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Former Brunswick DA arrested on charges related to investigation into Ahmaud Arbery's death
Jackie Johnson was indicted on charges for violation of oath of a public officer and obstruction of a police officer.
Author: First Coast News Staff
Published: 10:02 AM EDT September 8, 2021
Updated: 6:07 PM EDT October 12, 2021
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A former Brunswick District Attorney was in jail for less than an hour Wednesday after being arrested on charges related to the investigation surrounding the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery.
Jackie Johnson, 49, turned herself into the Glynn County jail Wednesday morning on one charge of violation of oath by a public officer and one count of willful obstruction of law enforcement officers, according to jail records.
The Glynn County Sheriff's Office says Johnson turned herself in at 7:32 a.m. and was released at 8:07 a.m.
Although she had a bond of $10,000 listed in the jail records, the jail says she was released on her own recognizance.
The original indictment accuses Johnson of violating her oath of office by "showing favor to Greg McMichael during the investigation."
It goes on to say she recommended Waycross DA George Barnhill to the Georgia Attorney General's Office to take over, and did not disclose that she had previously reached out to Barnhill.
RELATED: 'None of his actions need to be explained': Ahmaud Arbery's mental state not relevant in murder case, prosecutors say
Story continues below.
Credit: Glynn County Sheriff's Office
Jackie Johnson
Johnson is also accused of obstructing law enforcement, according to the indictment, when she directed officers with Glynn County Police to not place Travis McMichael – who is accused of murder in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery - under arrest.
"Our office is committed to ensuring those who are entrusted to serve are carrying out their duties ethically and honestly," said Attorney General Chris Carr. "We thank the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Glynn County Grand Jury for their hard work. While an indictment was returned today, our file is not closed, and we will continue to investigate in order to pursue justice."
Carr's prosecution division presented evidence to a Glynn County grand jury over several months, which led to Johnson's indictment last week.
You can read the full indictment here.
RELATED: Former Brunswick DA indicted on charges related to investigation into Ahmaud Arbery's death
A viral video of Arbery's death sparked a nationwide call for action across social media and in the Southeast Georgia community.
Arbery was killed in the Satilla Shores neighborhood Feb. 23. A police report says Greg McMichael, age 64, believed Arbery burglarized a nearby home under construction.
According to a police report, McMichael and his son Travis, age 34, pursued Arbery. During a confrontation caught on video, Travis McMichael's gun can be heard firing three times. Arbery died at the scene.
RELATED: Civil rights attorneys, Ahmaud Arbery's family speak about indictment of former prosecutor in murder case
(Warning: Video may be disturbing to some)
RELATED: What we know about Gregory and Travis McMichael and the Ahmaud Arbery case


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HomeNewsVice Principal Caught on Video Saying "I just don't like the black kids."
Vice Principal Caught on Video Saying "I just don't like the black kids."
March 20, 2015 NewsAsylum Staff News 0
A vice principal has been suspended amidst protests after the educator was captured on video saying he doesn't like black kids.
The 18-second video, recorded by a student outside of the Scandinavian Middle School in Fresno shows students asking vice principal – Joe DiFilippo questions such as, "Who at this school do you not like?" Joe DiFilippo responds with "I just don't like the black kids."
As a result of the video going viral, DiFilippo, an 18-year vet of the Fresno Unified School District, is now under investigation and was the target of a protest that had former students chanting, "I love black people" and "Black power."
Many however are coming to the defense of DiFilippo saying that he was obviously joking with the kids and being sarcastic. Some even accusing the kids of setting DiFilippo up.
"I just don't like the black kids."
Joe DiFilippo
Scandinavian Vice principal doesn't like black kids

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Built-in TWAIN interface for working with images allows to use any scanner.
According to one button "Scan" image appears in the bb workspace.
For a variety of graphic file extensions supports: jpeg, gif, tiff, bmp, pcx, png.


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Can Salisachs és una casa noucentista de Cadaqués (Alt Empordà) inclosa a l'Inventari del Patrimoni Arquitectònic de Catalunya.

Descripció
Situada al sud del nucli històric de la població, a l'extrem oriental de la platja del Llaner Gran.

Es tracta d'un edifici entre mitgeres de planta quadrada, distribuït en planta baixa, dos pisos i altell. La coberta és a l'holandesa de teula, amb barbacana de permòdols de fusta i tres badalots amb teulada a dues aigües, damunt de cada una de les vessants més llargues. Tres de les quatre façanes són exemptes, dues d'elles encarades a mar i la principal orientada al carrer Dr. Bartomeus. L'element més destacable és una àmplia tribuna al nivell del primer pis, situada a la façana orientada a Sa Platjeta, que alhora s'utilitza com a terrassa a la segona planta. La resta d'obertures són de mida gran i rectangulars, exceptuant les de la planta altell que són més petites i d'arc de mig punt. El basament de la planta baixa està format per llambordes de pissarra de la zona, que contrasten amb els emmarcaments de les obertures, de rajola vidrada de color ocre, i amb els muntants dels vidres, de color blau. La resta de la façana està arrebossada i pintada de blanc.

Història
Segons el Pla especial del front marítim del conjunt històric de Cadaqués, l'immoble fins fa poc l'edifici havia funcionat com hotel, encara que no precisa la data de la seva clausura.

Referències

Patrimoni monumental de Cadaqués
Edificis noucentistes de Cadaqués

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


For over 46 years this has been the vision of Delhaven Community Center. As a grass roots agency founded in the City of La Puente in 1972, Delhaven is dedicated to the strengthening of human life through social, educational, and recreational leisure time activities in a structured and supervised setting.
We focus on providing affordable opportunities which will address the needs of our community, providing a nurturing environment which will help strengthen the family unit, provide opportunities for volunteer leadership, provide opportunities for individuals to challenge themselves to live their lives in the best possible fashion based upon strong moral principles, and to provide activities in which individuals of all ages, color, and creed may experience acceptance, respect, love and personal growth in a caring environment.
Delhaven has over 300 volunteers yearly that give their time and commitment to our programs and activities. It is through their hard work and willingness to give of themselves that Delhaven is able to continue to provide the extensive quality programs at a low cost.
Delhaven has over 30 full time and part time employees, several of whom have grown up in our programs and now are on staff. Of the over 30 employees, 12 of our employees have been on staff for over 12 years including 4 of whom have been on our staff for over 20 years. Lets meet our professional staff.
Barbara and Wyatt Seal founded Delhaven Community Center in 1972. Through her ideals and beliefs, her commitment to helping others, her guidance, and her hard work, Delhaven is the agency it is today. Today Barbara is our Executive Adviser and handles some of the administrative aspects of the agency.
Tim grew up at Delhaven since the age of seven (7) when Delhaven began. Starting as a participant he became a Junior Counselor, Senior Leader, Recreation Coordinator and continued into the position of The Executive Director of Delhaven where he handles the daily operation of the agency, represents the agency in the community, oversees staff and is the administrator to the agency.
Starting as a part time program aid over 22 years ago in our Day Care Facility. Sue now coordinates all of our programs for the Developmentally Disabled including directing out State Licensed Day Care facility for 110 clients, our Fun Makers Club, weekend round ups, and square dancing. Sue also assist in coordinating our mountain camps, caravans and our Fun Seekers club.
Living just a few houses down, Eric first began coming to Delhaven when he was 7 years old as a participant. He has now since been on our staff full time for over 10 years coordinating our programs for children and yound adults including our after school recreation program located at three sites for elementary aged children, the after school homework program, summer day camps, vacation day camps, leaders volunteer internship program, and assist with coordinating our special events, Voyagers Club, and weekend round ups.
Cathy joined the staff over 15 years ago and specializes in programs and services that are considered "at Risk". Cathy coordinates our Voyagers Club which is a specialized program working with children who have emotional and/or behavioral issues, our family emergency services including a food pantry, shoe pantry, Christmas baskets, and as a referral specialist, coordinating our Court Hour Referrals, all CPR and First Aid Training Instructor for our staff as she is American Red Cross Certified, and coordinating our Dinner/Fashion Show.
With over 25 years of working at Delhaven, Osman has done just about everything and is a part of many of the programs and camps offered at Delhaven. He brings many skills to the agency but specializes in working with our more difficult participants as our Behavior Specialist. Additionally, he is very active in representing Delhaven in our community.


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'Walking Dead': Michael Cudlitz Admits Cast Lied About Who Was Being Killed Off
The actor told THR during a conference call Monday that the season seven death scenes were filmed more than a year ago.
Gene Page/AMC
[Warning: This story contains major spoilers from the season seven premiere of AMC's The Walking Dead, "The Day Will Come When You Won't Be," as well as the comic book series it is based on.]
Sgt. Abraham Ford reported for duty one final time on AMC's The Walking Dead.
During Sunday's season seven premiere, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) claimed two victims: Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn (Steven Yeun).
Abraham's death came as a result of Negan's cruel random selection — and after the former Army soldier seemingly volunteered to sacrifice his life in order to protect Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and company from Negan and his barbed wire-covered bat, Lucille.
'Walking Dead': Why the Season 7 Premiere Was So Violent
But before Negan delivered the final devastating blow, Abraham was able to get in one last epic quote when he told the charismatic nut-job to "suck my nuts."
For Cudlitz, meanwhile, Sunday's season seven premiere was a long time coming. After the cast united following the season six finale to say that the death scene(s) hadn't been filmed, Cudlitz told reporters Monday that both Abraham and Glenn's slayings were filmed at the end of season six and both actors knew they were being killed off more than a year ago and filmed the scene just before Thanksgiving.
'Walking Dead's' Greg Nicotero: Finale Death Hasn't Been Filmed Yet
"I found out about a year and three months ago when they told me they were going to take me and Steven out at the end of season six," Cudlitz told The Hollywood Reporter during a conference call. "They were talking about doing it at the end of season six or the start of season seven; [showrunner] Scott M. Gimple wasn't sure how to structure it for the greatest impact."
'The Walking Dead's' Most Shocking Deaths
Cudlitz explained that the cast united to protect leaks — some diehard fans follow the production around in Atlanta and others have been known to use drones to capture images of actors on the set.
"We filmed the scene about a year ago. It was the last episode of last year. … We finished just before Thanksgiving. We've been sitting with it for a year now," said Cudlitz. "We were able to spread the rumor that not even the cast knew what was going to happen. We said we filmed every cast [death] scene just in case and were redoing contacts. All that was a lie. It allowed us not to defend or hide who was dead for five months, which was great."
That the series would go to such great lengths to protect the reveal — THR reported that every actor had filmed a death scene with Lucille — should come as little surprise given AMC's history with leaks surrounding The Walking Dead. That included a brief moment Sunday where the trailer for episode two of season seven was released early by The Walking Dead's international partners (it was subsequently removed) and that time when the DVD marketing materials spoiled Shane's (Jon Bernthal) death.
"They had to balance knowing people who were trying to get that information out there," Cudlitz noted, admitting AMC is aware that it has some "in-house leaks."
Cudlitz revealed he only told his wife and children about his pending exit and went so far as to keep Abraham's red hair and massive mustache for months to ensure he held up his end of the deal. He said he also took every opportunity to travel this season in a bid to keep fans on their toes. Other castmembers, including Lincoln, were also able to take trips this season because of the massive cast list of season seven. (Heading into the season, there are 21 series regulars, which, even without Yeun and Cudlitz, is still a record for the zombie drama.)
'Walking Dead': Negan's Victim(s) Finally Revealed
As for how Abraham's story concluded, Cudlitz said he went out the way the character would have wanted: as a hero sacrificing himself for his family.
"He would give his life to protect anyone in this group," said the actor. "He became a soldier in arms with all these other people and was willing to give the ultimate sacrifice."
Cudlitz noted that Negan's "eeny meeny" selection process wasn't really random at all, but instead was the new villain surveying Rick's group in a way that didn't include any dialogue.
"It's a chess game for Negan: Do you take out the strongest guy to prove a point? Or the weakest to show you don't care — which shows you're even more twisted?" Cudlitz said. "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, directed at each person, [allowed Negan] to look in their eyes and see who he was dealing with."
As for going out in the same episode as Yeun's fan favorite Glenn — who has been with the series since its debut — Cudlitz said he was concerned only about Abraham's death taking away from Glenn's.
'Walking Dead' Producers, Stars Explain Graphic Season 7 Deaths
"Glenn, we've watched him grow up from a kid, and we're so much more invested in the whole journey of Glenn than Abraham," he said, stressing how much he loved both Glenn and Melissa McBride's Carol before boarding the show in season four. "From an emotional standpoint, the emotional weight all falls on Glenn. I'm happy with how that was scripted and they made Abraham look like a soldier who gave himself up. But the emotional weight of Glenn and Maggie [Lauren Cohan] and Glenn wanting that last moment with 'I will find you,' that transcends the show. … That is a proclamation of love that transcends the physical reality of our show. We say goodbye to Abraham in a great way, but the primary emotional impact of what happened to the show was seen through the eyes of Maggie and as a direct result of Glenn's passing."
The actor also noted that he bonded with Yeun over having to both go out in such a horrific fashion. Cudlitz called Yeun an amazing actor and said that Abraham and Glenn's deaths further illustrate comic book creator Robert Kirkman's point that nobody is ever truly safe in this world.
"If you come on the show after the third season and are surprised you're going to get killed, you're a f—ing moron," he said. "After last night, if you're in any situation where you think you're safe — even if you're Michonne [Danai Gurira], Daryl [Norman Reedus], Carl [Chandler Riggs] or Rick — there's no safety in the show right now."
What did you think of The Walking Dead's season seven premiere? Will you miss Glenn and Abraham? Sound off in the comments. For more Walking Dead coverage, bookmark THR.com/WalkingDead. Click here to read exec producer Greg Nicotero's thoughts on the episode and its violence.
'Walking Dead': How Negan's First Victim Died in the Comics
'Walking Dead': How Negan's Second Victim Died in the Comics
'Walking Dead': Saying "Thank You" and Goodbye to Negan's Second Victim
'Walking Dead': A Tribute to Negan's First Victim
Get the scoops first! Breaking news and interviews on comics, sci-fi, horror and more
By Aaron Couch
'Severance' Actress Dichen Lachman Joins 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' (Exclusive)


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D&D Campaigns => Eberron => In Character Discussions => Topic started by: Dray on November 25, 2008, 08:20:33 PM
Title: 01.02.2133 - Spar by the Bonfire
Post by: Dray on November 25, 2008, 08:20:33 PM
In Temmit's mind, one thing was for certain as the chameleon sat down next to him...the boy had skills.
He hadn't even sensed him coming, an unsual and scary fact for Temmit. Especially since Temmit had tacked Marcus' location ever since they left Our-Commons that morning.
"Hello Temmit," Marcus said in a friendly greeting as he sat down on the ground beside him. "Exciting stuff eh?" CURIOUS
River was probably very close to finishing the setup of their tent thought Temmit. And even if River didn't perchance spy the enemy sitting down next to him, he would be there soon. And he knew the hunter would have the good sense to flank Marcus should action be required.
Not that Temmit expected it would be, after all, hundreds of kids were about.
Post by: Johan on November 25, 2008, 08:48:14 PM
Naturally, I've got Sense Motive on full blast here...I think I'll blow my focus for an Empathy check too.
Also, am I to assume that I haven't run into Marcus since that day in the Church?
"Hey! How you doing, Marcus?" Temmit asked in his most friendly fashion. "Exciting is certainly a good choice of words. You got any thoughts on how tomorrow will go?"
You haven't had a face to face encounter no, but you have caught his eye contact once in awhile.
..and damned isn't that funny when Temmit is acting like that.
"Nope, no idea, but I certainly wouldn't mind finally getting a chance at proving myself," he returned. VANITY
"How about you? Have any ideas on what surprises they have in store for us?" CURIOUS
(I will need a sense motive roll sir...the game is afoot. And while you are at it, you may want to roll bluff in future posts should you try to conceal your own body language while distorting any truths, or, trying to dim your body language in any way)
Sense Motive: Natural 17, modified 30. Don't forget the Empathy that's up. I'll make Bluff rolls as I think they are required.
"Nah." Teemit answered. "I'm in the dark as much as anyone, I think. I've never been involved in one of these games either, but I hear that the big feast, and the presence of our August hosts is quite unusual. Makes me really wonder what they're hoping to see."
He sucked his tongue for a moment, then changed the subject. "So how is it that you managed to change houses anyway?" He asked. "That time in the forest finally convince you that you're no plant grower?" He smiled jokingly.
Bluff: Natural 5, modifed 21. Don't forget you are messing with someone with skill.
The small note of surprise that Marcus had at the question was very satisfying to Temmit.
It only took a moment for Marcus to collect his resolve though, and then he replied with a bit less friendly manner.
"That time in the forest was time well spent, I got my head around a few things," he said, then paused for a few moments. DECEIT
His light manner returned. "After all, the plant growers don't get the girls, and their are a ton of girls in the Actors House eh?" WICKEDNESS
His voice got very serious.
"Girls like Leslie." EVIL
Temmit knew that Marcus was testing him. Marcus was making statements not only to ignite an emotional reaction in him but to watch him as he did so, that way Marucs could learn the visual queues that would make reading Temmit easier at a later date.
Temmit chuckled. "She's cute, all right, but she's too young and skinny. What about Shannon?" He asked, delving into Marcus's playground. "She's in the Actor's house, isn't she?" He popped into his mouth one of the crackers that he had been provided.
"Is your mother convinced that puberty is natural yet?" He shook his head in sympathy for Marcus's supposed plight. "I still can't believe that you had to meet the Quintescent because of puberty." He laughed slightly again.
"Yeah, I will have to kill my mother for that one eh?" he said with a completely friendly laugh that didn't match he statement whatsoever, it made Temmit's spine crawl. HATRED
"Shannon's sweet enough... nice chest, and she sure would be an emotional one in the skinny I imagine." WICKEDNESS
Temmit had never heard the expression before.
Marcus looked straight at Temmit and said, "But I like it when the little one's squirm." EVIL
"Don't play his game. Or don't let him win, at any rate." Smokey whispered, even before Marcus spoke this last provocation. "Remember: he's reading you, and learning your tells. He's trying to shock emotions out of you."
Temmit placed a binding on his mental chest, as he had long since come to model his emotional containment upon. Smokey's words serverd very well as those bindings.
"Damn, man!" Temmit laughed quietly. "You're sick!" He forced an 'inadvertant' snort, which made him cough on the cracker he had been eating, and he laughed a bit more in the doing. "How they squirm!" He whispered in echoe to Marcus's perversion.
"I guess you have more experience than I do." Temmit admitted, still lauging slightly. He took a drink to wash down his cracker and to give his face something to do as he steeled himself for Marcus's next assault.
"You can learn an awful lot about what makes a person fearful by observing what he uses to scare you." Smokey observed.
The truth in these words spoke volumes to Temmit. Marcus was trying to make Temmit angry, and the tactics that the doppleganger used told Temmit quite a lot, really. He wondered what might be next on Marcus's salvo.
"In a great deal many things," he responded matter of factly. CONCEIT
"So what happened to your squirmy little friend, where did she really get those bruises?" CURIOUS
Post by: Johan on November 26, 2008, 08:08:32 AM
"So here's the investigation." Smokey said. "Trouble is, is he really investigating Leslie's accident?"
"Not likely." Temmit answered. "But the answer to that question is information that I don't want him to have either."
"Certainly, but it's likely that what he's trying to do is get you into comfortable territory so that you'll let your guard drop. This means, of course, that as far as he knows, you're only comfortable with Leslie; he doesn't know you at all, and yet he does."
Temmit smiled inquisitively at Marcus. "I hear tell she fell and smacked her head...you do seem awfully fixated on her though; what's up with that? You interested?"
Then a thought occurred to Temmit. "Why do you ask about her bruises? Did you hear a different story?" He asked conspiratorially.
"I just thought it odd that you were out the same day she had gone missing is all," Marcus replied. "I thought that might have been so you could go look for her. Quite the risk don't you think? Dodging the truancy office to go find such a young membe(r)...fellow student?"
Temmit understood that the slip of the tongue was nothing of the sort. Whether Marcus knew that he had been fooled by it was unknown.
Temmit made a questioning face, not looking at Marcus, but intended for him. "Memeber?" He asked. He then shrugged the comment off visibly and considered Marcus's connecting of dots.
"You know, I hadn't thought about it a whit, but you're right: that is an odd coincidence. I can see how some folks might connect those dots, as you did." Temmit answered
"But you're also right in that that'd be an unwarranted risk, just to go looking for a kid, and I'm certainly no risk taker...Shanteel beats that out of you at a young age."
He then changed the subject back to Marcus's original line of questions, nearly a week and a half ago. "So I take it that you're still looking for a...ummm....community? No luck on that front?" He asked conversationally.
Post by: Dray on November 28, 2008, 07:55:43 AM
There is an err in your statement, and it is my fault, as you aren't the first player to make it.
Temmit, and all the player orphans (which is all of you), do not sleep at the orphanage while school is in session. You all report back to the House dormitories. ONLY in the summer do you take up residence in the orphanage.
Instead of Shanteel as the antagonist in that statement, you can change it to the reknowned Stephen Nedell, the bastard who is in charge of the Truancy Office. Who sometimes visits a student on sick days to check if they are faking.
"A community? Is that what they are called now?" Marcus asked with a smirk. He started to get up off the ground but continued to talk while in a crouched position beside Temmit.
"Nah," he continued, without waiting for an answer, "I am building my own. Come see me sometime if you want to join eh?"
Marcus lightly slapped Temmit behind the shoulder.
Shanteel beat the risk-taker out of kids at an early age. I'm thinking that there's no conflict there.
"Yeah." Temmit said agreeably. "Maybe I'll do that."
"Oh, and hey - good luck tomorrow. Try to not get yourself 'killed'".
"Oh no worry, I have peeps watching my back," he said as he stood up. He started to leave but hesitated and then turned back adding. "...and to take care of my affairs should any accidents occur."
He gave a knowing smile, and departed.
"So, you think that he's just interviewing you for memebership in his new guild?"
"Certainly could be. It'd make a lot of sense, really. Any and all questions, framed in the aspect of an interview. It's possible that he was just trying to see how I'd react to all those foul things that he said."
"Do you think you passed?"
"Well, I got an invite, didn't I?"
"Huh...you did indeed. Will you be accepting it?"
FIN?
I would only join if they have a good tabard.
Post by: Griznuq on November 27, 2011, 08:17:10 PM
That was an enjoyable thread. :)
Short & Sweet, but kind of sets the stage.
Post by: Wildfire on November 28, 2011, 06:05:26 AM


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Tučep (, ) is a village/settlement in the Istog municipality, Kosovo.

The village was predominantly Serb. Its Serb population was displaced in June 1999, following the Kosovo War, but returned subsequently. However they face harassment, and lack of electricity.

Population

See also
Anti-Serb sentiment

Notes

References

Villages in Istog
Serbian enclaves in Kosovo
Anti-Serbian sentiment


▲ Figure 1: Scheme of scattered light waves inside an inhomogeneous and opaque environment. IBS scientists are able to focus on the scattered waves that have interacted with the target and maximize their intensity. A body's complex environment inhibits most of the light waves from reaching the target (green waves), whereas information about the target is presented in the red and blue waves. As target depth increases, the single-scattered signal (red) becomes negligibly small, because it is more likely that the waves will get bounced around by other biological molecules in their path (blue). Therefore, the goal of this study was to selectively control and enhance the blue waves over the green ones.
▲ Figure 2: Selecting the right waves. a) The goal of this study is to enhance the intensity of wave (3) over (1), (2) and (4), as (3) is the only wave which hit the target and thus contains information about it. b) IBS scientists took advantage of the different times it takes for the waves to be refracted back. Thanks to this technique, the wave which hits the target (wave 3) can stand out from the other waves. The final images show simulations with untargeted light signals (c) or targeted waves, equivalent to wave 3 (d). Compared to c), the waves in d) are less diffused laterally and reduce their intensity with increasing depth.
▲ Figure 3: Peering through the skull. a) Either one or ten silver disks of 10 and 3 μm diameter, respectively, were placed below an approximately 340 μm-thick mouse skull and immersed in serum (PBS). b) The intensity of returning waves increased at a travel time of 3.2 picoseconds. c-d) Both targets were completely invisible to the collective accumulation of single scattering (CASS) optical imaging technique. e-f) Images of the transmitted waves using untargeted light signals, and g-h) images obtained with this new technique focusing on waves with travel time of 3.2 picoseconds.
"Optical imaging can generally work at the depth of 1 transport mean free path; roughly 1 mm of biological tissue. Our technique goes deeper into tissue, at nearly twice the depth," details Seungwon Jeong.


Since 1981, over 500 students have participated in the intern program of the ADC Research Institute (ADCRI). Students from all over the country gather at the national office in Washington, DC, each year to gain first-hand experience and knowledge about ADC issues and campaigns.
The intern program offers a variety of positions for leadership development. It educates students on issues of civil rights, the Arab heritage, and current events in the Middle East. It empowers them to educate others. Students gain practical training in community organizing, media relations, research and writing, legal issues, political action, educational outreach, and routine office work alongside our regular professional staff.
At the end of the summer, our interns compile an "Intern Perspectives" where they discuss their experience at ADC. Click here to view the "Intern Perspectives" from past years.
Candidates must have completed at least one (1) year of college. They can be undergraduates, recent graduates, or graduate and law students. Each department has their own requirements.
Interns must be or become regular ADC members. Student memberships are available at discounted rates.
While the program is primarily oriented to Arab American students, we encourage applicants of all ethnic backgrounds. Occasionally, international students are part of the intern program. Such students must arrange on their own to acquire U.S. visas that authorize employment in the U.S. ADC cannot make these arrangements. They may be available through university programs or organizations such as the Council on International Educational Exchange (www.ciee.org).
During the summer, up to 15 internships are available at the national office. The 11 week internships are full-time positions. We are asking interns to start as early in May as possible after the school ends.
Positions are available with the legal, organizing, media and publications, and government relations departments, as well as with the offices of the ADC President.
Housing: We can advise interns about searching for housing and assist them in locating other interns who are seeking roommates.
Educational program: During the duration of the summer internship program, interns visit government and congressional offices, embassies, and other organizations. This introduces student to some of the policy-making institutions in the Washington area, which shape issues and events of concern to Arab Americans. There will be opportunities to take advantage of some of the speakers, films, conferences, and cultural programs in Washington which address Arab world issues. Each year interns write and publish Intern Perspectives, in which they reflect on their experiences at ADC and on the issues they have dealt with.
Applications for Summer internships with the Legal Department are due by March 23. Later applications will be considered, but early applicants will be given priority.
Volunteer positions for course credit are available during the academic year and are arranged on a case-by-case basis. The deadline for applications are August 2 (extended until filled) for Fall, and December 30 for Spring. Legal Department deadlines for application are: August 29 for Fall, December 30 for Spring.
For other departments, applications are considered as they are received. Work hours can be accommodated to student class schedules.
Two-page personal statement about your goals as an ADC intern and how your academic, professional, or campus and community activities or career goals are related to the position you requested.


Here are a few signs the Alamo City is slowly, but surely, moving on up in the culinary world.
Eggs benny from Arcade. National Attention The area with the most national attention is hotly contended between the Pearl and Southtown. The Pearl's gotten many a shout out in the NY Times and Esquire for The Granary, Boiler House, NAO and Arcade Midtown Kitchen. Bakery Lorraine made Travel & Leisure's list of America's Best Bakeries; Chuck Hughes visited El Milagrito, Biga on the Banks, The Monterey and Restaurant Gwendolyn as he ate his way through SA on "Chuck's Eat the Street" this summer. The Cooking Channel also (finally) aired segments on DUK Truck and Tapa Tapa Truck. SA is getting nationwide recognition and it's not for its puffy tacos. Did we mention Rickshaw Stop is the No. 7 food truck in the country according to the Daily Meal?
Yep, this came from a truck. Mobile Eats It's been two years since Boardwalk on Bulverde claimed its spot as the first food truck park in the city. Since then, mobile kitchens have sprouted all over SA, in a park or otherwise. With upwards of 50 trucks (on a good day) rolling through SA and the addition of food truck parks including Alamo Street Eat Bar and Mission #6 in Southtown, the Point Park & Eats on Boerne Stage Road and the Block SA off UTSA Blvd, there seems to be no signs of stopping this delicious fleet.
Pho, anyone? Scarcity Everyone wants to be in the know of where the next cool IT spot will be. Whether to capitalize on this culture or to fix kinks before really opening or both, the owners of Tuk Tuk Tap Room have been promoting soft opening dinners to the first 20, 35, 50 people that respond to Facebook & Twitter posts. This isn't as bad as cronuts or ramen burgers, by far, but local councilman Diego Bernal and chefs Steve McHugh and Andrew Weissman all did 15-second Insta-video invitations for said dinners, helping drive the frenzy.
No filters here, just pure unadulterated cocktail. Boomin' Booze Culture Five years ago, it wouldn't have been possible to have a SA Cocktail Conference. But now classic cocktails are here to stay. These days you can sip on great concoctions poured by a slew of die-hard bartenders at Arcade, Bar 1919, Bohanan's, Blue Box, Brooklynite, Esquire Tavern, Luke, Mon Ami, Ocho, NAO New World Flavors, SoHo and TBA. Moreover we're sipping on craft beer now more than ever with brews from local brewers Alamo, Busted Sandal Brewing, 5 Stones Brewing, Branchline Brewing, Freetail Brewing Co., Ranger Creek Brewing & Distilling. And we're drinking craft brews from all over with the help of well-stocked taps at Friendly Spot, Big Hops Growler, World of Beer and Filling Station Tap Room, and liquor stores like Twin Liquors Marketplace, Spec's and Joe Saglimbeni's Fine Wine & Spirits.
Noodles for the masses. Ramen Mania We finally have a restaurant whose main focus is ramen. No, Kimura, doesn't JUST carry the steaming bowls of goodness, but it's putting a lot more thought into ramen than most. Let's hope it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Variety Sure, SA loves to eat. But with one Trader Joe's (and another in the works), two Whole Foods Markets, more farmers markets than I can possibly list, we're clearly in the market for specialty items and a larger selection to choose from.


text:
// The MIT License (MIT)
//
// Copyright (c) 2015-2018 Rasmus Mikkelsen
// Copyright (c) 2015-2018 eBay Software Foundation
// https://github.com/eventflow/EventFlow
//
// Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
// this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
// the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
// use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of
// the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
// subject to the following conditions:
//
// The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
// copies or substantial portions of the Software.
//
// THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
// IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
// FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR
// COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER
// IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
// CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using EventFlow.Core;
using EventFlow.Extensions;
using EventFlow.Logs;
using EventFlow.Snapshots.Stores;

namespace EventFlow.Snapshots
{
    public class SnapshotStore : ISnapshotStore
    {
        private readonly ILog _log;
        private readonly ISnapshotSerilizer _snapshotSerilizer;
        private readonly ISnapshotPersistence _snapshotPersistence;

        public SnapshotStore(
            ILog log,
            ISnapshotSerilizer snapshotSerilizer,
            ISnapshotPersistence snapshotPersistence)
        {
            _log = log;
            _snapshotSerilizer = snapshotSerilizer;
            _snapshotPersistence = snapshotPersistence;
        }

        public async Task<SnapshotContainer> LoadSnapshotAsync<TAggregate, TIdentity, TSnapshot>(
            TIdentity identity,
            CancellationToken cancellationToken)
            where TAggregate : ISnapshotAggregateRoot<TIdentity, TSnapshot>
            where TIdentity : IIdentity
            where TSnapshot : ISnapshot
        {
            _log.Verbose(() => $"Fetching snapshot for '{typeof(TAggregate).PrettyPrint()}' with ID '{identity}'");
            var committedSnapshot = await _snapshotPersistence.GetSnapshotAsync(
                typeof(TAggregate),
                identity,
                cancellationToken)
                .ConfigureAwait(false);
            if (committedSnapshot == null)
            {
                _log.Verbose(() => $"No snapshot found for '{typeof(TAggregate).PrettyPrint()}' with ID '{identity}'");
                return null;
            }

            var snapshotContainer = await _snapshotSerilizer.DeserializeAsync<TAggregate, TIdentity, TSnapshot>(
                committedSnapshot,
                cancellationToken)
                .ConfigureAwait(false);

            return snapshotContainer;
        }

        public async Task StoreSnapshotAsync<TAggregate, TIdentity, TSnapshot>(
            TIdentity identity,
            SnapshotContainer snapshotContainer,
            CancellationToken cancellationToken)
            where TAggregate : ISnapshotAggregateRoot<TIdentity, TSnapshot>
            where TIdentity : IIdentity
            where TSnapshot : ISnapshot
        {
            var serializedSnapshot = await _snapshotSerilizer.SerilizeAsync<TAggregate, TIdentity, TSnapshot>(
                snapshotContainer,
                cancellationToken)
                .ConfigureAwait(false);

            await _snapshotPersistence.SetSnapshotAsync(
                typeof(TAggregate),
                identity,
                serializedSnapshot,
                cancellationToken)
                .ConfigureAwait(false);
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The Department of Personalized Learning had an absolute blast learning and growing alongside of you during the Charleston Educator Symposium last week! It was truly a world-class event showcasing the amazing talent and ideas from around the district! Impressive to say the least!
We especially want to thank you for stopping by our photo booth to snap a quick picture and share your inspirational words. You all blew us away with both your clear vision and profound voice advocating for education and personalized learning! Not to mention, some of you were looking (in the words of Tyra) "fierce!" Ha!
We loved every minute spent with you and look forward to continuing our journey together for years to come! Come back and visit our blog to help us lead the charge of "re-imagining" education!"
At our schools we are committed to giving our students voice in the classroom. We want to know what they are interested in, what they want to learn, what is on their minds and what they think are the best options to fix problems in their classroom. This voice gives the students more ownership over their learning and environment. We see this makes students want to participate in school more! Below are three examples of how we use student voice in the classroom and some student feedback on voice in their classroom.
Parking Lots- Our classrooms employ "parking lots" to elicit student feedback. These boards provide students an opportunity to give the teacher feedback on the classroom environment, a particular lesson or a change that just happened. The key to the parking lot is the teacher taking time each week to read the responses to the class and validate what the students are saying.
5th Grade Student- "We have made many changes to our classroom based on our parking lot. I have never had a teacher use it before."
Click to find out how to create your own classroom parking lot.
Sticky Notes: We go through a lot of sticky notes at our schools! We use them to give each student a voice in any of our decision making processes. We often use the Affinity Process to see what our students think. Students use this process to create their shared vision and code of cooperation. It is no longer the teacher who creates the rules. Instead, teachers facilitate the student creation of rules. In the example, the students used their sticky notes to describe what respectful looks like, sounds like, and feels like!
4th Grade Student- "We used our sticky notes to create our shared vision. We use our shared vision every day to help us make decisions about the class."
Technology: We use technology often as a tool to get student voice. Whether is is an Edmodo Poll, a Padlet wall or a simple survey (Google Survey,Survey Monkey) students and teachers have a variety of ways to communicate with each other to have a say in how their classroom is run. Students love using this technology and teachers love how quickly they receive student information.
3rd Grade Student- "I love when we get to fill out a poll online. It is so fun and easy."
Which of these strategies will you try in your classroom to elicit student voice? Do you have another way you encourage student voice? Tell us about it in the comments!


Welcome to Crawfish Haven Seafood and Catering!
We are a family owned and operated restaurant, take-out and catering business located at 2100 Goodman Rd. W., Horn Lake, MS, (Next door to Hubcap Annie).
Jason Marbury has been cooking Cajun crawfish and seafood for over 15 years.
We offer authentic Cajun Creole cuisine cooked in our very own special Cajun family seasoning recipe. We believe that our seasoning is our "lagniappe" (a little something extra). We offer a variety of items boiled in this special seasoning, including crawfish, shrimp, snow crab, Dungeness crab, Cajun sausage link, corn and potatoes. We also offer Crawfish Étouffée, several types of Gumbo, Cajun Red Beans & Rice w/sausage, Cajun Shrimp n Grits, Pork & Sausage Jambalaya, two types of Authentic Boudin, Hot Pork or Crawfish.
Our mission is to offer the best authentic Cajun Creole cuisine in the Mid- South! We hope you will come by and pick up some of our great food or just enjoy it with us on our big covered patio equipped with our famous signature wall, clean restroom, 55" television for games or music, fans and its BYOB!
We also bring to North MS and the Memphis area your only Cajun Stop that offers LIVE CRAWFISH already WASHED and READY for the boil from January to end of July!


text:
Yahoo is cutting about 52 staff from its 251-strong French operation under the group-wide reductions announced from the company's Sunnyvale headquarters in October.
The engineering staff is taking a big hit from the restructuring, as Yahoo's French sites carry proportionally more engineers than other locations, the company told AFP: "The category of engineers is the most affected by the cuts at the global level." The cuts will come from both of Yahoo's French sites, in Paris and Grenoble.


Are you looking for a personal assistant? With future versions of Google Fit you may not need to pay for one. Most major tech companies are stepping into fitness and health tracking and Google is no exception.


Q: I want your team to design my logo. How do I get started?
Once your order is placed we'll contact you to get started.
Q: Do I get a say in how the logo will look?
A: Yes! We will work closely with you to make sure the logo is exactly what you want. Nothing will be finalized until you are happy the design.
A: Once your custom print order is placed, you will typically see a logo design within 2-5 business days. Custom marketing materials will be completed shortly after you approve a logo design.
Brand new print services website!


…they instead say "what do YOU eat? Do you ever eat anything "bad"? What's your favorite cheat meal?"
And this again happened the other day when we were presenting in California at the IDEA Conference. After our talk, someone asked … are "Cheat Days" OK?
…maybe it's just semantics, but we prefer to call it a splurge.
Cheat implies bad. You're sneaking food, hiding in the corner eating it, maybe keeping it hidden from your co workers in your desk so you can "sneak" it as if you're bad.
On the flip side, splurge implies you enjoy a meal then get right back to where you were without worrying.
The Splurge foods are part of the 10% of what we recommend in our 90/10 rule (eat clean 90% of the time and leave the other 10% to let down the reins, so to speak). If you do the math, that comes out to a couple meals each week. Maybe use this for when you go with your spouse or friends. Or for a lunch meeting at work.
Just plan that splurge into your week like you would plan anything else. Planning is the key to success!
We need to enjoy what we eat.
For Chris: Pizza or homemade lasagna, with crusty Italian bread and good olive oil. Pizza is a little easier than making lasagna, but they're both in the same realm of "splurge" foods.
For Kara: Wine and pasta with homemade sauce and meatballs and great Italian bread with olive oil.
For Ella: Well, she hasn't quite gotten there yet, but we'll surely report back.
So what's your favorite splurge food?


The American Life Assurance Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiary, First National Life Insurance Company, were domiciled in Alabama. When First National was placed in receivership in the fall of 1996 and then placed into liquidation a year later, American Life Assurance subsequently became insolvent. Soon after, the state life and health insurance guaranty associations helped arrange for all in-force policies to be transferred to New Era Life Insurance Company by assumption reinsurance in December 1997 (see below).


text:
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. Chapter 3: Aktion Reinhard and the Holocaust in Poland (1).
Author: HC Guest Blogger
Aktion Reinhard and the Holocaust in Poland
As the preceding chapter has demonstrated, Mattogno, Graf and Kues have an exceedingly poor grasp of the evolution of Nazi Jewish policy and of the Final Solution as a whole. The following chapter will show that such a verdict does not change in the slightest when we consider the arguments proffered by the trio regarding the evolution of Aktion Reinhard and the Holocaust in the regions of Poland most affected by Aktion Reinhard. Strictly speaking, the trio do not actually offer a coherent account of either of these things in the 'trilogy' of booklets about Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. They might well say that their studies were of the camps themselves, and that they were not obligated to examine the history of Jewish policy in the Generalgouvernement. But in the guise of trying to prove 'resettlement', these books reimport just such an account a through the back door – an account, moreover, which is so horribly distorted, inaccurate and ignorant as to be all but unrecognisable to anyone who is moderately familiar with the conventional historical literature on the subject.
Just as with Nazi Jewish policy as a whole, the chapters under consideration here are almost entirely the work of Carlo Mattogno.[1] Indeed, some of the arguments Mattogno advances end up repeated in his own oeuvre[2], or in brochures by Graf[3] or parroted in the summaries of other negationist gurus such as Germar Rudolf.[4] Not only are the arguments repeated in other works, but the basic gist of the argument is largely unchanged from Treblinka (whose original version appeared in 2002 in German) to Sobibór (appearing in 2010). Closer examination reveals that the exact same references recur across both volumes, and are sometimes even repeated a third time in Bełżec, where the corresponding chapter is truncated and refers the reader to the more extensive exposition in the earlier Treblinka.
Taken together, the corresponding chapters purporting to deal with the origins of Aktion Reinhard and the deportations to Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka amount to about 81,000 words. In practice, a staggering amount of space is given over to digressions about Auschwitz or developments in Jewish policy in western Europe that are of indirect relevance at best to the question of what was Aktion Reinhard and what were Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.[5] Closer inspection reveals that some of these digressions are set-piece spiels which Mattogno uses in his Auschwitz brochures. Indeed, some documents turn out to be cited by Mattogno no fewer than nine times across his entire oeuvre.
These digressions and repetitions only serve to underscore one of the biggest problems with Mattogno's attempts to account for the evolution of Aktion Reinhard, namely the utter absence of any reference to a range of what might be considered obvious sources anywhere inside the 'trilogy'. A good example would be the well known Goebbels diary entry of March 27, 1942, already mentioned in the preceding chapter and which will be discussed further below. Not only is this source a standard reference in many studies of the origins of the Final Solution in general[6], it is invariably mentioned in all the relevant regional studies of occupied Poland as well as in the standard histories of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.[7] One would therefore expect that the document would be acknowledged and discussed in a serious work on those camps. Yet nowhere in the trilogy do Mattogno or either of his co-authors bother to mention this obviously critical source. When called on his omission of the diary entry from Bełżec by Roberto Muehlenkamp, Mattogno feebly tried to claim that the document was not relevant because it did not mention Belzec by name.[8] But this does not stop him from citing dozens of documents in Treblinka and Sobibór that not only do not mention Belzec, Sobibor or Treblinka, but which are not even relevant to any of the regions affected by these camps. One has to search far and wide through Mattogno's oeuvre to find any discussion of the Goebbels diary entry.[9] The fact that he could not bring himself to include such a discussion in any of the three volumes of the 'trilogy' suggests that far from being able to explain away this deeply inconvenient reference, the leading negationist is actually embarrassed by it, and knows that if he were to include too many such documents invoking unpleasant terms such as 'destruction', 'extirpation', 'liquidation' or 'killing', then he would undermine his own argument and destroy the plausibility of the 'resettlement thesis'. Unfortunately for Mattogno, as this chapter will demonstrate, the Goebbels diary entry is far from the only example of an omission of a crucial document. Moreover, when such a reference is omitted from not one or two but all three works, there are good grounds to apply a simple principle: 'three strikes, and you're out'. Such a flagrant omission is not the behaviour of a Doubting Thomas but of the proverbial three monkeys: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil; deny, deny, deny.
Argument by omission – for that is what we are dealing with here – is however not the only failing which Mattogno brings to the table in the Aktion Reinhard chapters. Perusing them, it swiftly becomes apparent to any reader familiar with the conventional historiography of the Holocaust in Poland[10] that Mattogno is deeply, profoundly ignorant of this literature, and is evidently blithely unaware of how rapidly the literature has grown in the past two decades in particular. Nor does he show much of a grasp of the available sources. Virtually all the Poland-specific citations are taken from a few published documentary collections. (And even then, many documents published in these collections are, unsurprisingly, omitted or overlooked.) Other sources are lifted from the Nuremberg trials, Eichmann trial documents or publications of the CDJC in Paris[11], leaving a vanishingly small number of citations to actual archival sources in the relevant chapters.[12] Under no circumstances can Mattogno be considered to have done the work, or to have bothered to listen to those who, unlike him, actually have done the work on this topic.
His use of the limited amount of scholarly literature and primary sources he does know about verges on the parodic. In Treblinka, for example, Chapter 8.7 turns out to be 2,211 words written about the Holocaust in Galicia, a mini-essay buttressed by 27 footnotes and grossly padded with 927 words of italicised block quotes. Mattogno's most recent secondary source turns out to be Thomas Sandkühler's dissertation on the Holocaust in Galicia, published in 1996.[13] It is difficult to see how on earth Mattogno can believe that this section is even remotely capable of addressing the total volume of evidence on the Holocaust in Galicia or the relevant literature. Indeed, it is easy to identify nearly as many works specifically on Galicia as there are footnotes in his shoddy little essay, including a second German dissertation from 1996 by Dieter Pohl[14], and numerous works published in recent years.[15] Why does Mattogno think that 2,211 words is a sufficient counter to two whole PhDs plus a substantial quantity of other literature, which collectively discusses a vast wealth of source material relating to the Holocaust in Galicia? There were more trials in West Germany for the Galicia district than he manages footnotes.[16] Why would anyone bother to believe Mattogno's feeble take when there are extensive, detailed, coherent narratives and explanations of what happened in Galicia to the Jews there from 1941 to 1944? And why would anyone bother with Mattogno when he evidently does not understand the course of the Holocaust in Galicia, much less any of the other districts affected by 'Aktion Reinhard'?
For as well as resorting to argument by omission and argument from ignorance, Mattogno frequently relies on what might be called argument from incomprehension. As we have already seen in Chapter 2, Mattogno's grasp of the evolution of Nazi policy before and during the Final Solution consists of little more than a series of strawmen and misrepresentations. By far the most frequent misunderstanding is his refusal to grasp something that has been extensively discussed and debated in the conventional scholarly literature – the interaction of labour and extermination.[17] Instead of demonstrating the slightest awareness of this debate, Mattogno time and again resorts to a strawman of 100% extermination, expresses puzzlement as to why ever smaller minorities of Jews were being spared for slave labour, and declares pompously that selections for forced labour at this or that camp are supposedly incompatible with the 'official thesis' of extermination.[18] Unfortunately for this truly imbecilic strategy of argumentation, the world has been quite aware since 1942 that Nazi policy was, broadly, to exterminate the unfit first and spare those fit for labour for at least a temporary reprieve.[19] The survival of an ever decreasing number of Jewish forced labourers cannot in any way be regarded as a meaningful or logical argument against the mass murder of 90% of the Jews of Poland. Yet Mattogno constantly argues as if it does, thereby exposing only his own lack of comprehension of the development of Nazi policy and the factors which went to shape it.
Contrary to the lurking strawman of Nazi Germany as a centralised, totalitarian state, it is a truism of conventional scholarship that Nazi occupation policy in Poland was rent sideways by political conflicts between different factions and institutions, and caught in a series of dilemmas generated by the contradictions between Nazi ideology and economic rationality.[20] Politics and economics, two subjects to which real historians pay great attention and which pseudoscholars rarely grasp, thus decisively shaped the course of the Holocaust in Poland. Moreover, changing political and economic circumstances over the course of 1941 to 1944 caused policy to now accelerate, now seemingly decelerate, and to vary considerably from region to region and phase to phase. These variations do not therefore generate discrepancies or anomalies as Mattogno might like them to, but are very easily explained as the results of conflicts between SS and civil administration, between ideology and economic pragmatism, between centre and periphery, between utopian ambition and logistical limitations, and between long, medium and short term goals. In this respect, Nazi Jewish policy in Poland was no different to any other policy enacted by the National Socialist regime, and just as other Nazi policies shifted rapidly to accommodate changed circumstances, so, too did Nazi Jewish policy change. By trying to eternalise Nazi Jewish policy and ignoring change over time, Mattogno reveals himself as fundamentally tone-deaf to historical context. It is thus small surprise that his chapters and sections purporting to address this context display a degree of chronological discombobulation that is practically pathological, and in some cases almost certainly entirely deliberate.
This chronological discombobulation is mirrored on the thematic level by the staggering number of topics which are simply left out of Mattogno's confused account. Indeed, not only are these themes left out of the 'trilogy', but one is hard pressed to find any discussion of them anywhere in the entire negationist oeuvre. For example, Mattogno briefly discusses the Warsaw ghetto actions of 1942 and 1943 in Chapter 9 of 'Treblinka; but this is more or less the only location in his entire body of work where ghettos are discussed at all; and nowhere is the phenomenon of ghettoisation addressed.[21] Why and how the Nazis decided to put Polish Jews into ghettos is simply not mentioned. In this regard, Mattogno is far from alone among negationist gurus, as his co-author Graf doesn't even manage to mention the word 'ghetto' once in The Giant with Feet of Clay, while Butz's account of the ghettos in The Hoax of the Twentieth Century seems to reimagine them as a paradise of Jewish self-rule.[22] Yes, we know: Revisionists are concerned with extermination and death camps and gas chambers, but even the poorest student of history would surely be aware that what came before might well shape and influence what transpired later. By yanking Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka out of their proper historical context, and trying to fabricate a bright, shiny, new pseudo-context for them with the 'resettlement thesis', Mattogno isn't going to fool anyone.[23]
Similarly, the fixation on the three Aktion Reinhard camps ends up ignoring the circumstances of the deportations in 1942-3 and the sheer amount of violence used to carry them out. Indeed, it ignores the fact that the Nazis had been dealing out death to Jews since 1939. From the very first days of the German invasion of Poland, Jews suffered at the hands of Nazi terror in Poland[24] that saw some 16,000 executions by October 25 and 50,000 by the end of 1939.[25] 7,000 of the killed were Jews, victims of a culture of antisemitic violence and abuse that had gestated within Nazi Germany during the pre-war years[26] as well as a specific contempt for East European Jews (Ostjuden)[27], a reaction which is amply documented in soldiers' letters and other sources.[28]
The mass murder of the Jews inhabiting the regions of Poland affected by Aktion Reinhard involved both deportations to the death camps as well as extensive mass shootings. Nowhere in Mattogno's work is there a detailed confrontation with the demographics of the Holocaust in Poland.[29] Yet ghettos and shootings killed more Jews in the Generalgouvernement, Białystok and Zichenau districts than are held to have died at Belzec. The omission of this context unsurprisingly leads Mattogno to present conclusions which those more familiar with the evidence than he is will find either hilariously ignorant or utterly dishonest. With a total of 1,611 Jewish communities identified inside the borders of pre-war Poland, and over 630 localities in the Generalgouvernement, Zichenau and Białystok districts documented with Jewish communities, not to mention the hundreds of ghettos identified by multiple research projects in recent years[30], it is obvious that the Holocaust in Poland cannot be reduced to a matter of three camps and a few handwaving remarks about the Warsaw ghetto.
After the high-level decisions reached in December 1941 (already touched on in Chapter 2) had been made, and the necessary preparations to begin the extermination concluded, the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question' began in earnest on March 16, 1942, with near-simultaneous deportations from the ghettos of Lublin as well as Lwow in the Galicia district, and a number of provincial small towns in both districts. From May 1942, the camp at Bełżec was joined by a second killing facility at Sobibór, which claimed the lives of Jews from the Lublin district as well as German, Austrian, Czech and Slovak Jews deported to the region from outside the Government-General. By June 1942, the initial operations had claimed well over 150,000 lives, and permission was forthcoming to extend the campaign to other districts in the Government-General. The Cracow district began to be targeted that same month[31], before a transport stop was ordered until mid-July, in order to allow the free passage of reinforcements and supplies to the Eastern Front in preparation for the German summer campaign in eastern Ukraine and Russia. On July 22, 1942, the campaign, by then named Operation Reinhard in honour of the head of the RSHA, Reinhard Heydrich, who had been assassinated in Prague not long beforehand, was extended to encompass the Warsaw district, with the start of deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to a third extermination camp set up by Globocnik's staff at Treblinka.[32] In early August, the Radom district was sucked into the process, which henceforth ran at high speed across the whole of the Generalgouvernement.[33] Deportations from the Radom district were directed almost exclusively to Treblinka and secondarily to Belzec; transports from the Cracow and Galicia districts went exclusively to Belzec; trains from the Warsaw district were exclusively sent to Treblinka; while the Jews of the Lublin district were murdered in all three camps. In November 1942, the Zichenau and Bialystok districts, both annexed to East Prussia and thus belonging to the 'incorporated territories', were drawn in to Operation Reinhard with transports directed to Treblinka, although trains left from both districts to Auschwitz at this time.[34] In mid-December 1942, a renewed transport stop to enable reinforcements to reach the collapsing Eastern Front and relieve the encircled German forces at Stalingrad brought the second phase of Operation Reinhard to an end. By the end of 1942, 1,274,166 Jews had been deported to the Reinhard camps.[35]
Alongside deportations, units of the SS and Police conducted so-called "local resettlements" in many districts, especially in smaller towns which lay some distance away from the rail lines. Over the course of 1942 and 1943, more than 300,000 Jews were killed on the spot in mass executions that affected every single district caught up in Operation Reinhard. In the Radom district, at least 11,000 were shot during the deportations.[36] A similar number were shot in the liquidation of the provincial ghettos of the Warsaw district[37], while at least 5,000 Jews, in all probability well over 10,000, were shot in the Warsaw ghetto action of the summer of 1942.[38] In the Galicia district, over 70,000 Jews were murdered in 1941 by units of the Einsatzgruppen, Order Police and the static KdS Galizien, decimating the Jewish population of the region.[39] Through to the end of 1942, approximately 250,000 Jews were deported and another 70,000 shot "locally".[40] Shootings were almost as extensive in the Krakow district, in former western Galicia, where up to 60,000 Jews were shot in repeated actions through to the start of 1943.[41]
In 1943, after the closure of Belzec, shooting was more or less the only method used in eastern Galicia, claiming another 150,000 lives by the end of that year. Whereas the Jewish population of Galicia was counted at 278,000 on September 15, 1942, it had decreased to 161,500 by the end of 1942.[42] A similar depletion is easily demonstrated for other districts. Whereas in early 1942, there were 300-320,000 Jews in the Lublin district, by July/August 1942, this had fallen to 190,000 Jews, and by the end of the year shrunk to a mere remnant of 20,000.[43] Across the whole Generalgouvernement, there were officially only 297,000 Jews left by the end of 1942, virtually all of whom were engaged in forced labour. The census of March 1, 1943 found 203,679 Jews left in the Generalgouvernement, a number that was reduced to around 80,000 by the start of 1944.[44]
[1] The relevant chapters are: M&G, Treblinka, part of Chapter II, part of III, VIII and IX; Mattogno, Bełżec, Chapters I and V; MGK, Sobibór, part of Chapter 3 and most of Chapters 8 and 9
[2] Cf. Mattogno, Hilberg
[3] Graf, Neue Weltordnung.
[4] Cf. Rudolf, Lectures on the Holocaust
[5] We have dealt with some of these digressions in the preceding chapter, and will examine more in Ch. 4.
[6] To cite two older examples, see Martin Broszat, 'Hitler und die Genesis der 'Endlösung'. Aus Anlass der Thesen von David Irving', VfZ 25, 1977, pp.739-775, here p.762, as well as Browning, 'Antwort', p.99.
[7] In addition to the numerous obvious examples from Western historiography, see also Zygmunt Mankowski, Miedzy Wislaa Bugiem 1939-1944, Lublin: Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, 1978, pp.222-3.
[8] Mattogno, Bełżec e Muehlenkamp, p.60.
[9] To our knowledge, the three instances are in his reply to Roberto Muehlenkamp (as previous note), in Mattogno, Hilberg, pp.38-39 and Carlo Mattogno, 'Denying Evidence' in Auschwitz Lies. Legends, Lies, and Prejudices on the Holocaust, Chicago: Theses & Dissertations Press, 2005, pp.259-260.
[10] For an overview up to the early 2000s, see Dieter Pohl, 'Poland', in Dan Stone (ed), The Historiography of the Holocaust, London, 2004, pp.88-119
[11] Together 22 out of 140 references in Chapter 8 of M&G, Treblinka. Most do not actually relate to the Holocaust in the Generalgouvernement at all. Mattogno began his career by citing the CDJC documents from the relevant publications, but has taken to omitting his actual source.
[12] Just 12 archival sources can be identified out of 140 references in Chapter 8 of M&G, Treblinka.
[13] Thomas Sandkühler, 'Endlösung' in Galizien. Der Judenmord in Ostpolen und die Rettungsinitiativen von Berthold Beitz, Bonn, 1996.
[14] See in addition to works cited in Chapter 1 and in this Chapter, Tatiana Berenstein, 'Prace przymosiwa ludnosci Zydowskiej w tzw. Dystrikcie Galicja (1941-1944)', BZIH 1969, pp.3-45; Elisabeth Freundlich, Die Ermordung einer Stadt namens Stanislau. Vienna, 1986; David Kahane, Lvov Ghetto Diary, Amherst, 1990; Jakub Chonigsmann, Katastrofa lwowskogo evreitsva, Lviv, 1993; Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941-1944. Munich, 1996; Eliyahu Jones, Żydzi Lwowa w czasie okupacji 1939-1945, Łódź: Wyd. Oficyna Bibliofilów, 1999, translated as Smoke in the Sand. The Jews of Lvov in the War Years 1939-1944, Jerusalem: Gefen House, 2005; Bogdan Musial, 'Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschiessen'. Die Brutalisierung des deutsch-sowjetischen Krieges im Sommer 1941, Munich, 2000; Rosa Lehmann, Symbiosis and Ambivalence: Poles and Jews in a Small Galician Town, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001; Shimon Redlich, Together and Apart in Brzezany. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002; Thomas Geldmacher, 'Wir als Wiener waren ja bei der Bevölkerung beliebt'. Oesterreichische Schutzpolizisten und der Judenvernichtung in Ostgalizien 1941-1944, Vienna: Mandelbaum Verlag, 2002
[15] Gabriel N. Finder and Alexander V. Prusin, 'Collaboration in Eastern Galicia: The Ukrainian police and the Holocaust', East European Jewish Affairs, 2004, 34:2, pp.95 -118; Delphine Bechtel, 'De Jedwabne a` Zolotchiv: Pogromes locaux en Galicie, juin–juillet 1941,' in Cultures d'Europe Centrale, vol. 5, La destruction de confines, ed. Delphine Bechtel and Xavier Galmiche (Paris, 2005), 69–92; Omer Bartov, 'Eastern Europe as the Site of Genocide', Journal of Modern History, 80 (2008), pp. 557 – 593; Omer Bartov, Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present Day Ukraine. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007; Wlodzimierz Wazniewski, Stracone nadzieje. Polityka wladz okupacyjnych w Malopolsce Wschodniej 1939-1944, Warsaw, 2009; Christoph Mick, Kriegserfahrungen in einer multiethnischen Stadt: Lemberg 1914-1947. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011.
[16] 28 such trials can be identified across the Justiz und NS-Verbrechen series.
[17] The literature on this issue is vast, so we will confine ourselves at this stage to pointing to what is still one of the best short summaries of the debate, namely the article by Ulrich Herbert, 'Labour and Extermination: Economic Interest and the Primacy of Weltanschauung in National Socialism', Past & Present, No. 138 (Feb., 1993), pp. 144-195, originally appearing in German in Wolfgang Schneider (ed), Vernichtungspolitik. Eine Debatte über den Zusammenhang vom Sozialpolitik und Genozid im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland. Hamburg, 1991. Other titles will be cited below.
[18] For example, MGK, Sobibór, p.310
[19] Any misapprehensions on this score can be corrected by re-reading the United Nations Declaration regarding the extermination of the Jews, issued on December 17, 1942
[20] For Polish overviews of Nazi occupation policy in Poland, see For overviews, see Czeslaw Luczak, Polytika ludnosciowa i ekonomiczna hitlerowskich Niemiec w okupowanej Polsce, Poznan, 1979 and Czeslaw Madajczyk, Die Okkupationspolitik Nazi-Deutschlands in Polen 1939-1945. Cologne, 1988. A succinct summary of Nazi economic policy in the Generalgouvernement can be found in Sonja Schwanenberg, 'Die wirtschaftliche Ausbeutung des Generalgouvernements durch das Deutsche Reich 1939-1945' in: Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk (ed), Polen unter deutscher und sowjetischer Besatzung 1939-1945, Osnabrück: fibre, 2009, pp.103-129.
[21] Philip Friedman,'The Jewish Ghettos of the Nazi Era', Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Jan., 1954), pp. 61-88 ; Isaiah Trunk, Judenrat. The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation. Lincoln, 1972; Gustavo Corni, Hitler's Ghettos: Voices from a Beleaguered Society, 1939-1944. London: Bloomsbury, 2002; Tim Cole, 'Ghettoization' in Stone (ed), Historiography of the Holocaust, pp.65-87; Dan Michman, The Emergence of Jewish Ghettos During the Holocaust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
[22] Graf, Giant; Butz, THOTTC. One might also note that the section of Mattogno, Hilberg, purportedly dedicated to 'i getti' actually discusses ghettos in the Ostland, and has literally nothing to say about the ghettos of western Poland. The brief discussion of ghettos in Dalton, Debating the Holocaust, is so imbecilic as to not be worth the effort of refutation.
[23] One possible rejoinder, 'but Arad/Schelvis don't discuss ghettos!' falls at the first fence, because Arad and Schelvis are contributing to a historiography that does discuss ghettos, whereas 'Revisionism' does not. Moreover, Schelvis has little problem in giving a succinct summary of the issues involved, cf. Vernichtungslager Sobibor, pp.17-24.
[24] On the September campaign see Szymon Datner, 55 dni Wehrmachtu w Polsce. Warsaw, 1967; Alexander B. Rossino, Hitler Strikes Poland. Blitzkrieg, Ideology and Atrocity. Lawrence, Kansas, 2003 ; Jochen Böhler, Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg. Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939. Frankfurt, 2006
[25] Datner, 55 dni Wermachtu, pp.110-122; Luczak, Polityka, pp.68-76; on the murders in the 'incorporated territories', many carried out by ethnic German militias, see Christian Jansen and Arno Weckbecker, Der "Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz" in Polen 1939/40. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1992 and most recently, Maria Wardzyńska, Był rok 1939 Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion. Warsaw: IPN, 2009. For a case study of an SS unit which was already carrying out three-figures massacres of Jews during 1939, see Alexander B. Rossino, 'Nazi Anti-Jewish Policy during the Polish Campaign: The Case of the Einsatzgruppe von Woyrsch', German Studies Review, Vol. 24, No. 1. (Feb., 2001), pp. 35-53.
[26] On antisemitic violence and rituals of humiliation in German everyday life, see the important recent work of Michael Wildt, 'Gewalt gegen Juden in Deutschland 1933–1939', WerkstattGeschichte 18, 1997, pp. 59–80.; and his monograph Volksgemeinschaft als Selbstermächtigung. Gewalt gegen Juden in der deutschen Provinz 1919 bis 1939. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2007, as well as the most recent study of the infamous 'Night of Broken Glass', the November pogrom of 1938, by Alan Steinweis, Kristallnacht 1938, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2009.
[27] See Trude Maurer, Ostjuden in Deutschland: 1918–1933.Hamburg: Hans Christian, 1986 as well as David Clay Large, ' "Out with the Ostjuden". The Scheunenviertel Riots in Berlin, November 1923', in: Hoffmann, Christhard, Werner Bergmann, Helmut Walser Smith (eds), Exclusionary Violence. Antisemitic Riots in Modern German History, Michigan: University Press, 2002, p. 123-40. It is worth recalling that Kristallnacht was triggered ultimately by Nazi Germany's expulsion of Polish Jews in October 1938: Jerzy Tomaszewski, Auftakt zur Vernichtung. Die Vertreibung polnischer Juden aus Deutschland im Jahre 1938, Osnabrück, 2002.
[28] See the examples compiled in Walter Manoschek (ed), "Es gibt nur eines für das Judentum: Vernichtung". Das Judenbild in deutschen Soldatenbriefen 1939-1944. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1995, pp. Alexander B. Rossino, 'Destructive Impulses: German Soldiers and the Conquest of Poland', HGS 11/3, 1997, pp.351-265.
[29] Occasionally, Mattogno has ritualistically invoked the name of Walter Sanning, pretty much the last negationist writer to try and address the question of numbers in any meaningful way. Cf. Mattogno, 'Denying Evidence', p.245 and M&G, Treblinka, p.293, a chapter ostensibly authored by Mattogno, although the footnote reads like an addition by either Graf or Germar Rudolf.
[30] The first figure was calculated from the listings of Pinkas hakehillot Polin, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1976-2005, available online at jewishgen.org and zchor.org; the second from Franz Golczewski, 'Polen' in: Wolfgang Benz (ed), Dimension des Völkermords: Die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, Munich: Oldenbourg 1991, pp. 411–97. Regarding ghettos see also Guy Miron (ed), The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of Ghettos During the Holocaust, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010, 2 volumes. In 2012, USHMM will publish the second volume of their Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1939-1945, dedicated to ghettos, edited by Martin Dean. From samples shown to the present author the work will be of a very high quality. For ghettos in eastern Poland, i.e. Soviet-annexed territory, in this context the Białystok district (at least 80 communities), and Galicia districts (139 communities) see also Ilya Altman, Kholokost na territorii SSSR. Entsiklopedia. Moscow: Rosspen, 2011, which is also an impressive work of collective research. The older Polish encyclopedia, with which Mattogno is familiar, remains a useful summary, although the USHMM encyclopedia will clearly eclipse it. Czeslaw Pilichowski (ed), Obozy hitlerowskie na ziemiach polskich 1939-1945, Warsaw, 1979
[31] Cf. Andrea Löw and Markus Roth, Juden in Krakau unter deutscher Besatzung 1939-1944. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011; Aleksander Bieberstein, Zagłada Zydow w Krakowie. Krakow, 1986.
[32] The literature on the Warsaw ghetto is large. For the most recent summary, see Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
[33] Robert Seidel, Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Polen. Der Distrikt Radom 1939-1945. Paderborn: Schönigh, 2006, pp.297-330; Jacek Andrzej Mlynarczyk, Judenmord in Zentralpolen. Der Distrikt Radom im Generalgouvernement 1939-1945. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007.
[34] On the Bialystok district see Szymon Datner, 'Eksterminacja ludności żydowskiej w Okręgu Białostockim. Strukturą administracyjną okręgu Białostockiego', BZIH 60, 1966, pp.3-48; on Zichenau see Michal Grynberg, Zydzi w rejencji ciechanowskiej 1939-1942. Warsaw, 1984 as well as Jan Grabowski, 'Die antijüdische Politik im Regierungsbezirk Zichenau', in: Jacek Andrzej Mlynarczyk and Jochen Böhler (eds), Der Judenmord in den eingegliederten polnischen Gebieten 1939-1945. Osnabrück: fibre Verlag, 2010, pp.99-116 and Andreas Schulz, 'Regierungsbezirk Zichenau', in: Wolf Gruner and Jörg Osterloh (eds), Das 'Grossdeutsche Reich' und die Juden. Nationalsozialistische Verfolgung in den 'angegliederten Gebieten'. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2010, pp. 261-282
[35] SSPF Lublin an BdS Krakau, 11.1.43, GPDD 355a, items 13/15, PRO HW 16/22.
[36] Seidel, Deutsche Besatzungspolitik, pp.297-330, esp. p.330. On the Holocaust in the Radom district, see also Jacek Andrzej Mlynarczyk, Judenmord in Zentralpolen. Der Distrikt Radom im Generalgouvernement 1939-1945. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007; there are also two studies of the liquidation of the Kielce ghetto by Jacek Andrzej Mlynarczyk, 'Bestialstwo z urzedu. Organizacja hitlerowskich akcji deportacyjnych w ramach "Operacji Reinhard" na przykladzie likwidacji kieleckiego getta', Kwartalnik Historii Zydow 3, 2002, pp.354-379; and Sara Bender, 'The Extermination of the Kielce Ghetto – New Study and Aspects Based on Survivors' Testimonies', Kwartalnik Historii Zydow 2/2006, pp.185-199.
[37] Barbara Engelking, Jacek Leociak, Dariusz Libionka (eds), Prowincja Noc. Zycie i zagłada Zydow w dystrykcie warszawskim. Warsaw, 2007.
[38] Hilberg, Vernichtung, p.530, citing Monatsberichte von Lichtenbaum, 5.9. and 5.10.42, ZStL Polen 365 d, S.654-72
[39] See below.
[40] For reconstructions of the deportations in the Galicia district, see Tatiana Berenstein, 'Eksterminacja ludnosci zydowskiej w dystrykcie Galicja (1941-1943), BZIH 61, 1967, pp.3-58; Aleksander Kruglow, 'Deportacja ludnosci zydowskiej z dystryktu Galicja do obozu zaglady w Belzcu', BZIH 151, 1989, pp.101-118, latter updated in Alexander Kruglov, The Losses Suffered By Ukrainian Jews in 1941-1944, Kharkov: Tarbut Laam, 2005, chapters on Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Ternopil oblasti.
[41] E. Podhorizer-Sandel, 'O zagladzie Zydow w dystrykcie krakowskim', BZIH 30, 1959; Klaus-Michel Mallmann, ' 'Mensch, ich feiere heute' den tausenden Genickschuss'. Die Sicherheitspolizei und die Shoa in Westgalizien' in Gerhard Paul (ed), Die Täter der Shoah, pp.109-136; cf. also Thomas Kühne, Belonging and Genocide: Hitler's Community, 1918-1945. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010, pp.55-94, for a discussion of Sicherheitspolizei behaviour in Nowy Sacz; Stawiarska, Malgorzata, 'Judenmorde in der polnischem Stadt Sanok während des Zweites Weltkrieges', Kwartalnik Historii Zydow 4/2005, pp.506-540
[42] Włodzimierz Bonusiak, Małopolska Wschodnia pod rządami Trzeciej Rzeszy. Rzeszów: Wydawn. Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej w Rzeszowie, 1990, p.106; Korherr-Bericht, 19.4.1943, NO-5193.
[43] Musial, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung, pp.100-1; Bevölkerung des Distrikts Lublin nach dem Stande vom 1. August 1942, Lublin, den 5. März 1943, AIPN CA 891/8, p.487, cf. Eisenbach, Hitlerowska polityka, p.426; Korherr-Bericht, 19.4.1943, NO-5193.
[44] Golczewski, 'Polen', p.479.
Posted by HC Guest Blogger at Monday, December 26, 2011
Labels: Aktion Reinhard(t), Belzec, Graf, Mattogno, Sobibor, Thomas Kues, Treblinka


text:
Banks freeze homeowners' credit lines
A bank owned sign indicates a foreclosed home Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008, in Norwalk, Calif.
By Sue McAllister | Mercury News, Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: February 13, 2008 at 8:23 a.m. | UPDATED: August 14, 2016 at 5:01 a.m.
Bay Area residents accustomed to treating their homes like piggy banks could be in for unpleasant surprises as home prices decline in many areas. Not only are banks less willing to issue popular home-equity lines of credit, but some of the nation's biggest lenders are freezing existing loans.
Countrywide Home Loans, for example, has sent letters to at least 122,000 homeowners nationwide informing them they can no longer draw on their home-equity lines of credit. Many homeowners rely on these pay-as-you-use-them loans to finance things like remodeling or college tuition, or to use for emergency expenses.
Morgan Hill homeowner Kelly Urbina received a letter from Countrywide two weeks ago telling her she can no longer access the credit line that she says the lender encouraged her to get when she bought her three-bedroom home in 2006.
"I still have a substantial amount of equity in my property, so I was surprised to get a letter that just said, 'We're going to suspend your line,' " said Urbina, who works as an underwriter for Opes Advisors, a mortgage banking and wealth management firm in Palo Alto. She knows the value of her property has dropped somewhat, but not "significantly," as Countrywide claimed in the letter.
She and her husband used some of the equity line to remodel their kitchen two years ago, but otherwise have reserved it for emergency use.
Urbina said she was surprised the lender didn't simply lower the amount of her line of credit, rather than suspend it. "I would have felt that was a very fair thing to do," she said.
Beginning of freeze
Chase and Washington Mutual also have frozen the home-equity lines of a much smaller number of customers in response to falling home values, said officials with the two banks. Wells Fargo said it "has not made large-scale decisions to restrict line-of-credit access for all customers in markets with declining real estate," but is reviewing its home-equity customers' accounts more frequently than in past years.
"Everybody's going to have to do it," said Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. "We're just at the beginning of this trend of lenders freezing home-equity lines of credit."
Countrywide, which is being acquired by Bank of America after incurring huge losses because of its subprime lending, would not specify in which states or areas homeowners were most likely to have received the letters.
Because median home prices in Silicon Valley have held up better than in many parts of California, it's unlikely that a large chunk of the letters went to local homeowners. But mortgage experts say plenty of Bay Area homeowners potentially could get the same kind of news from their lenders if their equity lines of credit were generous and they did not have much equity in their homes to begin with – or if home values in the valley drop more steeply.
"It very much could hit people up here – whether it be Countrywide or another lender – where values have come down," said John Conover, president of Borel Private Bank in San Mateo. "This is a significant issue for people who expect to be able to borrow on their loans."
How equity works
Nationwide, homeowners borrowed $355 billion worth of home-equity loans and lines of credit in 2007, down from $430 billion in 2006, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. California borrowers make up 20 percent to 25 percent of the market.
Equity is a property's market value minus the owner's mortgage debt. So, for a home worth $700,000, if the owner has a $500,000 mortgage, he or she has equity of $200,000, or about 29 percent.
Until recently, some lenders were willing to make a combination of mortgages and equity lines of credit up to 100 percent of the home's value. So the homeowner in the example above could have gotten a home-equity line of $200,000 in addition to the $500,000 mortgage, bringing the debt obligation up to $700,000.
But with home values falling and credit markets still crunched, lenders have narrowed their lending criteria. Few will extend credit past 80 percent of a home's value now. That would cut that homeowner's equity line to $60,000, resulting in a total of $560,000 in mortgage debt.
Lower values
Lenders' changes amount to a sort of hedge against the possibility of further price declines.
"Across the board, every lender has been tightening up their guideline with regard to home-equity lines," said Mike Gallagher, president of mortgage broker Avantis Capital in Morgan Hill.
Countrywide cited falling property values as the reason for shutting off so many customers' access to their equity, though lenders also can restrict borrowers' access to their credit lines for other reasons, such as deteriorating credit scores.
Experts called Countrywide's mass mailing to freeze home-equity lines unusual, but noted that in a declining market, lenders need to protect themselves from avoidable losses.
Susan McHan, president of Opes Advisors and homeowner Kelly Urbina's employer, said her company has at least two clients in the East Bay who have received the letters from Countrywide. In both cases, she said, the homeowners dispute that their home values have fallen sharply, and they are working with Countrywide to try to reopen their credit lines. "They had plans that they were going to be using the loans for," McHan said.
Her company has notified other clients of the new climate in home-equity lending.
"Anybody who had an equity line of 90 percent or above, we definitely sent letters warning them" that their lenders might suspend their credit lines in the future.
As for Urbina, she was not counting on using her equity line soon, but she likes having one. "What if I did have an emergency and I needed the line?" she said.
Contact Sue McAllister at smcallister@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5833.
Sue McAllister


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Beautifully shot music video for excellent folk-band Dave Gerard and the Watchmen.
Put together by George Ancock and Rory Mathieson, this creative work is more like a short film in that there is a strong narrative. Shot by the very talented György László, it was an absolute pleasure to work in a free and open environment in the remotest parts of North Wales.


Knockerballs are a plastic sphere to wear while playing Bubble Soccer and many other games. These knockerballs create a wild and exciting activity where you barely can tell you are getting a ton of exercise by running around and playing games!
As a result of a generous donation from the Bay Area Community Foundation's Youth Advisory Committee, the Bay County Community Center now has 20 Knockerballs available for rent!
Playing Knockerball is truly a blast and they can be rented for $4.00 perperson for parties, soccer leagues, team-building, or just to have some fun with friends! If you are interested inrenting the Knockerballs please call Recreation Coordinator Beth Trahan @ 989-894-0671 or email trahanb@baycounty.net to set up a time!
All participants will be required to sign a Knockerball Waiver and Liability Form. You will also find the Concussion Form attached for those under 18.


Yyyyyyeah, even if I were a brony (which I'm not — I'm not I'm not I'm not!!!1!!) I would have had no trouble waiting until Season 4 appeared on Netflix for streaming.
Because I'm not a brony.
I admit I still have a little bit of the "Someone painted the house!" feeling about alicornised Twilight, let alone her becoming a farging HUMAN.
What might be the germ of that very idea can be detected in the opening scene of EqG.
My Little Pilot My Little Pilot Please Please Pleeeeeeeeeeease!
Watched this movie at least 3 times this weekend with a 4 year old girl. She keeps asking to watch it, I keep playing it. Looks like a winner here.
Beware of the handshake that hides a snake.


With the sad passing of Carrie Fisher last year, we will never see the what was planned for the Princess in episode IX. But looking at The Last Jedi did they have a chance to rewrite the end to give her a great send off?
SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LAST JEDI! – But come on you should of had by now.
I really loved The Last Jedi, I don't care what anyone says, it didn't damage the franchise. Instead now really delivers the saga to the new characters we met in the Force Awakens, and now the future can move forward with these characters.
When the tragic news the Carrie Fisher had passed away in December 2016, we all feared what would happen to our beloved Princess. Thankfully she had completed all work on The Last Jedi, so we had one complete film left to enjoy her. But where do we go next for the Princess?
Last year we were all blown away from seeing a CGI Peter Cushing playing Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One, which was topped off seeing a young Leia give Hope at the end of Rogue One. Knowing this technology is there I just don't think this is the best thing to do to give her an exit in episode IX. She deserves better than that, after giving her whole life to saving the galaxy.
Episode IX will probably have a massive time jump from The Last Jedi, where in the opening crawl we will see "The Skywalkers are dead", or it will open with Leia's funeral. It's the only way to avoid using CGI splice of Carrie Fisher for the film. From what has been said from the interviews around the subject TFA was Han's film, TLJ was Luke's and IX was Leia's film.
So after watching The Last Jedi I did think there was a perfect way to end Leia's story with very little editing and maybe a reshoot with Rey to explain so here it is.
One of the most explosive moments of TLJ was the fake out death scene in the first half of film was one of those shocking moments of the film, but it's here where my idea starts. In the scene we seem to think its Leia who is using the Force to get herself to safety, but what if it was Luke?
Move the plot a lot forward when Luke connects to Leia when she was in her coma and wakes her up, there is a big connection not only because they are siblings, but think like the connection Snoke gives to Rey and Kylo Ren?
Cut to the end of the film after the face off between Luke and Kylo and Luke dies just like his mentor Obi-One in A New Hope, becoming one with the force and leaving just a robe in his place. Jump to the Millennium Falcon where Rey feels Luke's death and runs to see talk to Leia, where she witness's Leia become one with the force as well leaving a cloak in her place!
The ship goes into panic at what has happened to Leia, its here where Rey tells Poe, Fin and the others that Leia had died on the ship, but because of her bond to Luke and that they are Twins she was able to complete her mission, the same as Luke had. As soon as Luke died it was her time as well, and the Skywalker twins became two with the force.
So that was my idea how it could of been done, and to me if could of fit with the storyline. The only loop would be is that Luke cut himself off from the Force, but I don't think Luke would just let his sister die without trying to help save her. But just remember this is me, a life long Star Wars fan trying to put a believable ending to a epic character. We'll have to wait till 2019 to see where Lucas Film takes the story, I just hope they do The General credit.
Next Post JANUARY DATING – WHERE TO BEGIN?


Within our homes and places of work we rely heavily on fossil fuels for everyday activities including cooking, heating and driving to and from work.
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Natural gases are formed over thousands of years in a process involving great heat exposure and pressure. Layers of plants and animals buried under the ground mixed with present gases including methane form the basis of the natural gases we use in everyday activities.
Natural gases are not a renewable source due to the length of time taken to produce the heavily relied upon fuel – longer than a human lifetime. These gases must be extracted from beneath the ground and the processed to remove any impurities before it can be used commercially.
With such a relied upon gas and its low stores, it is important to ensure that the fuel isn't wasted unnecessarily. Gas leaks are a common reason for natural gas wastage. These leaks can be caused because of damaged pipework including cracked pipes.
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What can supply chain benchmarking do for your business?