Curator aims to challenge preconceptions with works from first world war to the present War through the eyes of men is a well-trodden artistic subject which is why the Imperial War Museum is providing something of a corrective. “I am looking to challenge some of the stereotypes and views about women war artists, yes,” admitted Kathleen Palmer, curator of a new exhibition running for rest of the year. The show, Women War Artists, explores the experiences and achievements of female artists from the first world war up to the present day. “Women artists have certainly not been afraid to confront the horror of war,” said Palmer. “There is perhaps a preconception that it’s unusual for women artists to tackle these subjects but clearly that is not the case.” There are some extremely strong images in the exhibition, not least a work by Red Cross-commissioned Doris Zinkeisen who had the misfortune to see Belsen – with its 10,000 unburied corpses and 60,000 sick and starving inmates – in 1945. Her work Human Laundry, Belsen: April 1945 is arguably the most powerful of all works which emerged from the liberation of Belsen, capturing the almost industrial nature of what was going on. The show includes well-known works by Dame Laura Knight while others are going on show for the first time, including one by Priscilla Thornycroft showing a horse impaling itself on railings after being spooked by a London air-raid warning. Some of the more recent works include drawings by Linda Kitson, who went to the Falklands, although because she was a woman in 1982 she was not allowed overnight on troop ships. One of her drawings shows Gurkhas having weapons training in the incongruously grand surroundings of the QE2′s dance hall. The exhibits go up to Turner prize nominated Mona Hatoum, whose video piece Measures of Distance addresses her enforced separation from her family during the Lebanese civil war. Women War Artists is at the Imperial War Museum from 9 April to 8 January 2012. Museums Art Women Mark Brown guardian.co.uk
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Libyan volunteers set up boot camp for revolutionaries – ‘No one knows how to use their weapon. No discipline’ Mareh Bejou was a pilot for Emirates when he flew in to Tripoli in mid-February. The next day he was a revolutionary who told his airline it had better send another pilot to take the plane back to Dubai. Now Bejou, after his own crash course in fighting and surviving on the battlefield, is one of those in charge of a military training camp attempting to turn the volunteers of Benghazi into soldiers against Muammar Gaddafi “I came to do my part in a peaceful demonstration but we were met with guns. For four days they were shooting at us, even using anti-aircraft guns. So I learned how to use a Kalashnikov and an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] on the battlefield,” said Bejou, who has been a pilot for 30 years. “I spent three weeks on the battlefield and it wasn’t organised at all. No discipline. No one knew how to use their weapons. We set up this camp to change that.” At the training ground inside a former Gaddafi military base on the edge of Benghazi on Thursday more than 1,000
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For grieving families hoping for closure as well as justice, the death penalty with its endless delays and appeals can be cruel On Tuesday, death row inmate Cleve Foster was granted his second stay of execution this year. His first came on 11 January, just moments after Foster – who maintains he is innocent and would have been the first Texan executed with a cocktail containing a chemical used to euthanise animals – had eaten what he believed was his last meal; that’s when the call came, informing him that the US supreme court would consider an appeal. The parents of Rachel Urnosky, a 22-year-old woman whose murder Foster was charged with (though never tried for, being found guilty instead of a related homicide ), found out about the decision after making a long trip across the “lone star state”, when they arrived at the prison where Foster’s execution was supposed to take place. Terry Urnosky, Rachel’s father, a therapist, told The Texas Star-Telegram how shocked he felt: “It’s like – if you’ve ever played football – getting hit in the stomach with a helmet in the gut. […] We were expecting closure. But unfortunately, we’re reliving all the thoughts, the trials, the evidence. […] The nightmare continues.” Death penalty proponents argue that executions help victims’ family members feel that justice has been done, and indeed, Terry Urnosky said back in 2003 that he thought the death sentence was part of God’s plan for Foster. But others who’ve endured similar tragedies oppose the capital punishment, arguing that the agonising appeals process that so often accompanies a death penalty case exacerbates their pain and, far from helping them overcome their loss, keeps it in the forefront of their minds. No judge wants to be responsible for allowing the execution of an innocent person, which helps explain why there tend to be an unusually high number of appeals in a capital case. But appeals are costly – and not just figuratively, for victims’ families, but literally, for taxpayers. North Carolinians, for instance, pay $2.16m more for every death row inmate than for those sentenced to life, and Florida spends $51m more annually than it would if life-without-parole were the most severe sentence allowed there. More to the point, the long, slow appeals process exacts a toll from victims’ families. Sure, some survivors do say things like, “I was really looking forward to sitting in the front row while they executed this guy,” (as Karen Bond told the Chicago Tribune after Illinois Governor Pat Quinn commuted her son’s murderer’s sentence). But others want the criminals who ruined their lives to get nothing less than … life. For instance, last month 82 relatives of murder victims signed an open letter to Connecticut lawmakers , saying: “The death penalty is a false promise that goes unfulfilled, leaving victims’ families frustrated and angry [and] wastes millions of dollars that could go toward much needed victims’ services.” Similarly, Laura Porter from Equal Justice USA , a grassroots organisation working to improve the justice system, increase services for families of homicide victims and repeal the death penalty, says: “I work with many murder victim’s family members […] and I’m hearing more and more voices calling for repeal of the death penalty, citing the fact that the endless appeals process harms victims.” Or take it from Walter Everett, a 76-year-old retired minister whose son was killed when a crack addict shot him point blank. He recently told the Connecticut Post : “There is an incredible cost of the death penalty […] emotionally for families of victims because they tend to wait seemingly forever, for the execution.” That doesn’t sound just. Emotional closure is going to be difficult, under any circumstances, for people who have suffered as he and the Urnoskys have. But the legal case, at least, is more likely to be closed quickly if it’s a question of a life prison sentence rather than a penalty of death. Capital punishment Texas United States Prisons and probation US supreme court Maura Kelly guardian.co.uk
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Foreign ministry insists security authorities acting lawfully as family claim ‘economic’ investigation is politically motivated China’s foreign ministry has insisted that a police investigation into artist Ai Weiwei has “nothing to do with human rights or freedom of expression” after an international outcry against his detention. Relatives say official claims that the 53-year-old is being investigated for “economic crimes” are absurd, claiming the accusations are politically motivated because of his record of activism and social criticism. Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news conference that it was his “understanding that the public security authorities are investigating Ai Weiwei according to law on suspicion of economic crimes”. State news agency Xinhua had previously published a one-line report announcing the probe, only to delete it within the hour. Asked about criticism by western governments, Hong added: “China is a country ruled by law and will act according to law. We hope that the countries concerned will respect China’s decision. “This has nothing to do with human rights or freedom of expression.” Chinese law states that police must inform an individual’s relatives or place of work within 24 hours of detention, unless there is no way to do so or it would “impede the investigation”. His family say they have yet to be informed. In a letter to police, Ai’s wife Lu Qing demanded to know her husband’s whereabouts and condition and why he was being held. “As of 8am today [Thursday], it has been 96 hours since Ai Weiwei was taken away from Beijing airport, and I haven’t heard a single word about him,” she wrote. The police have not answered media queries about the artist, who has been missing since Sunday, or his friend Wen Tao, 38, who was also reportedly detained that afternoon. “The economic crimes report is absurd, because the way he was taken and then disappeared shows it’s nothing of the sort,” Ai’s older sister, Gao Ge, told Reuters. “This is more like a crime gang’s behaviour than a country with laws.” She said the artist had previously told relatives he might one day be jailed for his activities. “He was very clear that we shouldn’t try to meddle and stop him speaking out … My mother cried,” she said. Ai’s mother, Gao Ying, said the “economic crimes” allegations were being used to stifle his activism, adding: “If he’s not released, this will be the start of a long struggle.” She said her son was unlikely to accept charges to win a swift release. “If he’s not given justice, he’ll refuse to come out, I think. That’s his character,” she said. Human rights groups say similar accusations of financial wrongdoing – such as tax-related charges – have been used to intimidate activists in the past. In an interview last year, Ai told the Guardian that he recognised the state might take action against him and said security officials had visited his bank. But he added: “I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is OK.” Liu Xiaoyuan, a lawyer who has worked with Ai, said that “economic crimes” was a wide-ranging description and it was not clear what the actual accusations were. Ai’s detention comes amid a crackdown that has seen scores of activists, dissidents and lawyers criminally detained, formally arrested or simply disappear. Twitter users reported that police detained human rights lawyer Ni Yulan and her husband Dong Jiqin on Wednesday and a contact of the couple confirmed they had been taken. Ni was disbarred after helping residents who were being evicted, and is disabled as a result of being badly beaten after filming a forced demolition. Her own house was bulldozed and she was jailed for interfering with public administration . On her release, the couple were blocked from renting a flat or staying with friends. For several weeks last year they lived in a tent in a park. As attention to their case grew, police moved the couple to a hotel, but authorities cut off their power and water several months ago. Police did not respond to faxed queries about the couple. A receptionist at the Yuxingong hotel said he did not know about the situation. Ai Weiwei China Human rights Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Donald Trump claims to be the ideal Tea Party candidate: ‘I represent a lot of the ingredients of the Tea Party’
April 7, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Donald Trump is now fashioning himself the darling of the Tea Party crowd: TRUMP: I think the people of the Tea Party like me, because I represent a lot of the ingredients of the Tea Party. What I represent very much, I think, represents the Tea Party. In this segment, Fox’s Bret Baier mentions that Trump once sent a nice note to Nancy Pelosi, which is certain to get him into hot water with the Tea Partiers — though even then, he probably managed to score points with them with his sexist dismissal of the question. Far more likely to get him in trouble both with Tea Partiers as well as with rank-and-file Republicans is his 2008 declaration that George W. Bush should have been impeached by Pelosi. But in reality, Trump may be right. Bill O’Reilly has taken to identifying Trump as a “populist,” which might seem absurd on its face — for one of the world’s richest men to claim to be a man of the people is like Colonel Sanders claiming to be a man of the chickens. However, they’re actually right, insofar as Trump is clearly a right-wing populist — which means he’s a manifestation of all their wildest Randian fantasies and the mythology attached thereupon. This might explain why Trump has been doing so well in Republican polls lately. As we explained awhile back : This kind of obeisance to the captains of industry and their utrammeled right to make profits at the expense of everyone else is a phenomenon known as Producerism, which is a hallmark of right-wing populism. It’s accurately defined in Wikipedia as: a syncretic ideology of populist economic nationalism which holds that the productive forces of society – the ordinary worker, the small businessman, and the entrepreneur, are being held back by parasitical elements at both the top and bottom of the social structure. … Producerism sees society’s strength being “drained from both ends”–from the top by the machinations of globalized financial capital and the large, politically connected corporations which together conspire to restrict free enterprise, avoid taxes and destroy the fortunes of the honest businessman, and from the bottom by members of the underclass and illegal immigrants whose reliance on welfare and government benefits drains the strength of the nation. Consequently, nativist rhetoric is central to modern Producerism (Kazin, Berlet & Lyons). Illegal immigrants are viewed as a threat to the prosperity of the middle class, a drain on social services, and as a vanguard of globalization that threatens to destroy national identities and sovereignty. Some advocates of producerism go further, taking a similar position on legal immigration. In the United States, Producerists are distrustful of both major political parties. The Republican Party is rejected for its support of corrupt Big Business and the Democratic Party for its advocacy of the unproductive lazy waiting for their entitlement handouts (Kazin, Stock, Berlet & Lyons). … The Producerist narrative is why Henry Ford – who, as the ostensible author of The International Jew , a 1920 conspiracist tome that inspired Hitler’s paranoia, and whose capital later helped build the Nazi war machine in the 1930s, was also (and not coincidentally) perhaps the ultimate American enabler of fascism – is such a seminal figure for American right-wing populists, both as a leader in the 1920s and ‘30s, as well as a figure of reverence today. (Glenn Beck, in fact, has on several occasions on his Fox News show referenced Ford as something of a holy figure for his efforts to resist FDR’s New Deal in the 1930s.) The same narrative is also why, in today’s context, Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged – a tendentious novel speculating on the disasters that would befall the world if its great industrial leaders suddenly chose to stop producing – are so important in their mythology. Right-wing populism is essentially predicated on what today we might call the psychology of celebrity-worship: convincing working-class schlubs that they too can someday become rich and famous — because when they do, would they want to be taxed heavily? It’s all about dangling that lottery carrot out there for the poor stiffs who were never any good at math to begin with, and more than eager to delude themselves about their chances of hitting the jackpot. The thing about right-wing populism is that it’s manifestly self-defeating: those who stand to primarily benefit from this ideology are the wealthy, which is why they so willingly underwrite it. It might, in fact, more accurately be called “sucker populism.” I guess this means there’s a Republican born every minute.
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Corporation also confirms it will reduce property usage as part of ‘Delivering Quality First’ cost-saving programme Nine layers of BBC management will be reduced to a maximum of seven, the corporation said on Thursday, as executives gave more details of the corporation’s £700m cost-savings plan. Caroline Thomson, the BBC’s chief operating officer, conceded that the “complexity of the BBC” had long been an issue and that the new seven-layer rule would apply from “the director general to the most junior staff”. She would not say how many jobs would be at risk, but with the BBC typically using eight and sometimes nine layers of management, the expectation is that some middle managers will lose their jobs or responsibilities as a result. Thomson was speaking after BBC employees were updated as to the progress of the “Delivering Quality First” programme – the BBC’s plans to contend with the licence fee freeze imposed on the broadcaster by the coalition government last year. In a sketchy briefing, Thomson offered no new information about any cost savings that would be immediately be noticed by viewers, saying that BBC was still considering proposals including dropping overnight programming, cutting sports spending and increasing repeats. However, the chief operating officer did confirm that BBC will to reduce its property usage by at least 25% and possibly 30%, largely by cutting down on the number of buildings it uses in west and central London, including the White City block currently used by Mark Thompson, the director general, for his principal office. Thomson could not immediately say how much would be saved by the office space cuts, and she stressed that the building rationalisation programme was not intended to lead to a reduction in the BBC presence in cities and towns outside London, where the broadcaster’s offices are used for local radio stations. “This is not about cutting local radio,” she added. The BBC is now evaluating the remaining cost saving proposals, and further details are expected to emerge over the coming weeks and months. •
Continue reading …Corporation also confirms it will reduce property usage as part of ‘Delivering Quality First’ cost-saving programme Nine layers of BBC management will be reduced to a maximum of seven, the corporation said on Thursday, as executives gave more details of the corporation’s £700m cost-savings plan. Caroline Thomson, the BBC’s chief operating officer, conceded that the “complexity of the BBC” had long been an issue and that the new seven-layer rule would apply from “the director general to the most junior staff”. She would not say how many jobs would be at risk, but with the BBC typically using eight and sometimes nine layers of management, the expectation is that some middle managers will lose their jobs or responsibilities as a result. Thomson was speaking after BBC employees were updated as to the progress of the “Delivering Quality First” programme – the BBC’s plans to contend with the licence fee freeze imposed on the broadcaster by the coalition government last year. In a sketchy briefing, Thomson offered no new information about any cost savings that would be immediately be noticed by viewers, saying that BBC was still considering proposals including dropping overnight programming, cutting sports spending and increasing repeats. However, the chief operating officer did confirm that BBC will to reduce its property usage by at least 25% and possibly 30%, largely by cutting down on the number of buildings it uses in west and central London, including the White City block currently used by Mark Thompson, the director general, for his principal office. Thomson could not immediately say how much would be saved by the office space cuts, and she stressed that the building rationalisation programme was not intended to lead to a reduction in the BBC presence in cities and towns outside London, where the broadcaster’s offices are used for local radio stations. “This is not about cutting local radio,” she added. The BBC is now evaluating the remaining cost saving proposals, and further details are expected to emerge over the coming weeks and months. •
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Israel’s tanks fire across border in ‘deadly’ retaliation after teenager and driver injured in bus attack An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip has struck a school bus in southern Israel, wounding two people, including one child critically, according to Israeli officials. Israeli tanks retaliated by opening fire across the border. Palestinians said a 50-year-old man was killed and seven other people were wounded. Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, ordered the army to respond quickly and said he held Hamas, which controls Gaza, responsible for the violence. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack. Israeli medical services said the bus was nearly empty after dropping off schoolchildren and was carrying only the driver and one passenger when it was hit. Paramedics tried to resuscitate a 16-year-old boy with a serious head wound at the scene. The driver was moderately wounded. TV footage showed a yellow bus with windows blown out and the rear charred. Israel usually responds with tough reprisals to Palestinian attacks. It also launched an air strike on a Hamas training facility in northern Gaza. The missile attack came hours after Israel carried out a series of air strikes against border tunnels it says are used by militants to smuggle weapons into Gaza from Egypt and carry out attacks. Israel Gaza Palestinian territories Middle East guardian.co.uk
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Israel’s tanks fire across border in ‘deadly’ retaliation after teenager and driver injured in bus attack An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip has struck a school bus in southern Israel, wounding two people, including one child critically, according to Israeli officials. Israeli tanks retaliated by opening fire across the border. Palestinians said a 50-year-old man was killed and seven other people were wounded. Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, ordered the army to respond quickly and said he held Hamas, which controls Gaza, responsible for the violence. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack. Israeli medical services said the bus was nearly empty after dropping off schoolchildren and was carrying only the driver and one passenger when it was hit. Paramedics tried to resuscitate a 16-year-old boy with a serious head wound at the scene. The driver was moderately wounded. TV footage showed a yellow bus with windows blown out and the rear charred. Israel usually responds with tough reprisals to Palestinian attacks. It also launched an air strike on a Hamas training facility in northern Gaza. The missile attack came hours after Israel carried out a series of air strikes against border tunnels it says are used by militants to smuggle weapons into Gaza from Egypt and carry out attacks. Israel Gaza Palestinian territories Middle East guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Media Dust Off 1995 Shutdown Playbook of Cliches to Cover Current Budget Fight
April 7, 2011 No Comment
As a potential government shutdown looms the liberal media are filling their programs with stories about dire consequences of deep cuts that will lead to troops not getting paid, closed national parks, and late tax refunds. However, a review of MRC's coverage of the 1995 budget fight reveals the media are simply rerunning their tired old arguments the last shutdown. On this Wednesday's edition of ABC's Good Morning America, Jonathan Karl tallied the services that could be at risk this time around, as he warned: “If they don't reach a deal and get it passed by then, American troops, including those on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq, may not get their paychecks. And smack in the middle of tax season, that refund you've been counting on, well, you may have to wait.” Karl went on to alert travelers that: “Treasures like Old Faithful and Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, Yosemite's half dome, will be closed to visitors. And if you don't already have a passport, don't even think about leaving the country. Last time the government shut down, 200,000 passport applications were stopped in their tracks.” However Karl and others, as quotes from 1995 show, are simply dusting off the old media playbook to blame Republicans, not Democrats, for a shutdown, as they focus on high profile federal projects like national parks in an attempt to frighten the American people into opposing prudent fiscal decision-making. (video after the jump) Back in 1995, CNN World News anchor Kathleen Kennedy, on November 13, warned: “the echoes of a government shutdown would be felt from coast to coast. The gates of Lady Liberty at New York would be closed. The same will happen at many other tourist attractions, including the Washington Monument, Bunker Hill, and many national parks. A lot of tourist plans will have to be changed if a shutdown occurs.” Another theme advanced by the media in 1995 was how a shutdown would hurt federal workers. ABC reporter Jack Smith, on the December 22 World News Tonight of that year even featured a sob story of two government workers who were going to have a rough holiday season: ” And the shutdown now has a human face. Joe Skattleberry and his wife Lisa both work for the government. Both have been furloughed. They can't afford a Christmas tree.” On November 18, NBC's John Palmer relayed the following horror story: “To Tony Chapello and his pregnant wife Kelly, both furloughed by the Social Security office in Kansas City, the shutdown is more than an inconvenience.” Palmer then aired a clip of Kelly telling viewers: “I worry about the medical bills, and I want to do the baby's room.” On the January 2, 1996 edition of CBS Evening News Scott Pelley perhaps overdramatized the impact of the shutdown when he opened his story this way: ” In April, terrorists tried to kill them. Today politicians stopped their paychecks. In Oklahoma City's Social Security office, they're being ordered to work for nothing.” Fast forward to Wednesday's edition of CBS's Early Show and Nancy Cordes actually pointed out that those federal workers did get paid as she noted that after the last shutdown: “The government ended up having to pay out about $400 million in back wages to workers who didn't work for three weeks,” but then ominously observed that “this time around” Congress “might decide not to pay those workers.” In addition to federal workers, the media found other victims of the shutdown like veterans and even little kids as then-CBS correspondent Linda Douglass (who would later go on to work for President Obama) told viewers on the November 16 CBS Evening News, “The shutdown has pushed the Veterans Administration to the brink of a crisis. Tens of thousands of new claims are piling up daily, veterans of war, now caught in political cross fire,” and then later in her segment added: “in the rest of the government, problems are worsening. Imported Christmas toys, which could be unsafe, are not being examined by safety inspectors.” Jumping forward to just this past Friday and MSNBC's Contessa Brewer, in an interview with Mike Pence, played the familiar victim card as she scolded the Republican Congressman: “The last time it shut down, 800,000 federal workers got furloughed. The OMB said it cost more than $1.25 billion in 1995 when Newt Gingrich led a government shutdown. Those furloughed workers go home. They don't get paychecks. But you do.” Brewer even claimed the GOP was out to hurt women and the environment as she railed against a proposal to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood and the Environmental Protection Agency: “What it does not respect are women's rights, what it does not respect is the environment. Is it going to undermine potential success here if you force social issues on to the budget table?” On Wednesday's ABC World News Jake Tapper advanced the notion that a shutdown would be catastrophic for those relying on medical breakthroughs: ” The shutdown will stop new funding for medical research and hope for desperate patients.. .. Doctors at the National Institutes of Health would be forced to stop seven new clinical trials, four involving children, next week.” In 1995 anchors and reporters were also more likely to blame Republicans for the budget impasse than Democrats, such as when Dan Rather, on the November 16 CBS Evening News passed along: “Republicans were still pumping out a stopgap budget certain to draw another presidential veto, a bill containing what President Clinton called tonight, quote, critical cuts in Medicare and other programs.” On the November 17 NBC Nightly News, Lisa Myers put forward then President Bill Clinton's excuse to veto a GOP bill “because of what he calls extreme cutbacks in Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment.” Now in 2011, NBC's Matt Lauer is drawing rave reviews from Democrats like Chuck Schumer for also focusing blame on the GOP and Tea Party as seen in the following exchange from Wednesday's Today show: MATT LAUER: And when you look at some of the things the Tea Party and others on the far right are asking for – no funding for Planned Parenthood, no funding for climate control, public broadcasting – does it seem to you, Senator, that this is less about a fiscal debate or an economic policy debate and they are making an ideological stand here? CHUCK SCHUMER: That's exactly right, Matt. You've hit the nail on the head. Even in the cuts they want to make, we can find other cuts that don't cut into the muscle. That don't prevent students who deserve to go to college from going to college. If the last couple of days' coverage of the current budget fight is any indication of the media's overall strategy in covering a potential shutdown, viewers should expect more recycling of 1995 story lines of not just government workers but average Americans being victimized by an out of control GOP/Tea Party. —Geoffrey Dickens is the Deputy Research Director at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here
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