prayer to the throne of Grrace. His words were unction, and I have wondered, who of that vast assembly were not touched by their pathetic wail as they came forth from one who wrestled with an angel. The preacher then read the first hymn,

'All hail the power of Jesus' name.' Then followed the reading of the Scriptures. Then all eyes were turned towards the choir as in sweet and touching melody it warbled forth the beautiful sentiment,

'Arise, my soul, shake off thy fears.' And now the text is read; from the choir back again to the clergyman, attention is turned as a wheat-field upon a sudden change of wind. All the attention which that vast congregation can give, is, unreservedly at the speaker's command, while he proceeds to unfold the text, make plain its meaning, and apply its divine teachings to the hearts and understandings of his hearers. For the space of an hour what a breathless house! What suppressed emotions!

"Breathless house, did I say? When standing in the Speaker's place, with the full length portrait of Washington on his right and that of Lafayette on his left, the eloquent preacher appealed as authority to both 'that our land was made for free men and free women,' the silence was broken, and, but for the Sabbath morning the restrained applause would have been unbounded: so also when, in a sudden outburst, he exclaimed, 'Should any poet have attempted to write in praise of American Slavery, the ink would have frozen upon the point of his pen!' and, too, in his tribute to Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, and the host of freedom's champions who have passed away, a thrill ran through the house which surpassed all the applause I have ever heard. When he said, 'These worthies, if they looked down on the scene which transpired in this hall a few days since, when the great National Work was consummated, they must have responded, with the angel choir, a hearty amen!' an uncontrollable emotion, for the moment, took entire possession of the audience.

"It is needless to say more. Men who went to the house to hear a colored man, came away having heard a Man in the highest and fullest sense. Many who went there with feelings of curiosity, came away wrapped in astonishment. Not only a man, but a great representative man had spoken, and they were amazed."

Friday, February 11, 2011

Thomas Edison and his first Phonograph

It is to the phonograph, more perhaps than to any other of his inventions, that Thomas A. Edison owed his title of "Wizard." And small wonder—there is something positively uncanny in the ability to take a few pieces of metal and preserve sound so that it may be kept for centuries to come. Yet the inventor himself regards the phonograph as one of the simplest of his inventions. "Why," said he, "it all but discovered itself."

It was back in those busy Menlo Park days, of 1877, when he was busy with the telephone transmitter. While working with a disk of carbon, having a sharpened pin point on the back of it, Edison noticed that when he spoke against the disk, the sound vibrations made the point prick his finger. Instantly the inventor called to mind the phonautograph, a discovery made by Leon Scott, some twenty years before. This consisted of a piece of bladder stretched over a frame, with a hog's bristle fastened stoutly in the center. When words were spoken close against the frame, the membrane vibrated with the motion of the sound waves, causing the bristle to scratch a little wavy track or sound picture of the human voice on a revolving cylinder which had been well-coated with lamp black.

"Hmm!" mused Edison, as the pin point gave him another jog. He saw that he had gone a step farther than Scott. But he was too engrossed with the work in hand to consider anything else just then.
Thomas Edison and his first PhonographTitle: The Story of Thomas A. Edison. Famous Americans for young readers. Author: Inez Nellie Canfield McFee. Publisher: Barse & Hopkins, 1922, Original from: the New York Public Library. Digitized: Jun 19, 2007. Length: 182 pages. Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General History / General.

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, where Works published prior to 1978 were copyright protected for a maximum of 75 years. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF. Works published before 1923, in this case 1922, are now in the public domain.
Another day he was absorbed in a device for the automatic repetition of telegraph messages. Busy with feeding a strip of paper into the sending machine, which recorded the dots and dashes of the original message in a series of indentations, "The Wizard" saw that he was making pictures of the sounds communicated by the telegraph message on paper.

Pictures of sound! There it was again! And quickly the great inventor was on his feet. "Boys," he cried excitedly, "I can make a talking-machine!"

Eagerly reaching for pen and draughting paper, he began at once upon the specifications, while the boys, used as they were to their chief's doing great things, stared at one another with disbelief plain upon their faces. In ten minutes the model was complete, even to the piece-work price $8, in Edison's trim figures in one corner, and he summoned John Kruesi, the best workman then on his force.

"How soon can you get this out?" he asked.

Kruesi's keen eye took in the details with lightning quickness. "I do not know exactly, sir," he said, "but I will do my best."

Edison knew Kruesi's best. It was a force as keen-edged and as tireless and indefatigable as his own. Well he knew that neither time, food nor water would interfere with the progress of the model, and he turned again to his own work, dismissing the matter entirely. For he had no great faith in this first draught. He thought he might possibly "hear a word or so that would give hope of a future for the idea."

Thirty hours passed, and then Kruesi presented himself with the completed device. And a crude, clumsy enough affair it was—as little like the perfect machines of to-day as one could well imagine. The cylinder turned by hand and the indentations were to be made on tinfoil. For the first phonograph was planned to make its own sound pictures and then to reproduce the sound on the spot.

Edison looked at the machine a bit dubiously, and the boys gathered laughingly around. "I'll bet a box of cigars it don't work," observed Carman, the foreman of the machine shop, sotto voce.

But Edison, like most deaf people, often hears when he is least expected to. "Done," he returned, in the quick, sportsmanlike comradery which made him so beloved by his men, and then, leaning forward and slowly turning the handle, he spoke into the mouthpiece:

"Mary had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go."

Then the cylinder was returned to the starting place, and to the astonishment of all there came sharp and distinct, in a curious metallic voice, the little time-worn verse, just as Edison had recited it.

Imagine the triumph of the moment! Few inventions have ever been conceived and executed so swiftly.

RELATED: Thomas Edison

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Mariah Carey at the 2010 Academy Awards

Mariah Carey during red carpet interviews at the 82nd Academy Awards. Date: March 7, 2010 in Hollywood. She played a social worker in the best picture nominated Precious, the movie adaptation of the 1996 novel Push by Sapphire. The film has garnered mostly positive reviews from critics, as has Carey's performance. Variety described her acting as "pitch-perfect" In January 2010, Carey won the Breakthrough Actress Performance award for her role in Precious at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Author: Sgt. Michael Connors - 302nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment.

Born: March 27, 1970 (1970-03-27) (age 40), March 27, 1969 (1969-03-27) (age 41) (Sources vary). Huntington, New York, United States Genres: R&B, pop. Occupations: Singer-songwriter, model, record producer, actress, film producer. Years active: 1988–present Labels: Columbia, Virgin, Island.

Mariah was the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. In a career spanning over two decades, Carey has sold more than 200 million albums, singles and videos worldwide,

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TEXT RESOURCE: Mariah Carey From Wikipedia

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Mario Lopez

Mario Michael Lopez, Jr. (born October 10, 1973) seen here as celebrity host for the syndicated entertainment news magazine show Extra. Caught filming his show in Times Square New York City, February 8th, 2011.

Mario is of Mexican descent and was born in San Diego, the son of Elvia, a telephone clerk, and Mario Lopez, Sr., who worked for the municipality of National City. Lopez was a high school wrestler. In 1987, his freshman year, he took 7th place at the State tournament. He graduated from Chula Vista High School in 1991.

Since Fall 2008, Lopez has been dating Broadway dancer, Courtney Laine Mazza. In March 2010, it was announced that Lopez and Mazza were expecting a child. The couple's daughter, Gia Francesca Lopez, was born on September 11, 2010, in Burbank, California.

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Mario LopezMario Lopez
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TEXT RESOURCE: Mario Lopez From Wikipedia