text:
UN head says Gazans 'caged in a toxic slum from birth to death' as human rights council votes to investigate Israel
Allison Deger on May 19, 2018 70 Comments
Ibrahim Khraishi, Permanent Observer Representative of the State of Palestine to the UN and other international organizations in Switzerland speaks at the Human Rights Council special session on "the deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem". United Nations Office in Geneva, 18 May 2018. (Photo: UN Photo / Elma Okic)
The United Nations hightest human rights group voted Friday in Geneva to investigate Israel for human rights violations in "the military assaults on the large-scale civilian protests that began on 30 March 2018" in the Gaza Strip, after convening a special session.
The the United Nations Human Right Council (UNHRC) passed the resolution with 29 votes in favor and 14 abstentions. The U.S. and Australia alone voted against it.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley criticized the council after the meeting, defending Israel for engaging in "legitimate defense of its own border against terrorist attacks."
"It is another shameful day for human rights," Haley said.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Aviva Raz Shechter lambasted the decision, stating while "Israel deeply regrets any civilian loss of life," the responsibility for the death of demonstrators who were shot by Israeli forces "can only be attributed to Hamas's cynical exploitation of its own population, in a violent campaign against Israel."
"Israel unilaterally disengage from Gaza in summer 2005. There is no occupation in Gaza. It is a myth," she said, referring to the protest on Monday as a "riot."
Shechter mocked the notion that Palestinians were hosting a "peaceful protests".
"By supporting the convening of this session they unwisely embolden the Hamas terror organization. There is nothing peaceful in Molotov cocktails, explosive devices and meat-cleavers," Shechter said, adding criticism for the Ramallah based Palestinian Authority. In 2007 the Palestinian Authority and Hamas divided their governments between the West Bank and Gaza, although there has been numerous failed attempts at reconciliation in recent years.
Shechter accused the Palestinian Authority of "willingly taking part in the implementation of Hamas's strategy," which was outlined as to "Blame Israel. Complain to the UN."
Traditionally UNHRC considers independent inquires into human rights violations only after a member nation has exhausted a domestic investigation.
"This unnecessary resolution should have been avoided, because of the credibility of Israel's robust investigative mechanisms, and its steadfast respect of IHL [International Humanitarian Law]," Shechter said.
After the vote, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said over social media, "the Human Rights Council again proved that it is a hypocritical and biased body that aims to harm Israel and to back up terror."
On Thursday Israel's Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman called to "immediately" pull out of the UN rights group, "Israel is under double attack. A terrorist attack from Gaza and a hypocrisy attack headed by the UN Human Rights Council."
Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the United Nations human rights head, endorsed the resolution to investigate. "The stark contrast in casualties on both sides is also suggestive of a wholly disproportionate response," continuing, "on the Israeli side, one soldier was reportedly wounded, slightly, by a stone."
Al Hussein told the council Israel is failing to meet it's obligation under international law to protect Palestinians in Gaza. "They are, in essence, caged in a toxic slum from birth to death; deprived of dignity; de-humanized by the Israeli authorities to such a point it appears officials do not even consider that these men and women have a right, as well as every reason, to protest," he said.
"Israel and its defenders have given the impression that Palestine occupies Israel. How long will this joke continue?" said the Palestinian rep to the UN Ibrahim Khraishi, "We have said we want peace and the world agrees with us that there should be a two-state solution. But Israel refuses that."
Kay24 on May 19, 2018, 4:32 pm
Will the US and Israel try to sabotage this investigation? Chances are high they will, and succeed it doing so. It was disgusting to see this woman from the New York Times, Bari Weiss, on the Bill Maher show, blame it all on Hamas, and say it was they who sent women and children to die like that. Not one negative word about the zionists, the occupation, and the land theft, and she even stated it was not about Jerusalem. There was no empathy for the Palestinians at all, and for the lives lost. She did not criticize Israel for using live ammunition on civilians, nor did she criticize them for killing these poor people as they simply walked and prayed, and no immediate threat to the well armed and trained IDF. The NYT sure has a few staunch zionists as journalists, who are so biased, so pro Israel, they don't bother to hide it.
Of course, the Head of Human Rights will be attacked, because he is a Muslim, but then apologists should realize that the US has always protected, supported, and armed them, and this time too Israel will get away with brutally, and violently, killing civilians.
inbound39 on May 21, 2018, 2:32 am
Currently there is a Resolution being put through the Security Council which Israel and America are attempting to block. It involves placing a multi national force in Gaza to protect the people from shhootings and aerial bombardment. America will veto it and so it is expected to be put through the General Assembly like the investigation one was. Exciting times. It apparently has majority support.
annie on May 21, 2018, 2:53 am
wow. thank inbound, i had not heard of this.
Here is link……..https://news.antiwar.com/2018/05/20/israel-us-try-to-block-international-force-for-gaza-strip/
JulianaFarha on May 21, 2018, 9:13 am
What good is majority support if any party has a veto? And on what basis is that veto power still conferred on a nation that is avowedly anti-UN and takes any opportunity to trash it? It's an understatement to call the UNSC system dysfunctional, and if anything it operates as scaffolding for the imperialist aggression it ought to be checking. More to the point, simply creating another opportunity to tut-tut the Americans for throwing their weight around doesn't help the Palestinians one bit.
Misterioso on May 21, 2018, 12:54 pm
https://therealnews.com/stories/arms-manufacturers-use-israels-massacres-in-gaza-to-test-new-technology
"Arms Manufacturers Use Israel's Massacres in Gaza to Test New Technology"
The Real News Network, May 20, 2018
"As the Israeli military mows down unarmed Palestinian protesters, arms trade expert Andrew Feinstein explains how weapons companies use Gaza as a laboratory to test new products and rake in profits."
That is very interesting. I hope that it passes and succeeds.
inbound39 on May 21, 2018, 11:49 pm
Kuwait has circulated a draft resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Israel's actions and calling for the deployment of an international force to protect civilians. Kuwait is urging the Security Council to condemn Israel's use of force against Palestinian civilians "in the strongest terms", especially in the Gaza Strip.
Misterioso on May 21, 2018, 9:26 am
Just received from a Canadian friend.
MUST WATCH VIDEO!!!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/theweekly/the-weekly-with-wendy-mesley-may-20-2018-1.4671369
Canada's CBC Television's Wendy Mesley and New York Times reporter's expose' of pro-Israel collusion between Sheldon Adelson, Netanyahu, Trump, and Stephen Harper, former prime minister of Canada, et al.
You have to suffer through three commercials before the show starts.
Then go to the 6:08 mark.
Thanks for linking that very interesting video. Nothing should surprise us now when it comes to Adelson (who always looks like he rose from the dead), Netanyahu, and the GOP. It seems Harper is just as corrupt and totally biased, just like Trump and the GOP. Adelson must have financed his political career too. America can never get rid of this evil, and it is a shame Canada seems to have been poisoned too.
echinococcus on May 21, 2018, 10:06 pm
Nothing should surprise us now when it comes to Adelson (who always looks like he rose from the dead), Netanyahu, and the GOP.
and your very own Democrat Dictatorship Party under the main criminals against humanity Obama, Clintonne, Brennan, and so on.
It seems Harper is just as corrupt and totally biased, just like Trump and the GOP
and, if the two above are left to develop all their potential under the guidance of FBI, CIA, MIC, they might make it to the same gallow-bait status as your very own Democrat Party. –still the managing party, remember.
Kathleen on May 19, 2018, 11:45 pm
PDF]Challenges to international humanitarian law: Israel's occupation policy
https://www.icrc.org/en/download/file/13671/irrc-888-maurer.pdf
Marnie on May 20, 2018, 12:29 am
Clearly Ms. Haley has been thoroughly stripped of her identity as a woman of color and former member of a minority religious faith persecuted in her homeland. It would seem she got the Stepford Wive's treatment somewhere in her life and has been completely scrubbed clean of her humanity and empathy.
Every single day the zionist state is allowed to continue their present course is not only a shameful day for human rights, but a shameful day for humanity as a whole.
13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!
17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?
18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty.
19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?
20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon.
21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.
22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.
23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."
Misterioso on May 21, 2018, 10:09 am
Excellent read:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/world/middleeast/netanyahu-evangelicals-embassy.html
Israeli Appeal To Evangelicals Stirs Backlash
By David D. Kirkpatrick, Elizabeth Dias and David M. Halbfinger
New York Times, May 20/18
Thank you for this link Misterioso.
DaBakr on May 20, 2018, 12:51 am
It would be interesting to see if mw had the reporting chops to list the current members on the unhrc. What a joke.
When you add the use of dum dum bullets or butterfly munitions you are then looking at prohibited use of banned ammunition. Israel used such ammunition so at the point the joke certainly ends and the war crime begins.
Shingo on May 20, 2018, 6:31 am
It would be interesting to see how you would react if it had been 100 Jews who had been killed rather than Palestinians
eljay on May 20, 2018, 8:49 am
|| @aar: It would be interesting to see if mw had the reporting chops to list the current members on the unhrc. … ||
Being called out by the serial killer makes the serial killer a hypocrite but it doesn't transform the rapist into a virtuous man or absolve him of his past and on-going crimes.
|| … What a joke. ||
Yes, the whataboutism you Zionists constantly engage in is a very bad joke.
Mooser on May 20, 2018, 2:57 pm
The joke is that they cannot admit that it doesn't work and change their approach.
And that says even more about them than the whataboutism itself.
eljay on May 20, 2018, 3:43 pm
|| Mooser: … The joke is that they cannot admit that it doesn't work and change their approach.
And that says even more about them than the whataboutism itself. ||
I guess when you're convinced that your evil path is righteous, the only solution to opposition is to double-down on the evils you commit.
Zionists don't seem to understand that they will be the undoing of the "Jewish State".
Maghlawatan on May 21, 2018, 12:05 am
Zionism is groupthink, Mooser. All you need to think is in it so you don't need to think ! Nothing can go wrong. Trust me. Smoch alai !
RoHa on May 21, 2018, 2:03 am
"Smoch alai !"
Is that like Jai Alai, but with kissing?
CigarGod on May 20, 2018, 11:11 am
There goes the Hasbara Kid, again…
Killing the Messenger…because the one's who expose a crime are worse than the one's who commit it.
You are like the stray cat that takes a dump in my garden and covers it up…and thinks I can't see the little mound…or smell it as soon as the sun hits it.
@DaBakr
Sigh. You swing and miss the ball again. You're a joke. Then again, it must be a tough job defending fascists.
Jackdaw on May 20, 2018, 8:25 am
Young Gazan father immolates himself in protest agains HAMAS!
Gutless UN toadies should investigate the real misery purveyors in Gaza, Hamas.
Curse Hamas and their Western 'useful idiots', beginning with Mondoweiss.
annie on May 20, 2018, 10:05 am
Fathi's family and associates emphasized that he does not suffer from mental illness, but noting he was distraught over his brother's injury in one of the "March of Return" demonstrations at the border with Israel, which are organized and promoted by Hamas.
i find it a tad strange they are not quoting the individual, family (or associates), or witnesses, in the article other than "Eye witnesses saw the man dousing himself in flammable liquid shouting "damn the government"". for example, claiming the great march of return was "organized and promoted by Hamas". everything in the article is 'israel said' or 'lieberman said' alluding to the idea the man agreed with the israeli government. all we know is he set himself on fire and, according to his family he was distraught his brother was hurt and you can hear the yelling in the video. if he's shouting "damn the government" maybe he means the government who shot his brother .. israel. try harder jack.
Kay24 on May 20, 2018, 11:16 am
Hamas has to be held accountable for much that goes on in Gaza, but it is so obvious that the occupier has sent it's Hasbara, and journalists, who feel unwavering support for Israel, to keep the anti Hamas narrative going in the media, and websites, just after they massacred 60 civilians, and injured thousands. The need to win the propaganda war at this time, when the world is condemning their crimes.
On Bill Maher's show, a well known zionist supporter, and journalist in the New York Times, Bari Weiss, blamed the massacre on Hamas, whining that they sent women and children to die. She failed to mention that perhaps they were desperate, and fed up of the occupation, and the zionists stealing their lands. Had this been the other way around, she would have whining about how evil the Palestinians are, and how they used excessive violence, and have disregard for the loss of human lives. The fact that they keep blaming their victims, is unbelievable.
Let us keep in mind that not one Israeli solder was killed, nor injured.
On Fareed Zakaria today, I watched Hanan Ashrawi and Tom Friedman discuss the massacre, and it was an interesting segment.
Right on, Annie.
Most of us are too stupid to notice that.
Any media, but Especially my favorites…NPR and BBC…bring on Jewish reporters to tell us all about Arabs, North Koreans, Venezuelans, Russians, Syrians, Ethiopian Jews, etc.
They even bring on a few brownish faces to talk about other brownish faces, even tho they are different ethnicity, nationality and religion.
But, what the hell…we can't spot that sleight of hand, anyway.
annie on May 20, 2018, 3:29 pm
cigargod, you are anything but stupid. but here's a few tips. a primary understanding of propaganda, one i read about first in the hasbara handbook, is news people read first and loudest is news they tend to believe and remember vs news that follows. or, the news that follows will be filtered through the 1st news. so when i read something that strikes me as questionable (for the reasons i mentioned up thread) the 1st thing i do is google the topic and see if anyone else has covered this news and at that time none had. iow, the ynet article was likely getting in front of the news and disseminating a falsehood. iow, a perfect petri dish for planting false allegations. not only that, commonly propagandists will work with online activists to saturate the innertubes with the fake news (and it's always helpful to have some truth to circle the wagons with) before it breaks otherwise. and today there are several stories about it, although none but ynets mentions any allegation of him being angry with hamas. so what was the propaganda part of the story? bingo. and who is the propganda tool/affiliate and spreader of fake news, our very own useful idiot? bingo. plus, it just so happens that the "journalist" of the ynet article is none other than Elior Levy, "Palestinian affairs correspondent & analyst" for ynet. https://twitter.com/eliorlevy?lang=en and look what's revealed here:(google translate https://twitter.com/eliorlevy/status/998243634788159488) "Erekat refuses to speak to me". so he's a Palestinian affairs correspondent who is shunned by palestinians! iow, probably a known tool (of the israeli gov) not to be trusted.
Jackdaw on May 20, 2018, 12:59 pm
Mr. Harb worked for the PA and hadn't received his salary in a long time.
https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/5/20/gazan-sets-himself-on-fire-days-after-israeli-massacre
Annie. I know it's forbidden for you to deviate from the party line, but you are still free to think outside of it sometimes.
you know it's forbidden but i am still free? maybe settle on one claim or the other and then i'll respond.
and speaking of useful idiots:
Young Gazan father immolates himself in protest agains HAMAS!…Gutless UN toadies should investigate the real misery purveyors in Gaza, Hamas….Curse Hamas...
very same useful idiot: Mr. Harb worked for the PA and hadn't received his salary in a long time.
now let's put on our thinking caps and ask ourselves, the father worked for the P.A., the very same P.A. sanctioning Gaza right now and refusing to pay him his salary. the very article the useful idiot links to also links to another explaining Hamas had called on the P.A. to end Gaza sanctions. and it links to yet another article that says this: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/4/10/pa-accused-of-withholding-payment-from-gaza-staff
The Palestinian Authority has paid salaries to its West Bank employees this month but not those in Gaza, officials said on Monday, amid an ongoing split with the strip's Islamist rulers Hamas.
It was not immediately clear why the salaries had not been paid and if the delay was temporary, but it comes as relations between the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and Hamas are at rock bottom.
Employees in Gaza waited in vain for salaries at banks, an AFP photographer said.
"Salaries were paid into banks in the West Bank and not in Gaza," Arif Abu Jarad, head of the union representing PA employees in the Gaza Strip, told AFP.
"There is a state of anger among staff in the strip," he added, saying they were having emergency meetings against this "terrible crime".
now what "government" might the man have been angry with? the one he worked for that refused to pay his salary? or the one calling on that very same government to stop the sanctions? hmm. tough question!!!!
Maghlawatan on May 20, 2018, 3:51 pm
Ynet is a settler outfit. So is Arutz 7. Any material from either is horseshit. Same goes for Jpost and anything belonging to Adelson.
I used to debate Israel Palestine on the Guardian site with a bot going under the moniker "HansSchouten". He would defend anything and justify it all by insisting Israel wanted peace. Now it's 2018 and clear that the status quo is permanent. There will not be any peace. There will not be a Palestinian state .
And that means that Zionist commentary now is pathetic. There is zero upside. And bots are left defending barbarity. Which is not kosher.
mag, i agree. with rare (and sometimes awesome) exception, the entirety of israeli media is a settler outfit.
gamal on May 20, 2018, 4:18 pm
"Hamas has to be held accountable for much that goes on in Gaza"
well perhaps but that will be by the Palestinian people should they think it necessary, and not Kay by you or any one associated with the US or Israeli societies..that would be ridiculous…
you don't have the standing
CigarGod on May 20, 2018, 4:34 pm
Annie:
Today is not the first time I have thought you should do a podcast.
Your "drill down" process would make a good one.
too generous of you cigargod, and so sweet. my little heart[i have one – really!]melts.
Hamas sent Harb's brother into Harm's Way.
The PA and Hamas can't work together.
Hamas and PA, a pox on both their houses.
echinococcus on May 21, 2018, 7:34 am
Gamal
Our US Democratics always have standing to bring Democracy anywhere.
Maghlawatan
PRECISLEY!!
BTW, check out my posting above re Canada's CBC Television and NYT reporter's superb expose' of Adelson, etal, – "The Godfather."
Mooser on May 21, 2018, 12:31 pm
"the entirety of israeli media is a settler outfit."
The media of any country usually supports the country's tourism industry.
The dead give away of a FOX Fanatic: Habitual use of Useful Idiots phrase.
Brylreem'd hair, prays before framed Hannity photo, is able to speak whole sentences with his burps, quotes Iz propaganda organs, believes Apartheid is Equality…and believes there will be Peace when everyone who disagrees with him is dead.
eljay on May 20, 2018, 11:37 am
|| Jackdaw: Young Gazan father immolates himself in protest agains HAMAS! … ||
It's a shame that this young man has harmed himself in protest. I look forward to:
– Israel ending its decades-long military occupation and colonization of not-Israel; and
– the citizens of a free and united Partitions-border Palestine being able to vote out Hamas and vote in a secular and democratic government.
|| … Curse Hamas and their Western 'useful idiots', beginning with Mondoweiss. ||
Curse Zionists and their 'useful idiots' throughout the world, beginning with those here on Mondoweiss.
Marnie on May 20, 2018, 11:53 pm
Question: Why doesn't Jackdraw do the squats, runs and jumps that would step up his game so that he'd at least be in the same stadium as Annie?
Answer: Because he's a useful idiot (not that useful actually, but gets part of it right all the time).
Funny how many supporters of Israel's regularly scheduled civilian slaughters and random acts of barbarity are so concerned about Hamas being 'held to account.'
I don't know a single supporter of international law, the Geneva Conventions, countless UN resolutions or basic humanity who has ever defended 'Hamas'. What people like you haven't figured out is that every day more folks around the world wake up to the fact that Hamas is a red herring. The Palestinian issue is one of justice and equality, pure and simple, and it started long before Hamas came into existence.
And for that incremental but inevitable awakening you can thank the grotesque behaviour of the Israeli government and the thuggish military that enforces its policies of land and resource theft, its politicians who use language lifted directly from the Nazi playbook, its policies of systematic discrimination lifted directly from the apartheid playbook, its citizenry who wave placards reading 'Kill them all' in reference to Palestinians, and the useful idiots in the Western mainstream media who parrot Israel's ludicrous contention that Palestinians living in Gaza's hell on earth need 'incitement' by Hamas to demand their own freedom. Any student of colonialism can tell you how familiar all of this is, including racist mugs like you who happily spend your days blaming the victims and defending the indefensible.
As for the 'useful idiots' over here at Mondoweiss, why not undertake the biggest curse of all, and log out?
on May 21, 2018, 11:29 am
Hear Hear!!!!!
Some have accused the Zionists of not learning from the Holocaust – the opposite is the truth. They have learnt well from the Nazis and are arrogant enough to believe they can do better at exterminating a people. Arrogance and a lust for supremacy blinds them from the inevitable.
" They have learnt well from the Nazis"
I'm not sure about that. As far as I know, the Nazis could count.
inbound39 on May 21, 2018, 4:03 pm
Hamas attained its formation in Palestinian politics when Israel financed it and armed it to oppose Fatah. Hamas then threw Fatah out of Gaza and from that point opposed Israel as another resistance group whilst the PA collaborated with Israel.
Keith on May 22, 2018, 12:47 am
LHUNTER- " They have learnt well from the Nazis…."
Who learned well from us. The US treatment of the native Americans was the inspiration for Hitler's lebensraum. https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/ugly-precursor-to-auschwitz-hitler-said-to-have-been-inspired-by-us-indian-reservation-system/
Haley is wrong on the border issue. Israel controls the air, land and sea of Gaza as well as the electromagnetic space, the population registry, the food allowed in and who goes in and out. Israel is the occupier. Gaza is a district of Eretz Israel Hashlemah.
There is no border. Neither does Israel have a border with the West Bank. Israel does not have any declared borders. This is why it does not have a constitution. Instead it has Basic Laws.
I tracked this down on Talknic's site as it shows Israel does have borders which it declared in its statement of attaining Sovereignty. These are the only legitimate borders Israel is recognised on globally by the vast majority of Nations. Jerusalem was not included or WestBank or Golan.
Letter From the Agent of the Provisional Government of Israel to the President of the United States, May 15, 1948
"MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have the honor to notify you that the state of Israel has been proclaimed as an independent republic within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947, and that a provisional government has been charged to assume the rights and duties of government for preserving law and order within the boundaries of Israel, for defending the state against external aggression, and for discharging the obligations of Israel to the other nations of the world in accordance with international law. The Act of Independence will become effective at one minute after six o'clock on the evening of 14 May 1948, Washington time." Also available as PDF from the Truman Library additional info from
Recognition of Israel:
USA 15 May 1948 "… as an independent republic within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947…"
This needs clarification from Israel…..why is it operating outside its declared borders. It has never legally annexed any other territory.
Israel was supposed to ratify its borders in a constitution and it never did.
Israel made a few promises in 1948 that it did not keep.
Nathan on May 22, 2018, 9:14 am
inbound39 – I think that it's rather obvious the "vast majority of Nations" recognize Israel in the borders of the Green Line. In the 1950's there were still all kinds of proposals that Israel withdraw to the 1947 Partition Plan borders, and there even was a proposal ("Alpha Plan") that she give up the Negev Desert. However, surely since the acceptance of UNSC resolution 242 in November 1967, it is obvious that "occupied territories" mean those territories captured in June 1967.
Actually, the idea that Israel should be within the Partition Plan borders is an argument popular among anti-Israel activists. In other words, there are people who think that the UN had no right to propose a Jewish state in Palestine (and that there shouldn't be Israel at all) – but within the framework of debate (i.e. in the propaganda war), they claim that Israel should be within the Partition Plan. Talknic is a good example of the phenomenon.
Your question ("why is it operating outside its declared borders") also sounds like a statement from the anti-Israel world. The anti-Israel crowd doesn't express an awareness of there being a conflict. The reason is that when there is a conflict, there are two sides to the story. A better question would be "why is there a conflict, and what could be its possible solution?"
And speaking of a possible solution, that would be my advice to the Palestinians. Instead of massive demonstrations along the fence with Israel, I would humbly suggest that they negotiate an end of conflict. People who really care about the Palestinians should take to heart that criticizing them is good and proper. Someone (for example the Mondoweiss website) could explain to them that it wasn't such a good idea to send tens-of-thousands to the fence. It was obvious that the results would be bad. It would be better to announce a willingness to end the conflict, choose a delegation, and go and work out the details with the Jews.
Best thing for the Palestinians to do is hang around while Israel advances its suicide. Israel chose one apartheid state. Israel chose to spend less money than average on education. Israel chose to.spend $100 bn on Yesha.
Nobody outside cares about Israel. That is how sovereignty works. You make your choices and you take the consequences.
You are missing the point. The UN has absolutely no mandate to give away or divide up foreign lands. Given it is a democratic institution, then when a vote is taken the majority decision rules. The majority of the people of Palestine were against Partition so on that basis alone a seperate State of Israel was defeated by the majority vote . It was forced upon Palestine against its majority will. Israel agreed to the Partition and has only ever declared its Sovereign Borders as those of the Partition Plan accepting also the conditions set. Any further territory it has gained it has taken illegally by force in violation of International Law which it swore to comply and abide by. I tend to agree with Talknic.The conflict exists because European Zionist settlers arrived in Palestine with the stated intent of removing Arabs from their land and taking it by force for themselves using genocide if necessary. Many people, you will find are anti Israel due to Zionist behaviour and attitude. Who in the hell do they think they are? Like it or not they are bound by the same rules as the rest of us. None of the Ejuropean Zionists have a historic link to Israel……their history is in Europe.
guyn on May 20, 2018, 4:19 pm
"on the Israeli side, one soldier was reportedly wounded, slightly, by a stone."
What is his name, his history? This guy is a martyr, a real hero!
Guyn
Here is the story of this Savior:
https://www.sott.net/article/385761-Soldier-awarded-medal-for-bravery-after-being-hit-by-pebble
guyn on May 21, 2018, 9:46 am
Thank you echinococcus. What a joke.
""When we saw the scratch on his head we just had to act immediately," Israeli red cross member Jacob Alterman recalled, "he was visibly upset and was crying profusely, asking for his family members.
"We were all a little taken aback at the level of his injury. He even flinched when we tried to clean the abrasion with a cotton bud. Hopefully it won't leave a scar"
echinococcus on May 21, 2018, 10:57 am
Guyn,
Disclaimer, just in case. The article is in joke, of course –but truer to life than life.
Ok :) But if I believed it, there is a certainly a reason for that…
In fact, it remembered those stories we read about the behavior of the israeli soldiers in 2006 when they faced a real opposition.
yourstruly on May 20, 2018, 5:07 pm
Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto
same place
different times
while the world stands by
"While the world stands by" fits Gaza, but not the Warsaw Ghetto. A largish chunk of the world was rather busy fighting the perpetrators of the latter.
Ossinev on May 21, 2018, 1:53 pm
@Guyn
This is no joking matter these pebbles were probably Iranian supplied WMS(Weapons of Mass Scratching) not to be confused of course with the even more terrifying Weapons of Mass Slapping which have emerged recently in the Occupied West Bank.
I can't wait to see Netanyahu displayed the pebble at the U.N. with the State emblem of the Islamic Republic of Iran on it.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embl%C3%A8me_de_l%27Iran#/media/File:Emblem_of_Iran.svg
I goddam love this one!
on May 21, 2018, 7:32 pm
Dont forget the Palestinian WMD – also known as kites
Kites……yes. I am expecting Pompeo to demand Palestinians cease production of their long range Intercontinental Ballistic kites. Some are fly by wire.
" In April 1956, military leader Moshe Dayan had a rare confession to make: "What we can say against their terrible hatred of us? For eight years, they have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their lands and villages, where they and their forefathers dwelled, into our home."
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/gaza-s-refugees-have-always-haunted-israel-now-they-re-on-the-march-1.5958265
One of your all time Zio heroes Jackdaw or does he instead qualify as an Ilan Pappe standard traitor ?
Peter in SF on May 24, 2018, 2:53 am
That bit by Moshe Dayan has been characterized by some Palestinian sympathizers recently as a surprising find, but it is actually part of one of the most famous speeches in Israel's history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_eulogy_of_Roi_Rotberg
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/moshe-dayan-s-eulogy-for-roi-rutenberg-april-19-1956
The Times of Israel calls it "the defining speech of Zionism":
https://www.timesofisrael.com/when-moshe-dayan-delivered-the-defining-speech-of-zionism/


// Helper for accessing and setting values in the network's UI data dictionary.
// Returns |onc_source_| as a string, one of kONCSource*.
// keys appropriate for Network::ui_data() as defined below (kKeyXXX).
// Key for storing source of the ONC network.
// Key for storing the certificate pattern.
// Key for storing the certificate type.
// Key for storing the user settings.


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Q: How to get an item from a void pointer to array when I know each element's size? It comes when I want to write my own quicksort for educational purpose. This is what I got:
qsort(void* array, int count, int size, int(*compare)(const void*, const void*));

And I have size of each element in array, and pointer to the first element in array. How can I get each individual element in that array?

A: If size was generated with the sizeof operator, it is a multiple of sizeof(char) (which is 1 by definition). So cast the void* into a char*, and move size "characters" at a time.
(((char*)array) + i*size)

A: You would normally do the address arithmetic with char * pointers, e.g. to access element i of array:
char * array_ptr = (char *)array + i * size;

A: Easy enough, cast it to char* and do pointer arithmetic:
char *carray = (char*)array;
char *pointer_to_n = carray + n * size;

BTW, some compilers such as GCC have an extension that allows to do pointer arithmetic to void pointers as if they were pointers to char, but that is non portable.

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The Drama of Evolution
By Father Robert Lauder
LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 25: Original letters from Charles Darwin are displayed at the Herbaruim library on March 25, 2009 at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London. Darwin wrote the letter (R) to his mentor Reverend John Henslow aboard HMS Beagle in April 1833 – writing two ways – as paper was expensive. (Photo: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
Second in a series
In his insightful and provocative book "Making Sense of Evolution: Darwin, God, and the Drama of Life" (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 163) John Haught argues that if evolution is studied over the billions of years that it has been taking place, what can be discerned is that there is a narrative or story to evolution. He writes the following:
"Without in any way contradicting biology, a theology of evolution may take note, first, that the general drift of life has been in the direction of increasing complexity, consciousness and freedom. And the movement of evolution toward such outcomes has occurred without any suspension of the set of 'grammatical constraints' that go by the name of 'natural selection'. (p. 73)
So Haught is not claiming that we arbitrarily impose an external story onto evolution but rather, without sacrificing any scientific discoveries, a narrative or story can be detected within the evolutionary process. What helps me to understand what Haught sees as a drama that has been going on for billions of years in the evolutionary process is to reflect on evolution the way materialists do. Haught writes the following about the materialists' interpretation of evolution:
"Unfortunately, contemporary evolutionary materialists have seized Darwin's rich story of life and bled the drama right out of it. Their mechanistic treatments separate the element of contingency in the life-story from that of predictability, destroying both suspense and coherence. Simultaneously, they turn life's temporal depth into a rambling series of meaningless moments leading to a final abyss. They typically refer to contingency as "chance," and to nature's reliability as "necessity," both terms signaling for them the ultimate meaninglessness of evolution."(p.57)
I remember reading a novel many years ago written by someone who was a determinist, an author who did not believe in freedom. The novel was quite dull. Without freedom there can be no excitement, no adventure. This is the world that the materialists present to us, a world bereft of free choices.
Haught has been greatly influenced by the Jesuit paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In commenting on how we should look on evolution, Haught writes the following paragraph, which I find almost breathtaking:
"What is needed is a more refined kind of 'seeing,' as Teilhard emphasized, one that looks to the 'insideness' of things. Only a nonanalytical way of experiencing, one that goes beyond mere measurement and quantitative analysis, could ever come in touch with life's dramatic depth. Beneath the external, mechanical causality that science deals with, there is a narrative cosmological principle operative in the universe as such.
It shapes events not in the manner of an architect or engineer, but of a dramatist who allows the characters to take on lives of their own. Operating in the manner of unrelenting love, this dramatic principle beckons the creation to rise toward the begetting of innumerable states of being, including consciousness and responsibility. Since scientific method looks only to the 'outside' of things, the deeply interior domain of life goes unnoticed by the evolutionary grammarian. It is the proper role of theological reading, however, to point readers of nature to the adventurous narrative of love and adventure."(pp. 77-78)
Neither Teilhard nor John Haught nor I are minimizing the value and importance of science. The point that is being made is that science examines and looks at reality one way and that way is very important, but there are many ways of examining and looking at reality and some of those are as important as science. Unfortunately some people think of science as the way of looking at reality.
As an experiment, ask someone what water really is and accentuate the word "really" and I can guarantee the person will respond 'H2O". Of course, from the point of view of positive science it is "H2O' but from the point of view of philosophy it is a finite being and from the point of view of theology it is a creature of God. The meaning of water depends on the perspective from which we are looking at water. In a chemistry exam if you identify water as a creature of God, you fail. If in a theology exam you identify water as "H20", you fail. We don't read a novel as though it was a textbook about chemistry and we don't read a chemistry textbook as though it is a novel.
What Haught is suggesting is that if we can transcend the narrow materialistic view of evolution presented by some scientists, we will discover new meanings that are just as true and important as the truths discovered by physics, biology, and astronomy. If Haught is correct, and I am confident he is, our view of self, creation and God will be greatly enriched.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John's University, Jamaica. He presents two 15-minute talks from his lecture series on the Catholic Novel, every Tuesday at 9 p.m. on NET-TV.
Tags: Father Robert Lauder
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Category Archives: Biographies
March v. Ellis a bitter family dispute
March 21, 2015 Anne M Powers	1 Comment
The Court of Chancery in the reign of George I (source: Wikipedia)
The case of Francis March against members of the Ellis family is very typical of 18th-century Jamaican Chancery cases. Many of these arose because of the early deaths of colonists and their reliance on loans taken out in expectation of repayment from the profits of their estates, profits which did not always materialise. Add to this the problems of remote management of estates for absentee owners, inadequate record keeping, records lost by accident or destruction by the Jamaican climate, and you have a difficult mix in which disputes about Wills and land ownership could drag on for many years.
Moreover decisions of the Jamaican court had to be ratified in England and so a litigant might find themselves fighting in the courts of both Jamaica and London. This is the context of a case that spanned the first quarter of the eighteenth century involving the descendants of John Ellis and his son-in-law Francis March.
John Ellis arrived in Jamaica either with or shortly after the first group of colonists and rapidly acquired several estates and plantations. When he died in August 1706 he left three of 11 children still living – John, George and Martha. His daughter Martha had married Frances March in 1701 when she was 17 and he was about 21 and Ellis appointed his son-in-law as one of his Executors.
John Ellis junior married Elizabeth Grace Nedham (sometimes written Needham) and they had four children living at his early death in England only three years after his father. John the elder had left legacies to his daughter Anne, and to his grandchildren Sarah and John March as well as to the poor of the parish of St Katherine's. The bulk of his estate was left to his son John, who on his death had made a will leaving £2000 Jamaican currency to each of his daughters Mary and Martha when they married, plus an additional £1000 to each of their first children. He left £1000 to his sister which appears to have been due to her from their father' s will and £500 to Abigail Demetrius who was then a minor. Having made provision for the education of all his children and Abigail he left various parcels of land to his son George making his elder son John residuary legatee. This third John Ellis later died without having made a will or having married.
As Executor Frances March apparently discovered after the death of the second John Ellis that none of the legacies due from John Ellis the elder had been paid and that John Ellis the younger had died in debt to the tune of over £8000 (which would have a purchasing power of nearly £900,000 today).
The Ellis property in Jamaica consisted of the Caymanus Plantation, a large part of the Crawle Plantation, two thirds of the Sixteen Mile Walk Plantation, plus some other uncultivated land and all the associated sugar works, slaves, stock and equipment.
The Sixteen Mile Walk Plantation was owned in part by Susanna Cooke who had leased it to a man called Carlton Goddard in return for an income of £50 per year, and in about 1704 the younger John Ellis had agreed to buy out Carlton Goddard's share for £1800, paid in instalments with interest. Ellis took possession of the land, but failed to pay most of the money and all of the rent.
Before the legal formalities had been completed conveying the land to John Ellis, Carlton Goddard was declared bankrupt and his Jamaican property was assigned to a London merchant called Samuel Clarke. Francis March, who was then in Jamaica, was sending money back to London for the maintenance of the four Ellis children and their aunt Anne Ellis, and he was now faced with the demand from Samuel Clarke to hand over Goddard's share of the Sixteen Mile Walk Plantation. March told Clarke that the conveyance had not been completed but Clarke agreed to the conveyance going ahead on payment of the Ellis debt by March in person out of his own funds.
Meanwhile by about 1712 Susanna Cooke had died, and a man called John Hayward offered to buy out her son George Cooke's share of Sixteen Mile Walk and his share of the Crawle Plantation and various other pieces of land, which had he succeeded would have seriously affected the value of the Ellis properties. So Francis March set out for England to get agreement from George Cooke in person to sell all this property to him. Again March paid for this from his own funds intending it for the benefit of his own family and about Christmas 1713 he travelled back to Jamaica and attempted to sell John Ellis's "wastelands", as requested under the terms of the will. He sold a small amount of land to Ezekial Gomersall, but could not find a buyer for the rest.
Francis March seems to have been a regular transatlantic traveller because in 1718 he again returned to England where in the meantime Anne Ellis had become administratrix of the Will of her sister-in-law Elizabeth Grace Ellis. The four Ellis children now being orphans their aunt Anne Ellis was named as their "next friend" and a group action was taken in the Court of Chancery to demand that Francis March should produce accounts of what had happened to the various Ellis properties. Many of March's papers were still in Jamaica but he did produce a formal response and then returned to Jamaica in 1721.
By this time the two Ellis boys had reached the age of seventeen (the age at which they were to inherit) and their sister Mary had married John Manley who appears to have been somewhat older than the Ellis children and to have acted for them in their minority.
The Ellis family now took matters into their own hands and forcibly occupied all the property that had belonged to John Ellis senior, to his son Major John Ellis and to Carlton Goddard, including the land bought from George Cooke by Francis March with his own money! Moreover they also took possession of all the stock of slaves, cattle and equipment, and produce in the form of sugar and rum which March later valued at over £12,000 Jamaican currency and they took all the regular income from the plantations.
Having expelled Francis March they then exhibited a bill of complaint in the Jamaican Court of Chancery against him to which March duly responded. By this time the third John Ellis had died and the seized estates were being managed jointly by his younger brother George Ellis and John Manley.
Francis March was forced to sue for the money that he had laid out in paying for the land the second John Ellis had committed to purchasing from Carlton Goddard as well as paying off Goddard's debt in order to secure the purchase. Moreover according to March the legacies due to Anne Ellis and to his two children as well as to the poor of the parish of St Catherine's had still not been paid.
By this time Frances March had been in Jamaica on and off for many years and like so many colonists his health and that of his family was suffering. He sent his son ahead to England and prepared to leave the island with the rest of his family at which point the Ellis contingent threatened him with an injunction to prevent him leaving the island while what they claimed was a debt to them was still outstanding. This was a common procedure since it was not unusual for debtors to try to escape Jamaica leaving their debts behind them. Desperate to get back to England Francis March paid the Ellis family the amount that they had counterclaimed and left on a ship called the Resolution.
His troubles were far from over for the ship caught fire and March lost most of his possessions, including all his accounts and papers, and he and his family barely escaped with their lives. Back in London by 1724 John Manley was already dead as was Abigail Demetrius, George Ellis had reached the age of 21 and Francis March again attempted to enforce on George Ellis the payment of the legacies due under the Wills of his grandfather John Ellis and his father.
Westminster Hall where the Court of Chancery sat
(source: Wikipedia)
Once again Frances March petitioned the Court of Chancery, this time in London, in an attempt to get the whole confused mess finally resolved by asking the Court to require George Ellis to agree to pay him £3794 Sterling, the amount he had disbursed on behalf of the Ellis family. Given the size of the profits from their estates their is no reason to assume they could not easily have afforded this.
Sadly I am not aware of any record to indicate that George Ellis did finally pay up.
Francis March died in about 1736 and the Ellis family continued to prosper in Jamaica acquiring further lands, including the Montpellier estate from Francis Sadler Hals who received it as reward for his efforts in the Maroon War settlement of 1739. There is a very good account of the Ellis family's various holdings and acquisitions in Barry Higman's book Montpelier Jamaica: A Plantation Community in Slavery and Freedom 1739-1912.
I wrote on a previous occasion about the fate of George Ellis's son John Ellis and his two great nieces Anne Maria and Bathshua Herring Ellis, who were all lost at sea in the great storm of 1782 when two of his servants had an absolutely miraculous escape.
Note: I have to thank David M Oakley without whose hard work transcribing a key legal document this posting would not have been possible.
Biographies, Genealogy, General Interest
Scotts of Ireland, Jamaica, Dominica and Nova Scotia
January 6, 2015 Anne M Powers	10 Comments
The New Year is a time for good resolutions and at least one blogger I have read recently has promised to post more often. I'm conscious that I have not posted regularly in recent months and will try to do better in 2015.
I shall begin with a correction.
One feature of genealogy is that it is never done, and too often evidence emerges that shows conclusions drawn in the past, which seemed reasonable at the time, to have been wrong. So it was that I was contacted by someone researching the Scott family who challenged my assumption that their earliest ancestor in Jamaica had been the Rev John Scott who was presented to the parish of St Catherine on 14 March 1720 and married Elizabeth Millner (possibly the daughter of Elizabeth Rose of Mickleton) the following year. That John Scott died in November 1734 and so could not have been the father of the Scott brothers who grew up alongside the Lee family (see the book A Parcel of Ribbons).
In fact it seems clear now that the Scott family who were prominent in Jamaica from the mid-eighteenth century had come from Ballingarry in north Tipperary, Ireland where Jeremiah Scott (who had fought at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690) settled in the time of William III. Jeremiah's son – yet another John Scott – had a large family of at least ten children many of whom were mention in the Will of their sibling the Hon. John Scott of Jamaica, proved in 1776.
This John Scott had brothers who ventured out across the colonies, Michael to Grenada, George to Dominica and Joseph to Nova Scotia. George, who was a professional soldier, was appointed Governor of Grenada but then left to be Governor of Dominica where he was killed in a duel in 1767. Michael seems to have remained in Grenada and by the time of his brother John's death was still in dispute with him about George's Will. Other brothers, and several sisters remained in Ireland.
Joseph Scott went to Canada where he built himself a delightful manor house at Fort Sackville, Bedford, Nova Scotia on land that had belonged to brother George. It is one of the oldest houses in Nova Scotia and is now a museum.
Joseph traded in a variety of goods, including rum which presumably came via his brother John in Jamaica. He also had huge timber holdings and he may well have traded lumber back to Jamaica in return. He imported butter from Ireland which was also a popular item traded into Jamaica, although its rancid flavour by the time it reached the tropics was an acquired taste!
This spreading out of a group of brothers from the British Isles is typical of what happened in many families during the eighteenth century. As time went on the next generation would be more inclined to look east towards India, Sumatra and China rather than west to the Caribbean and North America.
Joseph Scott's family became well established in Canada and he died there in 1800 leaving a substantial fortune and over 8000 acres to his second wife Margaret.
John Scott married two wives in Jamaica adding considerably to his lands in the process. His first wife Frances Mary Henderson brought him lands in Clarendon but died giving birth to her namesake in November 1755. His second marriage to Lucretia Favell Gregory consolidated his dynastic credentials since her family included Gregorys, Gallimores and Favells, all early settlers.
By the time his son Jack Scott returned from education in England in the late 1780s to take over management of the family estates they were among the wealthiest on the island, albeit Sir George Nugent did not think much of him. The Scotts owned the Retreat and Kensington Park plantations in St Thomas in the East and Clarendon Park in Clarendon, but Sir George called him " a silly, vain, chattering blockhead who…constantly blabs out all that passes in Council" (Lady Nugent's Journal p.315). His brother George had settled to the life of a landed gentleman in England and Matthew had a distinguished naval career becoming a Vice Admiral in 1819.
All three Scott brothers married daughters of the plantocracy, but in Jack's case not before he had fathered mixed race children with at least three women in Jamaica. Of his thirteen known children only five were legitimate (the last born posthumously in 1814 six months after his father's death), whereas all thirteen of his brother Matthew's were. The Scotts maintained close contact with the Lee family throughout their lives – Jack wrote regularly from Jamaica to Richard Lee, Matt Scott settled his family in Devonshire Place just around the corner from Frances Lee, and General John Lee named Matt Scott as one of his executors.
There have been distinguished Scott descendants down the years, but in recent times perhaps the most notable is Lt.-Cmdr. Desmond Edward Patrick Dehany Scott who claimed Rockall for the Crown in 1955!
Ballingarry, Battle of the Boyne, Clarendon, Desmond E P D Scott, Dominica, duel, Fort Sackville, George Scott, Grenada, Halifax, Ireland, Jeremiah Scott, John Scott, Joseph Scott, Lady Nugent, Michael Scott, Nova Scotia, Retreat, Scott, Sir George Nugent, Tipperary, William III
A Parcel of Ribbons now on Kindle
November 14, 2014 Anne M Powers	7 Comments
The book A Parcel of Ribbons is now available on Amazon Kindle
You can of course still buy the paperback from Amazon or Lulu.com and other outlets which has the advantage of being a physical book and of having the index. Kindle format still does not support indexing although it does include the illustrations. The footnotes from the paperback are converted into endnotes for Kindle and I have made some minor corrections, mainly of typos. Some of these arose because I transcribed many of the letters using Dragon Naturally Speaking software, which is extremely impressive (no I don't have shares!) but occasionally produces some oddities, a few of which I missed when proof reading.
One piece of information not in my possession when I wrote the book was that Robert Lee junior did not die at Lisbon as much later members of the Bevan family believed but in fact, like two of his brothers before him, shot himself. It is no wonder that Favell Bourke Lee, by then Mrs David Bevan, sought consolation in evangelical religion. For three out of six siblings to die by their own hand was a terrible burden for the family to have to bear.
Despite this shadow that fell over the family in the nineteenth century, their eighteenth century letters remain full of life, hope and insight into the interactions between Britain and Jamaica and the lives led in London by returning colonists.
A Parcel of Ribbons, Amazon, Favell Bourke Lee, Kindle, Lulu.com, Robert Cooper Lee
September 1, 2014 Anne M Powers	3 Comments
Rabbit hole art from Deviant Art
It is remarkably easy to head off down a genealogical rabbit hole and, following a trail you believe will lead in one direction, find yourself arriving by quite another route.
A case in point relates to a Chancery document I recently requested from the National Archives because it referred both to a family called Bayly and a John Augier. I have wanted for a long time to establish who was the John Augier who was father of the remarkable Augier sisters about whom I have written before. The spelling of Bayly is an unusual one and I already knew of Zachary Bayly, the uncle of the Jamaican historian Bryan Edwards,who had extensive connections with Jamaica. In addition the Bayly family in the Chancery case came from Bristol, a city with extensive trading and slavery connections, and not far from the Wiltshire roots of Zachary Bayly. So far so good.
The Chancery case dated 1717 was a complex one and, like many cases within Jamaica, made the more so by the deaths of most of the protagonists! Put as simply as I can John Rowe of Bristol was suing for the inheritance of his dead son, a minor also called John Rowe. The child's mother was Mary Bayly the daughter of Samuel Bayly whose other children were Anne and Richard. In her Will written about 1703 Mary Grant, the Bayly girls grandmother left them a substantial inheritance in money, Plate and furniture. She made various provisions for how the money was to be divided in the event of the deaths of either of the young women and for Mary's son John Rowe. The Trustees in the various Wills involved included several of the Bayly brothers and their cousin Thomas Weare (like his cousins a mercer).
Samuel Bayly was a mercer of the City of Bristol and his brothers were also mercers and linen drapers. His brother Richard was also a soap boiler. John Rowe senior's case was that Richard Bayly had claimed to be insolvent and so offered to pay only twelve shillings in the pound to his creditors, which included the Trust fund. He believed that Richard Bayly had in fact paid some of his creditors in full. Rowe said that Samuel Bayly had promised to make good any deficiency on behalf of young John Rowe, but had not done so before his death in about 1708 despite owning considerable property at Henbury about five miles from Bristol.
Meanwhile Samuel's son Richard Bayly had married Mary Hayes and then died leaving her free to marry John Augier. John Rowe's contention was that the various Trustees of the legacy of Mary Grant had conspired together with John Augier to pretend that Richard Bayly senior's business had failed and hence to defraud the only descendant entitled to that legacy – the now dead John Rowe junior. Since John Rowe senior was administrator of his infant son's property, and indeed would inherit anything he left, he was effectively suing on his own behalf! Moreover in addition to the various items left by Mary Grant he also claimed that John Augier and his wife had taken a bed from a house in Bristol High Street to which John Rowe was entitled.
If you would like to read the full details of the case I have transcribed the document because although it is not a Jamaica suit it is probably fairly typical of the kinds of arguments that arose when estates went unadministered and legatees died before claiming their inheritance. At the very least John Rowe was requesting that the Court should enforce the provision of evidence by those he was suing to demonstrate what had happened to the property and to provide full accounts for the expenses. For example Rowe claimed that more had apparently been spent on his mother-in-law's funeral than the fifty pounds she had specified in her Will.
Reading some of the Bayly family Wills it seems likely that they were telling the truth about the failure of Richard Bayly's business and that Samuel Bayly had tried to make some kind of provision for little John Rowe. Whether Richard Bayly had actually lost some of the Trust fund fraudulently propping up his failing business we will never know.
And what about the Jamaican connections I had been searching for? I have so far failed to link this Bayly merchant family in Bristol with the family of Zachary Bayly, which is not to say such a link may not exist. But certainly the John Augier cited in the case is not the John Augier who died in Jamaica about 1720.
However it turns out there is a Jamaica connection.
The Bayly brothers had a sister called Mary who married the wonderfully named Uzziel Bussell. Uzziel had a father William Bussell, a Bristol baker, who died about February 1679/80 and in his Will (not proved until after the death of Uzziel in 1695) mentioned his brother Edmund in Jamaica. William did not sign his Will but made his mark and so was either illiterate or too ill to be able sign and therefore it is reasonable to assume that his brother's name should have been Edward. For one of the original settlers in Jamaica was Edward Bussell. There is some evidence that the Bussell family may have been non-conformists and so may have left England at the Restoration, having been on the 'wrong' side in the Civil War.
Edward Bussell and his wife Grace had seven children baptised in the parish of St Andrew between 1666 and 1681. Edward was recorded as owning eleven acres of land in the first survey of Jamaica in 1670 and there is also a grant of 60 acres to 'Francis Bussell and Smith'. Edward's son William lived to grow up, married and had at least one child, another William baptised in 1682. There are eight Bussell burials in St Andrew between 1689 and 1702, and although it is impossible to distinguish father from son and mother from daughter where they share the same name, it seems likely that Edward died in 1693 and his wife in 1702.
Although there were Bussells in Jamaica in the nineteenth century the probability is that the early settler family had died out by the first decade of the eighteenth century, as had so many of the first colonists. Whether their connection with the Bayly family of Bristol is in any way related to the decision made by Zachary Bayly to go there half a century later remains to be discovered.
And I am still searching for the origins of John Augier!
Bayly, Bristol, Chancery suit, Edward Bussell, genealogy, Jamaica, John Augier, John Rowe
Biographies, General Interest, London Life
Telling History versus Story Telling
June 15, 2014 Anne M Powers	Comment
The Kenwood portrait of Dido and Elizabeth, now at Scone Palace and attributed to Zoffany
I have just been to see the film Belle, the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate great niece of Lord Mansfield, daughter of a black mother, and the sparkling personality who shines out of a dual portrait that for many years had her labelled simply as the black servant of her cousin Elizabeth Murray. The differences between the story told in the film and the few known facts of Dido's life lead me to ponder the differences between writing history and telling a story.
Before going to the cinema I had also read Paula Byrne's book of the same name which, besides presenting the few known facts of Dido's life, gives an excellent account of the background to her life in the context of the growing anti-slavery movement, and tells the story of the Zong massacre which had a profound influence on public opinion.
This deeply shocking case concerned a heavily overloaded slave ship, poorly navigated on its way to Jamaica, with a crew who jettisoned the 'cargo' when water ran short and whose owners then claimed on the insurance. However, it later became clear that the real reason for murdering about 142 souls was that disease had taken its toll and they were of greater value to the owners dead than alive. The first hearing before a jury found in favour of the owners, but the insurers appealed and Lord Mansfield as Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench was then called upon to adjudicate.
The presence of a young mixed race woman in Lord Mansfield's household, not as a servant, but in many respects as an adopted daughter, was viewed by his contemporaries as having influenced his judgments in both the Zong case and in the legally more significant case of James Somersett. Although the exact wording of the Somersett judgment is only available via press reports (Mansfield lost his library and all his papers when his house was attacked during the Gordon riots in 1780 and Dido, Elizabeth, Lady Mansfield and Mansfield himself only just escaped from the mob) it established the precedent that a slave could not be forcibly removed from England against his will and as such was a significant step on the way to reform and emancipation.
The best historical writing tells a story as true to the facts as the writer can make it, in the full knowledge that there will always be interpretation of those facts – none of us can totally step outside our own time or the limits of our own knowledge and prejudices. The writer of a story based, more or less loosely on historical facts subsumes the history into the need to tell a dramatic tale, sometimes with an implicit political or social message, that they hope will entertain and hold the reader or viewer, and perhaps in the process educate as well.
So how much does it matter if the story teller diverges from the historical facts?
Paula Byrne's verdict on the film was that "Like all historical-biographical movies, it takes considerable artistic licence even with the few facts that we know about Dido. The Zong case, being more dramatic, is made the centrepiece of the courtroom drama, although the Somerset case was really the more significant for the abolitionist cause. And John Davinier becomes an idealistic clergyman's son, with a little of the Granville Sharp about him, instead of a faceless French servant. But the spirit of the film is true to the astonishing story of Dido's bond with Lord Mansfield." [Byrne, Paula (2014-04-01). Belle: The True Story of Dido Belle (p. 238). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.]
The man Dido eventually married, after the death of her adoptive parents and the marriage of Elizabeth Murray was some kind of servant, not the crusading son of a vicar portrayed in the film, who is in turn loosely based on the anti-slavery activist Granville Sharp. Dido herself was probably kept more in the background at Kenwood than the film suggests and was certainly not an heiress. Mansfield left her a comfortable legacy and it is possible that her father left her £500, if she is indeed the reputed child Elizabeth mentioned in his Will, but the amounts of money involved were not enough to attract the attentions of an impoverished aristocrat looking for a rich wife as shown in the film. In the film these characters stand as placeholders or exemplars of the attitudes of the day, demonstrating the prejudices and hypocrisy Dido must have faced, but for which we have no specific evidence.
It was brought home vividly to me recently how much the history that I take for granted can be a closed book to others when I was talking to a young woman who had quite literally never heard of the Holocaust, who had no concept of what had happened. Her friend suggested that she should watch The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas as a way of beginning to understand even though that is an entirely invented story.
When Twelve Years a Slave came out it caused a stir, particularly in America, and clearly there were many people who had no idea what slavery had entailed, how appallingly brutal it was, nor the risks run by free black and mixed race people before slavery was abolished. Similarly there has only relatively recently been an awakening in the UK, not simply of the importance of our slave owning past, but of the fact that there had been a considerable black presence in Britain before the eighteenth century. For example see the work of Miranda Kaufmann, who is incidentally a descendant of Robert Cooper Lee.
So to return to my original question, would it matter if someone who watched the film Belle believed every word to be historically accurate? Yes I think it would. I think the story teller has a duty to make clear that their story is 'based on' historical fact and is not a historical documentary.
But if watching the film Belle caused someone to be interested in the facts of the case and to try to discover these for themselves then that would I believe be a good thing. Moreover it is a good film, with wonderful settings and costumes and makes very enjoyable viewing!
Dido, Dido Elizabeth Belle, Elizabeth Murray, emancipation, Gordon Riots, Granville Sharp, James Somersett, Kenwood, Lord Mansfield, Miranda Kaufmann, Paula Byrne, Scone Palace, slavery, Zong massacre
Biographies, General Interest, Jamaican Life
A Lady in Jamaica – Book Review
May 11, 2014 Anne M Powers	Comment
There is relatively little available about eighteenth century Jamaica written by women, unless you count the diary of Lady Nugent, written on the cusp of the nineteenth century, but recently memoirs of nineteenth century Jamaica have started to appear. I reviewed Diana Lewis's memoir A Year in Jamaica last year.
A Lady in Jamaica 1879 is the account of her visit to the island written by Martha Jefferson Trice and edited by Jasper Burns. As may be guessed from her name Martha, who was born in 1855, came from an old established Virginian family and was a descendant of the sister of Thomas Jefferson. Martha was very well educated, and a published poet, but her family life had been severely affected by the American Civil War and the death of her father. After the death of her mother she and her sister Margaret took in children as boarding students while their brother Dabney ran the family farm, all assisted by their youngest sister Lucy.
Martha suffered from serious ill health, although the cause is not entirely clear, she appears to have had an abscess on her stomach that would not heal and was sent to Jamaica in an attempt to cure her. The trip was paid for by relations and she went to stay with some old family friends, the Evans whose daughter Sophia was five years older than Martha and whose son St George cherished romantic intentions towards her that were definitely not reciprocated!
Although Martha's health did improve somewhat as a result of her trip, when she returned home her family were caught up in a typhoid epidemic and both Martha and Margaret died tragically young.
But the account Martha left behind has given her a kind of immortality.
She began her diary at the end of January 1879 with her trip to Washington and New York, the 'great Central Depot was one of the largest buildings I ever saw', and then she boarded the Etna where she was disappointed to find that her cabin was 'about half as large as our little dressing room and has four berths'. She was however advised by the Captain to stay on deck as much as possible to avoid sea sickness.
She described her fellow passengers vividly, 'the nicest are two Jews' one of whom had been born with only three fingers on his left hand 'and no right hand at all'. He was a commission merchant named Lazarus and the other man whose name she forgot was a native of Jamaica who grew bitter wood, quassia and china wood. Sea sickness overtook all the passengers and Martha found that another abscess had formed making her really ill. She improved as the weather grew warmer however and arrived in Kingston on February 7th where she discarded her flannel underwear!
Post emancipation Jamaica made a vivid impression on Martha who wrote about a very wealthy girl 'coal black' who was going to marry a recently arrived Scot – 'my Virginia born eyes cannot get used to this equality of the races'. Her reaction to the local language was also unfavourable 'The lingo of the negroes and children here is perfectly heathenish and unintelligible'. Although the Evans were kind to Martha, initially it was not the most cheerful house for an invalid as her cousin Sophy was also unwell.
The book combines Martha's diary entries with the letters she wrote home and paints a vivid picture of life in Jamaica. As the island air improved her health Martha toured the island, rode out with her cousin Sophy and spent difficult hours dodging the unwanted attentions of her very bad tempered cousin St George.
Martha was constantly homesick for Virginia and worried that she might never see her family again. She returned there in July 1789, taking her cousin Sophy with her. Lucy Trice went to Jamaica later that year to be bridesmaid when Sophy married William Panton Forbes at Spring Garden.
Martha was never well after her return and died in July 1880, however her lively personality and gift for description have ensured that she will be remembered for her memoir of nineteenth century Jamaica with her vivid descriptions of people and places.
Martha Jefferson Trice, Jasper Burns ed., A Lady in Jamaica 1879, Pietas Publications, Waynesboro, Virginia, 2013. 73 pp. illustrated with contemporary photographs. ISBN 9781494308124.
Jamaica, Lady Nugent, Lazarus, Thomas Jefferson
The Allen Family of Glasgow & Inchmartine
January 21, 2014 Anne M Powers	Comment
Arms granted to John Allen in 1779 and matriculated to Henry Howard Allen in 1878
(Crown Copyright) Courtesy of Jonathan Allan
It has been some time since I last uploaded a family tree, and last week I added an extended and updated version of the Allen family of Glasgow, whose details can also be found along with the associated Scott, Dehany, Gregory and Welch families.
I revisited the Allens following a query I received, and it occurred to me that they provide a good model of what happens to a particular kind of middle class merchant and professional family during the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Looking at them may provide clues if you are researching a similar family of your own.
John Allen, who was the business partner and close friend of Robert Cooper Lee, came from a Glasgow merchant family and probably went to Jamaica about 1750 or thereabouts, like so many young men in search of fortune. Lucky enough to survive the unhealthy conditions there, he returned to Britain with his wife Favell Dehany in the 1770s, and two sons were born to them in London. John Allen was godfather to Robert Cooper Lee's son Matthew Allen Lee while in Jamaica, and Robert Cooper Lee and his wife Priscilla named their last child Favell after John Allen's wife. John Allen's first son was named John Lee Allen.
There is a delightful portrait of this boy with his younger brother James, painted in the 1790s by Henry Raeburn and now housed in the Kembell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas (source: Wikimedia Commons).
John Allen suffered badly from asthma and in January 1795 Margaret Grant, a mutual friend, wrote to the Lee family:
With the deepest concern I take up my pen to inform you, that our dear friend Mr Allen is no more. They returned from a short excursion they had made to Glasgow on Saturday last; that night he was seized with a severe attack of the Astmah which though alleviated by medical aid did not yield to it and joined to some internal malady, which the force of medicine, or human skill could not reach, at ¼ past eleven yesterday morning proved fatal.
His disconsolate Widow and her dear Boys are with me, she wonderfully calm and collected under her severe loss, the more so as so unexpected, at least by her. May the Almighty support and protect her and her Boys. [A Parcel of Ribbons, p.318]
The family were left very well off, for John Allen had bought the Inchmartine and Errol estates in Perthshire on his return from Jamaica. Sadly the house that John Allen knew was destroyed by fire in 1874 and the current Errol Park dates from 1875-7. John Lee Allen worked to improve the estate.
The farm-buildings have been much improved, and draining has been carried to a considerable extent; embankments have been also constructed for protecting the low lands from the inundations of the Tay. The principal of these was completed by Mr. Allen in 1836, when about 100 acres were reclaimed from the river, now forming some of the richest land on his estate; the embankment is forty feet wide at the base, and two feet on the summit, and is eleven feet high; the lower portion of the bank, to the height of four feet, consists of a wall of dry stones, and the upper of earth and reeds intermixed with stones. A second embankment has been more recently constructed by Captain Allen, R.N., on a similar plan, to the east of Port-Allen, and of greater extent than the former to the west of the port; and in process of time, by continuing these embankments, a very large portion of most valuable land will be added to the farms contiguous to the river. (source: http://perthshire.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/errol-perthshire-scotland.html)
Two of John Lee Allen's sons went into the Royal Navy and the youngest appears to have migrated to Canada. The nineteenth century saw many families bidding farewell to members who sought fortune overseas, but now instead of the West Indies eyes turned either to India or to the new colonies in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
John Lee Allen's brother James, who was a Lieutenant Colonel in the 23rd Lancers, married the daughter of a Colonel in the East India Company. It was their son Henry Howard Allen who completed the matriculation of the family coat of Arms, and who by then was resident in England at least as much as in Scotland. His eldest brother James Vaughan Allen had died young, in Brussels of cholera, leaving a young widow Barbara Elrington Douglas who married twice more, but separated from her third husband possibly because she blamed him for the death of her epileptic son following an argument with his step father. She settled in Norway where she led a very interesting life farming, writing books and cohabiting with a translator called Oluf Endresen. However towards the end of the nineteenth century the money that paid her annuity from the Inchmartine estate was running out and sadly she ended her life in poverty.
The line from James Allen dies out by the end of the nineteenth century, with all his descendants either unmarried or childless, but the descendants of John Lee Allen were more numerous and by the late nineteenth century he had grandchildren and great grandchildren in Australia, where three of the children of Commander Henry Murray Edward Allen had settled.
The pattern of descent and settlement from John Allen and his Jamaican wife Favell Dehany shows many features common to similar families of the period. First successful colonists return home from Jamaica and invest their acquired wealth in their mother country, often with property in several places. Their sons have careers in the Army or Navy and marry well, into upper class or aristocratic families. Some of their children die young (but not nearly as many as in previous centuries) and some do not marry or are childless. A few carry on the family line, but seek to make their fortunes in the newly developing colonies and eventually settle there.
My mother's family followed a similar pattern with sons in the Indian Army and Indian Army medical Corps during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, then others who tried for new lives in America and South Africa before settling in Australia and New Zealand. Such migration was often driven by the need to provide for the larger families resulting from reduced infant mortality, and from periods of agricultural depression in the UK.
So if you cannot find your family members where you expect them to be, look away from their geographical origins. If you are searching online widen your search terms to include other geographical areas. Look at records from India held by the British Library, check passenger lists for ships travelling between Britain and her expanding Empire, above all do not be surprised by the degree of geographical mobility of our ancestors.
The Allen family, who began as Glasgow merchants, had members who made a fortune in the West Indies; they settled in Canada, Norway, Australia and New Zealand, and have descendants still in the UK today.
agricultural depression, Allan, Allen, Army, Australia, Canada, Inchmartine, infant mortality, Jamaica, migration, New Zealand, Perthshire, Raeburn, Royal Navy
A Year in Jamaica – Book Review
November 2, 2013 Anne M Powers	Comment
For anyone with an interest in Jamaica and its history this enchanting memoir is a must read, and a great Christmas present.
Diana Lewes was the pen name of Elizabeth Anesta Sewell whose grandfather William Sewell went to Jamaica shortly after the abolition of slavery, and profiting from the general view that Abolition had ruined the plantations, bought up a number of estates including some that had belonged to the family of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. William's partner married his daughter but died childless so that the legacy William had to leave at his death was a very valuable one. However, knowing that his son Henry was a spendthrift, William left his estate in trust to his five grandchildren, of whom 'Diana' was one.
In 1889 sixteen year old Diana, her older sister Beattie and their parents went out to Jamaica to live on Arcadia, while their brother Philip was sent to learn the business on the Oxford estate. The memoir, written over a period of years, has some fictionalised elements, partly perhaps to conceal the fact that Diana's father embezzled part of his children's inheritance. In the book this crime is committed by the attorney, which certainly fits with much of Jamaica's history of dishonest estate management.
The year Diana spent in Jamaica was one not only of learning about a new country and its customs, but also one of growing up, of attending parties and of being forced by her father to promise never to marry. Her descriptions of a sugar estate in the late nineteenth century differ from the eighteenth mainly in the increased use of machinery and the relative freedom of the black workers. We are left in no doubt however about the different standing of various white neighbours, the black house servants, who wear white, and the other workers who still wear mainly the osnaburg of their slave ancestors.
She describes the house on the Oxford estate. "Like many of the old fashioned Jamaican houses, it was built a storey above ground. Underneath were storerooms and servants' sleeping quarters. Above these, approached only by two flights of steps, was the main part of the building and, crwning all, was a wide sloping hurricane roof." At Oxford Diana learned that it was important to know the working cattle by name to ensure that none was worked two days running, "no steer, fed as these are, can stand being worked every day". Diana learned to recognise all her brother's cattle and on one occasion spotted one that had been out the previous day. The other drivers shouted with laughter that their colleague had been caught out by a young white girl.
On another occasion Diana was asked to count the canes in the cane bundles, as some workers would try to cheat by having too few in each bundle. She picked a bundle made up by Alexandra, a black woman who Diana comes to realise is the attorney's mistress, and her intuition is proved right when the bundle is short. The ambiguities and nuances of post slavery, colonial Jamaica are very clearly brought out in descriptions of entertainments, riding parties and an encounter with a family of poor whites who have been evicted from their property.
There are moments of high drama too when they are riding back from a neighbouring property and are charged by a herd of cattle, or when the cattle are being counted and two huge bulls start to fight while Diana is trapped and only rescued by the black overseer. There is the night Diana spends alone with a large bag containing the estate money wondering if she will be attacked and murdered for it.
There are descriptions of lavish meals, melon, turtle, turtles eggs, yam, sweet potatoes, cho-chos, peahen, fried plantain, avocado pears and coconut pudding, but an underlying sense of the struggle Diana's mother faces to maintain a style of life she had known as a young bride a quarter of a century earlier. When a careless servant spills water on the highly polished mahogany floor, she is equally careless about mopping it up, and there is the strong sense of a colonial way of life slipping away.
There are wonderful descriptions of the Jamaican landscape and vivid character sketches of the people who lived there. It is no wonder that when Diana's nephew discovered the manuscripts of her memoirs after her death that he wanted to be able to publish them.
They richly deserve to find a wider audience and to stand alongside Lady Nugent's earlier descriptions of Jamaica which convey the impressions of a sympathetic outsider and help the reader to understand how Jamaica has evolved.
A Year in Jamaica: Memoirs of a Girl in Arcadia in 1889, Diana Lewes, Eland Publishing Ltd, London, 2013. ISBN 978 1 906011 83 3 cover price £16.99
Arcadia, Diana Lewes, Elizabeth Anesta Sewell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Henry Sewell, Jamaica, Oxford, William Sewell
The Jamaican Diaspora
September 28, 2013 Anne M Powers	2 Comments
British settlers landing at the Cape Colony
There was of course a huge Jamaican diaspora in the second half of the twentieth century. After the second World War the Windrush generation left the Caribbean in large numbers to work in Britain, in the USA and Canada. Many ended up remaining and making new homes rather than returning.
However, there is a sense in which there has always been a Jamaican diaspora, if it is defined as people born in Jamaica leaving for what was perceived as a better life elsewhere.
I was reminded of this when I came across the name Hercules Ross this week. I have written briefly before about the family of Hercules Ross of Rossie, who made his fortune in Jamaica as a merchant and who had two families. Like so many young white men, while in Jamaica he had a stable relationship outside marriage with a mixed race woman, Elizabeth Foord, with whom he had seven children five of whom survived to adulthood.
Ross, who was one of thirteen children of an impoverished excise man, went to Jamaica about 1760 to work as a naval clerk, became owner of a general merchant's store and two trading sloops, captain of militia, ADC to a Major General, JP for Kingston and was owner of the 200 acre Bushy Park estate. The young Horatio Nelson was nursed back to health from a fever at Bushy Park. During the War with America from 1775 Ross became Prize Agent for Jamaica taking a cut of the prize money for captured vessels, and running his own privateers. He left Jamaica in 1782 and bought the Rossie estate in Scotland in 1785 for £33,250. Like a number of such men he then married. Harriet Parish was the daughter of a wealthy Scots Hamburg merchant and they had four legitimate children.
However he provided well for his three Jamaican sons and two daughters who came to Britain with him. The daughters became school teachers and his sons had positions in the East India Company. Best known was Daniel Ross, who was one of the two or three greatest hydrographic surveyors of the 19th century and has been called 'the father of the Indian surveys'. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1822. He died in Bombay, and his obituary was published in the Straits Times dated 18 December 1849.
Of his brother David nothing seems to be known, and it is a common name which makes him harder to trace. Their brother Hercules Ross is believed to have been murdered by pirates, along with his wife, in the East Indies in 1810.
What prompted me to write this piece was encountering a reference to a young Hercules Ross who was Secretary to General Craig in the Cape Colony, on the very respectable salary of £1500 a year, in about 1798. He was referred to by Lady Anne Barnard in one of her letters to Henry Dundas, later Lord Melville, written between 1797 and 1801 and published in book form a century later. It is not certain that he was the same Hercules Ross as the son of Elizabeth Foord, but it is quite likely.
As the nineteeth century began the British Empire was expanding rapidly. No longer did young men seek their fortunes planting sugar in Jamaica, but their descendants, particularly their mixed race sons, often looked to the newly expanding colonies to make their fortunes. Parental influence could get them a place in the East India Company or the Indian Army, or a place in the colonial civil service. Moreover it may be that for those whose mixed race was more obvious it was easier to make a name abroad than at home.
And so a generation born in Jamaica spread out across the world in the first wave of the Jamaican diaspora.
Bushy Park, Cape Colony, Daniel Ross, East Indies, Elizabeth Foord, Henry Dundas, Hercules Ross, Horatio Nelson, Jamaica, Kingston, Lady Anne Barnard, Lord Melville, pirates


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Bill Seeks to Give Federal Employees a 3% Pay Adjustment Next Year
Categories: Senate, Congress, Pay, The Insider
A new bill has been introduced to give federal employees a 3% pay adjustment in 2019.
Since 2011, politicians have cut federal employees' pay and retirement by over $182 billion. As a result, employees are earning 4.7% less today than they did at the start of the decade. In addition, their health insurance premiums have gone up every year, making health care less affordable for many employees.
Coupled with misguided cuts to important programs, arbitrary hiring freezes that led to severe understaffing, and politicians' hostility towards public servants, agencies have been hollowed out as thousands of the most experienced, capable, and committed federal employees have fled the government with many more to follow. The exodus has created a huge problem at agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has struggled to recruit doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to take care of veterans.
The bill introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates Act, or FAIR Act, seeks to curb the damage and reverse that trend by preventing federal employees from falling further behind with a 3% pay adjustment in 2019.
Righting the Wrongs
"For too long Republicans in Congress have treated the federal workforce like a national piggy bank. They've endured three years of pay freezes, a government shutdown, sequestration cuts, furloughs, and a mindless across-the-board hiring freeze," said Congressman Gerry Connolly. "And to make matters even worse, the President has treated federal employees like his own rhetorical punching bag - hurling insults and falsehoods. Yet, despite this increasingly challenging environment, our federal employees continue to serve with dedication and distinction every day. They deserve better. The FAIR Act is step towards recognizing their contributions and providing fair and just compensation."
"Whether they manage fisheries for NOAA or keep our airports safe as part of the TSA, federal workers in every part of this country and around the world protect and serve the American people," said Senator Schatz. "This legislation allows us to right the wrongs from furloughs, sequestration, and pay freezes by giving these hardworking public servants the raise they deserve."
AFGE members thank Sen. Schatz and Rep. Connolly for their leadership and continued support for federal employees across the nation. Sen. Schatz and Rep. Connolly recognize the invaluable contribution that public-sector workers make every day to the benefit of everyone who calls this country home. They understand that it's vital for the federal government to pay its employees fairly so we can recruit and retain the high-caliber workforce that the public expects and deserves.
"They also know the financial sacrifice that federal workers have made in the name of deficit reduction," said AFGE Legislative Director Tom Kahn. "The women and men who guard our borders, serve our veterans, inspect our food, and protect our planet are worth this modest investment."
IMPORTANT: This information should not be downloaded using government equipment, read during duty time or sent to others using government equipment, because it suggests action to be taken in support of or against legislation. Do not use your government email address or government phone in contacting your Member of Congress.
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Living Tomorrow is the Walhalla for home automation. Here you can literally have a look into the future.
It was created by architects Frank Belien and Peter Bongers in 1991 and is actually a platform used by several companies to show their products. Over the years Living Tomorrow became a big success. They have around 150.000 visitors a year and it's the place to organise B2B events. Their visitors come from everywhere around the globe and they even get VIPs like Bill Gates to visit.
If you want to visit Living Tomorrow in Brussels on your own, first check the website as it is not always open to the public. One ticket for an adult costs €19 ($21) which is quite a fair price for the things you can see and even touch.


Earlier this month, reports suggested that domestic telecom service provider Reliance Jio was diving head first into the hype surrounding blockchain to release its own cryptocurrency called JioCoin. Since then, a number of fake apps and websites have cropped up on the internet, soliciting investments in JioCoin.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has now released a statement warning users against such fake apps. The company has warned that it could take legal action against the developers who are misguiding the public in the name of the company and has clarified that it doesn't offer any such apps.
"Any such apps using the JioCoin name are fake and people are advised to refrain from dealing with any of them. Reliance Jio takes a serious note of such fraudulent attempts by unscrupulous persons to misguide the public in the name of Jio and reserves the right to take appropriate legal recourse", Jio stated.
A recent report from the Economic Times revealed that there were at least 22 apps on the Play Store offering investments in the imaginary JioCoin. The apps ranged from Jio Coin to Jio Coin Buy and had anywhere between 1,000 to 50,000 downloads. The app descriptions claim that they offer JioCoins in exchange for doing 'tasks'.
Security experts warn that such apps can mine user's personal information and might even include cryptocurrency mining malware. One of the most downloaded fake app requires users to give permission to find accounts on the device, access contacts, share precise location, access to modify or delete files, receive data from remote servers, view network connects, launch at startup, provide full network access, and prevent the device from sleeping. This potentially allows the app to take total control of a device and might even cause physical harm to the device as it continuously stresses the hardware for extended periods of time.


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