By AP / TRAVIS REED Friday, Nov. 27, 2009
JUPITER, Fla.) — Three women and a child in bed were shot to death during a family Thanksgiving gathering in South Florida and a male relative was being sought early Friday.
Police said 17 relatives were in the house when the shootings were reported around 10 p.m. Thursday in Jupiter, a small coastal town about 90 miles north of Miami.
Jupiter Police Sgt. Scott Pascarella said they were looking for Paul Michael Merhige, 35, of Miami. Merhige is a cousin of the 6-year-old victim, McKayla Sitton, police said.
The others killed were all women. They were named as Raymonde Joseph, 76, and Carla Merhige and Lisa Merhige, 33-year-old twin sisters who were sisters of Paul Merhige.
Authorities said a fifth victim, Patrick McKnight, was being treated at a hospital. His condition was not available.
Pascarella said police received a 911 call from a neighbor shortly after 10 p.m. Police then received a second 911 call from someone within the home. Pascarella says the shootings took place inside the house.
"What led to this incident, we're not quite sure," said Pascarella. "It did not appear there was any altercation prior to this shooting."
Police said the home was owned by Jim Sitton, a photojournalist for WPTV-TV and father of the little girl killed. Sitton told WPTV his daughter was in bed when she was shot. He was at the party at the time of the shooting but was not wounded.
Yellow crime scene tape was stretched around Sitton's salmon-colored house, located in a well-kept subdivision of stucco homes. Several cars were parked in the driveway, and a crime scene van sat in front.
Sitton told local media that his daughter was supposed to perform Friday in a holiday production of the Nutcracker.
"God packed a lot of sweetness into that little body," Sitton said. "She's just our life. I don't know how we are ever going to recover."
The relationship between Sitton and Paul Merhige was unclear, police said.
Police across South Florida and the U.S. Marshals Service were searching for Merhige. Pascarella said Merhige is believed to be driving a blue 2007 4-door Toyota Camry with Florida license plate W42 7JT.
"The word we're trying to get out to the public is that this individual is considered armed and dangerous," said Pascarella.
Phone calls to a number listed for Paul Merhige were not answered. A phone call to Sitton was also not returned.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Head teacher jailed for child porn possession
Last updated at 13:23 GMT, Friday, 27 November 2009A former head teacher of a Fife school who admitted downloading almost 3,000 indecent images of children has been jailed for two years.
David Wilson will also spend two years under supervision after his release.
Wilson, 48, from Paisley, was head teacher at Auchmuty High School in Glenrothes at the time of the offences.
He was detected as part of the Operation Algebra investigation, which has led to the arrest of about 200 suspected paedophiles around the world.
Wilson was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Last month at the High Court in Glasgow he pleaded guilty to possessing and downloading the images of children between 2004 and 2008.
He was suspended from the post in February 2009.
Wilson was traced because detectives found he had communicated by e-mail with a member of a paedophile gang, John Milligan.
Milligan was recently sentenced to 17 years for a string of child sex charges.
After establishing the link between Wilson and Milligan, police seized computer equipment belonging to the head teacher.
Lord Kinclaven said he was imposing an extended sentence because of the gravity of the offending.
Father and son jailed for murder
Last updated at 14:37 GMT, Friday, 27 November 2009A father and his 14-year-old son have been given life terms for stabbing a man to death in a pub in east London.
Jason Michael, 39, and his son Harry Farrant were convicted of murdering Daniel Leahy, who was 45.
The pair, of Abbey Road, Barking, were also convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to David Murphy and Lee Lumb.
Mr Leahy was stabbed through the heart on 13 April in the Victoria pub on Axe Street, Barking, and died at the scene.
He was attacked with such force that the knife was still embedded in his body when an ambulance crew arrived.
Mr Leahy also suffered three stab wounds to his back, caused by what was believed to be a bayonet.
Michael and Farrant had been armed with knives when they went to the pub and were ready to use them, the Old Bailey was told.
In a separate attack on 14 February, the pair were in another local pub - the Captain Cook - when the licensee's son, Lee Lumb, was stabbed four times.
Michael and Farrant "produced and used knives" on that occasion, the trial was told.
Michael was ordered to spend at least 19 years in jail, while Farrant must serve a minimum of 14 years.
Vicar killing 'not predictable'
Last updated at 14:07 GMT, Friday, 27 November 2009A health watchdog says the actions of a man with paranoid schizophrenia who stabbed a vicar to death in 2007 could "not have been predicted".
Geraint Evans, now 26, was detained indefinitely for killing Father Paul Bennett, 59, outside his vicarage at Trecynon, Aberdare, south Wales.
Health Inspectorate Wales (HIW) found his mental health was not assessed after an earlier self-harm incident.
The Bennett family's MP said they felt "let down" by the failings.
The report states that had Evans received a full assessment after self-harming, a diagnosis of psychosis could have been made, and treatment begun.
"Had he received such treatment over a period of time and responded adequately, the risk of his committing an act of violence or homicide might have been reduced," said the HIW.
But it accepts that the mental state of 'Mr D', as Evans is referred to in the report, "was never fully known to any medical services".
The HIW was ordered to carry out an investigation by the assembly government after the killing on 14 March 2007 outside the vicarage at St Fagan's Church in Trecynon.
Father Paul, who was profoundly deaf, was attacked as he went to put the rubbish out. His wife Georgina, hearing his screams, went outside to see Evans on top of her husband, attacking him.
Evans, who was obsessed with the devil, was detained indefinitely at a high security psychiatric unit for manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility at Cardiff Crown Court the following October.
Judge Nicholas Cooke QC said it was the "brutal killing of a wholly innocent man in an act of inhuman savagery.
"It was a killing as cruel as is possible to contemplate."
The court heard Evans suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and a personality disorder, and had used cannabis and inhaled lighter fuel since his early teens.
Undiagnosed
He was obsessed with God and the devil and fixated with religion and knives.
He was a subscriber and contributor to satanic websites using the pseudonym Jack Blade where he declared: "I am Satan."
But the findings of the report published on Friday said the case highlighted failures in services to "proactively engage" Evans' and his family, while he was a child and adolescent.
"Little support was offered by local authorities to Mr D's mother despite her requests," states the HIW.
The report found he went to accident and emergency in July 2006 after a self-harm incident but walked out due to a 40 minute delay for mental health assessment, and no follow-up took place.
It said there was "ambiguity regarding the level of concern" and lack of detailed records over the 2006 incident.
Chief executive of HIW, Dr Peter Higson, said: "The death of Father Paul has had a significant impact on his family and on the local community.
"It is clear that Mr D's mental health problems had gone undiagnosed and untreated for some time.
"While the homicide of Father Paul could not have been predicted, had Mr D received appropriate care and treatment the risk of him committing an act of violence or homicide might have been reduced."
The HIW also reviewed the role of the ambulance service to the stabbing.It found that Father Paul's wife had initially been asked to check her husband by 999 call handlers, despite Evans' still being present, armed with a knife.
It also revealed that there was a delay in identifying the correct address during the 999 call, and that paramedics made no attempt to resuscitate Father Paul.
In relation to the later involvement of services offering support to Father Paul's family, the HIW states: "There is a lack of formalised health or social care arrangements in place in relation to the wider community to respond to traumatic incidents of this kind which impact on a community."
The HIW's Dr Higson added: "For Father Paul's widow the tragedy has been compounded by her experiences following his attack and we have made recommendations in our report that are aimed at ensuring the matters highlighted by her experiences are addressed."
After the health watchdog inquiry was announced, Evans' mother Caroline said he was "devastated" by what he had done.
She said: "He was hoping rather than taking someone else's life, he would have died.
"He knew he was ill, more than anyone else or myself. He just kept holding it in and it got worse."
Chief executive of Cwm Taf Health Board Margaret Foster said they accepted in full the findings and were acting on the recommendations.
"Although Geraint Evans' mental state was never fully known to any medical services, there were clearly shortcomings in a range of services over a number of years," she said.
"On behalf of all the agencies involved, I apologise unreservedly for these."
'Let down'
In addition, Ms Foster said they were "deeply sorry" there was a delay in offering the appropriate support and counselling to Mrs Bennett following her husband's death.
Ellis Williams, director of social services at Rhondda Cynon Taf Council, said the authority was committed to "addressing the challenges" identified in the report.
Speaking on behalf of Mrs Bennett and her daughter, Cynon Valley MP Ann Clwyd said: "Unfortunately it shows, once more, that society is being let down by failings of our social services and health authority.
"How many more innocent people must lose their lives in the most horrific circumstances before these organisations begin to realise the consequences of their inadequate actions?
"How many more times must must we hear the words 'failed to follow up', 'opportunities missed' and 'poor communication'?
"Paul died a horrific death and I can still hear his screams of agony."
Speaking on behalf of the family, she added that while the police had conducted an internal review into their own response, that had not been openly reported.
Ms Clwyd said it took officers 10 minutes to arrive at the scene despite the station being just one mile from the vicarage and receiving a report that an armed man was on the loose.
She said that had Evans not stayed at the scene of his own accord until police arrived, it was unknown what "carnage" could have ensued.
She said the family hoped Health Minister Edwina Hart, who commissioned the report, realised the sacrifice Fr Bennett had made to learn the lessons announced today.
Hammerhead shark mystery solved
By Jody Bourton Earth News reporter
Last updated at 10:11 GMT, Friday, 27 November 2009
Why do hammerhead sharks have such a famously strange-shaped head?
One hypothesis is that having eyes on either side of such a wide 'hammer' allows the sharks to see better.
But even this idea divides scientific opinion, as researchers argue over whether the hammerhead design makes it more or less difficult to see.
The mystery may now be solved by a study showing that a hammerhead gives sharks outstanding binocular vision and an ability to see through 360 degrees.
The finding is published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Debate over why hammerheads are shaped as they are goes back centuries, and arguments over their visual capabilities goes back decades, says Dr Michelle McComb from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, US.
For example, in 1948, zoologist Gordon Walls, a leading authority on vertebrate eye evolution, suggested that the position of a hammerhead shark's eye precluded it from having binocular vision.
Yet in 1984, leading shark expert Leonard Campagno countered by suggesting that the distance between a hammerhead's eyes would actually give it excellent binocular vision.
Binocular vision occurs when the fields of two eyes overlap, allowing the accurate perception of depth and distance. It is especially important for predators which need to judge the distance to their prey.
However, despite its apparent importance, "frontal vision in hammerhead sharks has been speculated about for decades but never tested," says Dr McComb.
Shining a light
So she and colleagues Professor Timothy Tricas from the University of Hawaii in Manoa, US and Stephen Kajiura, also from Florida Atlantic University, decided to do exactly that.
They placed a variety of shark species, each with a different shaped head, into an aquarium tank.
They then placed sensors on the shark's skin to measure its brain activity, specifically testing whether the animal would react to beams of light shone from different locations around the tank.
By doing so, they could measure each shark's field of vision.
"This study confirmed that hammerhead sharks have anterior binocular vision," says Dr McComb.
That means they can see directly ahead while swimming and can accurately judge distance, particularly to any prey they hunt.
What's more, the researchers show that the degree of overlap between the two eyes increases with head width.
In sharks with a usual head, such as the lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris), the field of vision of each eye overlaps by just 10 degrees.
Scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini) have a relatively wide head, and their eyes overlap by 32 degrees.
However, the eyes of a winghead shark (Eusphyra blochii), which Dr McComb describes as a 'swimming boomerang' because its head width is almost half its body length, overlap by 48 degrees.
"As the hammerhead head has expanded, the degree of binocular overlap has increased with it," Dr McComb explains.
Eye opener
The results surprised the researchers.
"I believed hammerheads would not have binocular vision, because their eyes were pointing out on the sides of the head," admits Dr McComb.
"However, it turns out that the positioning of the eyes was really the key."
The eyes of hammerhead sharks are tilted slightly forward, she says, allowing the field of vision of each to significantly overlap.
"This study has confirmed that vision may have played a role in the evolution of one of the ocean's most bizarre inhabitants," Dr McComb says.
"This has been a scientific question which has persisted since hammerheads were first described over 200 years ago."
Added benefit
The shape of the hammerhead brings further benefits, the researchers discovered.
By moving their head sideways as they swim, the sharks can see much of what is behind them.
More extraordinary is that the position of the eyes allows the sharks to see through 360 degrees in the vertical plane, meaning the animals can see above and below them at all times.
As well as improving their ability to catch prey, "this may be beneficial to smaller sharks that are potential prey to larger sharks," says Dr McComb.
Nightmarish memories of Nazis' Sobibor death camp
Last updated at 10:54 GMT, Friday, 27 November 2009John Demjanjuk is due to stand trial in Germany accused of helping to murder more than 27,000 Jews at the Nazi death camp of Sobibor in occupied Poland. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg returns to the site of the camp with one man who survived its horrors.
In the Jewish cemetery in the town of Izbica, 84-year-old Philip Bialowitz shows me a battered gravestone among a tangle of bushes.
"This is the place where I was shot," he tells me. "I was brought here with a group of people and we were shot with machine-guns."
The Nazis murdered 4,000 Jews in the cemetery. Philip's mother was killed here. But her son had a remarkable escape. Lined up with other Jewish prisoners by the side of a freshly dug grave, he jumped in as soon as the bullets started to fly.
"I fell down and pretended I was dead. I made myself room to breathe. Many people were screaming. They were injured. I couldn't help them. I lay there a few hours covered in blood. Then I managed to get out."
A few months later, Philip was rearrested, together with his brother, his two sisters and his niece. This time they were not taken to the cemetery. They were transported to Sobibor.
"We knew that Sobibor was a death camp," Philip recalls. "We'd heard. So when they took us on the road to Sobibor we knew that this is the end of our life."
Sobibor was one of three secret killing factories built by the Nazis in eastern Poland. In 18 months, a quarter of a million Jews were transported here and murdered in the gas chambers. Their bodies were incinerated, their ashes buried in pits.
It is here that John Demjanjuk is accused of being a guard and of helping to kill 27,900 Jews. His trial begins next week in Munich. John Demjanjuk denies the charges.
Slave labourers
I go with Philip to Sobibor.
"Every inch of this ground is holy," he tells me. We're standing on waste ground; little remains of the camp.
1. Officers' compound2. Accommodation and workshops for Jewish slave labourers
3. Selection area where new arrivals had their belongings and clothing taken and new slave labourers were chosen
4. The majority of arrivals were led naked at gunpoint down a path known as the Tube
5. At the end of the Tube were the gas chambers, where they were killed
Source: Holocaust Research Project
"This is where the people perished, where they were gassed, where they were burned."
When Philip Bialowitz was transported here, an SS officer selected him and his brother Simcha to be slave labourers. It would delay their death sentence. The brothers were then separated from their relatives.
"We said goodbye to them. Even my seven-year-old niece knew she was going to die."
As a Jewish slave labourer, Philip had to help unload the transports of Jews arriving at Sobibor and remove the bodies of dead passengers.
"One Sunday, a German guard took 10 of us to help unload a transport. The smell was terrible. He told me to take people out of the wagon. When I pulled out a woman, her skin remained in my hands. I still have nightmares about that episode," he says.
While Polish Jews like Philip knew Sobibor was a death camp when they got here, Jews arriving from other countries had little idea what lay in store.
"Jews from Holland were deceived by the Nazis into thinking they were going to be resettled," says Philip.
"I helped them out of the trains with all their baggage. My heart was bleeding knowing that in half an hour they would be reduced to ashes. I couldn't tell them. I wasn't allowed to speak. Even if I told them, they would not believe they were going to die.
"The Gestapo man welcomed them and apologised for the inconvenience of travel. He said that because of typhus they had to take a disinfection. They must undress. 'But before you undress,' he said, 'I would strongly recommend you send home postcards to your dear ones that you are here in a nice place.' So people were clapping. Some even cheered 'Bravo!'."
Naked, at gunpoint, the Jews were herded down a path through the forest. It led not to the shower rooms, but to the gas chambers.
"A few minutes later the whole camp heard screams. First loud and strong. And later subsiding, until we didn't hear anything. This went on every day."
'Biggest victory'
But one remarkable day the Jews of Sobibor fought back.
On 14 October 1943, the slave labourers launched an uprising. It was led by a Polish Jew, Leon Feldhendler, and a Russian Jewish POW, Sasha Pechersky.
Their escape plan exploited the Nazis' greed. Slave labourers, whose job it was to sort the clothes of murdered Jews, put aside the best items. These were then used to lure the SS guards into traps one by one.
"I was one of the messengers," remembers Philip. "I went up to a Gestapo and told him, 'I've been sent to tell you they found a very beautiful leather coat and boots for you. Come to the warehouse to try it on'. When they went in, they were killed with knives and axes."
The Jews killed 12 SS men before the plot was discovered.
In the chaos which followed, more than 300 of the 600 Jewish slave workers broke out of the camp. Many were killed by mines or shot dead. Around 50 escapees survived till the end of the war.
After the uprising, the Nazis murdered the Jews who had stayed behind. Then, to try to conceal the systematic slaughter they had carried out here, they pulled down the death camp.
After escaping from Sobibor, Philip and his brother Simcha took refuge on a farm near their home town of Izbica. A Polish farmer risked his life by hiding them under his barn. They remained there for a year. Once the war was over, Philip began a new life in America, his brother Simcha in Israel.
"In Sobibor life was hell," Philip says. "But we took revenge. We escaped to tell the world what had happened. And I made a victory over the Germans. I created a new family of five children and 14 grandchildren. This is my biggest victory."
Sobibor was a Nazi extermination camp in the Lublin region of occupied Poland
'World's strongest' beer with 32% strength launched
For those who like beer...Last updated at 12:58 GMT, Thursday, 26 November 2009
A controversial Scottish brewery has launched what it described as the world's strongest beer - with a 32% alcohol content.
Tactical Nuclear Penguin has been unveiled by BrewDog of Fraserburgh.
BrewDog was previously branded irresponsible for an 18.2% beer called Tokyo, which it then followed with a low alcohol beer called Nanny State.
Managing director James Watt said a limited supply of Tactical Nuclear Penguin would be sold for £30 each.
He said: "This beer is about pushing the boundaries, it is about taking innovation in beer to a whole new level."
Mr Watt added that a beer such as Tactical Nuclear Penguin should be drunk in "spirit sized measures".
A warning on the label states: "This is an extremely strong beer; it should be enjoyed in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost."
However Jack Law, of Alcohol Focus Scotland, described it was a "cynical marketing ploy" and said: "We want to know why a brewer would produce a beer almost as strong as whisky."
The beer has been launched on the day alcohol was at the top of the political agenda with the unveiling of the Scottish government's Alcohol Bill including proposals for minimum pricing on drink.
Meanwhile, BrewDog's plans for a new headquarters to produce millions of bottles of beer a year have been approved by Aberdeenshire Council.
The decision was taken at a full council meeting despite having been recommended for refusal by officers because the site at Potterton, near Aberdeen, is in the green belt.
The Overtoun or "Dog Suicide" Bridge
Bridge causes dogs to leap to their death for mysterious reasonsLocated near the village of Milton in the burgh of Dumbarton, Scotland, there exists a bridge that for some reason or another, has been attracting suicidal dogs since the early 60s. At a rate of around one a month, dogs have been regularly leaping from the bridge; an estimated 600 have been reported jumping.
Even more strange are the circumstances behind these incidents of kamikaze canines. Not only have they been plummeting to their deaths from the bridge, but many have witnessed the dogs actually climbing the parapet wall before making the jump. Even stranger are the reports of dogs surviving their brush with death, only to return to the bridge for a second attempt.
Many theories have arisen on why these doggy suicides occur at such a regular pace, but nothing conclusive has been found. The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has sent representatives to investigate, but they too were stumped by the cause of the strange behavior.Thursday, November 26, 2009
The Four Horsemen
On the 30th of September 2007, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion, convened by RDFRS and filmed by Josh Timonen. All four authors have recently received a large amount of media attention for their writings against religion - some positive, and some negative. In this conversation the group trades stories of the public’s reaction to their recent books, their unexpected successes, criticisms and common misrepresentations. They discuss the tough questions about religion that face to world today, and propose new strategies for going forward.
Authors’ Recommended Books: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett, Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, The End of Faith by Sam Harris, God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.
Hour 1
Hour 2
Authors’ Recommended Books: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett, Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, The End of Faith by Sam Harris, God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.
Hour 1
Hour 2
The Portable Atheist
Excerpt from 'The Portable Atheist'by Christopher Hitchens, USA Today
One is continually told, as an unbeliever, that it is old-fashioned to rail against the primitive stupidities and cruelties of religion because after all, in these enlightened times, the old superstitions have died away. Nine times out of ten, in debate with a cleric, one will be told not of some dogma of religious certitude but of some instance of charitable or humanitarian work undertaken by a religious person. Of course, this says nothing about the belief system involved: it may be true that Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam succeeds in weaning young black men off narcotics, but this would not alter the fact that the NoI is a racist crackpot organization. And has not Hamas—which publishes The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion on its website—won a reputation for its provision of social services? My own response has been to issue a challenge: name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer. As yet, I have had no takers. (Whereas, oddly enough, if you ask an audience to name a wicked statement or action directly attributable to religious faith, nobody has any difficulty in finding an example.)
No, the fact is that the bacilli are always lurking in the old texts and are latent in the theory and practice of religion. This anthology hopes to identify and isolate the bacilli more precisely.
It also involves ignoring or explaining away the many religious beliefs that antedated Moses. Our primeval ancestors were by no means atheistic: they raised temples and altars and offered the requisite terrified obsequies and sacrifices. Their religion was man-made, like all the others. There was a time when Greek thinkers denounced Christians and Zoroastrians denounced Muslims as "atheists" for their destruction of old sites and their prohibition of ancient rituals. The source of desecration and profanity is religious, as we can see from the way that today's believers violate the sanctity of each other's temples, from Bamiyan to Belfast to Baghdad. Richard Dawkins may have phrased it most pungently when he argued that everybody is an atheist in saying that there is a god—from Ra to Shiva—in which he does not believe. All that the serious and objective atheist does is to take the next step and to say that there is just one more god to disbelieve in. Human solipsism can generally be counted upon to become enraged and to maintain that this discountable god must not be the one in which the believer himself has invested so much credence. So it goes. But the man-made character of religion, from which monotheism swore to deliver us at least in its pagan form, persists in a terrifying shape in our own time, as believers fight each other over the correct interpretation and even kill members of their own faiths in battles over doctrine. Civilization has been immensely retarded by such arcane interfaith quarrels and could now be destroyed by their modern versions.
It is sometimes argued that disbelief in a fearful and tempting heavenly despotism makes life into something arid and tedious and cynical: a mere existence without any consolation or any awareness of the numinous or the transcendent. What nonsense this is. In the first place, it commits an obvious error. It seems to say that we ought not to believe that we are an evolved animal species with faulty components and a short lifespan for ourselves and our globe, lest the consequences of the belief be unwelcome or discreditable to us. Could anything show more clearly the bad effects of wish-thinking? There can be no serious ethical position based on denial or a refusal to look the facts squarely in the face. But this does not mean that we must stare into the abyss all the time. (Only religion, oddly enough, has ever required that we obsessively do that.)
Believing then—as this religious objection implicitly concedes—that human life is actually worth living, one can combat one's natural pessimism by stoicism and the refusal of illusion, while embellishing the scene with any one of the following. There are the beauties of science and the extraordinary marvels of nature. There is the consolation and irony of philosophy. There are the infinite splendors of literature and poetry, not excluding the liturgical and devotional aspects of these, such as those found in John Donne or George Herbert. There is the grand resource of art and music and architecture, again not excluding those elements that aspire to the sublime. In all of these pursuits, any one of them enough to absorb a lifetime, there may be found a sense of awe and magnificence that does not depend at all on any invocation of the supernatural. Indeed, nobody armed by art and culture and literature and philosophy is likely to be anything but bored and sickened by ghost stories, UFO tales, spiritualist experiences, or babblings from the beyond. One can appreciate and treasure the symmetry and grandeur of the ancient Greek Parthenon, for example, without needing any share in the cults of Athena or Eleusis, or the imperatives of Athenian imperialism, just as one may listen to Mozart or admire Chartres and Durham without any nostalgia for feudalism, monarchism, and the sale of indulgences. The whole concept of culture, indeed, may partly consist in discriminating between these things. Religion asks us to do the opposite and to preserve the ancient dreads and prohibitions, even as we dwell amid modern architecture and modern weapons.
It is very often argued that religion must have some sort of potency and relevance, since it occurs so strongly at all times and in all places. None of the authors collected here would ever have denied that. Some of them would argue that religion is so much a part of our human or animal nature that it is actually ineradicable. This, for what it may be worth, is my own view. We are unlikely to cease making gods or inventing ceremonies to please them for as long as we are afraid of death, or of the dark, and for as long as we persist in self-centeredness. That could be a lengthy stretch of time. However, it is just as certain that we shall continue to cast a skeptical and ironic and even witty eye on what we have ourselves invented. If religion is innate in us, then so is our doubt of it and our contempt for our own weakness.
Some of the authors and writers and thinkers assembled in these pages are famous for other reasons than their intelligence and their moral courage on this point. Several of them are chiefly celebrated because they took on the most inflated reputation of all: the elevation into a godhead of all mankind's distilled fears and hatreds and stupidities. Some of them have had the experience of faith and the experience of losing it, while others were and are, in the words of Blaise Pascal, so made that they cannot believe.
Arguments for atheism can be divided into two main categories: those that dispute the existence of god and those that demonstrate the ill effects of religion. It might be better if I broadened this somewhat, and said those that dispute the existence of an intervening god. Religion is, after all, more than the belief in a supreme being. It is the cult of that supreme being and the belief that his or her wishes have been made known or can be determined. Defining matters in this way, I can allow myself to mention great critics such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, who perhaps paradoxically regarded religion as an insult to god. And sooner or later, one must take a position on agnosticism. This word has not been with us for very long—it was coined by the great Thomas Huxley, one of Darwin's stalwart defenders in the original argument over natural selection. It is sometimes used as a half-way house by those who cannot make a profession of faith but are unwilling to repudiate either religion or god absolutely. Since, once again, I am defining as religious those who claim to know, I feel I can lay claim to some at least of those who do not claim to know. An agnostic does not believe in god, or disbelieve in him. Non-belief is not quite unbelief, but I shall press it into service and annex as many agnostics as I can for this collection.
Authors as diverse as Matthew Arnold and George Orwell have given thought to the serious question: what is to be done about morals and ethics now that religion has so much decayed? Arnold went almost as far as to propose that the study of literature replace the study of religion. I must say that I slightly dread the effect that this might have had on literary pursuit, but as a source of ethical reflection and as a mirror in which to see our human dilemmas reflected, the literary tradition is infinitely superior to the childish parables and morality tales, let alone the sanguinary and sectarian admonitions, of the "holy" books. So I have included what many serious novelists and poets have had to say on this most freighted of all subjects. And who, really, will turn away from George Eliot and James Joyce and Joseph Conrad in order to rescrutinize the bare and narrow and constipated and fearful world of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Osama bin Laden?
It is in the hope of strengthening and arming the resistance to the faith-based, and to faith itself, that this anthology of combat with humanity's oldest enemy is respectfully offered.
Reprinted from THE PORTABLE ATHEIST
Men 'wanted to do damage': editor
Last updated at 10:21 GMT, Thursday, 26 November 2009A newspaper editor has said the men who attacked him in Belfast city centre on Wednesday evening wanted to do "severe damage" to his head.
The Sunday World's Jim McDowell was attacked by at least two men at the Continental Market at City Hall.
Mr McDowell, 60, said he heard one of them say "your paper's trying to get my brother killed" before he was hit.
He said he believed he was initially struck with some sort of object then repeatedly kicked when he fell.
"I was dazed and then the blows came raining in, I went down and then the kicks came in, very, very hard and frequently, it was relentless," Mr McDowell.
"There's a heel mark on the back of my head where they were actually stamping on my head as well and the boot coming in was absolutely relentless.
"I tried to get up a couple of times - and I can look after myself - but it was impossible to do it. They wanted to do damage. They wanted to do severe damage to my head."
Mr McDowell, who is editor of the Northern Ireland edition of the Sunday World, was injured in the head, arms and legs, but did not need hospital treatment.
He said when the assault ended, the attackers did not run from the crowded market, but instead "swaggered away".
It happened at about 1710 GMT in the grounds of City Hall, just metres from the buildings front steps.
"Kids screaming, women screaming - I could hear that while these boys were getting laid into me," he said.
"God help any wee kids who were there out for the night with their parents or whatever and saw this happening to a grown man, 60 years of age being beaten to the ground.
"If those guys had knives you'd have been carrying a coffin later this week, I'm convinced of that."
Car vandalised
The attack happened less than two weeks after his car was vandalised outside Craigavon court house.
He attended a hearing involving a number of men who were charged in connection with the murder of one of his reporters, Martin O'Hagan
Mr O'Hagan was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries in Lurgan, County Armagh, in September 2001.
Mr McDowell has been threatened several times before by loyalists and republicans.
A police spokesperson, who appealed for information, said one of the attackers was described as being about 5ft 9ins tall, clean shaven with a pale complexion.
He was wearing a black hooded top and a distinctive black striped woolly hat.
A second man is described as being of stocky build. He had hair cropped at the sides and was bald on top. He was wearing a red jacket and dark trousers.
Three jailed for torture killing
Last updated at 15:20 GMT, Thursday, 26 November 2009
Three men have been jailed for their part in the murder of a 26-year-old man who was tortured with scissors in the mistaken belief he was a paedophile.
Alan Street was attacked at a house in Padiham, Lancashire, in December 2008 and his body was found in a culvert in Accrington on 19 January.
Alan Street's body was found in a culvert in Accrington
Allan Palmer, 44, and Peter Leonard, 52, were convicted of murder and must serve 25 and 28 years respectively.
Kieron Davison, 21, must serve eight years after admitting manslaughter.
Preston Crown Court heard Leonard, 52, of Oswaldtwistle, hated Street for going out with his ex-girlfriend.
Davison, 21, who both lived in Stockbridge Road, Padiham, believed Street was a paedophile.
Peter Leonard hated Mr Street for going out with his ex-girlfriend
Mr Street was convicted of rape in 1999 but there was no evidence he had abused children, the court was told.
He was battered with a wooden pole and stabbed in the eye and ear with a pair of scissors before his body was moved from the house in Stockbridge Road and later dumped.
Leonard and his friend Palmer were both jailed for life while Davison was cleared of murder but admitted taking part in the killing.
Det Supt Neil Hunter, of Lancashire police, said: "When I first visited the scene the sight that greeted me was horrific.
"It was quite clear that an act of gratuitous violence had taken place and now those people responsible have been quite rightly punished with lengthy terms of imprisonment.
"The wicked nature of the attack which was extremely unpleasant, involving elements of torture on a man who was unable to defend himself which was sickening and demonstrates how cowardly the offenders were, especially Leonard and Palmer."
Three men have been jailed for their part in the murder of a 26-year-old man who was tortured with scissors in the mistaken belief he was a paedophile.
Alan Street was attacked at a house in Padiham, Lancashire, in December 2008 and his body was found in a culvert in Accrington on 19 January.
Alan Street's body was found in a culvert in AccringtonAllan Palmer, 44, and Peter Leonard, 52, were convicted of murder and must serve 25 and 28 years respectively.
Kieron Davison, 21, must serve eight years after admitting manslaughter.
Preston Crown Court heard Leonard, 52, of Oswaldtwistle, hated Street for going out with his ex-girlfriend.
Davison, 21, who both lived in Stockbridge Road, Padiham, believed Street was a paedophile.
Peter Leonard hated Mr Street for going out with his ex-girlfriendMr Street was convicted of rape in 1999 but there was no evidence he had abused children, the court was told.
He was battered with a wooden pole and stabbed in the eye and ear with a pair of scissors before his body was moved from the house in Stockbridge Road and later dumped.
Leonard and his friend Palmer were both jailed for life while Davison was cleared of murder but admitted taking part in the killing.
Det Supt Neil Hunter, of Lancashire police, said: "When I first visited the scene the sight that greeted me was horrific.
"It was quite clear that an act of gratuitous violence had taken place and now those people responsible have been quite rightly punished with lengthy terms of imprisonment.
"The wicked nature of the attack which was extremely unpleasant, involving elements of torture on a man who was unable to defend himself which was sickening and demonstrates how cowardly the offenders were, especially Leonard and Palmer."
Man crushed to death by bin lorry
Last updated at 15:24 GMT, Thursday, 26 November 2009
A homeless man has been crushed to death in a bin lorry in Manchester.
The 31-year-old had climbed into a rubbish bin to sleep, but it was loaded into a waste collection lorry which automatically crushes the contents.
His body was found when the vehicle emptied its load at a rubbish site in Ardwick at 1130 GMT on Wednesday.
A post-mortem examination revealed the man died from asphyxiation as he was crushed with the rubbish, said Greater Manchester Police.
The incident is not being treated as suspicious and police have passed the case to the coroner.
Hypothermia theory
Det Supt Julian Ross, from Greater Manchester Police, said: "It would appear this man was homeless and climbed into the bin to escape the bad weather and find somewhere warmer and dryer to sleep.
"This was a tragic accident and those involved are very upset that this man has died in this way."
According to police it is unclear if the victim was suffering hypothermia which meant he was unable to alert bin men that he was inside, said police.
Police are urging homeless people to find a place to sleep out of the cold to avoid more deaths.
"Sadly, as in this case, sleeping in a bin can lead to this sort of tragic accident and someone losing their life."
A homeless man has been crushed to death in a bin lorry in Manchester.
The 31-year-old had climbed into a rubbish bin to sleep, but it was loaded into a waste collection lorry which automatically crushes the contents.
His body was found when the vehicle emptied its load at a rubbish site in Ardwick at 1130 GMT on Wednesday.
A post-mortem examination revealed the man died from asphyxiation as he was crushed with the rubbish, said Greater Manchester Police.
The incident is not being treated as suspicious and police have passed the case to the coroner.
Hypothermia theory
Det Supt Julian Ross, from Greater Manchester Police, said: "It would appear this man was homeless and climbed into the bin to escape the bad weather and find somewhere warmer and dryer to sleep.
"This was a tragic accident and those involved are very upset that this man has died in this way."
According to police it is unclear if the victim was suffering hypothermia which meant he was unable to alert bin men that he was inside, said police.
Police are urging homeless people to find a place to sleep out of the cold to avoid more deaths.
"Sadly, as in this case, sleeping in a bin can lead to this sort of tragic accident and someone losing their life."
Polish woman's Jewish "shock"
Last updated at 10:03 GMT, Thursday, 26 November 2009
Next week, John Demjanjuk will stand trial in Germany accused of helping to murder more than 27,000 Jews at the Sobibor death camp, built by the Nazis in Poland. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg travelled to Poland to meet a woman who only recently discovered she, herself, was Jewish and that her family had been killed in one such camp.
Bogomila always suspected that her mother had a secret.
"She always looked frightened," Bogomila tells me. "My husband used to say, "Your mother is afraid of her own shadow."
This summer, her 67-year-old mother Barbara finally revealed her secret. She is a Jewish child of the Holocaust. Suddenly, at the age of 37, Bogomila realised she was Jewish, too.
"I was in shock," Bogomila admits. "I didn't sleep at all that night. I couldn't eat for the next two weeks."
I'm sitting with Barbara and Bogomila in the Jewish community centre in Lublin. Before World War II, more than 40,000 Jews lived in this city. The Holocaust changed everything.
"My whole family was killed by the Nazis," Barbara says.
"I survived because a Polish family agreed to hide me. When I was growing up I realised the Polish 'mother' couldn't be my real mother, she was too old. When I was 12 she told me the truth."
I ask Barbara why she had waited so many years before telling Bogomila and her other two daughters of their Jewish heritage.
"My husband is Catholic," Barbara says, "He didn't want the girls to know. His own family didn't like Jews. He didn't want the girls to have problems. I'd had problems when I was small. In school the other children used to make fun of me. They used to pull my curly hair to try to make it straight. I was made to feel different."
Today Jews in Poland continue to suffer abuse.
I wouldn't call it anti-semitism," says the President of the Union of Jewish communities of Poland Piotr Kadlcik. "It's more a broad dislike of Jews. What's worrying is a certain level of leniency of the prosecutor's office in relation to hate crimes, Nazi salutes and the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries."
"Very happy"
Barbara admits that she never planned to reveal her secret. It was Bogomila's persistent questioning about the past that forced her to change her mind.
Her daughter had been bombarding her with questions about her ancestors, desperate to discover more about her family.
After the initial shock of discovering she was Jewish, Bogomila says she is "very happy" with her new identity. She has even signed up for a course of Jewish studies in Lublin.
She attends the small Sabbath meal here in the community centre. And she recently visited the Nazi death camp Sobibor, where a quarter of a million Jews were murdered in the gas chambers.
I ask Bogomila if she has told her own children the news.
"I would like to tell them," she says, "but they are so small. Agatha is 10, Christopher is six and Julia is five."
"Are they really too young to be told?" I ask
"If I tell them, then my oldest child, Agatha, will probably go and tell her other grandmother - my mother-in-law," Bogomila explains.
"And my mother-in-law doesn't like Jews. As for my husband's grandmother, she hates Jews."
Next week, John Demjanjuk will stand trial in Germany accused of helping to murder more than 27,000 Jews at the Sobibor death camp, built by the Nazis in Poland. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg travelled to Poland to meet a woman who only recently discovered she, herself, was Jewish and that her family had been killed in one such camp.
Bogomila always suspected that her mother had a secret.
"She always looked frightened," Bogomila tells me. "My husband used to say, "Your mother is afraid of her own shadow."
This summer, her 67-year-old mother Barbara finally revealed her secret. She is a Jewish child of the Holocaust. Suddenly, at the age of 37, Bogomila realised she was Jewish, too.
"I was in shock," Bogomila admits. "I didn't sleep at all that night. I couldn't eat for the next two weeks."
I'm sitting with Barbara and Bogomila in the Jewish community centre in Lublin. Before World War II, more than 40,000 Jews lived in this city. The Holocaust changed everything.
"My whole family was killed by the Nazis," Barbara says.
"I survived because a Polish family agreed to hide me. When I was growing up I realised the Polish 'mother' couldn't be my real mother, she was too old. When I was 12 she told me the truth."
I ask Barbara why she had waited so many years before telling Bogomila and her other two daughters of their Jewish heritage.
"My husband is Catholic," Barbara says, "He didn't want the girls to know. His own family didn't like Jews. He didn't want the girls to have problems. I'd had problems when I was small. In school the other children used to make fun of me. They used to pull my curly hair to try to make it straight. I was made to feel different."
Today Jews in Poland continue to suffer abuse.
I wouldn't call it anti-semitism," says the President of the Union of Jewish communities of Poland Piotr Kadlcik. "It's more a broad dislike of Jews. What's worrying is a certain level of leniency of the prosecutor's office in relation to hate crimes, Nazi salutes and the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries."
"Very happy"
Barbara admits that she never planned to reveal her secret. It was Bogomila's persistent questioning about the past that forced her to change her mind.
Her daughter had been bombarding her with questions about her ancestors, desperate to discover more about her family.
After the initial shock of discovering she was Jewish, Bogomila says she is "very happy" with her new identity. She has even signed up for a course of Jewish studies in Lublin.
She attends the small Sabbath meal here in the community centre. And she recently visited the Nazi death camp Sobibor, where a quarter of a million Jews were murdered in the gas chambers.
I ask Bogomila if she has told her own children the news.
"I would like to tell them," she says, "but they are so small. Agatha is 10, Christopher is six and Julia is five."
"Are they really too young to be told?" I ask
"If I tell them, then my oldest child, Agatha, will probably go and tell her other grandmother - my mother-in-law," Bogomila explains.
"And my mother-in-law doesn't like Jews. As for my husband's grandmother, she hates Jews."
Report criticises abuse cover-up
Last updated at 14:36 GMT, Thursday, 26 November 2009
A damning report into clerical child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese has criticised the church authorities for covering up the abuse.
The 700-page report investigated how Church and state authorities handled allegations of child abuse against 46 members of the clergy.
The report found that the church placed its own reputation above the protection of children in its care.
Abuse victims have welcomed the report.
The "Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin" examined a period spanning more than six decades and has laid bare a culture of concealment where church leaders prioritised the protection of their own institution above that of vulnerable children in their care.
Instead of reporting the allegations to civic authorities, those accused of horrific crimes were systematically shuffled from parish to parish where they could prey on new, unsuspecting victims.
The avoidance of public scandal which would inevitably follow high-profile prosecutions was more important it seems, than preventing abusers of repeating their crimes.
More follows.
A damning report into clerical child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese has criticised the church authorities for covering up the abuse.
The 700-page report investigated how Church and state authorities handled allegations of child abuse against 46 members of the clergy.
The report found that the church placed its own reputation above the protection of children in its care.
Abuse victims have welcomed the report.
The "Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin" examined a period spanning more than six decades and has laid bare a culture of concealment where church leaders prioritised the protection of their own institution above that of vulnerable children in their care.
Instead of reporting the allegations to civic authorities, those accused of horrific crimes were systematically shuffled from parish to parish where they could prey on new, unsuspecting victims.
The avoidance of public scandal which would inevitably follow high-profile prosecutions was more important it seems, than preventing abusers of repeating their crimes.
More follows.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Terrorism that's personal
Text by Jim Verhulst, Times' Perspective editor | Photos by Emilio Morenatti, Associated Press
We typically think of terrorism as a political act.
But sometimes it’s very personal. It wasn’t a government or a guerrilla insurgency that threw acid on this woman’s face in Pakistan. It was a young man whom she had rejected for marriage. As the United States ponders what to do in Afghanistan — and for that matter, in Pakistan — it is wise to understand both the political and the personal, that the very ignorance and illiteracy and misogyny that create the climate for these acid attacks can and does bleed over into the political realm. Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times op-ed columnist who traveled to Pakistan last year to write about acid attacks, put it this way in an essay at the time: “I’ve been investigating such acid attacks, which are commonly used to terrorize and subjugate women and girls in a swath of Asia from Afghanistan through Cambodia (men are almost never attacked with acid). Because women usually don’t matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled. It’s a kind of terrorism that becomes accepted as part of the background noise in the region. ...
“Bangladesh has imposed controls on acid sales to curb such attacks, but otherwise it is fairly easy in Asia to walk into a shop and buy sulfuric or hydrochloric acid suitable for destroying a human face. Acid attacks and wife burnings are common in parts of Asia because the victims are the most voiceless in these societies: They are poor and female. The first step is simply for the world to take note, to give voice to these women.” Since 1994, a Pakistani activist who founded the Progressive Women’s Association (www.pwaisbd.org) to help such women “has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted.”
The geopolitical question is already hard enough: Should the United States commit more troops to Afghanistan and for what specific purpose? As American policymakers mull the options, here is a frame of reference that puts the tough choices in even starker relief: Are acid attacks a sign of just how little the United States can do to solve intractable problems there — therefore, we should pull out? Or having declared war on terrorism, must the United States stay out of moral duty, to try to protect women such as these — and the schoolgirls whom the Taliban in Afghanistan sprayed with acid simply for going to class — who have suffered a very personal terrorist attack? We offer a reading file of two smart essays that come to differing conclusions.
• In August, Perspective published a New York Times Magazine piece that followed up the story of Afghan sisters Shamsia and Atifa Husseini, who were attacked with acid simply for attending school.
• Two very smart, informed observers come to opposite conclusions on the proper U.S. course of action in Afghanistan. Here are excerpts from arguments that each of them has recently made:
Here are excerpts from Steve Coll’s “Think Tank” blog at NewYorker.com, in which he argues why we can’t leave — “What If We Fail In Afghanistan?” (Read it in full here.)
In an essay entitled “The War We Can’t Win” in Commonweal (also reprinted this month by Harper’s), Andrew J. Bacevich makes the case that we are overstating the importance of Afghanistan to U.S. interests. Bacevich is a professor of international relations at Boston University and the author, most recently, of The Limits of Power. A retired Army lieutenant colonel, he served from 1969 to 1992, in Vietnam and the first Persian Gulf War. He was a conservative critic of the Iraq war. Several of his essays have run before in Perspective.
• See the Sunday November 22, 2009 Perspective section in the St. Petersburg Times But be forewarned: Those photos are even harder to look at than this one.
Irum Saeed, 30, poses for a photograph at her office at the Urdu University of Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, July 24, 2008. Irum was burned on her face, back and shoulders twelve years ago when a boy whom she rejected for marriage threw acid on her in the middle of the street. She has undergone plastic surgery 25 times to try to recover from her scars.
Shameem Akhter, 18, poses for a photograph at her home in Jhang, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 10, 2008. Shameem was raped by three boys who then threw acid on her three years ago. Shameem has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars.
Najaf Sultana, 16, poses for a photograph at her home in Lahore, Pakistan on Wednesday, July 9, 2008. At the age of five Najaf was burned by her father while she was sleeping, apparently because he didn't want to have another girl in the family. As a result of the burning Najaf became blind and after being abandoned by both her parents she now lives with relatives. She has undergone plastic surgery around 15 times to try to recover from her scars.
Shehnaz Usman, 36, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Shehnaz was burned with acid by a relative due to a familial dispute five years ago. Shehnaz has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars.
Shahnaz Bibi, 35, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Ten years ago Shahnaz was burned with acid by a relative due to a familial dispute. She has never undergone plastic surgery.
Kanwal Kayum, 26, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Kanwal was burned with acid one year ago by a boy whom she rejected for marriage. She has never undergone plastic surgery.
Munira Asef, 23, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Munira was burned with acid five years ago by a boy whom she rejected for marriage. She has undergone plastic surgery 7 times to try to recover from her scars.
Bushra Shari, 39, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Friday, July. 11, 2008. Bushra was burned with acid thrown by her husband five years ago because she was trying to divorce him. She has undergone plastic surgery 25 times to try to recover from her scars.
Memuna Khan, 21, poses for a photograph in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Dec. 19, 2008. Menuna was burned by a group of boys who threw acid on her to settle a dispute between their family and Menuna's. She has undergone plastic surgery 21 times to try to recover from her scars.
Zainab Bibi, 17, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008. Zainab was burned on her face with acid thrown by a boy whom she rejected for marriage five years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery several times to try to recover from her scars.
Naila Farhat, 19, poses for a photograph in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008. Naila was burned on her face with acid thrown by a boy whom she rejected for marriage five years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery several times to try to recover from her scars.
Saira Liaqat, 26, poses for the camera as she holds a portrait of herself before being burned, at her home in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. When she was fifteen, Saira was married to a relative who would later attack her with acid after insistently demanding her to live with him, although the families had agreed she wouldn't join him until she finished school. Saira has undergone plastic surgery 9 times to try to recover from her scars.
We typically think of terrorism as a political act.
But sometimes it’s very personal. It wasn’t a government or a guerrilla insurgency that threw acid on this woman’s face in Pakistan. It was a young man whom she had rejected for marriage. As the United States ponders what to do in Afghanistan — and for that matter, in Pakistan — it is wise to understand both the political and the personal, that the very ignorance and illiteracy and misogyny that create the climate for these acid attacks can and does bleed over into the political realm. Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times op-ed columnist who traveled to Pakistan last year to write about acid attacks, put it this way in an essay at the time: “I’ve been investigating such acid attacks, which are commonly used to terrorize and subjugate women and girls in a swath of Asia from Afghanistan through Cambodia (men are almost never attacked with acid). Because women usually don’t matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled. It’s a kind of terrorism that becomes accepted as part of the background noise in the region. ...
“Bangladesh has imposed controls on acid sales to curb such attacks, but otherwise it is fairly easy in Asia to walk into a shop and buy sulfuric or hydrochloric acid suitable for destroying a human face. Acid attacks and wife burnings are common in parts of Asia because the victims are the most voiceless in these societies: They are poor and female. The first step is simply for the world to take note, to give voice to these women.” Since 1994, a Pakistani activist who founded the Progressive Women’s Association (www.pwaisbd.org) to help such women “has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted.”
The geopolitical question is already hard enough: Should the United States commit more troops to Afghanistan and for what specific purpose? As American policymakers mull the options, here is a frame of reference that puts the tough choices in even starker relief: Are acid attacks a sign of just how little the United States can do to solve intractable problems there — therefore, we should pull out? Or having declared war on terrorism, must the United States stay out of moral duty, to try to protect women such as these — and the schoolgirls whom the Taliban in Afghanistan sprayed with acid simply for going to class — who have suffered a very personal terrorist attack? We offer a reading file of two smart essays that come to differing conclusions.
• In August, Perspective published a New York Times Magazine piece that followed up the story of Afghan sisters Shamsia and Atifa Husseini, who were attacked with acid simply for attending school.
• Two very smart, informed observers come to opposite conclusions on the proper U.S. course of action in Afghanistan. Here are excerpts from arguments that each of them has recently made:
Here are excerpts from Steve Coll’s “Think Tank” blog at NewYorker.com, in which he argues why we can’t leave — “What If We Fail In Afghanistan?” (Read it in full here.)
In an essay entitled “The War We Can’t Win” in Commonweal (also reprinted this month by Harper’s), Andrew J. Bacevich makes the case that we are overstating the importance of Afghanistan to U.S. interests. Bacevich is a professor of international relations at Boston University and the author, most recently, of The Limits of Power. A retired Army lieutenant colonel, he served from 1969 to 1992, in Vietnam and the first Persian Gulf War. He was a conservative critic of the Iraq war. Several of his essays have run before in Perspective.
• See the Sunday November 22, 2009 Perspective section in the St. Petersburg Times But be forewarned: Those photos are even harder to look at than this one.
Irum Saeed, 30, poses for a photograph at her office at the Urdu University of Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, July 24, 2008. Irum was burned on her face, back and shoulders twelve years ago when a boy whom she rejected for marriage threw acid on her in the middle of the street. She has undergone plastic surgery 25 times to try to recover from her scars.Shameem Akhter, 18, poses for a photograph at her home in Jhang, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 10, 2008. Shameem was raped by three boys who then threw acid on her three years ago. Shameem has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars. 
Najaf Sultana, 16, poses for a photograph at her home in Lahore, Pakistan on Wednesday, July 9, 2008. At the age of five Najaf was burned by her father while she was sleeping, apparently because he didn't want to have another girl in the family. As a result of the burning Najaf became blind and after being abandoned by both her parents she now lives with relatives. She has undergone plastic surgery around 15 times to try to recover from her scars.
Shehnaz Usman, 36, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Shehnaz was burned with acid by a relative due to a familial dispute five years ago. Shehnaz has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars. 
Shahnaz Bibi, 35, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Ten years ago Shahnaz was burned with acid by a relative due to a familial dispute. She has never undergone plastic surgery.
Kanwal Kayum, 26, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Kanwal was burned with acid one year ago by a boy whom she rejected for marriage. She has never undergone plastic surgery.
Munira Asef, 23, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Munira was burned with acid five years ago by a boy whom she rejected for marriage. She has undergone plastic surgery 7 times to try to recover from her scars.
Bushra Shari, 39, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Friday, July. 11, 2008. Bushra was burned with acid thrown by her husband five years ago because she was trying to divorce him. She has undergone plastic surgery 25 times to try to recover from her scars.
Memuna Khan, 21, poses for a photograph in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Dec. 19, 2008. Menuna was burned by a group of boys who threw acid on her to settle a dispute between their family and Menuna's. She has undergone plastic surgery 21 times to try to recover from her scars.
Zainab Bibi, 17, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008. Zainab was burned on her face with acid thrown by a boy whom she rejected for marriage five years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery several times to try to recover from her scars.
Naila Farhat, 19, poses for a photograph in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008. Naila was burned on her face with acid thrown by a boy whom she rejected for marriage five years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery several times to try to recover from her scars.
Saira Liaqat, 26, poses for the camera as she holds a portrait of herself before being burned, at her home in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. When she was fifteen, Saira was married to a relative who would later attack her with acid after insistently demanding her to live with him, although the families had agreed she wouldn't join him until she finished school. Saira has undergone plastic surgery 9 times to try to recover from her scars.
I traced my dad... and discovered he is Charles Manson
By PETE SAMSON US Editor
Published: 23 Nov 2009
LIKE many adopted children, Matthew Roberts set about finding his biological parents with a mix of nerves and excitement.
In particular, he hoped that discovering his father's identity would help him to work out what made him the man he had become.
But nothing could have prepared him for being told his dad was... serial killer CHARLES MANSON.
Over a five-week period in the summer of 1969, Manson and his Family of commune followers committed a series of nine gruesome murders. Victims included pregnant actress Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanski.
Matthew, 41 - who bears a haunting resemblance to his father - sank into depression after discovering his identity.
He has since been in contact with his dad in a series of letters to his California prison and Manson has replied - each time chillingly signing off with a swastika.
Now Matthew, who was given up for adoption as a baby, has told of his horror at finding out he was the son of a monster.
He says: "I didn't want to believe it. I was frightened and angry. It's like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father.
"I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster."
Matthew grew up in Rockford, Illinois, and didn't know he was adopted until his sister told him when he was ten.
He loved his adoptive parents but always knew he was different. He says: "My parents were great people, but very conservative.
"They were products of the Fifties and I didn't relate to them. My biological parents were products of the Sixties and I take on a lot more of those characteristics."
He also reveals his adoptive father tried to discourage him from getting in contact with Manson, telling him: "Nothing good will come from this."
Letters
Matthew, who now lives in Los Angeles, began investigating his family history 12 years ago when he contacted a social services agency who located his mother, Terry, in Wisconsin.
He wrote to her straight away and their early exchanges will be familiar to adopted children everywhere.
She confirmed she was his mum and told him she had named him Lawrence Alexander - and that she would tell him his last name in time.
The jigsaw of his life was beginning to take shape but it was still missing a crucial piece - his father.
Terry remained tight-lipped about his identity but after Matthew pressed her for details in a string of letters, she eventually revealed the awful truth.
She said she met commune leader Manson in 1967 - two years before the infamous "Manson Family" murders in Los Angeles for which he is still in jail at the age of 75.
But back in 1967, Terry had been one of many who were transfixed by Manson's charms.
Her father had tried to chase him away when he met Terry, calling him a "white-trash biker bandit" but she found him charismatic and hypnotizing.
So she hopped on a bus with his Family and ended up in San Francisco. There she claims she was raped by Manson in a drug-fuelled orgy, after which she returned home and Matthew was born on March 22, 1968.
Terry always believed Manson was the father of the baby she gave up for adoption. And after seeing a picture of Matthew, her worst nightmare was confirmed.
For he is the spitting image of Manson, with the same nose, mouth, eyes and large forehead. They even have the same thick, arched eyebrows and long, thick, dark hair.
Like his father, Matthew is a songwriter and poet. He is even worried that he may have inherited his father's schizophrenia.
Matthew, now working as a DJ, recalls hearing mum Terry's bombshell: "She even said, 'You look just like him'.
"I'm not nuts but I've got a little bit of it. It's scary and upsetting. If I get worked up, my eyes get really big and that's really freaked some people out before.
"I've tried to tone that down quite a bit. I don't like having that effect on people.
"I don't even like the fact that I'm big. It makes me even scarier. My hero is Gandhi. I'm an extremely non-violent, peaceful person and a vegetarian.
"I don't even kill bugs. I've had long hair all my life. I could make it go away, but I can't let the world and their fears change me." After discovering the truth, it took Matthew five years to pluck up the courage to write to his father at Corcoran State Prison in California.
Manson replied to Matthew's letter straight away and has since sent him a string of ten handwritten notes and postcards signed with the wartime Nazi symbol.
Hobo
Matthew says: "He sends me weird stuff and always signs it with his swastika. At first I was stunned and depressed. I wasn't able to speak for a day. I remember not being able to eat."
According to Matthew, the letters mainly rambled and said "crazy things" but Manson did confirm he could be his father.
In one twisted letter he wrote: "The truth is the truth. The truth hurts."
In another note Manson talked about meeting Matthew's mother. He wrote: "I remember her. We came back to LA on the super-cheap train."
And Manson - who grew up without a father figure - even compared his childhood to Matthew's.
He said: "You got the same father I got. A hobo just left on the midnight train and died, lost at sea." Then in a postcard two years ago, addressed to Matthew's birth name Lawrence Alexander, Manson sent his son his prison phone number.
But Matthew has never made the call to his dad.
He says: "There's always a subconscious block.
"What I'm worried about is that you think you're going to meet your birth mother or father and they're going to love you and welcome you with open arms. But he's not that kind of person."
Despite Manson's evil actions, Matthew confesses he now battles confused emotions towards his biological father.
He says: "If I did talk to Charlie on the phone, I would say, 'I truly understand what it's like to be you, more than anyone could ever imagine on so many levels'.
"He's my biological father - I can't help but have some kind of emotional connection. That's the hardest thing of all - feeling love for a monster who raped my mother.
"I don't want to love him, but I don't want to hate him either."
Arrests are being made 'to expand DNA files'
From The Times November 24, 2009
Police are routinely arresting people simply to record their DNA profiles on the national database, according to a report published today.
It also states that three quarters of young black men are on the database. The finding risks stigmatising a whole section of society, the equality watchdog has warned.
The revelations will fuel the debate about the DNA database, the world’s largest. They are included in a report by the Human Genetics Commission, an independent government advisory body. It criticises the piecemeal development of the database and questions how effective it is in helping the police to investigate and solve crimes.
Jonathan Montgomery, commission chairman, said that “function creep” over the years had transformed a database of offenders into one of suspects. Almost one million innocent people are now on the DNA database.
Professor Montgomery said: “It’s now become pretty much routine to take DNA samples on arrest, so large numbers of people on the DNA database will be there not because they have been convicted, but because they’ve been arrested.”
Recorded crime has fallen every year since 2004-05, but the number of people arrested in England and Wales annually is rising. Latest figures show that arrests rose by 6 per cent to 1.43 million in 2005 and a further 4 per cent to 1.48 million in 2006-07.
Professor Montgomery said there was some evidence that people were arrested to retain the DNA information even though they might not have been arrested in other circumstance.
He said that a retired senior police officer told the commission: “It is now the norm to arrest offenders for everything if there is a power to do so. It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons . . . is so that DNA can be obtained.” He said that the tradition of only arresting someone when dealing with serious offences had collapsed.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission said the proportion of black men on the database created an impression that one race group represented an “alien wedge” of criminality.
The report’s foreword states that the DNA profiles of 75 per cent of black men aged 18 to 35 are recorded. But the commission admitted that it had “hardened up slightly” earlier estimates quoted in Parliament.
The Crime and Security Bill heralded in last week’s Queen’s Speech proposes cutting to six years the time that innocent people’s profiles are kept. Those arrested but not charged, or those cleared in court, currently remain on the database for ever. There are no plans to reduce police powers to take samples from everyone arrested.
Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, has said that innocent people should not have their DNA retained by the police once they are acquitted of a crime.
The commission report said that the database should be placed on a clear statutory basis and overseen by an independent authority. Isabella Sankey, of Liberty, said: “Not only are we stockpiling the most sensitive information of innocents who have never been charged, let alone convicted, we are also creating a perverse incentive to arrest people solely to get their details on the database.”
The Home Office suggested that the over-representation of young black men on the database was linked to disproportionality in other areas of the criminal justice system.
Police are routinely arresting people simply to record their DNA profiles on the national database, according to a report published today.
It also states that three quarters of young black men are on the database. The finding risks stigmatising a whole section of society, the equality watchdog has warned.
The revelations will fuel the debate about the DNA database, the world’s largest. They are included in a report by the Human Genetics Commission, an independent government advisory body. It criticises the piecemeal development of the database and questions how effective it is in helping the police to investigate and solve crimes.
Jonathan Montgomery, commission chairman, said that “function creep” over the years had transformed a database of offenders into one of suspects. Almost one million innocent people are now on the DNA database.
Professor Montgomery said: “It’s now become pretty much routine to take DNA samples on arrest, so large numbers of people on the DNA database will be there not because they have been convicted, but because they’ve been arrested.”
Recorded crime has fallen every year since 2004-05, but the number of people arrested in England and Wales annually is rising. Latest figures show that arrests rose by 6 per cent to 1.43 million in 2005 and a further 4 per cent to 1.48 million in 2006-07.
Professor Montgomery said there was some evidence that people were arrested to retain the DNA information even though they might not have been arrested in other circumstance.
He said that a retired senior police officer told the commission: “It is now the norm to arrest offenders for everything if there is a power to do so. It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons . . . is so that DNA can be obtained.” He said that the tradition of only arresting someone when dealing with serious offences had collapsed.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission said the proportion of black men on the database created an impression that one race group represented an “alien wedge” of criminality.
The report’s foreword states that the DNA profiles of 75 per cent of black men aged 18 to 35 are recorded. But the commission admitted that it had “hardened up slightly” earlier estimates quoted in Parliament.
The Crime and Security Bill heralded in last week’s Queen’s Speech proposes cutting to six years the time that innocent people’s profiles are kept. Those arrested but not charged, or those cleared in court, currently remain on the database for ever. There are no plans to reduce police powers to take samples from everyone arrested.
Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, has said that innocent people should not have their DNA retained by the police once they are acquitted of a crime.
The commission report said that the database should be placed on a clear statutory basis and overseen by an independent authority. Isabella Sankey, of Liberty, said: “Not only are we stockpiling the most sensitive information of innocents who have never been charged, let alone convicted, we are also creating a perverse incentive to arrest people solely to get their details on the database.”
The Home Office suggested that the over-representation of young black men on the database was linked to disproportionality in other areas of the criminal justice system.
Jealous Tesco worker murdered lover and cut up her body with circular saw
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:29 PM on 24th November 2009
A jealous boyfriend murdered his lover and cut up her body with a circular saw after she started internet dating, a court head today.
Jamal Bakhit, 25, stabbed Rahmona Ahmedin, 23, to death at her home when she tried to end their four-year relationship.
The former criminology student then packed her dismembered body into two suitcases and dumped them beside the A1301 in Hinxton near the border between Essex and Cambridgeshire.
Rahmona Ahmedin's body was packed into suitcases by Jamal Bakhit (right)
Swedish-raised Miss Ahmedin, of Islington, north London, had been seeing up to three different men in the months before her death.
She had also fallen pregnant but had a termination against the wishes of Bakhit, who wanted to keep the child.
Bakhit, who was jailed for life after being convicted of murder, played the part of the concerned boyfriend when he reported her missing to Islington police station.
He claimed he last saw Ethiopian-born Miss Ahmedin alive when she travelled to Bristol on June 6 last year to visit a friend.
The Tesco worker even sent text messages on her mobile phone and used her bank card to make it look like she was still alive.
But a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court took just an hour-and-a-half hour to convict him of murder following a three-week trial.
Bakhit showed no emotion as he was later ordered to spent at least 20 years behind bars.
Jurors heard the victim's body was found by horrified truckers Philip Lear and Derek Lumley in the early hours of June 18 last year.
Mr Lear and Mr Lumley - who were sleeping in their cabs after parking up at the truck stop - were awoken by Miss Ahmedin's burning corpse which passing motorists mistook for a bonfire.
Firefighters extinguished the flames by splashing the body with handfuls of water to disturb the crime scene as little as possible.
Signs of insect life in the charred, dissected corpse indicated Bakhit had stowed Miss Ahmedin for several days before she was torched.
Tests also found Miss Ahmedin had been doused in petrol.
A postmortem revealed slightly built 5ft-tall Miss Ahmedin had also suffered a defensive stab wound to her right hand as she desperately fended off Bakhit's blade.
Pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary identified the cause of death as a stab wound to the chest which was likely to have caused a prolonged agonising death.
'A stab of that kind would not be expected to cause a particularly rapid death,' he said.
Bakhit had been captured on CCTV at Birchanger Green Services - just a few miles from the Hinxton layby - in his VW Golf about an hour before the discovery of Miss Ahmedin's body.
The African, who had taken over a launderette in Fulham, west London, admitted driving along the M11 but claimed he was travelling to Colchester, Essex, to recruit a worker for his business.
Paul Purnell QC, defending Bakhit, tried to convince the jury Bakhit was 'a suspect' rather than 'the suspect' with all the men in her life.
'She was in contact with people she had met through the [dating] website who were engaged in physical, sexual contact with her and who had visited her flat,' said the barrister.
Detective Constable Stuart Brown, who filed Miss Ahmedin's missing person report, described Bakhit as 'calm and calculated' when he reported her disappearance.
The officer told the court: 'It was just his demeanour - the fact he seemed to be making a report as if he already knew where the report was going.'
Miss Ahmedin's friends Brenda Lukwago and Zelia Vanderpuije desperately tried to contact Miss Ahmedin in the days after her disappearance.
They demanded Bakhit let them search her flat on the Peabody Estate for clues but Bakhit claimed there was no electricity and the pair were left to grope around in the dark.
A police search later uncovered a knife wrapped in plastic on a kitchen work top and Miss Ahmedin's belongings such as her purse, handbag and make-up bag.
Detectives never discovered the cutting tool used to slice Miss Ahmedin's body into three pieces.
Bakhit, of Fulham, west London, denied murder.
Last updated at 4:29 PM on 24th November 2009
A jealous boyfriend murdered his lover and cut up her body with a circular saw after she started internet dating, a court head today.
Jamal Bakhit, 25, stabbed Rahmona Ahmedin, 23, to death at her home when she tried to end their four-year relationship.
The former criminology student then packed her dismembered body into two suitcases and dumped them beside the A1301 in Hinxton near the border between Essex and Cambridgeshire.
Rahmona Ahmedin's body was packed into suitcases by Jamal Bakhit (right)Swedish-raised Miss Ahmedin, of Islington, north London, had been seeing up to three different men in the months before her death.
She had also fallen pregnant but had a termination against the wishes of Bakhit, who wanted to keep the child.
Bakhit, who was jailed for life after being convicted of murder, played the part of the concerned boyfriend when he reported her missing to Islington police station.
He claimed he last saw Ethiopian-born Miss Ahmedin alive when she travelled to Bristol on June 6 last year to visit a friend.
The Tesco worker even sent text messages on her mobile phone and used her bank card to make it look like she was still alive.
But a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court took just an hour-and-a-half hour to convict him of murder following a three-week trial.
Bakhit showed no emotion as he was later ordered to spent at least 20 years behind bars.
Jurors heard the victim's body was found by horrified truckers Philip Lear and Derek Lumley in the early hours of June 18 last year.
Mr Lear and Mr Lumley - who were sleeping in their cabs after parking up at the truck stop - were awoken by Miss Ahmedin's burning corpse which passing motorists mistook for a bonfire.
Firefighters extinguished the flames by splashing the body with handfuls of water to disturb the crime scene as little as possible.
Signs of insect life in the charred, dissected corpse indicated Bakhit had stowed Miss Ahmedin for several days before she was torched.
Tests also found Miss Ahmedin had been doused in petrol.
A postmortem revealed slightly built 5ft-tall Miss Ahmedin had also suffered a defensive stab wound to her right hand as she desperately fended off Bakhit's blade.
Pathologist Dr Nathaniel Cary identified the cause of death as a stab wound to the chest which was likely to have caused a prolonged agonising death.
'A stab of that kind would not be expected to cause a particularly rapid death,' he said.
Bakhit had been captured on CCTV at Birchanger Green Services - just a few miles from the Hinxton layby - in his VW Golf about an hour before the discovery of Miss Ahmedin's body.
The African, who had taken over a launderette in Fulham, west London, admitted driving along the M11 but claimed he was travelling to Colchester, Essex, to recruit a worker for his business.
Paul Purnell QC, defending Bakhit, tried to convince the jury Bakhit was 'a suspect' rather than 'the suspect' with all the men in her life.
'She was in contact with people she had met through the [dating] website who were engaged in physical, sexual contact with her and who had visited her flat,' said the barrister.
Detective Constable Stuart Brown, who filed Miss Ahmedin's missing person report, described Bakhit as 'calm and calculated' when he reported her disappearance.
The officer told the court: 'It was just his demeanour - the fact he seemed to be making a report as if he already knew where the report was going.'
Miss Ahmedin's friends Brenda Lukwago and Zelia Vanderpuije desperately tried to contact Miss Ahmedin in the days after her disappearance.
They demanded Bakhit let them search her flat on the Peabody Estate for clues but Bakhit claimed there was no electricity and the pair were left to grope around in the dark.
A police search later uncovered a knife wrapped in plastic on a kitchen work top and Miss Ahmedin's belongings such as her purse, handbag and make-up bag.
Detectives never discovered the cutting tool used to slice Miss Ahmedin's body into three pieces.
Bakhit, of Fulham, west London, denied murder.
Horrifying moment a man jumped into a bear's enclosure. Incredibly, BOTH survived
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:26 PM on 25th November 2009
A man hangs in the jaws of a bear, seemingly about to endure a most horrendous death by being ripped apart by massive jaws and razor-sharp claws.
But in the end it was the bear who ended up fighting for his life - shot with a police bullet in order to save the man's life.
These dramatic photographs were taken by a visitor to the Berne Bear Park, Switzerland, at the weekend when European brown bear Finn, aged four, suddenly realised he had an uninvited human guest - said yesterday to be mentally handicapped - in his enclosure.
The unidentified man is said to be doing well after the brutal bear attack
The man perched for ten minutes on a 20ft wall above Finn's pit before he jumped in.
That allowed worried park officials time to call police.
They arrived, armed with 9mm 'fragmentation' ammunition which splinters on impact, just seconds before the man jumped down into the danger zone.
The bear quickly grabbed him.
Finn picked up the intruder as if he were a rag doll, carting him to the other side of his enclosure, which opened last month.
Finn can be seen almost playing with his victim before he is finally taken down by a police marksman
And as his massive jaws and teeth - capable of crushing steel - sank into his prey, police had to act fast. They were left with no option but to open fire, they said.
Finn was hit with a single bullet to the chest.
Police, ambulancemen and zoo-keepers rushed in.
The man, who has not been named, was quickly taken away on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.
He was treated in hospital for severe head and leg injuries, and his condition yesterday was said to be comfortable.
Finn, lying tranquillised under medical observation in his enclosure in Bern
Finn meanwhile was treated at the bear park by vets who decided not to operate to remove the bullet splinters, treating him with antibiotics, to which he was said to be responding well.
Bears are special for the people of Berne, being the city's symbol since the Middle Ages.
Briton Sam Brookes, who was visiting the park with his girlfriend when the attack happened, said: 'I looked in after I heard people screaming.
'The bear was standing over him and throwing him back and forth.
'Some yelled, "Get stones" to throw at the bear. I think most people had an awful shock. I can still see it when I close my eyes.'
Police and zoo officials say there has been an outpouring of public sympathy - for the bear.
Bouquets of flowers and pots of honey have been placed outside his enclosure.
Last updated at 2:26 PM on 25th November 2009
A man hangs in the jaws of a bear, seemingly about to endure a most horrendous death by being ripped apart by massive jaws and razor-sharp claws.
But in the end it was the bear who ended up fighting for his life - shot with a police bullet in order to save the man's life.
These dramatic photographs were taken by a visitor to the Berne Bear Park, Switzerland, at the weekend when European brown bear Finn, aged four, suddenly realised he had an uninvited human guest - said yesterday to be mentally handicapped - in his enclosure.
The unidentified man is said to be doing well after the brutal bear attack
The man perched for ten minutes on a 20ft wall above Finn's pit before he jumped in.
That allowed worried park officials time to call police.
They arrived, armed with 9mm 'fragmentation' ammunition which splinters on impact, just seconds before the man jumped down into the danger zone.
The bear quickly grabbed him.
Finn picked up the intruder as if he were a rag doll, carting him to the other side of his enclosure, which opened last month.
Finn can be seen almost playing with his victim before he is finally taken down by a police marksman
And as his massive jaws and teeth - capable of crushing steel - sank into his prey, police had to act fast. They were left with no option but to open fire, they said. Finn was hit with a single bullet to the chest.
Police, ambulancemen and zoo-keepers rushed in.
The man, who has not been named, was quickly taken away on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.
He was treated in hospital for severe head and leg injuries, and his condition yesterday was said to be comfortable.
Finn, lying tranquillised under medical observation in his enclosure in BernFinn meanwhile was treated at the bear park by vets who decided not to operate to remove the bullet splinters, treating him with antibiotics, to which he was said to be responding well.
Bears are special for the people of Berne, being the city's symbol since the Middle Ages.
Briton Sam Brookes, who was visiting the park with his girlfriend when the attack happened, said: 'I looked in after I heard people screaming.
'The bear was standing over him and throwing him back and forth.
'Some yelled, "Get stones" to throw at the bear. I think most people had an awful shock. I can still see it when I close my eyes.'
Police and zoo officials say there has been an outpouring of public sympathy - for the bear.
Bouquets of flowers and pots of honey have been placed outside his enclosure.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Agent showing house finds pile of bones
Tue Nov 24, 6:57 am ET
GIBSON, La. – A real estate agent showing a house got to the basement and found about 100 human bones in a corner.
James Kenny, a forensic investigator with the Terrebonne Parish Coroner's Office, says the bones found Saturday were so old that dirt had saturated the marrow inside them. He says they probably are remains of Native Americans buried long before the house was built.
Kenny says he learned that the previous residents would often find bones while mowing the lawn or doing yard work, and would put them in the basement.
Half of the split-level house is on top of a circular mound, which parish officials suggest may be an Indian burial mound.
Neither the agent nor the home's owner would talk to The Courier of Houma.
GIBSON, La. – A real estate agent showing a house got to the basement and found about 100 human bones in a corner.
James Kenny, a forensic investigator with the Terrebonne Parish Coroner's Office, says the bones found Saturday were so old that dirt had saturated the marrow inside them. He says they probably are remains of Native Americans buried long before the house was built.
Kenny says he learned that the previous residents would often find bones while mowing the lawn or doing yard work, and would put them in the basement.
Half of the split-level house is on top of a circular mound, which parish officials suggest may be an Indian burial mound.
Neither the agent nor the home's owner would talk to The Courier of Houma.
Kangaroo tries to drown dog, attacks owner
Mon Nov 23, 8:38 pm ETMELBOURNE, Australia – A kangaroo startled by a man walking his dog attacked the pair, pinning the pet underwater and slashing the owner in the abdomen with its hind legs. The Australian, Chris Rickard, was in stable condition Monday after the attack, which ended when the 49-year-old elbowed the kangaroo in the throat.
Rickard said he was walking his blue heeler, Rocky, on Sunday morning when they surprised a sleeping kangaroo in Arthur's Creek northeast of Melbourne. The dog chased the animal into a pond, when the kangaroo turned and pinned the pet underwater.
When Rickard tried to pull his dog free, the kangaroo turned on him, attacking with its hind legs and tearing a deep gash into his abdomen and across his face.
"I thought I might take a hit or two dragging the dog out from under his grip, but I didn't expect him to actually attack me," Rickard, 49, told The Herald Sun newspaper. "It was a shock at the start because it was a kangaroo, about 5 feet high, they don't go around killing people."
Kangaroos rarely attack people but will fight if they feel threatened.
Dogs often chase kangaroos, which have been known to lead the pets into water and defend themselves there.
Rickard said he ended the attack by elbowing the kangaroo in the throat, adding Rocky was "half-drowned" when he pulled him from the water.
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"He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches."
"Being is substance and life; life manifests by movement; movement is perpetuated by equilibrium; equilibrium is therefore the law of immortality.
"The doctrine of equality!... But there exists no more poisonous poison: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, while it is the end of justice.... "Equality for equals, inequality for unequals" that would be the true voice of justice: and, what follows from it, "Never make equal what is unequal."
