A Study in Why Major Law Firms are Shrinking, and tracking law firm layoffs since 2008.
(Thanks to TaxProf).
Army dogs.
Here’s one recipient of The Army Commendation Medal. And here’s another.
The Chesapeake: Beauty on the Brink.
My brother-in-law is a helicopter pilot. I hate to fly. I’d rather have my feet on the ground. But, I am in awe of what he does.
Witness, here, a great feature article in this Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine, on the Chesapeake watershed, with incredibly beautiful aerial photos taken by photographer Cameron Davidson.
I find it uncanny that the pilot hovering over the Chesapeake, making it possible for Mr. Davidson to shoot these stunning photos, is my brother-in-law. It almost makes me want to be air-bound, just to see the view.
Launch the Gallery for more of these gorgeous aerial pictures of the Chesapeake watershed.
The Chesapeake Bay watershed, photographed by Cameron Davidson.
D-Day, 1944.
Footage of what happened that day, with narrative from veterans.
Visit the US Army’s website for more information on D-Day.
The Longest Day.
65 years ago: check out the US European Command website for information on D-Day.
Iraqi travelers get road access.
Some of the things Kenneth’s PRT has done that go unreported:
Coalition forces opened two lanes of traffic along Main Supply Route Tampa for use by Iraqi travelers during a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday.
This move comes as more security responsibilities are handed back to Iraq as a part of the 2009 Security Agreement, which calls for Coalition forces to provide a greater share of the road to the Iraqi people.
Move over, Robert Langdon: Iraqi Teen Solves 300-Year-Old Math Puzzle in Four Months!!!!
I’m in awe of this story, because my mathematical skills are so deficient.
In just four months, Mohamed Altoumaimi has found a formula to explain and simplify the so-called Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of calculations named after the 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli, the Dagens Nyheter daily said.
Altoumaimi, who came to Sweden six years ago, said teachers at his high school in Falun, central Sweden were not convinced about his work at first.
These last couple of days I have been checking out what my High School Junior daughter is struggling with in Mathematics (Binomial Theorem and other calculus stuff), foolishly thinking that I could -maybe- as a Mother, assist her in some small way as she prepares for her exams.
What an incredible feat for this young Iraqi man, and what a humbling experience for his teachers!
(PS: For those who have no idea who Robert Langdon is… check here).
We are all synaesthetes (or synesthetes).
A couple of months ago I pointed out some interesting facts about a-newly-discovered-condition-for-me, “synesthesia”. I had learnt about it reading one of the most informative blogs around, Instapundit. Today, I find this from the BBC:
Synaesthesia itself is a rare and unusual condition thought to affect less than 1% of the population.
It can takes [sic] many different forms - some people may “see sounds”, in that certain sounds trigger them to see particular colours. Others might experience colours while reading those words in simple black text.
But according to Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, we are all “synaesthetes” up to a point.
In many ways, I wish I could experience color after listening to music or reading (I only experience emotion…and I cannot put a color to it.) . But, after reading this article, I wonder… Maybe my life is too busy to realize that in some small measure I may be a minuscule “synaesthete”.
Men are better off in a matriarchy.
Men live better where women are in charge: you are responsible for almost nothing, you work much less and you spend the whole day with your friends. You’re with a different woman every night. And on top of that, you can always live at your mother’s house. The woman serves the man and it happens in a society where she leads the way and has control of the money. In a patriarchy, we men work more — and every now and then we do the dishes. In the Mosuo’s pure form of matriarchy, you aren’t allowed to do that. Where a woman’s dominant position is secure, those kinds of archaic gender roles don’t have any meaning.
So says Argentine author, Ricardo Coler.
Germans, The Holocaust, Poles: raw wounds.
Der Spiegel online had this lede last week:
Polish media and politicians have sharply criticized this week’s SPIEGEL cover story about Hitler’s European helpers outside of Germany. They believe the article is part of an attempt by Germans to foist guilt for its own Nazi crimes off on others.
Some facts speak for themselves:
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor and currently the government official in charge of Polish-German relations, dryly referred to the fact that 7,000 Poles are listed at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial for their efforts to save Jews, compared to only 100 Germans.
Why would seemingly innocuous and “normal” people resort to despicable behavior during war? This is, for me, the most intriguing question. It is what bothers me the most studying history, because I question what would my own behavior be if I ever were put in such similar and horrendous situations. I want to believe that I would be honorable and good. But, would I? Would I be able to risk absolutely everything - my life, my family’s life- for what is noble and right?
UPDATE: President Obama’s great-uncle, Charles Payne, was one of the American soldiers who liberated a subcamp of Buchenwald. This is what he had to say about his experience encountering the horror:
You know, I am unable to tell you what I was thinking then. That was a long time ago, and as I told you, until Barack misspoke, I hadn’t thought about any of this for a very, very long time. In fact, I guess I prefer not to think about it. I can assure you I was horrified by the lengths to which men will go to mistreat other men. This was, to me, almost unbelievable.
The power of media.
Thanks to Houston’s Clear Thinkers.
Buenos Aires made the cover of Smithsonian Magazine:
“a place where people come to figure their lives out.” The full article is here.
Blessing Memorial Day
In Flander’s Field
by John McCrae
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead.
Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved and now we lie,
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw,
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us, who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow,
In Flanders Fields.
60th Anniversary of biggest airlift in history.
The 60th anniversary of the ending of the West Berlin blockade by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin is being celebrated in Berlin. The BBC reports, and has a neat video.
In 1948, Stalin cut off all land links into West Berlin in an attempt to force out British, French and US troops.
Instead, the Western nations launched the biggest airlift in history to keep 2.25 million residents from starving.
For the next 11 months, planes landed every two minutes, bringing in total more than 2.5m tonnes of supplies.
Seventy-eight aircrew died in plane crashes during the operation.
A miracle and General Petraeus.
A moving story… a young hero, his Mother, Father, and the General who brought the young soldier out of a coma.
Thanks to Gateway Pundit.
City slicker.
From the Stat Department blog, Dipnote, here’s a personal account of life in a PRT:
Seven years ago, I was working in the financial services industry in New York City. I had recently taken the Foreign Service exam and was pretty pessimistic about my chances of passing. I didn’t like my job very much, but I loved my office. It was in the old Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Clock Tower building at Madison and 23rd. And I loved living in Park Slope. If you had told me back then that, in a few short years, I would be working in rural Iraq, helping farmers vaccinate and “dip” their sheep, I would have found the assertion preposterous.
Read the rest of it here.
The Children of Iraq - Continued
I just discovered a painter’s “ramblings” of his Iraq tour. He has a wonderful gift, and makes some ugly sites look delightful! For example, here is his drawing of the CHU (a shipping container used for living quarters).
Watercolor by SKIP ROHDE
Kenneth lives in one down in Hilla. I bet he would love to have his look as pretty as this one.
But what caught my eye initially was Mr. Rohde’s blog entry on Iraqi children’s drawings:
What got my attention was just how normal these drawings are. They could have been done by any kid in the United States. Here are happy families with little houses in the countryside with flowers and trees and puffy clouds. I’m not quite sure what that thing is in the sky in the bottom picture - a bird? a bug? - but for sure it isn’t threatening. All the figures have big happy smiles on their faces. These are happy drawings from happy kids.
Below are a couple of Iraqi kids. I hope Mr. Rohde does not mind I copied his images. Go visit his blog and website and check out his Pieta.
"I came to Baghdad in the summer of 2008 to work for the State Department for a year. I keep my sketchbook with me almost all the time and use it to record my visual impressions of Iraq. Everyday experience here is different than it is in the United States. Violence and combat are never far away, either metaphorically or in reality. The things I'm called to draw reflect that: soldiers, armored vehicles, barricades, and more. Normally, I work in oil on canvas. But that option is not available to me in Iraq, nor is it appropriate. These sketches are visual notes - observations that I might be able to use in some future paintings. In the meantime, I think they are interesting in their own right." Artist: SKIP ROHDE
Thanks to Mudville Gazette.
Government regulations and yard sales.
Beware of holding a yard sale… Six years is a long time to be away from home! I was unaware that if you want to have a yard sale offering old children’s clothing, books, toys and sport equipment, you are subject to the Guidance for Retailers and Resellers of Children’s Products, including Thrift Stores, Consignment Shops and Charities. (Full report, in PDF form, is here).
I haven’t read the whole report, but just browsing, I cringe at the thought that my own children played with plastic toys in tubs and wore hooded jackets with drawstrings that, every time they went through the washing machine, I had to find in the recesses of the hoods! There’s something to be said about eliminating drawstrings altogether!
In just 4 months, the manufacturers voluntarily agreed to remove neck and hood drawstrings from most of the 20 million children's garments manufactured annually in this country
It would not have occurred to me to cut off the drawstrings, since I wanted them in order to keep those little ears warm in cold weather. It never crossed my mind that I was negligent. Here is the most recent recall on hooded jackets.
Keeping the public informed as to the potential dangers of consumer products is one thing. Regulating to the last minutiae is suffocating, although great business for lawyers.
There’s lots and lots of information about this tyranny by “good intentions” (?) in Overlawyered (I’ll say!!!).
The lion sleeps tonight.
I have always loved the melodic song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. Yet, I never knew the true origins of this song. Amazingly, even when I lived in South Africa, I never HEARD/nor/READ anyone talking/writing about this. I just wonder why… Maybe, at the time, this “incident” was low on the South African “key issues” totem pole…
Yet, the song belongs to Solomon Linda.
For anyone who follows copyright law, this incident is eye-popping. For anyone who has lived in South Africa and has warm ties to the country, this incident is rewarding. For anyone who has ever loved the song, this is an eye-opener…
The children of Iraq.
I came across this milblog regarding the children of Iraq:
With the poor living conditions and war battered towns, in between it all are the kids. My heart truly goes out to them. Many wear clothing that you’d find in a dumbster. Others will just not smile. Their faces bear more pain and stress from an experience I can only imagine. Even down to the 4 yrs olds.
After my platoon sergeant witness a naked 5 year old chasing after our vehicles wanting food, we started a little campaign of passing out candy, food, water, pens, paper, and just about any supplies we could. For a while we used our own personal funds but as family and organizations back home sent us donated supplies, we turned around and used that instead. I’ll tell you this, the kids absolutely adore us! Like Santa on a fire truck, they’ll flock to our vehicles waving and jumping even if we are only driving by. If we start throwing candy they swarm like seagulls on a beach. In the severely poor towns we must be careful and strict as we hand out stuff. Its not uncommon to literally find 30 kids gathering up on a soldier. At those points it becomes a safety concern for everyone.
The future of Iraq or any country for that case is always in the hands of its children. No matter how the adults feel about us, we’ve certainly won the hearts and mind of the children. And in that regard, I feel we’ve succeeded with Iraq.
If you are interested in donating items for these children, go to the article and post a comment. As per SourSwinger:
We’ve been telling people they can donate items via sending it to us soldiers. We’d then hand them out to the kids. If anyone’s interested, just post a comment saying so and I’ll shoot you an address.
We are good on candy. Pens, pencils, notepads, book bags, clothing, sandles, toys, etc. Anything that’s basic, easy, and doesn’t require english to work/use.
(Via Mudville Gazette).
If it is not deceptive, fraudulent, and wrong to sell “carbon free” sugar — crack open your chemistry books, people — what would be wrong with selling “carbon free” gasoline?
So asks Tigerhawk, after reading that Domino’s Sugar claims to have carbon free sugar.
Power Knee2, a next-generation powered prosthetic knee featuring new artificial intelligence and sensor technology.
Wounded Warrior first to use next-generation powered legs
“These legs really mimic your walk,” Gadson said. “I’m trying to think back to what it used to be like to walk…the feeling of natural motion. When you are wearing a passive (unpowered) prosthetic, you have to kick that leg out and you’re listening or feeling for a secure lockout before you put that foot down. This is much more natural. You know that whatever position the leg’s in, whether it’s in or locked out, it’s going to be stable. That really gives you a more natural motion.”
Photo credit Craig Coleman: Lt. Col. Greg Gadson practices walking with his new prosthetic knees while his son, Jaelen, looks on.
Images of a lost world.
A pictorial story of what communist East Germany was like when the wall fell 20 years ago.
“A shocking insight into the abyss”.
From Spiegel Online:
Original blueprints of the Auschwitz death camp, discovered by chance in a Berlin apartment last year, have gone on display in the German capital. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor, said they give a glimpse of “true hell”.
Not so nice news about Hilla…
Thank God the 3 Katyusha rockets aimed at Kenneth’s compound in Hilla missed the target and there were no injuries.
It is disturbing to read that members of the “Special Groups” have been arrested in Hilla in the last couple of weeks.
A Nazi, Wilhelm Hosenfeld, made a Righteous among the Nations.
After 7 years, I finally watched Polanski’s The Pianist, the story of a Polish Jew, Władysław Szpilman, who was an expert on Chopin. I hadn’t watched the movie, in part, because I was repelled by Polanski’s criminal history.
It is a riveting story of beauty, hatred, misery, and the indefatigable triumph of the soul. (Also, I did not realize that Polanski had such a tortured past.)
It is at the very end of the film that we are introduced to a German Nazi, Wilhelm Hosenfeld, who is portrayed as a kind man, who doesn’t betray the Polish Jew, in hiding after many horrific years living witnessing the Ghetto uprising and later the Warsaw uprising.
I just found out that, recently, Israel made Wilhelm Hosenfeld a “Righteous among the Nations”.
For more information on this “man of courage” go here.
Iraqi comedy, with a twist.
Recently, Babil Province had a theatrical performance of a popular Iraqi comedy, “Mud House”. The play incorporates messages involving “civil rights, democracy, the right to vote, and love for country” into comedy. Kenneth’s PRT hosted the event. I just wish he had more time to update his blog!
Mud House actors
Mud House audience
Here’s a brief description of the TV comedy, that came out mid-2008.
Spiders and sex.
A Czech entomologist on sadistic spider sex:
(Thanks to Althouse).Typically, spider males deliver their genetic package via sperm that is deposited into a small web and manually inserted using a pair of appendages on their undersides known as pedipalps.
The sperm are then held in a receptacle between the ovipore and ovary known as a spermatheca until an egg is released.
However, the spermatheca is a “last in, first out” structure, so that if any further males inseminate a female, the last mate’s sperm is the first in line to fertilise an egg.
Milan Rezic, an entomologist at the Crop Research Institute in Prague, has spotted a spider circumventing this problem by delivering sperm directly to the ovaries via holes that the males bore directly in the females’ abdomens.
A Scary Thing Happened.
I’ve always felt that children ought to know that something horrible happened that fateful day (9/11). My daughter was 9 years old at the time, and I did not hide the devastation from her.
I don’t know what to make of this:
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On the one hand, a pictorial anecdote of what happened on that fateful day makes sense. On the other hand, is this something we want the government to convey?
I understand those who feel that the devastation of 9/11 is not a matter of cartoons, or coloring books. It is a horror beyond despair. From my perspective, reducing the tragedy to cartoons or coloring books makes a mockery of it all, unless it is done by someone who actually witnessed the event. In fact, I don’t consider 9/11 to fit the “disaster” category. It was “man-made”. It was an act of war…not an act of “force majeure”.
That’s why the drawings of Terezin are so poignant, when depicted by the children who were there. If done by non-actors, they would be mere caricatures, and offensive to us all.
Maybe, in trying to help children cope with tragedies, we should use drawings or cartoons done by those children who witnessed the events.
Prosecuting terrorism.
Here’s a letter from a former US prosecutor of a terrorist declining to participate in a Department of Justice roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy has convened with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases.
My concern: how will our allies react to what is “legally” going on in the US regarding this theme? How far would the arm of the law reach? How vulnerable would those foreigners who have helped us along the way be?
Of birds and fish…
Here are some magnificent photos of birds of prey taken by an amazing artist.
(Thanks to Tigerhawk).
Renditions in Poland.
Khalid Sheikh Muhammad supposedly was transferred to Poland for harsh interrogations. Spiegel Online reports.
Clarification: Muhammed was not waterboarded 183 times. He had water poured on his face 183 times, and was subjected to 5 sessions of “ill-treatment”.
Message in a bottle.
The primordial urge not to be forgotten:
We can do it, if we try…
Ever feel overburdened? tired? that life is too complicated and you think you have been dealt a most difficult blow?
I used to read to my children The Little Engine That Could because I always thought the little book conveyed simple -yet enormously significant- messages: optimism and hard work. In many ways, the story depicted the “only in America can something like this happen”.
A friend sent me this video. It is not about golf. It is about hope, endurance and fortitude. Most importantly, it is about the human spirit. It is something to ponder when one is feeling down.
I feel awkward, because no words can describe what DJ has accomplished. Watch the 12 minute video. You will not be disappointed and you will want to share!
America’s nightmare.
Spiegel Online reports that the economic crisis in the US has plunged the middle class into poverty. The article provides a window as to how we are seen -and reported about- overseas. I may be jaded, but this sounds way over the top!
When one local woman, who works at a Middle Eastern embassy in Washington, opened her car door one morning, she was astonished to find a woman holding a purse and wearing a pearl necklace sitting on the seat. The humiliated woman covered her face, apologized politely and quickly left her sleeping quarters.
Frozen mammoth.
National Geographic has neat pictures about a frozen baby mammoth found by reindeer shepherds in Siberia. Will these shepherds benefit at all from this find?
Tattoos.
Everything you want to know about the origins and antiquity of tattoos is at the Smithsonian Magazine.
Hatred of the Jew is like the lunar eclipse.
Anti-Semitism, too, will have its eclipses, but they are necessarily ephemeral. The primordial hatred of which we are speaking will continue to circle and shine and proceed through its phases because it has always done so — and therefore it always will. This remains the case whatever may have given it its original impetus.
Babylon: The cradle of civilization.
Babylon has received US government funding to develop it for tourism. Here’s an interesting video from MSNBC about the cradle of civilization.
Irena Sendlerowa.
I’m disappointed that I missed the Hallmark Hall of Fame television docudrama about Irena Sendlerowa. But I came across these comments from Phyllis Chesler that are worth pondering:
… yesterday was the fiend Hitler’s birthday and the day the United Nations chose to open their Durban2 Conference in Geneva. (Makes sense). Oh, how I wish that Irena Sendler were still alive to address this United Nations conference in Geneva which is supposed to be about “racism.” With her sweet, sweet face, and grandmotherly calm, only someone of her moral caliber might be able to explain a thing or two about “racism” and how the UN is currently perverting it, Orwellian style, against the Jews and against Israel. Sendler is not a victim of racism, she fought against it.
We need many more such morally courageous people in the world. And, if we have them, (we very well might), we need to know about them. Perhaps people can launch a YouTube project with this pedagogic and inspiring goal in mind.
Last year I wrote about this incredibly courageous lady, and I repost:
Irena Sendlerowa: Member of the “decent” race.
Irena Sendlerowa had a gentle and sparkling gaze. She was a giant of a human being, working against all odds to wrench 2500 children from the arms of their miserably desperate parents, risking her life as well as others in a daring effort - full of unknowns - to save them from Nazi German extermination in her native Poland.
She belonged to a selected and very tiny group of individuals who make the world a better place.
She didn’t see herself as a heroine.
Irena Sendlerowa was a member of the Zegota movement.
One of the co-founders of this movement, that saved thousands of Jews, during World War II, was another member of the “decent” race, Wladislaw Bartoszewski.
Irena Sendlerowa’s story is poignantly moving, and there are many versions in print now that she has finally gone to meet her Creator. What struck me about her story, is how forgotten it was by the world at large, including her native country.
And here is where I discover the power of good that young people can generate just because they found an inspiring story and became determined to undo an injustice! If it had not been for these American High School students, Irena Sendlerowa’s story might have stayed in the dusty annals of history.
Irena Sendlerowa is now in the company of all those tortured parents who know that it was thanks to this Polish citizen that their children, grand-children and great-grandchildren could go forth and multiply.
The story of a blind boy.
Last night I watched a beautiful Iranian film that I had missed, and which has been around for 9 years! It is a lyrical story of a physically blind boy and his spiritually blind father.
The Color of Paradise gave me a wonderful glimpse into a different culture, strange and melodic language, spectacular topography, and a great performance by the 8-year old actor. The film also demonstrates that there are certain sentiments common to all people. The metaphors and allegories are gently presented. At one point the boy is told by his blind carpenter mentor that he will feel God with his hands… The last scene encapsulates what the mentor has said.
Here’s a review of this serene and poignant film.
From sonypictures.com.
On Mathematics, and drowning Turks.
From Poland’s The News.pl:
“We did not try to exhort anyone to hate. What mattered to us was the mathematical model – the historical context was irrelevant. In order to solve the problem one needs to be acquainted with principles Maths, not the ways of murdering Turks.”
Truth is stranger than fiction…(I’m assuming this report is correct.)
Warsaw: “A city that no longer exists.”
In Poland, a new exhibit of
…two dozen or so black-and-white pictures in “Warsaw from Above” give visitors an eagle’s eye view of the Polish capital as the densely packed, almost honeycomb-like city of tenement buildings, townhouses and palaces of 1940 was pounded by fighting into a landscape of rubble and roofless, hollowed-out shells by 1945.
“These photographs chronicle an incredibly dramatic and important time for Warsaw,” said Zygmunt Walkowski, the researcher who discovered the photographs at the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Maryland, in 2007.
A year ago, I reflected on Warsaw’s devastation:
In April 1943 the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto revolted. Despite their valiant and desperate fight, the rebellion was brutally suppressed. The ghetto was smashed; 36,000 people were either killed or sent to death camps.
As [author and historian Norman] Davies explains, the Warsaw uprising of 1944 — which should not be confused with the ghetto uprising — ended just as tragically. After Hitler commanded the SS chief Heinrich Himmler to take charge of operations in the city, orders were issued to put down the rebellion and reduce the Polish capital to ruins: ”We shall finish them off,” Himmler declared. ”Warsaw will be liquidated.” Every inhabitant was to be killed, every house burned. By October the rebellion had been crushed. Fifteen thousand of the partisans had been killed, and between 200,000 and 250,000 civilians lay dead.
85% of the city of Warsaw was destroyed.
