The Modern History

Skateboarding: Pictures of the Early Days of the Sport From LIFE...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:03:05 -0600

Skateboarding: Pictures of the Early Days of the Sport From LIFE Magazine - LIFE

Germany’s Outdated, Wrongheaded Ban on Nazi Books Like...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:46:52 -0600

Germany’s Outdated, Wrongheaded Ban on Nazi Books Like ‘Mein Kampf’ - The Atlantic

by Heather Horn

There’s something deeply distasteful about the news out of Germany this week. It’s not that the latest edition of a British publisher’s excerpts of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf has sold 250,000 copies in just a few days. It’s that the Bavarian state government, which technically owns the copyright, is considering fighting it.

Hitler’s ideological dumping ground of an autobiography isn’t technically banned in Germany. But it might as well be. The finance ministry of the state of Bavaria, in the south, holds the copyrights to Mein Kampf and has simply refused to let it be republished. It’s done the same for other Nazi works. This same British publisher, Peter McGee of Albertas Ltd., reprinted parts of Nazi newspapers in 2009 with accompanying historical commentary, and the Bavarian government, holding the copyrights to those papers as well, had police seize the publications.

Politicalprof: Print Journalism 101

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:40:36 -0600

Politicalprof: Print Journalism 101:

politicalprof:

Here’s how to keep all that political ‘news’ in perspective…

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and…

The Nazi Leader Who, in 1937, Became the Oskar Schindler of...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:04:32 -0600

The Nazi Leader Who, in 1937, Became the Oskar Schindler of China - The Atlantic

by Iris Chang

Perhaps the most fascinating character to emerge from the history of the Rape of Nanking is the German businessman John Rabe. To most of the Chinese in the city, he was a hero, “the living Buddha of Nanking,” the legendary head of the International Safety Zone who saved hundreds of thousands of Chinese lives. But to the Japanese, Rabe was a strange and unlikely savior. For he was not only a German national — a citizen of a country allied with Japan — but the leader of the Nazi Party in Nanking.

thedailywhat: Internet Blackout of the Day: The Great Wikipedia...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:32:06 -0600

thedailywhat:

Internet Blackout of the Day: The Great Wikipedia Blackout of 2012 has begun.

Reddit, TwitPic, Mozilla, Mojang, and thousands of others will soon follow suit. The Internet is officially on strike! Why? Because the House and Senate are conspiring with the entertainment industry to break the Internet.

Make no mistake: SOPA has not been shelved. And a vote on PIPA is just around the corner. Luckily, hundreds of companies, charities, and notable individuals with strong moral character have joined forces to stop these dangerous Big Brother bills from moving forward.

The fight is far from over, but hopefully today’s blackout will help bring this important matter to the attention of folks who rely on the Internet for entertainment and education, but have so far remained oblivious to SOPA and PIPA and their harmful consequences.

Do your part. Take action. Stop SOPA and PIPA and put an end to threat of Internet censorship.

If you absolutely must scab, here are a few useful links:

Five ways to survive the Wikipedia Blackout.

Wikipedia Blackout: Survive with these 12 alternatives.

#altwiki: A collaborative crowd-sourcing alternative to Wikipedia.

How to access Wikipedia during the blackout.

[wikipedia.]

newshour: Wikipedia, Craigslist and Google protest...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:28:11 -0600

newshour:

Wikipedia, Craigslist and Google protest SOPA/PIPA.

(more about the debate here)

Shaolin Temple Photo Essay by Tomasz Gudzowaty In the...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:49:41 -0600

Shaolin Temple Photo Essay by Tomasz Gudzowaty

In the seventies, the martial art of Kung Fu became a pop-culture phenomenon due to the cult TV series of the same name. The show’s main character, a fugitive monk from the Shaolin monastery, finds himself in the western world. From that time forward, Kung Fu and Shaolin have been associated with that media icon of a warrior-monk of extraordinary ability. But for the Buddhists, Shaolin remains a cradle of one of the most significant forms of the religion called Chan; a discipline that values spiritual self-improvement through meditation over prayers and ceremonies. Introduced in the 5th century AD by the Indian monk Bodhidharma, the principles of contemplation and martial arts, present in the daily life of monks, are regarded as a remedy for physical weakness and indolence. Despite the vicissitudes of history, the monastic tradition survived until Mao’s Cultural Revolution, when the Shaolin temple was officially closed. But the formal organization, with a prior as leader, remained untouched, and in the eighties the temple was re-opened as a training center and tourist attraction. Students of karate, judo, and tai box often refuse to recognize Kung Fu as a martial art due to its theatricality and testing of one’s own resistance instead of the opponent’s. In a way, this is true. Training in Kung Fu is mostly done without an opponent, as it was never meant to kill, and the poetic names of the moves implies that it is more of meditation than a fight. However, the only difference between breaking a clay jug and smashing a human skull with one’s bare hands is consciousness of will. Despite the commercialization, Kung Fu retains a mystical character closer to a monastic discipline than to the performances of modern gladiators.

vintage everyday: Recoloured Photos Iconic black and white...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:49:31 -0600

vintage everyday: Recoloured Photos

Iconic black and white photographs reimagined in colour.

AP opens full news bureau in North Korea Associated Press...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:29:30 -0600

AP opens full news bureau in North Korea

Associated Press President Tom Curley, right, shakes hands with Korean Central News Agency President Kim Pyong Ho after signing an agreement to open a new AP office in Pyongyang, North Korea on Monday Jan. 16, 2012. The AP opened its newest bureau in North Korea, making it the first international news organization with a full time presence to cover news from North Korea in words, pictures, and video. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

False Flag | Foreign Policy by Mark Perry | January 13,...

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:41:00 -0600

False Flag | Foreign Policy

by Mark Perry | January 13, 2012

Buried deep in the archives of America’s intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush’s administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives — what is commonly referred to as a “false flag” operation.

Really, Newt Gingrich? I guess the President of the United...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:26:00 -0600

Really, Newt Gingrich?

I guess the President of the United States should only speak American.

BBC News - Mitt Romney lambasted in attack ad for speaking French

Quelle horreur! Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney has been skewered in a new political attack ad - for speaking French.

The ad, released by rival Newt Gingrich, seeks to draw unflattering parallels between Mr Romney and another Massachusetts politician, John Kerry.

Entitled The French Connection, it features a clip of Mr Romney talking in French when he ran the Winter Olympics.

Mississippi judge blocks release of pardoned prisoners -...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:24:58 -0600

Mississippi judge blocks release of pardoned prisoners - CNN.com

(CNN) — A Mississippi judge Wednesday evening issued a temporary injunction forbidding the release of any more prisoners pardoned by outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour.

Four convicted murderers and a convicted armed robber were released Sunday, but they must contact officials on a daily basis as the matter is adjudicated.

“We have ordered that they report to the Department of Corrections,” said Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. “It’s a slap in the face to everyone in law enforcement and Gov. Barbour should be ashamed,” he said.

A court hearing on the matter will be held January 23.

Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography - The Ruins of...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:35:16 -0600

Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography - The Ruins of Detroit

Detroit, industrial capital of the XXth Century, played a fundamental role shaping the modern world. The logic that created the city also destroyed it. Nowadays, unlike anywhere else, the city’s ruins are not isolated details in the urban environment. They have become a natural component of the landscape. Detroit presents all archetypal buildings of an American city in a state of mummification. Its splendid decaying monuments are, no less than the Pyramids of Egypt, the Coliseum of Rome, or the Acropolis in Athens, remnants of the passing of a great Empire.

In Jerusalem, the Holocaust Is Trivialized - The Daily...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:00:06 -0600

In Jerusalem, the Holocaust Is Trivialized - The Daily Beast

Even for the ultra-Orthodox, the Holocaust and Nazism are tossed blithely into political discourse. Is nothing sacred?

An Israeli protest over the weekend by ultra-Orthodox Jews who dressed their children to look like inmates at a Nazi concentration camp highlights the sometimes peculiar role the Holocaust plays there in political discourse and even in everyday exchanges.

The spectacle at a Jerusalem square Saturday night, staged by the most extreme of the ultra-Orthodox community’s myriad factions, featured mostly adults but also several dozen kids in striped uniforms and yellow stars, evoking the Holocaust’s most iconic images. The demonstrators were protesting an effort by secular Israelis to roll back gender segregation on some bus lines and in certain neighborhoods—a dispute that has surged in recent weeks.

Politicians from across the spectrum voiced outrage, as did Jewish groups in Israel and abroad, describing the display as an ugly trivialization of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were murdered by Nazis and their sympathizers.

Please watch the video. It’s a reminder of why we must...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:21:56 -0600

Please watch the video. It’s a reminder of why we must never forget history.

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY is January 27

For more than six decades, Sol Finkelstein didn’t know his father’s fate.

In 1945, just days before liberation at Mauthausen concentration camp, Sol and his father were separated, and Sol never saw him again.

Sol’s son Joseph recently contacted our Museum in hopes of finding more information about his grandfather. Our staff discovered the date and place of his death, and Sol’s family was able to visit his grave in Austria.

After learning that Sol had no photos of his father, our staff searched further and found an identification card with a picture of Sol’s father. For the first time since he was a teenager Sol saw his father’s face—a moment he graciously allowed us to capture on film.

Demjanjuk Asks Judge to Reconsider Citizenship Bid - ABC...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:51:22 -0600

Demjanjuk Asks Judge to Reconsider Citizenship Bid - ABC News

Convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk wants a federal judge to reconsider a decision denying his bid to regain his U.S. citizenship.

U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster rejected the retired autoworker’s citizenship claim just over two weeks ago, saying Demjanjuk lied about where he was during World War II.

Demjanjuk’s attorney asked the judge Thursday to reconsider the citizenship request, saying he had not seen all the newly discovered documents that could help his cause.

Think Again: Intelligence - By Paul R. Pillar | Foreign...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:52:37 -0600

Think Again: Intelligence - By Paul R. Pillar | Foreign Policy

BY PAUL R. PILLAR

I served in the CIA for 28 years and I can tell you: America’s screw-ups come from bad leaders, not lousy spies.

“Hidebound Intelligence Agencies Refuse to Change.”

You’d be surprised. Criticism of U.S. intelligence agencies — at least the non-paranoid kind — tends to portray them as stodgy bureaucracies that use their broad mandate for secrecy to shield themselves from the oversight that would make them do their jobs better. But the great majority of effective intelligence reforms have come from inside, not outside.

The organizational charts of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have undergone frequent and sometimes drastic revision, a recognition of the need to adapt to the rapidly changing world the agencies monitor and analyze. The CIA merged its analytic units covering East and West Germany in expectation of German reunification well before German unity was achieved in 1990. Other measures, such as developing greater foreign-language ability or training analysts in more sophisticated techniques, have been the focus of concentrated attention inside the agencies for years. The most effective, and probably most revolutionary, change in the intelligence community’s work on terrorism was the creation of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center in 1986 — a successful experiment that broke bureaucratic crockery, gathering previously separated collectors, analysts, and other specialists together to work side by side.

Twitch Presents ATTACK THE BLOC: COLD WAR SCIENCE FICTION FROM...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:19:00 -0600

Twitch Presents ATTACK THE BLOC: COLD WAR SCIENCE FICTION FROM BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

Attention science fiction fans! If you happen to be in the Toronto area Twitch will soon be taking you on a guided tour through the Cold War era scifi offerings of the Eastern Bloc with a lengthy retrospective of rarely seen titles at the TIFF Bell Lightbox beginning January 19th.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s classics Solaris and Stalker get three screenings each - both on 35mm - along with single screenings of diverse host of rarely - if ever - seen titles from Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, Russia, and Estonia. It’s an incredibly diverse lineup of films ranging from philosophical scifi to open propaganda to swinging adventure, bearded ladies, comic books come to life and a vampire car.