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Incident
Getting on Flight 253
On Christmas Eve, December 24, 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, arrived at Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, Nigeria. Eight days earlier at the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines office in Accra, Ghana, he had paid $2,831 in cash for his Lagos-Amsterdam-Detroit round-trip ticket with a January 8, 2010, return date. Abdulmutallab left Lagos on Christmas Eve at 11:00 p.m. aboard KLM Flight 588, a Boeing 777 bound for Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, on Christmas Day, Abdulmutallab checked in for Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit with only carry-on luggage.
A couple, Kurt and Lori Haskell, stated that, while waiting at the Amsterdam airport to board Flight 253, they saw the man whom they later learned was Abdulmutallab along with a well-dressed man who was assisting him approach the ticket agent. The other man appeared to be around 50 years old, of Indian descent and was dressed in what appeared to be an expensive suit and shoes. Federal agents later stated that they were trying to find the well-dressed man. According to Lori Haskell, the well-dressed man told the ticket agent: “We need to get this man on the plane. He doesn’t have a passport.” The ticket agent answered that nobody was allowed to board without a passport, to which the well-dressed man replied: “We do this all the time; he’s from Sudan.” Lori Haskell added that both she and her husband believe the man was trying to pass Abdulmutallab off as a Sudanese refugee. Lori Haskell then reported the two being directed down a corridor to talk to a manager. “We never saw him again until he tried to blow up our plane,” Haskell said of Abdulmutallab. Only U.S. citizens are permitted to board international flights to the U.S. without passports and even they may be permitted to do so only if the airline confirms their identity and citizenship, said Chief Ron Smith, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in Detroit, and the allegation that Abdulmutallab was allowed to board without a passport has been called disturbing.
Bombing attempt
Flight 253, a Northwest Airlines Airbus A330-300 twinjet with 279 passengers, 8 flight attendants, and 3 pilots aboard, left Amsterdam around 8:45 am local time. The plane was scheduled to arrive in Detroit at 11:40 a.m. EST, and was painted in Delta Air Lines’ livery, as Northwest was a subsidiary of Delta at the time.
Witnesses reported that as the plane approached Detroit, Abdulmutallab went into the plane’s lavatory for about 20 minutes. After returning to his seat at 19A (near the fuel tanks and wing, and against the skin of the plane), he complained that he had an upset stomach. He was then seen pulling a blanket over himself.
About 20 minutes before the plane landed, he secretly ignited a small explosive device consisting of a mix of plastic explosive powder and liquid acid. Abdulmutallab apparently had a packet of the plastic explosive sewn to his underwear, and injected liquid acid from a syringe into the packet to cause a chemical reaction. While there was an explosion and fire, the device failed to detonate properly. Passengers heard popping noises resembling firecrackers, smelled an odor, and saw the suspect’s trouser leg and the wall of the plane on fire.
“There was smoke and screaming and flames. It was scary.”
Although there were not any air marshals on the flight, several passengers and crew noticed the attack. A passenger seated on the far side of the same row, Jasper Schuringa from the Netherlands, saw Abdulmutallab sitting and shaking, and tackled and overpowered him. Schuringa saw the suspect’s trousers were open, and that he was holding a burning object between his legs. “I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away,” said Schuringa, who suffered burns to his hands. Meanwhile, flight attendants extinguished the fire with a fire extinguisher and blankets, and a passenger removed the partially melted, smoking syringe from Abdulmutallab’s hand.
Detroit Metropolitan Airport is located in the city of Romulus, Michigan
Schuringa grabbed the suspect, and pulled him to the first class area at the front of the plane. A passenger reported that Abdulmutallab, though burned “quite severely” on his leg, seemed “very calm,” and like a “normal individual.” Schuringa stripped off the suspect’s clothes to check for other explosives or weapons, and he and a crew member handcuffed Abdulmutallab with plastic handcuffs. “He was staring into nothing,” Schuringa said, and shaking. Passengers applauded as Schuringa walked back to his seat.
The suspect was isolated from other passengers until after the plane landed. A flight attendant asked Abdulmutallab what he had in his pocket, and the suspect replied: “Explosive device.”
When the attack triggered a fire indicator light within the cockpit, the pilot requested rescue and law enforcement. The plane made an emergency landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in the Downriver Detroit community of Romulus, Michigan, just before 1:00 p.m. local time. The airport is about 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Detroit and the adjacent international border.
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport
The Toronto Star reported that the plane’s flight route would have had it over Canadian airspace when the attempted bombing occurred. Representatives of two pilot associations told the Star that Detroit Metro airport would have been the nearest suitable airport at which to attempt an emergency landing.
While the plane itself suffered relatively little damage, the suspect incurred first and second degree burns to his hands, and second degree burns to his right inner thigh and genitalia, and two other passengers were injured. When the plane landed, Abdulmutallab was handed over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, and taken into custody for questioning and treatment of his injuries in a secured room of the burn unit of the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor. Schuringa was also taken to the hospital. One other passenger incurred minor injuries.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents arrived at the airport after the plane landed. The aircraft was moved to a remote area so authorities could re-screen the plane, the passengers, and the baggage on-board. A bomb-defusing robot was first used to board the plane, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) interviewed all passengers. Another passenger from the flight was placed in handcuffs after a dog alerted officers to his carry-on luggage, searched, and released.
Analysis of explosives
The substance that the suspect tried to detonate was more than 80 grams (3 oz) of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), a crystalline powder that is often the active ingredient of plastic explosives, the high explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), and other ingredients. It is among the most powerful of explosives, in the same chemical family as nitroglycerin. The powder was analyzed by the FBI at Quantico, and an FBI affidavit filed in the Eastern District of Michigan reflected preliminary findings that the device contained PETN. The authorities also found the remains of the syringe. The suspect apparently carried the PETN onto the plane in a 6-inch (15 cm)-long soft plastic container, possibly a condom, attached to his underwear. However, much of the container was lost in the fire. ABC News cited a government test indicating that 50 grams (2 oz) of PETN can blow a hole in the side of an airliner, and posted photos of the remains of Abdulmutallab’s underwear and explosive packet. Further chemical analysis showed that TATP, another high explosive, was also present.
Al-Qaeda member Richard Reid (the “Shoe Bomber”) tried to detonate 50 grams of the same explosives in his shoes during an American Airlines flight on December 22, 2001. This attack was near the eighth anniversary of Reid’s attempt. In addition, in August 2009, an al-Qaeda bomber from Yemen with PETN hidden in his underwear (originally thought to have been hidden inside his anal cavity) blew himself up near the Saudi deputy Interior Minister in charge of counter-terrorism, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef.
Verbally disruptive passenger incident
On December 27, 2009, two days after the original incident, the crew of another Flight 253 requested emergency assistance with a Nigerian passenger who they said had become “verbally disruptive”. The crew questioned the passenger after other passengers expressed concern that he had been in the lavatory for over an hour. It was later determined that the man was a businessman who had fallen ill from food poisoning during the flight, and did not pose any security risk.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Main article: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspected bomber
The suspect in the attempted bombing was 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The youngest of 16 children, Abdulmutallab’s father is Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, one of the richest men in Africa, former Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria, and former Nigerian Federal Commissioner for Economic Development. Abdulmutallab’s mother was born in Yemen and is the second of his father’s two wives. Abdulmutallab was initially raised in Kaduna, in Nigeria’s Muslim-dominated north, a place he returned to on his vacations.
In high school at the British International School in Lom, Togo, Abdulmutallab was known as a devout Muslim who frequently discussed Islam with schoolmates. He visited the U.S. for the first time in 2004. For the 2004-05 academic year, Abdulmutallab studied at the San’a Institute for the Arabic Language in Sana’a, Yemen, and attended lectures at Iman University.
He began his studies at University College London in September 2005, where he studied Engineering and Business Finance, and earned a degree in mechanical engineering in June 2008. He was president of the school’s Islamic society in 2006 and 2007, during which time he participated in, along with political discussions, such activities as martial arts and paintballing; at least one of the Society’s paintballing trips involved a preacher who reportedly said: “Dying while fighting jihad is one of the surest ways to paradise.” During those years, he “crossed the radar screen” of MI5, the UK’s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, for radical links and “multiple communications” with Islamic extremists; none of the information was passed to American officials, due to concerns about breaching his human rights and privacy. His last known address was a 4 million apartment on Mansfield Street, Central London, close to Oxford Street.
On June 12, 2008, Abdulmutallab applied for and received from the U.S. consulate in London a U.S. multiple-entry visa, valid to June 12, 2010, with which he visited Houston, Texas, from August 117, 2008. From January 2009 to July 2009, he attended a master’s of international business degree program at the University of Wollongong in Dubai.
In May 2009 Abdulmutallab tried to return to Britain, ostensibly for a six-month “life coaching” program at what the British authorities concluded was a fictitious school; accordingly, his visa application was denied by the United Kingdom Border Agency. His name was placed on a UK Home Office security watch list, which meant he was not permitted to enter the UK, though he could pass through the country in transit and was not permanently banned. However, the UK did not share the information with other countries.
In July 2009, Abdulmutallab’s father agreed to his request of returning to the San’a Institute for the Arabic Language in Yemen to study Arabic from August to September of that year, and Abdulmutallab arrived in the country in August. “He told me his greatest wish was for sharia and Islam to be the rule of law across the world,” said one of his classmates at the Institute. However, Abdulmutallab ;left the Institute after a month, but remained in Yemen. Earlier, his family had become concerned in August when he called them to say he had dropped the course, but was remaining there. By September, he routinely skipped his classes at the institute and attended lectures at Iman University, which is suspected to have links to terrorism.
The San’a Institute obtained an exit visa for him at his request, and arranged for a car that took him to the airport on September 21, 2009 (the day his student visa expired), but the school’s director said, “After that, we never saw him again, and apparently he did not leave Yemen”. In October, Abdulmutallab sent his father a text message saying that he was no longer interested pursuing an MBA in Dubai, and wanted instead to study sharia and Arabic in a seven-year course in Yemen. His father threatened to cut off his funding, whereupon Abdulmutallab said he was “already getting everything for free”. He text-messaged his father, saying “I’ve found a new religion, the real Islam”, and ultimately, “You should just forget about me, I’m never coming back”, “Please forgive me. I will no longer be in touch with you”, and “Forgive me for any wrongdoing, I am no longer your child”. The family was last in contact with Abdulmutallab in October 2009.
On November 11, 2009, British intelligence officials sent the U.S. a message indicating that a man named “Umar Farouk” had spoken to Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim spiritual leader supposedly tied to al-Qaeda, pledging to support jihad, but the notice did not mention Abdulmutallab’s last name. His father made a report to two CIA officers at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, on November 19 regarding his son’s “extreme religious views”, and told the embassy that Abdulmutallab might be in Yemen. Acting on the report, Abdulmutallab’s name was added in November 2009 to the U.S.’s 550,000-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a database of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. It was not added, however, to the FBI’s 400,000-name Terrorist Screening Database, the terror watch list that feeds both the 14,000-name Secondary Screening Selectee list and the U.S.’s 4,000-name No Fly List. Abdulmutallab’s U.S. visa was not revoked as well.
Yemeni officials said that he left Yemen on December 7 (flying to Ethiopia, and then two days later to Ghana). Ghanaian officials said Abdulmutallab was there from December 9 until December 24, when he flew to Lagos.
Two days after the attack, Abdulmutallab was released from the hospital in which he had been treated for burns sustained during the attempted bombing. He was then taken to the Federal Correctional Institution, Milan, a federal prison in Milan, Michigan.
Ties to Anwar al-Awlaki
Main article: Anwar al-Awlaki
Anwar al-Awlaki, who reportedly had ties to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
A number of sources reported contacts between Abdulmutallab and Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim lecturer and spiritual leader who is accused of being a senior al-Qaeda talent recruiter and motivator. Al-Awlaki, previously an imam in the U.S. who more recently has lived in Yemen, also has links to three of the 9/11 hijackers, the 2005 London subway bombers, a 2006 Toronto terror cell, a 2007 plot to attack Fort Dix, and the 2009 suspected Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan.
With a blog and a Facebook page, he has been described as the “bin Laden of the internet.”
Despite being banned from entering England in 2006, al-Awlaki spoke on at least seven occasions at five different venues around Britain via video-link in 2007-09. He gave a number of video-link lectures at the East London Mosque during this period. In one instance, the mosque provoked the outrage of The Daily Telegraph by hosting a video-teleconference by al-Awlaki in 2008, and former Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve expressed concern over al-Awlaki’s involvement. On New Year’s Day 2009 the mosque played a pre-recorded video lecture by al-Awlaki, with a poster depicting New York in flames. He also gave video-link talks in England to an Islamic student society at the University of Westminster in September 2008, an arts center in East London in April 2009 (after the Tower Hamlets council gave its approval), worshipers at the Al Huda Mosque in Bradford, and a dinner of the Cageprisoners organization in September 2008 at the Wandsworth Civic Centre in South London (at which he said “We should make jihad for our brothers and an angel will make the same jihad for you”). On August 23, 2009, al-Awlaki was banned by local authorities in Kensington and Chelsea, London, from speaking at Kensington Town Hall via videolink to a fundraiser dinner for Guantanamo detainees promoted by Cageprisoners. His videos, which discuss his Islamist theories, have also circulated in England.
Representative Pete Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said on the day of the attack that Obama administration officials and officials with access to law enforcement information told him “there are reports [the suspect] had contact [with al-Awlaki]…. The question we’ll have to raise is was this imam in Yemen influential enough to get some people to attack the U.S. again.” He added: “The suspicion is … that [the suspect] had contact with al-Awlaki. The belief is this is a stronger connection with al-Awlaki” than Hasan had. Hoekstra later said credible sources told him Abdulmutallab “most likely” has ties with al-Awlaki.
The Sunday Times established that Abdulmutallab first met and attended lectures by al-Awlaki in 2005, when he was in Yemen to study Arabic. The two are also “thought to have met” in London, according to The Daily Mail. Fox News reported that evidence collected during searches of “flats or apartments of interest” connected to Abdulmutallab in London showed that he was a “big fan” of al-Awlaki, as web traffic showed he followed Awlaki’s blog and website. CBS News and The Daily Telegraph reported that Abdulmutallab attended a talk by al-Awlaki at the East London Mosque (which al-Awlaki may have participated in by video teleconference).
University of Oxford historian, and professor of international relations, Mark Almond wrote that the suspect was “on American security watch-lists because of his links with … Al-Awlaki”.
CBS News said that the two were communicating in the months before the bombing attempt, and sources say that at a minimum al-Awlaki was providing spiritual support. According to federal sources, over the year prior to the attack, Abdulmutallab intensified electronic communications with al-Awlaki. One government source described intercepted “voice-to-voice communication” between the two during the fall of 2009, saying that al-Awlaki “was in some way involved in facilitating [Abdulmutallab]’s transportation or trip through Yemen. It could be training, a host of things.”
Abdulmutallab reportedly told the FBI that al-Awlaki was one of his trainers when he underwent al-Qaeda training in remote camps in Yemen, and there were “informed reports” that Abdulmutallab met al-Awlaki during his final weeks of training and indoctrination prior to the attack. According to a U.S. intelligence official, intercepts and other information point to connections between the two:
“Some of the information … comes from Abdulmutallab, who … said that he met with al-Awlaki and senior al-Qaeda members during an extended trip to Yemen this year, and that the cleric was involved in some elements of planning or preparing the attack and in providing religious justification for it. Other intelligence linking the two became apparent after the attempted bombing, including communications intercepted by the National Security Agency indicating that the cleric was meeting with “a Nigerian” in preparation for some kind of operation.”
Yemen’s Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Affairs, Rashad Mohammed al-Alimi, said Yemeni investigators believe the suspect traveled in October to Shabwa, where he met with suspected al-Qaida members in a house built by al-Awlaki and used by al-Awlaki to hold theological sessions, and that Abdulmutallab was trained and equipped there with his explosives. “If he went to Shabwa, for sure he would have met Anwar al-Awlaki,” al-Alimi said. Al-Alimi also said he believed al-Awlaki is alive. And Abdul Elah al-Shaya, a Yemeni journalist, said a healthy al-Awlaki called him on December 28 and said that the Yemeni government’s claims as to his death were “lies”. Shaya declined to comment as to whether al-Awlaki had told him about any contacts he may have had with Abdulmutallab. According to Gregory Johnsen, a Yemeni expert at Princeton University, Shaya is generally reliable.
At the end of January 2010, a Yemeni journalist, Abdulelah Hider Shaa, said he met with al-Awlaki, who said he had met and spoken with Abdulmutallab in Yemen in the fall of 2009. Al-Awlaki also reportedly said Abdulmutallab was one of his students, that he supported what Abdulmutallab did but did not tell him to do it, and that he was proud of Abdulmutallab. A New York Times journalist listened to a digital recording of the meeting, and said that while the tape’s authenticity could not be independently verified, the voice resembled that on other recordings of al-Awlaki.
Al-Qaeda involvement
On December 28, 2009, Obama in his first address said the incident “demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more effective than anti-terrorist laws which wreak havoc on our basic freedoms.” On the same day, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) announced that it was responsible for the attempted bombing. AQAP said that the attack, during “their (Christians) celebration of the Christmas holidays”, was to “avenge U.S. attacks on the militants in Yemen”. The NEFA Foundation posted the full al-Qaeda statement.
On January 24, an audio tape said to be from Osama Bin Laden praised the bombing attempt and warned of further attacks against America, but did not explicitly claim responsibility for it. The short recording that was broadcasted on Al Jazeera television, said: “The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the September 11.” An adviser to the U.S. President said he could not confirm whether the voice was actually that of bin Laden. In the past, the CIA has usually confirmed Al Jazeera reports on tapes attributed to bin Laden.
While in custody, Abdulmutallab told authorities he had been directed by al-Qaeda. He said he had obtained the device in Yemen, along with instructions from al-Qaeda as to how to use it and to detonate it when the plane was over U.S. soil. Abdulmutallab said he had contacted al-Qaeda through a radical Yemeni imam (who according to The New York Times on December 26 was not believed to be al-Awlaki) whom he had reached through the internet.
The New York Times reported on December 25 that a counter-terrorism official had told them Abdulmutallab’s claim “may have been aspirational”. But U.S. Representative Jane Harman] (D-Calif.), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment, said the following day that a federal official briefed lawmakers about “strong suggestions of a Yemen-al Qaeda connection” with the suspect. On January 2, 2010, President Obama said that AQAP trained, equipped, and dispatched Abdulmutallab, and vowed retribution.
In reaction to suggestions that the U.S. launch a military offensive against the alleged terrorists’ sanctuary in Yemen, The Washington Post noted that Yemeni forces equipped with U.S. weapons and intelligence had carried out two major raids against AQAP shortly before the bombing attempt, and that the terror group may have lost top leaders in a December 24, 2009, airstrike.
Jasper Schuringa
Jasper Schuringa, who was en route to Miami, Florida for a vacation, stopped the attack and got burn injuries in the process. He lives in Amsterdam, and was born in 1971 in Curaao, Netherlands Antilles. Schuringa is a graduate of Leiden University, Leiden. He is a film director of low-budget Dutch films for an Amsterdam-based media company, and was the assistant director for National Lampoon’s Teed Off Too.
Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Wouter Bos phoned Schuringa on behalf of the Dutch government the day after the attack, and conveyed the government’s compliments and gratitude for Schuringa’s part in overpowering the suspect. Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders called Schuringa “a national hero” who “deserves a royal honor”, which Wilders said he would ask the Dutch government to award. According to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, Queen Beatrix expressed her feelings of gratitude towards Schuringa. The Dutch poet Nico Dijkshoorn compared Schuringa to both Superman and Hans Brinker.
On February 10, 2010 Schuringa announced that Reinout Oerlemans Eyeworks will make a documentary about Schuringa act during the flight. Schuringa, who is a filmmaker himself, will be closely involved in the production.
Reactions and investigations
Governments
United States
Barack Obama discusses the incident with National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough at the Kailua Winter White House on December 29, 2009.
The U.S. investigation into the incident is being managed by the Detroit Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is led by the FBI and includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Air Marshal Service, and other law enforcement agencies. Among other questions, they are attempting to answer the following: what training did Abdulmutallab receive, who else (if anyone) was in the training program, are others preparing to launch similar attacks, was the attack part of a larger (possibly worldwide) plot, was it a test run, who assisted him, who gave him the chemicals, who sewed the explosives in his underwear, who further radicalized him, who sent him on his way, and how was he able to smuggle the explosives past airport security.
President Barack Obama was notified of the incident by an aide while on a vacation in Kailua, Hawaii, and spoke with officials from the Department of Homeland Security. He instructed that all appropriate measures be taken in response to the incident. While the White House called the attack an act of terrorism, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has not declared the incident an official terrorist act.
Representative Hoekstra said that Detroit may not have been singled out for the attack, but the focus may have simply been to attack a destination with many international travelers. The attack occurred over the city because the plane had not flown over U.S. land prior to that time. In addition, it was suggested that it is possible that the attack was a test to see if such materials could pass through screening, and how much damage the blast would cause. The U.S. is examining what information it had before the attack, why its National Counterterrorism Center did not put together the warning from Abdulmutallab’s father and intercepts by the National Security Agency (NSA) of conversations among Yemeni al-Qaida leaders about a “Nigerian” to be used for an attack (months before the attack took place), and why the suspect’s U.S. visa was not revoked after his father’s warning. Abdulmutallab’s name had come to the attention of intelligence officials many months before that, but no “derogatory information” was recorded about him. A Congressional official said that Abdulmutallab’s name appeared in U.S. reports reflecting that he had connections to both al-Qaeda and Yemen.
One U.S. intelligence officer said on December 30: “Abdulmutallab’s father didn’t say his son was a terrorist” when he visited the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, “let alone planning an attack. Not at all. I’m not aware of some magic piece of intelligence that suddenly would have flagged this guyhose name nobody even had until Novembers a killer en route to America, let alone something that anybody withheld.” Representative Hoekstra questioned, however, why the apparent links were not put together before the attack took place, saying: “You would think if you did a Google search on these different threads, it would bring these things together quickly. There are organizations that deal with massive amounts of data in real time every day. Talk to MasterCard.”
On January 7, 2010, James L. Jones, the national security advisor, said Americans would feel “a certain shock” when a report detailing the intelligence failures that could have prevented the Christmas Day attack were released that day. He said that President Obama would be “legitimately and correctly alarmed that things that were available, bits of information that were available, patterns of behavior that were available, were not acted on.”
United Kingdom
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that the UK would take “whatever action was necessary”. The day after the attack, British police searched a family-owned flat at which Abdulmutallab had lived while in London.
Netherlands
A Dutch military police spokesperson said that Abdulmutallab did not go through passport control at Schiphol, where large numbers of passengers are processed en-route to North America from Africa, and the Dutch counter-terrorism agency NCTb said that it had started a probe into where the suspect originated. A preliminary investigation, however, found no security lapses, and despite being listed as having a potential terrorism connection, the suspect had a valid U.S. visa. Dutch officials also said that they will now use 3D full-body scanning X-ray technology on flights departing to the U.S. Body scanners are being implemented despite concerns from privacy advocates. Dutch officials said that security must take priority over the privacy of the individuals being scanned. The developer of the technology said the scanned imagery does not compromise individuals’ privacy, as the imagery resolution is too low to display the body in anatomical detail; but that it would certainly detect non-metallic objects under clothing, such as powdered explosives.
Members of the Second Chamber (Lower House) of the Dutch parliament demanded an explanation from Minister of Justice Hirsch Ballin, asking how the suspect managed to smuggle explosives on board, despite Schiphol’s reportedly strict security measures.
Nigeria
The incident raised concern regarding security procedures at Nigeria’s major international airports in Lagos and Abuja, where tests for explosive materials are not conducted on carry-on baggage and shoes, and where bags are allowed to pass quickly through X-ray scanners. In response to strong international criticism, Nigerian civil aviation officer Harold Demuran announced that Nigeria will also set up full-body scanning X-ray machines in Nigerian airports.
Canada
In response to the incident and to comply with new US regulations, the Canadian Government will install full body scanners at major airports. This technology is used in secondary screening of passengers. The first 44 scanners were planned to be installed at airports in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax.
Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines, which owns Northwest, said its Detroit group did not handle security for the flight. It released a statement calling the incident a “disturbance,” and saying that Delta was “cooperating fully with authorities”.
According to an internal communication to employees, Delta’s CEO Richard Anderson was upset that another terrorist incident such as this could reoccur, especially after the September 11 security reinforcements put in place around the globe: “Having this occur again is disappointing to all of us… You can be certain we will make our points very clearly in Washington.”
Security firms
In January 2010, ICTS International, a security firm that provides security services to Schipol airport, and G4S (Group 4 Securicor Aviation Security B.V.), another security firm, traded blame over the security oversight, as did authorities at Schiphol Airport, the Federal Aviation Authority, and U.S. intelligence officials. According to Haaretz, the failure was two-fold: An intelligence failure, as Obama stated, in the poor handling of information that arrived at the State Department and probably also the CIA from both the father of the would-be bomber and the British security service; and a failure within the security system, including that of ICTS. Abdulmutallab’s “age, name, illogical travel route, high-priced ticket purchased at the last minute, his boarding without luggage (only a carry-on), and many other signs should have been sufficient to alert the security officers and warrant further examination of the suspect. However, the security supervisor allowed him to get on the flight.”
Criminal charges
Prison grounds at Federal Correctional Institution, Milan, where Abdulmutallab is incarcerated
On December 26, a criminal complaint was filed against Abdulmutallab in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, charging him with two counts: placing a destructive device in, and attempting to destroy, a U.S. civil aircraft. The U.S. Attorney’s Office assigned to the case federal prosecutors Jonathan Tukel (chief of the counter-terrorism unit) and Eric Straus (former chief of the same unit). Abdulmutallab was arraigned and officially charged by U.S. District Court Judge Paul D. Borman later the same day at the University of Michigan Hospital.
On January 6, 2010, a federal grand jury indicted Abdulmutallab on six criminal counts including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder. “Not guilty” pleas were entered on the behalf of Abdulmutallab at the hearing. If Abdulmutallab is convicted on the charges he could face a life sentence plus 90 years. He faced his first court hearing, a detention hearing, on January 8, 2010. A former federal prosecutor told the Detroit News that “there’s no chance of getting this guy bond in a million years”.
Aftermath
Effect on travel
The U.S. government did not raise the Homeland Security Advisory System terrorist threat level, orange at the time (high risk of terrorist attacks), following the attack. However, the Department of Homeland Security said that additional security measures would be in place for the remainder of the Christmas travel period. The TSA detailed several of the measures, including a restriction on movement and access to personal items during the last hour of flight for planes entering U.S. airspace. The TSA also said that there would be more officers and security dogs at airports.
On December 28 Transport Canada announced that for several days it would not allow passengers flying to the U.S. from Canada a carry-on bag, with some exceptions. British Airways said that passengers flying to the U.S. would only be permitted one carry-on item. Other European countries increased baggage screening, pat-down searches, and random searches for passengers traveling to the U.S. A spokesperson for the Dutch airport used by the attacker said that heightened security would be in place for “an indefinite period”. However, in spite of the extra measures said to have been put in place to prevent a follow-up attack, Stuart Clarke, a photoreporter from the British newspaper Daily Express claimed to have smuggled a syringe containing fluid, and which could have contained a liquid bomb detonator onto another plane. On January 3, 2010, Clarke said he boarded a jet from Schiphol Airport bound for Heathrow Airport just five days after the Christmas Day terror attack, and that the airport appeared to have imposed no additional security, such as precautionary pat-downs which could easily have discovered the syringe which he claimed he kept in his jacket pocket throughout.
On December 27, a Lufthansa flight headed for Detroit was diverted to Iceland when it was discovered to be carrying a bag from a passenger who was not on the plane. In addition, a passenger on a Baltimore-to-New York flight was detained when a firecracker was discovered in the seat he had used.
U.S. political fallout
Beginning on the day of the incident, Obama was kept informed via secure conference calls and follow-up briefings.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said several times on Sunday talk shows that “the system had worked”, a statement that engendered some controversy. The next day they retracted the statement, saying that the system had in fact “failed miserably.” According to Napolitano, her initial statement had referred to the rapid response to the attack that included alerts sent to the 128 other aircraft in U.S. airspace at the time, and new security requirements for the final hour of every flight, rather than the security failures that allowed the attack to happen.
The day after the attack, the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee and Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee both announced that they would hold hearings in January 2010 to investigate how the device passed through security, and whether further restrictions should be placed on air travel; the Senate hearings began on January 21.
Four days after the attack, Obama said publicly that Abdulmutallab’s ability to board the aircraft was the result of a systemic failure that included an inadequate sharing of information among U.S. and foreign government agencies. He called the situation “totally unacceptable.” He ordered that a report be delivered detailing how some government agencies had failed to share or highlight potentially relevant information about the suspect before he allegedly tried to blow up the airliner. Two days later Obama received the briefing, which included statements that information about the suspect had failed to cross agency lines, and that the failures to communicate within the U.S. government had led to the threat posed by Abdulmutallab not being known by certain agencies until the attack. Obama said he would meet with security officials and specifically question why Abdulmutallab was not placed on the U.S. no-fly list, despite the government having received warnings about his potential al-Qaeda links.
Under new rules prompted by the incident, airline passengers travelling to the U.S. from 14 nations would undergo extra screening: Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The inclusion of non-Muslim Cuba on the list was criticized.
Account of pre-boarding event
Kurt Haskell, a U.S. passenger on Flight 253, said he saw two individuals approach the boarding agent at Schiphol, in Amsterdam. One was a “poor-looking black teenager around 16 or 17″ whom Haskell claims was Abdulmutallab. The second man was a “sharp-dressed” Indian man around 50 years old who spoke “in an American accent similar to my own.” According to Haskell, the Indian man attempted to negotiate with the airline employee to allow Abdulmutallab to board without a passport. Haskell claimed that the older man said: “He’s from Sudan. We do this all the time”, to which the employee responded by referring them to management.
A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official and spokesman in Detroit confirmed that there were not any Sudanese refugees on the plane. The Dutch counter-terror agency said that Abdulmutallab presented a valid Nigerian passport and U.S. entry visa when he boarded Flight 253, and after reviewing more than 200 hours of security camera recordings, did not find any indication that Abdulmutallab had accomplices at the airport or that he acted suspiciously there. Haskell suggested authorities should, “Put the video out there to prove I’m wrong.”
Federal agents said they were attempting to identify a man who, according to passengers on the flight, helped Abdulmutallab change planes in Amsterdam. U.S. authorities had initially discounted the passenger accounts, but the agents later said there was a growing belief that this man played a role to make sure Abdulmutallab “did not get cold feet”.
See also
Detroit portal
Aviation portal
Yemeni al-Qaeda crackdown
2001 shoe bomb plot
2006 Transatlantic Aircraft Plot
List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
List of terrorist incidents, 2009
“Flying while Muslim”
References
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A Return to Prosperity?
In September 2007, Sierra Leone had the opportunity to define her democracy for the first time after 41 years of many miscarriages in her democratic process. The September 8, 2007 run-off elections were by all means a defining moment in Sierra Leone’s democratic development. But the outcome of the elections, which confirmed the APC front-runner Ernest Bai Koroma as President, would become more meaningful when the political changes the country has experienced take hold if Koroma’s administration could position itself to consolidate the democratic gains made in the 2007 elections. The 2007 parliamentary and presidential elections were Sierra Leone’s first truly democratic national contest in 4 decades and the victory of Ernest Bai Koroma—a former Insurance executive who ran on the platform of “zero-tolerance on corruption”—should put an end to 41 years of bad leadership.
In contrast to the dubious nature of electoral processes of the previous four decades, and much to the credit of the strong leadership of Dr. Christiana Thorpe (the National Electoral Commission (N.E.C.) chairman); the run-off elections were transparently conducted, and their outcome was incontestable. Koroma’s victory in 2007 has triggered hopes for profound change, and the caliber of the people President Koroma has chosen for his cabinet is testament to the direction he wants to take the country—that of development that is progressive and sustainable.
But it was not the first time Sierra Leone had experienced such optimism. In 1996, former head of state Ahmad Tejan Kabbah found himself at a similar turning point. He had become president after being helped by a N.E.C. led by Dr. James Jonah which was blamed to have manipulated the elections in favor of Tejan Kabbah against the veteran politician Dr. Karefa Smart after two rounds. Dr. James Jonah was consequently rewarded by Kabbah by appointing him Minister of Finance. President Kabbah was immediately consumed by a host of problems: a profoundly alienated country, a hostile and offensive press, the ill feeling of the U.S. for his friendship with Iran and Libya, and the rancor within a military establishment angered by the fact that the militia Kamajors were more trusted and favored by a defense department whose day to day activities were administered by a “Kamajor chief” (Hinga Norman) as Deputy Defense Minister. Despite being dignified in many ways, President Kabbah was also impossibly careless and irresponsibly negligent. And thus, instead of marking the start of a stable Sierra Leonean democracy, Tejan Kabbah’s ten-year government ended with nothing to be proud about. Again, it is worthy of note that in April 1997, President Kabbah was ousted from office in a coup d’état by Lt. Col. Johnny Paul Koroma — setting off a period of ten months interregnum and plunging the country into sadistic chaos. The governance vacuum created by the A.F.R.C. junta rule did not end until February 1998, when President Kabbah ordered a bloody military intervention using ECOMOG forces led by the Nigerian General Maxwell Kobe to force the junta out of power. President Kabbah was restored as head of state. He was again expected to guide a return to peace in the country and guiding the prosperity of Sierra Leone by laying the foundation for a stable and progressing nation. But again, President Kabbah could not assure that peace in the country. Instead Sierra Leone’s manipulated democracy faced risks that ultimately led to the veiled negligence of President Tejan Kabbah. Can 2007 now mark the return of prosperity in Sierra Leone?
Only fundamental consensus on the major objectives of the state can provide a society with a secure basis for democracy, and the new Sierra Leone seems to have such an agreement between its principal political actors. The outcome of the August 11 presidential and legislative elections held with the backing, notably, of the European Union (E.U.) and the United Nations (U.N.) with Ernest Koroma’s party winning 59 seats; the incumbent party of Solomon Berewa winning 43 seats; and the newly formed P.M.D.C. party of Charles Margai winning 10 seats brought about a convergence of will between Koroma’s A.P.C. and Margai’s P.M.D.C. from a common determination to end S.L.P.P. misrule in Sierra Leone in the wake of the second round of presidential elections held September 8, 2007. Therefore, the winning parties of the 2007 elections are the APC and the PMDC parties. These parties are both abundantly gifted with resources, authority, and persuasive skill, and can possibly establish a basic consensus with one another to guide the country through prosperity. The unity between the two parties and their understanding to support that unity has kept contemporary Sierra Leone in a state of governmental optimism.
Governmental optimism is already being demonstrated following the selection of cabinet ministers which included some of the gifted resources of the PMDC party (Dr. Soccoh Kabbia as Minister of Health; Mr. Benjamin Davies as Minister of Lands, Country Planning and Environment; and Mr. John Saab, as Minister of Housing and Infrastructural Development) to ensure that the P.M.D.C. is involved in nation building and making Sierra Leone governable from a broad platform of political ideologies. Another demonstration of governmental optimism is the appointment of the human rights activist and chief civil affairs officer to the U.N. Mission in Liberia, Mrs. Zainab Bangura as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Lango Deen, an insightful contributor to the Leonenet Forum administered from the University of Maryland in the United States summed up Zainab Bangura’s appointment in this brilliant assessment, stating: “When President Bush nominated Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State he said, “In Dr. Rice, the world will see the strength, the grace and the decency of our country.” I am no President Koroma, but I’d like to say the same of Zainab Bangura. She is at ease with herself and no stranger to the global stage. By nominating her for this high profile job, President Koroma has included all Sierra Leonean women as equal partners in the national endeavor. It is clear the president is aiming for a full engagement of Sierra Leonean women.”
In a country where conditions are so bad and a country that has experienced all sorts of chaos, any combination of party ideologies to inspire genuine social change is a giant step in the right direction. From such cooperation there will be a basic consensus on how to establish a firm rule of law. Organized crimes of corruption which have turned many Sierra Leoneans into innocent victims deprived of what their nation has to offer (which all members of the previous S.L.P.P. government failed to even recognize, for selfish reasons of their own). A cooperation of this nature again makes it easy for other aspects of the national agenda to be driven by general consensus to determine, for instance, the right ways to create wealth, economic growth, or employment; on how to modernize the energy sector; on how to combat poverty and inequality. In the last ten years, Sierra Leone’s political leaders have even failed to consider the value or the viability of the public institutions and the huge financial liabilities (such as those created by the relentless corruption of unscrupulous cabinet ministers and senior public servants and specific party privileges) being a continuation of the old.
All this obvious and underlying cooperation will inspire the furthering of democracy in Sierra Leone. The 2007 elections have demonstrated that the people of Sierra Leone who have been beaten too long by successive regimes have learned to appreciate the essence of democracy. Voting Koroma as President is a safeguard of the democratic process with Sierra Leoneans voting in a manner that transcends their immediate tribal interests. President Koroma must now behave as a head of state for all Sierra Leoneans, not just a representative of his party or his ethnic group. Then of course, civil society can contribute in many ways to help promote stability in the country. The media (local and international) has to be objective and impartial in their presentation and analysis of issues. However, going the right direction with the opportunity of becoming the number one man in Sierra Leone is the major responsibility of President Koroma’s APC government. It is up to him and his party whether Sierra Leonean democracy advances or is muzzled again, whether corruption is firmly dealt with or not dealt with at all. The humble but firm persona of Ernest Koroma gives some indication that he will rise above his short-term interests to consolidate Sierra Leone’s progress toward democratic stability.
The Promise of a Successful Presidency
The All People’s Congress (APC) has existed for 40 years. From its beginnings as a minor opposition party in a new independent country it had defended the rights of workers. The A.P.C. under Siaka Stevens showed an impressive tenacity in resisting and surviving the assaults of the S.L.P.P. machine. But this has also meant that with Siaka Stevens gone, the A.P.C. became more focused on limiting power than on exercising it — a quality that hurt the party when Joseph Momoh took over the presidency.
Like in 1967, the A.P.C. had another historic moment in 2007, and it had in Ernest Koroma a leader who, as the head of a veteran pro-democracy movement, “mesmerized Sierra Leoneans” — just as Siaka Stevens had done in his initial presidential campaign against Albert Margai, in 1967. (That campaign was truncated by Siaka Stevens’ exile to Guinea following the Brigadier Lansana coup d’état, but the unrest that ensued catapulted him to the presidency nonetheless.) For this impact, Koroma deserves much credit. Still, Koroma’s A.P.C. party carries some of the blame for the hard times and the degeneration of political life in the country. The performance of the A.P.C. during its 24 years of misrule (1968 – 1992) sowed the seeds of Sierra Leone’s chronic stagnation and stark deterioration of political life. And it could be a possibility for the sins of the A.P.C. under Siaka Stevens and Joseph Momoh’s leaderships to come to undermine Koroma’s status as “the champion of democracy” if he fails to use his initiative and be his own man to bring sanity in governance in Sierra Leone by any means necessary.
As president, Koroma has the opportunity to do enough real good. He has the right composition in Parliament—an A.P.C. majority plus the 10 seats of the P.M.D.C party under his belt. With good use of the emergency powers leverage he has to get Parliament to quickly act on various essential projects, the S.L.P.P. members in Parliament do not have the numbers to block Koroma’s projects. Koroma simply has to stave off any internal rivalries within his party to avoid possible stalemate from his own party ranks that would work against his cogent and logical catalog of obligatory reforms. Koroma himself cannot make his party see any significant limitations in his persona. His personality cannot be unpredictable and be disposed to impulsive decisions, bizarre statements, and a lack of leadership and direction at critical moments.
Koroma can also learn how to keep his wife from intruding into the process of government and not make statements in public that may come to hurt his presidency. It is clear that his cabinet choices so far will help him. By selecting the best possible people for his cabinet and the initiative he has taken to reach beyond the party for the best will help his presidency to succeed. Koroma can maintain a long-lasting public affection because his lingering popularity largely stems from the fact that he is a new kid in public life with no baggage. Many Sierra Leoneans view him as a “good man.” Moreover he deserves credit for some real accomplishments of his own as head of an insurance company he competently managed as Managing Director for over a decade. With his insurance background, Koroma can therefore use that experience to succeed in preserving macroeconomic stability and work to reduce unemployment or significantly improve growth. He has to respect the division of powers, the independence of the judiciary, and the principles of good governance.
By introducing and implementing a law requiring open financial accounting in government that again will certainly reduce corruption. By also introducing various democratic reforms on labor and management issues, will continue to expand democracy in the country. With the media guru and erstwhile President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (Ibrahim Ben-Kargbo) now at the helm of the information ministry, Sierra Leone will now enjoy true freedom of expression, and will be an important achievement for Koroma’s government.
The people of Sierra Leone cannot afford to be disappointed this time. Koroma has presented himself to be a great and colorless leader during his campaigns in 2002 when he lost to former President Tejan Kabbah and in 2007. He thus has to fulfill his promises to fight crime and insecurity and to generate tangible social change and progress—his apparent commitment to which won him much support among poor Sierra Leoneans in 2007. Koroma is likely to occupy a place in history very much like that of Sir Milton Margai: immortalized as a considerate and respected figure who made tangible social progress during the short time he was Prime Minister of Sierra Leone.
The ousted S.L.P.P. thought the people of Sierra Leone had placed a final judgment on the A.P.C. because of its dismal record of 24 years of misrule and blatant brutality (from 1968 to 1992) that would affect the fortunes of the A.P.C. candidate in 2007. Evidently, the A.P.C. got a second chance because of its contributions to Sierra Leone’s democracy over the past ten years as the leading opposition party in Parliament. The party found an excellent candidate in Ernest Bai Koroma. The son of a veteran Electoral Commissioner (Sylvanus Koroma), he is honest, intelligent, hardworking, and, at 55, relatively matured for the job. Ernest Koroma and the A.P.C. have managed to win the presidency, and the prognosis for a creative government would now depend in part on his political competence and strength as a leader, but even more on his capacity to establish alliances with disaffected members of the defeated parties — something easier said than done. The good thing is that the P.M.D.C. “positive change” ideologues have allied themselves with the A.P.C. in Parliament giving the A.P.C. an overwhelming majority. Koroma’s victory is therefore a sweet one, because he would not encounter any kind of parliamentary resistance to get his job done. Thus, Sierra Leone clearly has the opportunity now to start truly deliberating and undertaking necessary reforms.
With the outcome of the 2007 elections in favor Ernest Koroma and his party, it is clear that the S.L.P.P. was instead punished because of the widely held perception that Kabbah and Berewa had not governed effectively. With that being the case, the S.L.P.P. has a chance to draw lessons from its ten years experience with power, to promote the rise of new and charismatic leaders, to rekindle its image and its now- obsolete platform of demonizing the A.P.C., to distance itself from its tribalistic traditions (still strong within the party), and to prepare itself for the elections of 2012. As a strong party of opposition, the S.L.P.P. could perform responsibly in Parliament; help to simplify issues for the public; and continue to toil in general for democracy and political harmony. And it can persuasively press on for improved economic programs that support the legitimate creation of wealth, foreign investment, and standard fiscal and monetary policies.
Misused Opportunities, Five Years in “Political Purgatory”
After losing the presidency in 2007, the S.L.P.P. can now start thinking of regrouping more successfully. In fact, the defeat may be to the S.L.P.P.’s long-term benefit, because it gives the party a chance to clean up its image.
The S.L.P.P. can better position itself as an ideological powerhouse: the party can push for more refined economic and development measures or it can push for openness and a message of one nation, one people — whichever suits the moment. But the party has to work very hard to push well-refined economic and development ideas this time because the moral burden of its past is considerable. Under S.L.P.P. rule, Sierra Leone was tormented by violent confrontations because of opportunities mismanaged by a power that had the democratic legitimacy but became a corrupt oligarchy.
When Tejan Kabbah became president in 1996 — after the “self-made Brigadier General” Maada Bio was forced to end his junta rule that year opening the gates to electoral democracy — he had the full support of the international community. His government received millions of dollars in aid money. Many Sierra Leoneans were not happy that Kabbah’s government mismanaged monies donated by the international community to help with post-war reconstruction. The party’s defeat in the 2007 elections is partly because of aid money and in kind donations (Gaddafi’s rice donation) that did not benefit the people. The S.L.P.P. leadership had filed an injunction against the credibility of the presidential run-off results, but the party’s leaders eventually recognized their defeat — in part because they understood that by peacefully accepting their descent from power, they could begin to purify their long record of tyranny and corruption. In typical fashion, the A.P.C. reoriented itself and, treading very carefully, set about reviving its political fortunes.
A presidential victory for the A.P.C. was within the bounds of possibility. Voters came to fear that an S.L.P.P. government would continue to plunder the country and to divide the country by obvious tribalism and nepotism; and a P.M.D.C. government too inexperienced because it is a new party; as such the A.P.C. became a compelling lesser evil. With the A.P.C. winning, in addition to the presidency, enough seats in Parliament, it was grateful to offer some positions in government to the P.M.D.C. Together, the A.P.C. and the P.M.D.C. could now secure a workable parliamentary majority, one that would be able to enact needed structural reforms. Some analysts are suggesting that to stave off the dangers of distracting dissension and even violence, the A.P.C. can extend the same offer of “cohabitation” to the S.L.P.P., although that does not sound like a good idea because the S.L.P.P. had misused opportunities during its ten years of rule, therefore, in the next five years it is reasonable for it to be in “political purgatory” to reflect on and repent its gross miscalculations.
The A.P.C. has proven to be synonymous with “the Sierra Leonean political system,” even though its previous 24 years of misrule continue to weigh heavily on its reputation and possible future. Today, however, its ranks include many experienced political professionals and technocrats, a number of them honest men and women, and the party seem to have a great deal of prestige or credibility among younger Sierra Leoneans. It has put forward some strong, qualified candidates for ministerial positions.
The A.P.C. was wise to choose a presidential candidate with a fresh face and a reputation for honesty — someone like Koroma, who has a moderate, pragmatic left-wing ideology that proved very attractive to Sierra Leonean voters. Koroma is not linked to the A.P.C’s dark past of manipulation, corruption, and disinformation. His choice as front-runner of the party did help to end the years the A.P.C. has been in “political purgatory.”
Consolidate Democracy Now or Die Trying
In many ways, the victory for a modern left-wing popular front — much like those that govern Botswana in south-central Africa through “a relatively uncorrupt bureaucracy accountable to government and with the economic underpinning of increasing resources distributed through government” (Neil Parsons) — is the best possible result for Sierra Leone in 2007. Fortunately, the reformed A.P.C. has the attributes of such a party. The A.P.C. seems to favor retaining complete state dominance of the minerals and agricultural industries and is in no way skeptical of free markets and foreign investments, labor reforms, and the worldwide integration of humanity (globalization) — a body of proclivities the A.P.C. leadership has shown a propensity to steadily adhere to as a reborn and modern party of the left that has long adjusted its ideological schema to reality.
Meanwhile, President Koroma has to prove that he is a strong and assertive president. But he also has to show that he is not going to manipulate power through messianic demagoguery. Preferably, he has to be fully committed to the autonomy of the judiciary and the demarcation of powers, to a free press, and to complete fiscal transparency and accountability in government; a respect for autonomous institutions such as the central bank; and coordinating a violence-free government strategy, especially when reforms can be accomplished peacefully with composure. These are all necessary tenets in an open democratic society, and some of Koroma’s past conduct (showing a propensity toward humility to accept defeat in 2002 and a spirit of reaching out to his opponents within his party who repeatedly challenged his leadership) suggests that he may respect them. A choice not to respect these tenets at the national level could put the consolidation of democracy itself at risk.
With the A.P.C. victory by such a large margin, Koroma must waive any inclination to revive the one-party state in Sierra Leone like his predecessor (Siaka Stevens) did. As president, Koroma would have to contend with a plethora of challenges. If he honors the fundamentals of an open democratic society, of the rule of law and the inalienable rights of individuals, he will have every clout to implement his social and economic projects, so long as he conducts himself in the ambit of reality rather than conceptual ideology. But if Koroma rebuffs these fundamentals, then Sierra Leone is going to lose yet another opportunity to consolidate its democracy and his government like the S.L.P.P. government under Tejan Kabbah and Solomon Berewa will (by 2012) die trying.
www.rvrhs.com/
Ind.
Per Pupil
District
Spending
Rank
(*)
7-12/9-12
Average
% vs.
Average
1
Comparative Cost
$10,942
2
$13,710
-20.2%
2
Classroom Instruction
5,534
1
7,588
-27.1%
6
Support Services
1,590
7
1,987
-20.0%
8
Administrative Cost
1,551
21
1,475
5.2%
10
Operations & Maintenance
1,634
17
1,816
-10.0%
13
Extracurricular Activities
586
13
749
-21.8%
16
Median Teacher Salary
51,950
5
62,000
Data from NJDoE 2009 Comparative Spending Guide.
*Of 7-12/9-12 districts with any number of students. Lowest spending=1; Highest=47
Rancocas Valley Regional High School
Location
520 Jacksonville Road
Mount Holly, NJ 08060
Information
Type
Public high school
Established
1937
Principal
Dr. Michael D. Moskalski
Grades
9 – 12
Color(s)
Red and white
Athletics conference
Burlington County Scholastic League
Team name
Red Devils
Rancocas Valley Regional High School is a regional public high school and school district serving students in grades 9 through 12 from five communities in Burlington County, New Jersey. The district encompasses approximately 40 square miles (100 km2) and comprises the communities of Eastampton Township (394 students from a 2000 Census population of 6,202), Hainesport Township (234 students from 4,126 residents), Lumberton Township (639 students from 10,461 residents), Mount Holly Township (567 students from 10,728 residents) and Westampton Township (494 students from 7,217 residents). The school is located in Mount Holly Township.
As of the 2007-08 school year, the district had an enrollment of 2,338 students and 133.7 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a studenteacher ratio of 17.5.
The school was the 242nd-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 316 schools statewide, in New Jersey Monthly magazine’s September 2008 cover story on the state’s Top Public High Schools. The school was ranked 243rd in the magazine’s September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state.
The district is classified by the New Jersey Department of Education as being in District Factor Group “DE”, the fifth highest of eight groupings. District Factor Groups organize districts statewide to allow comparison by common socioeconomic characteristics of the local districts. From lowest socioeconomic status to highest, the categories are A, B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I and J.
Contents
1 Board of Education
2 The school
3 Athletics
4 Extracurricular activities
5 Administration
6 Notable alumni
7 References
8 External links
//
Board of Education
The district’s Board of Education consists of nine members: two each from Eastampton, Lumberton, Mount Holly and Westampton, and one member from Hainesport.
The school
The school was built on the ruins of a private school for boys that was abandoned at the time of the Civil War. Mount Holly High School was founded around 1900, and after a vote to establish a regional high school, Rancocas Valley Regional opened its doors in 1937.
Rancocas Valley High School offers a range of college prep, honors, Advanced Placement Program courses, business and industrial arts classes. New to the curriculum this year is the Virtual High School (VHS). VHS allows students access to over 150 courses online, including pre-veterinary medicine, DNA technology and AP Macroeconomics.
Rancocas Valley High School offers over 40 clubs and activities. The drama and music classes offer top-notch musicals and performances.
RVTV, otherwise known as Channel 19, is operated out of the school. The channel is distributed by Comcast and showcases sporting events, concerts and student-created programming.
Athletics
Rancocas Valley Regional High School competes in the Burlington County Scholastic League (BCSL), which consists of nineteen public and parochial high schools covering Burlington County, Mercer County and Ocean County in central New Jersey. The league operates under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA). RV competes in the BCSL’s Liberty Division.
In 1998, the boys Varsity Spring Track team went undefeated for the first time since 1979.
In 2004-05, the school’s girls’ softball team and boys’ soccer team ended the season as state champions.
The softball team won the 2007 Central, Group IV state sectional championship, edging Manalapan High School 1-0 in the tournament final.
The 2006 field hockey team took the Central, Group IV state sectional title with a 2-1 win against Cherokee High School in the tournament final.
The Cross Country team went 16-0 in 2004 on its way to winning the Liberty Division Title.
Until 2007 the Boys Track and Field Team hadn’t lost a dual meet in three years, winning three consecutive Liberty Division Titles.
The 2008 boys basketball team won the Central, Group IV state sectional championship with a 70-51 win over Trenton Central High School in the tournament final.
The 2008 boys soccer team won the Group IV state championship with a 2-0 win over Clifton High School.
The school’s mascot: Red Devils; colors: red and white.
The RV Boy’s swim team won six consecutive division titles.
The school is represented by an ice hockey team in Varsity Tier I of the South Jersey High School Ice Hockey League.
RV is noted for producing three first round NFL Draft Picks in Franco Harris, Irving Fryar, and Alonzo Spellman.
Extracurricular activities
In 2009, The Marching Band won first place at the USSBA Group 3 Open National Championships with a score of 97.2. They also came in first place at the USSBA Group 3 Open State Competition, making them the best group 3 open band in New Jersey. These mark the highest accolades that the Rancocas Valley Marching Band have ever received.
Administration
Core members of the school’s administration are:
Dr. Michael Moskalski, Superintendent
Robert L. Sapp, Business Administrator / Board Secretary
Notable alumni
William S. Donaldson (19442001), former United States Navy officer and critic of the TWA Flight 800 investigation.[citation needed]
Ron Gassert (born 1940), professional football player who played for the Green Bay Packers.
Irving Fryar (born 1962), professional football player, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Franco Harris (born 1950), Hall of Fame NFL Running back who spent most of his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he led the team to four Super Bowl victories.
Pete Harris (19562006), All-America in football player at Penn State University; younger brother of Franco.
Norbert Basil MacLean III (born 1971), dual American-Australian citizen and U.S. Navy veteran who championed equal access to the Supreme Court of the United States for members of the United States Armed Forces.
Barbara (Tidswell) Park (born 1947), best-selling author of the “Junie B. Jones” series of children’s books.
Alonzo Spellman (born 1971), former National Football League defensive tackle who was a 1st-round draft pick, who also played in Arena Football League.
DeMya Walker (born 1977), professional basketball player, who currently plays for the Sacramento Monarchs in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).
References
^ a b District information for the Rancocas Valley Regional School District, National Center for Education Statistics. Accessed November 5, 2009.
^ Comparative Spending Guide March 2009, New Jersey Department of Education. Accessed October 28, 2009.
^ History of the School, Rancocas Valley Regional High School. Accessed June 24, 2008. “The district encompasses approximately 40 square miles (100 km2) and comprises the townships of Eastampton, Hainesport, Lumberton, Mount Holly, and Westampton.”
^ 2005 New Jersey Legislative District Data Book, Rutgers University Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, April 2005, p. 210.
^ “Top New Jersey High Schools 2008: By Rank”, New Jersey Monthly, September 2008, posted August 7, 2008. Accessed August 19, 2008.
^ NJ Department of Education District Factor Groups (DFG) for School Districts, New Jersey Department of Education. Accessed October 27, 2009.
^ 2007 Softball – Central, Group IV, NJSIAA. Accessed June 11, 2007.
^ 2006 Field Hockey Tournament – Central, Group IV, NJSIAA. Accessed July 31, 2007.
^ 2008 Boys Basketball – Central, Group IV, NJSIAA. Accessed March 12, 2008.
^ Ryan, Thomas. “Rancocas Valley boys win sectional title”, The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 4, 2008. Accessed March 12, 2008.
^ Administration, Rancocas Valley Regional High School. Accessed November 19, 2007.
^ Burlington County School Directory, New Jersey Department of Education. Accessed November 5, 2009.
^ Livingston, Bill. “MAN IN MOTION – FRYAR’S SHIFTINESS MAKES HIM A NEBRASKA GAME-BREAKER”, The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 30, 1983. Accessed June 11, 2007. “We will join Irving Fryar in progress, which happened to be his usual state last night in Nebraska’s 44-6 victory over Penn State at Giants Stadium: Having just taken a quick screen pass two yards (2 m) upfield from quarterback Turner Gill in the third quarter, Fryar, the Nebraska wingback from Rancocas Valley High, ducked behind a sceening [sic] block by a lineman and then he was off.”
^ Franco Harris: From Mt. Holly to the Hall of Fame…, New Jersey LifeStyle, accessed December 21, 2006. “Harris grew up in a family of nine children in Mt. Holly, near the Fort Dix Army base, and starred at Rancocas Valley Regional High School.”
^ “Pete Harris, former Penn State safety, dead at 49″, Philadelphia Daily News, August 15, 2006. Accessed June 24, 2008. ” Harris played football, basketball and baseball at Rancocas Valley High in South Jersey.”
^ “Bill Offers Troops Way to Appeal”, by Rick Rogers, San Diego Union Tribune, July 26, 2007
^ Junie B. Jones: About Barbara Park, accessed December 21, 2006. “[Q:] Where did you go to high school? [A:] I went to Rancocas Valley Regional High School (RVRHS) in Mt. Holly, NJ. I loved that high school, I tell you!
^ Garber, Greg. “Spellman returns to football after addressing disorder”, ESPN.com, June 9, 2006. Accessed June 11, 2007. “The video of his junior and senior seasons at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly, N.J., is, frankly, amazing. Spellman, a head taller than most of the other players, virtually engulfs opposing runners. He seems to almost absorb them into his imposing body.”
^ DeMya Walker player profile, WNBA. Accessed June 11, 2007. “Established a Rancocas Valley High School record for career rebounds (851), rebound average (14.2 rpg), most rebounds in a game (29), points in a season (675), and career points (1,546)”
External links
Rancocas Valley Regional High School
Rancocas Valley Regional High School’s 2007-08 School Report Card from the New Jersey Department of Education
Data for Rancocas Valley Regional High School, National Center for Education Statistics
Rancocas Valley Regional High School Instrumental Music Programs
Online Alumni Community
Coordinates: 400016 744651 / 40.004394N 74.780696W / 40.004394; -74.780696
v d e
School districts of Burlington County, New Jersey
K-6
Bass River Township Chesterfield Township Mansfield Township North Hanover Township Springfield Township
K-8
Beverly City Delanco Township Eastampton Township Edgewater Park Township Evesham Township Hainesport Township Lumberton Township Medford Lakes Medford Township Mount Holly Township Mount Laurel Township New Hanover Township Riverton Shamong Township Southampton Township Tabernacle Township Washington Township Westampton Township Woodland Township
K-12
Bordentown Regional Burlington City Burlington Township Cinnaminson Township Delran Township Florence Township Maple Shade Township Moorestown Township Palmyra Pemberton Township Riverside Township Willingboro Township
7-12
Northern Burlington Regional
9-12
Burlington County Institute of Technology Lenape Regional Rancocas Valley Regional
None
Pemberton Borough (to Pemberton Township)
Atlantic Bergen Burlington Camden Cape May Cumberland Essex Gloucester Hudson Hunterdon Mercer Middlesex Monmouth Morris Ocean Passaic Salem Somerset Sussex Union Warren
v d e
Burlington County Scholastic League (NJSIAA)
Freedom Division
Burlington City Florence Maple Shade New Egypt Palmyra Riverside
Liberty Division
Moorestown Northern Burlington Pemberton Rancocas Valley Trenton Catholic Westampton Tech
Patriot Division
Bordentown Burlington Township Cinnaminson Delran Holy Cross Medford Tech Willingboro
Categories: Educational institutions established in 1937 | High schools in Burlington County, New Jersey | New Jersey District Factor Group DE | School districts in Burlington County, New JerseyHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from August 2008
A TOTAL FAILURE. Many of the men of Brigade 2506 believed fervently that they were the first wave of Cuban freedom fighters who would liberate their homeland from Castro. They were convinced as they storrned ashore that they would be supported overhead by some of the finest fighter pilots of the U.S. Air Force, and they thought that as they advanced into Cuba, the U.S. Marines would be right behind them. Whether the insurgents had talked themselves into this conviction or the trainers from the United States had made such a promise is still a subject of debate.
The air support promised by the CIA consisted of sixteen B-26 twin-engine light attack bombers. From an airstrip in Nicaragua to the Bay of Pigs was a journey of 1,000 miles, round-trip, which left a B-26 with enough fuel to provide less than forty minutes of air cover for the Brigade. Anything longer than forty minutes and the pilots risked running out of gas somewhere over the Caribbean.
On April 14, 1961, just three days from the invasion, Kennedy called CIA Operations Chief Bissell to ask how many planes he planned to use in the operation. Bissell told the president the CIA planned to use all sixteen of their B-26s. “Well I don’t want it on that scale,” Kennedy replied. “I want it minimal.” So Bissell cut the number of planes for the invasion to eight. The next day, those eight planes attacked the three airfields of the Cuban air force, knocking out some of the aircraft, but not enough to cripple the fleet.
On the morning of April 17, as the Cuban militia pinned down the men of Brigade 2506, the Cuban planes that had survived the air strikes attacked the exiles from the air. Meanwhile, the B-26s, their fuel low and their forty minutes up, veered away from the beach for the flight home. The Brigade’s commander, San Román, radioed his CIA handlers for help. “We are under attack by two Sea Fury aircraft and heavy artillery,” he reported. “Do not see any friendly air cover as you promised. Need jet support immediately.” When San Roman’s request was denied, he replied, “You, sir, are a son of a bitch.”
With the sea at their backs, no means of retreat, and no chance of advancing into the interior of Cuba, the Brigade was in a desperate position. Back in Washington, the CIA and the Kennedy administration concluded that the invasion would fail. In a conversation with his brother, Robert Kennedy, the president said he wished he had permitted the use of U.S. ships to back up the Cuban exiles. “I’d rather be an aggressor,” he said, “than a bum.”
On April 18, Kennedy authorized six fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Essex to provide one hour of air cover for the CIAs attacking B-26s over the beach at the Bay of Pigs. But the jets from the Essex and the B-26s missed their rendezvous because the Pentagon forgot to factor in the one-hour difference in time zones between the B-26s’ base in Nicaragua and the beach in Cuba.
That same day, Kennedy’s national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, gave the president a status report on the invasion. “The Cuban armed forces are stronger, the popular response [is] weaker, and our tactical position is feebler than we had hoped,” Bundy said. That was perhaps the kindest possible description of the Bay of Pigs operation.
As a humanitarian concession, the president permitted U.S. destroyers to approach the Cuban coast to pick up survivors. The ships were authorized to get within two miles of shore after dark, but no closer than five miles during daylight hours. The directive meant the rescue mission was beyond the reach of almost every man in Brigade 2506. A handful who had managed to swim to one or another of the bay’s outlying cays were picked up, but the rest lay dead on the beach or were captured by Castro’s forces.
At 2 p.m. on April 19, after two days of being pounded by militia, tanks, and the Cuban air force, Commander San Román and Brigade 2506 surrendered. “Everything is lost,” Allen Dulles told former vice president Richard Nixon. “The Cuban invasion is a total failure.”
Sixty-eight Cuban exiles were killed in the Bay of Pigs debacle; 1,209 were captured, and nine of them died of asphyxiation in a windowless sealed truck that took them from the beach to prison in Havana. After twenty days of interrogation, the prisoners were given show trials and sentenced to life in prison.
Soon after the conviction of the men of Brigade 2506, Castro made a public offer to exchange the prisoners for farm machinery. Kennedy leapt at the proposal. Immediately he formed the Tractors for Freedom Committee, chaired by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, with the purpose of collecting donations to purchase farm equipment for Cuba. But the group was not able to meet Castro’s exorbitant demand of $30 million worth of capital relief, and it disbanded. The tractor deal fell through.
Negotiations between the two governments went on sporadically over the next twenty months. Finally, on December 24,1962, Castro announced that he was releasing the Brigade 2506 prisoners in exchange for $53 million in medicine and food from the United States. He also promised, “as a Christmas bonus,” to permit 1,000 of the prisoners’ relatives to emigrate to the United States.
The animosity between Cuba and the United States intensified after the Bay of Pigs debacle. Cuba allied itself with the Soviet Union, while America continued its policy of isolating Cuba economically and diplomatically. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev viewed America’s failure at the Bay of Pigs as a sign of Kennedy’s weakness and inexperience, an assessment he felt was confmned after meeting Kennedy at the Vienna Summit of April 1962, where it appeared to some that Kennedy was sandbagged by Khrushchev’s threat to cut off West Berlin from the Western powers. Within six months, Khrushchev was placing nuclear missiles in Cuba, an action that brought the world as close as it has ever come to all-out nuclear war.
In the face of the missile crisis, Kennedy held firm. The Soviets backed down, removing the nuclear weapons from Cuba, but the tension between Cuba and the United States has dragged on for more than forty years. During that time, political observers and historians have argued that the failed invasion actually strengthened Castro’s grip on Cuba. Certainly Che Guevara thought so. In August 1961, at a meeting of the Organization of American States in Uruguay, he sent a note to Kennedy saying, “Thanks for Playa Giron [another name for the site of the invasion]. Before the invasion, the revolution was weak. Now it is stronger than ever.”
The above is an excerpt from the book Failures Of The Presidents; From The Whiskey Rebellion And War Of 1812 To The Bay Of Pigs And War In Iraq
by Thomas J. Craughwell with M. William Phelps
Published by Fair Winds; September 2008;$19.95US/$21.95CAN; 978-1-59233-299-1
Copyright © 2008 Thomas J. Craughwell
Manhattan, New York – December 19, 2007 – On Dec. 12 -13, the R.M. Smythe & Co. auction of part 13 of the The Schingoethe collection of obsolete currency generated a great deal of interest from bidders. 94% of the 1162 lots offered were sold totaling $450,000 in sales. Many of the more unique and rare items far surpassed their pre-auction estimates, perhaps signaling a significant upsurge in interest for obsolete currency.
Of particular note was a $10 bill issued by the Merchants & Planters Bank of Tallahassee Florida Ca. 1830s-40s. (FL-70 G10). The bill pictured; a man plowing, top; 10s in geometric die counters, top left and right; Mercury bears cornucopia with coins, Juno Moneta seated, left; Washington in classical garb, right. RWH. VG, crease, toning. The pre-auction estimate was $150 to $250. The realized price was $3450, including the buyers commission. The $10 Tallahassee note, was not an anomaly. There were many other lots that far exceeded their pre auction estimates. These included:
Lot# 1087 – WI. Dubuque, Wisconsin Territory. Miners Bank. $100. Ca 1830s. (WI-170 G2A). Allegorical female seated, Mercury floats, top; Ceres seated, lower left; Indian draws bow, lower right. This Territoriual entity was chartered in late October of 1837, and as this portion of the Wisconsin Territory was included in what became Iowa Territory a scant year later, these were short-lived issues. To our knowledge, these exciting, large format notes ( 50s and 100s only) show up only as remainders. Despite signs of circulation, the note appears undated and unsigned. G-VG, some losses in upper left and lower margins. Estimate – $300 up. Realized – $2100
Lot# 1136 – OK. Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation. Executive Department. August 6, 1856. Manuscript warrant entirely handwritten. “…Will Pay to the Order of H.D. Reese the sum of Two Hundred Dollars out of the School fund to defray the contingent expenses of the Female Seminary…”. Signed by chief John Ross. VF-EF.
John Ross was born in 1790. Born to Scottish parents, Ross was 1/8 Cherokee Indian. He spent his early years in Tennessee, but at 19 years of age, he was sent on a diplomatic mission involving the Western Cherokees. In March of 1814, Ross fought alongside of the Cherokees under the command of General Andrew Jackson in a pitched battle with the Creeks. In 1815 he opened a trading post at Chattanooga, and a missionary school. He was elected to the Cherokee National Council where he served until 1826. Ross was responsible for the drafting of the Cherokee Constitution. In 1838 U. S. soldiers forced the Cherokees off their land, and marched them from Tennessee to Tahlequah, Oklahoma. This was the famous “Trail of Tears” incident, where over 4,000 Cherokees died. Upon reaching Tahlequah, John Ross was named Principal Chief of the Cherokees. It was this title that gave him the authorization to sign this early and important Cherokee Nation financial instrument. Estimate – $500 to $1000. Realized – $3750
Lot# 158 – IL. Newton. Illinois Central Bank. $2. Dec. 3, 1850. (IL-610 G4b). Green title and end panels. Haxby Plate Note. Two horses startled by lightning, center; state die, upper left. Green lathework end panels with TWO. 2 / 2 TWO., left and right. ABN. Fine, pinholes. Ex. NASCA Abner Reed Sale, October – November 1983 Lot 1486. Estimate $300 to $500. Realized – $2300
Lot# 106 – IL. Griggsville. Bank of Pike County. $5. 1850s. (IL-355 G8a). Red 5. Proof on India paper. Haxby Plate Note. Indian chief. State arms. Cherubs hoist wheat into the clouds. DW. AU, two hinges on back. Estimate $500 to $1000. Realized – $2300
Lot# 927 – TX. Harrisburg. Briscoe, Harris & Co. $3. Dec. 9, 1862. (M-3). Indian princess overlooking steamship. Woman with 3, left. DT. EF. Estimate $300 to $450. Realized – $2600
Lot# 861 – Nashville Bank Collection of Counterfeits. 1) $2. 1819. (TN-180 C18). Seated woman. G-VG. 2) $3. 1816. (TN-180 C22). Haxby Plate Note. Cotton bale. VF. 3) $5. 1812. (TN-180 C28). Haxby Plate Note. Cotton bale. Fine. 4) $10. (TN-180 C36). Haxby Plate Note. Cotton bale. VF. 5) $10. 1818. (TN-180 C76). Payable at Gallatin. Reclining woman. VG-F. 6) $20. 1821. (TN-180 C140). Payable at Shelbyville. Woman with 20. About Fine. 7) $20. 1819. (TN-180 G160). Payable at Winchester. Woman with 20. VG.  $20. 1821. (TN-180 C118). Payable at Rogersville. Fine. 9) $50. 1812. (TN-180 C52). Cotton bale. VF, hinge repairs. 10) $50. 1810. (TN-180 C52). Cotton bale. VG. 11) $100. 1811. (TN-180 C58). Haxby Plate Note. Cotton bale. Fine. [11]. Estimate $1000 to $1500. Realized – $2700
Lot# 772 – TN. Fayetteville. Fayetteville Tennessee Bank Collection. All by MDF. 1) $2. July 1, 1818. (TN-45 G4). Haxby Plate Note. Ornate end panels. VG. 2) $3. (TN-45 G6). Haxby Plate Note. Ornate end panels. VG, repaired tear at left. 3) $5. Aug. 2, 1818. (TN-45 G8). Allegorical woman with spade. VG. 4) $10. March 24, 1818. (TN-45 G12). Allegorical woman. F-VF. 5) $20. April 2, 1818. (TN-45 G16). Allegorical woman with wheat. VG. 6) $100 Post Note. April 5, 1818. (TN-45 G20). Haxby Plate Note. Woman with banner. Fine. [6]. Estimate $750 to $1250. Realized – $4250
Lot# 457 – MI. Flint River. Genesee County Bank. $2. July 1, 1837. (L-FLI-5-3 Lee Plate note; Haxby MI-175 Unlisted; Bowen Unlisted). Maiden seated at center; children with dog in large circle at right. It is rare that a Michigan bank note escaped detection by both Bowen and Haxby , but this is an example in hand. A note of great rarity and importance, Bowen listed several denominations of notes on this bank as being unique or rather difficult. Strong pen signatures, serial number and date make this an attractive note as well. The solid condition is very presentable, and means this note will be securely impounded a great Michigan collection for a long time. RW&H. Fine. Estimate $600 to $800. Realized – $2300
Lot# 313 – MA. Harwich. Bank of Cape Cod. $4. Oct. 1857. (MA-660 G8 SENC). Trumbull’s Signing of the Declaration at top center. Good, wear hole at center folds. Estimate $350 to $450. Realized $3250
“We were very pleased at the level of bidding activity at this sale.” said Mary Herzog, Vice President of R. M. Smythe & Co. “Our pre-auction estimates are based on the latest market prices. To see realized prices as high as these may signal a significant upsurge in consumer interest for obsolete currency.”
Realized prices listed, unless otherwise noted, do not include the 15% buyers premium. A complete catalog of all 1162 lots including photos and realized prices can be viewed online at: http://static.smytheonline.com/prices_realized/index.php
Accredited media interested in scheduling an interview to discuss this release or past or upcoming auctions are encouraged to contact Mary Herzog at 212-943-1880
About R. M. Smythe & Co.
R. M. Smythe and Co., established in 1880, buys, sells, and auctions coins, paper money, stocks and bonds and autographs at their corporate headquarters at 2 Rector Street in the heart of the Financial District in New York City. To order a catalog, to contact any of the firm’s specialists, or to make general inquiries, call 212-943-1880 or 800-622-1880, or visit the firm’s website at: http://www.smytheonline.com.
The most awaited 2010 WSOP Main Event heats up the exciting actions of the gambling world. For sure your favorite online casinos had great features of this great event, but in case you miss it; here are the official numbers and popular players that stand out in the event.
The Main Event Official numbers:
Entrants: 7,319
Prize Pool: $68,798,600
1st Place Prize: $8,944,138
May 28, 2010, the most marked 2010 WSOP event started. Following our previous poker tournaments, 2010 WSOP Main Event became the second-largest live poker tournament ever and definitely its total prize pook also got the second-largest in poker history.
The tournament scale its competitive edge with the 150 former bracelet winners and 18 previous world champs in attendance.
The Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino just been field up with participants from 117 different nations around the world in 2010 to compete with the 41st running of the World Series of Poker.
Finally, after the 78 arduous hours of poker over the course of eight days of intensive play and skillful turns, the final nine had finally made up. Surprisingly, an amateur just got in the line. Soi Nguyen made himself up to the November Nine, the only uncharacteristic at 37-years-old, and the only amateur among the nine.
Following are the players that made in up to the finals:
Filippo Candio
Filippo Candio, turned 26 years-old this March,2010 and from Sardinia.He’s the first Italian player to made it in the WSOP Main EVent final table. Candio has only one previous WSOP in-the-money finish. He cashed in 157th place in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em tournament (Event #11) this year.
Joseph Cheong
Joseph Cheong,24 years old,just made himself in the final list.Cheong won a WSOP Circuit gold ring at Harrah’s Rincon (San Diego) in April. He pocketed $17,541 for first place. This made Cheong stand out and mark his third time to cash at the WSOP in Las Vegas.Cheong entered 19 tournaments this year. He cashed in two events,24th and 29th place in two Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em tournaments.
John Dolan
Dolan is a professional poker player and got great record.He was 24, born in New Jersey. Dolan won a tournament at last year’s Bayou Winter Poker Challenge, at Harrah’s New Orleans, which is classified as a WSOP Satellite event. He won the $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event and collected $31,874.Dolan’s overall career tournament earnings total more than $200,000, not counting his finish in this year’s Main Event.
Jonathan Duhamel
Jonathan Duhamel is the youngest player remaining, just turn 23 this August. He was born in Boucherville, Quebec (Canada). Duhamel prefers to play cash games, rather than tournaments.Duhamel had two cashes at this year’s WSOP. He finished 15th in the $2,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em tournament (Event #56). He also cashed in 50th place in the Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em tournament (Event #16). His combined WSOP earnings prior to this event amounted to $43,000.
Matthew Jarvis
Matthew Jarvis Was born in Richmond, Brittish Columbia (Canada).For two years, he has been playing poker seriously. He had a major breakthrough when he cashed in a few big online tournaments. His biggest win to date is slightly more than $100,000.If Jarvis wins, he would become the first Canadian world poker champion.Jarvis goes into the Main Event final table ranked fifth in chips out of nine players.
Michael Mizrachi
Michael Mizrachi was born in North Miami Beach, Florida.According to official record, Mizrachi now has 23 cashes, six final table appearances, and one win. His career WSOP earnings now total $2,271,327.Mizrachi goes into the Main Event final table ranked seventh in chips out of nine players.
Soi Nguyen
Nguyen was born in Saigon, South Vietnam.Nguyen previously cashed at last year’s L.A. Poker Classic. He has no other major cashes.Incredibly, Nguyen admits that he actually plays very little poker – either live or in online casinos.Nguyen goes into the Main Event final table ranked eighth in chips out of nine players.
John Racener
Racener was born in Dunedin, Florida.Racener is now a professional poker player. Racener won the WSOP Circuit Main Event championship at Harrah’s Atlantic City. First place paid $379,392.He has $701,165 in combined WSOP and WSOP Circuit earnings – not counting his cash in the Main Event.
Racener goes into the Main Event final table ranked fourth in chips out of nine players.
Jason Senti
Senti was born and grew up in Grand Forks, North Dakota.Senti is pronounced Cent-eye.Senti has one previous WSOP in-the-money finish. He made it to the third round of the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up Championship (Event #29). His finish paid $17,987.
Women’s Political Struggle in Nepal: a Shared History of South Asia
Dr.Kedar Karki
Nepal is a small, landlocked Himalayan State, placed between India and China. Its population of over 18 million is predominantly rural. Since its unification 200 years ago, Nepal has been a monarchy. In the 18th century, the warrior king Prithvi Narayan Shah unified many princely states, bringing the country to its present shape and size. The unification marked the beginning of the rule by the Shah dynasty. In the past two-and-a-half centuries, the country has been ruled by 13 kings. For a century of isolation between 1850-1950, a feudal family—the Ranas—who called themselves kings, ruled Nepal. During their regime, the people were deprived of fundamental rights. In 1847 the Ranas took over power from the king and remained the de-facto rulers for 104 years. The Ranas word was law. The people revolted against the Rana oligarchy, and in 1951 the Rana regime gave way to democracy. King Tribhuwan supported the revolt. However, the ushering in of democracy wasn’t completely free of political turmoil.
After years of political instability that followed, general elections were held in 1959 and for the first time the people had an elected government. B. P. Koirala became the first elected prime minister of Nepal. In less than two years, King Mahendra, successor of King Tribhuwan dissolved both the government and the parliament, brought democracy to an end and introduced the party-less Panchayat rule. The Panchayat system, in which political parties were banned, continued for 30 years. During this period a number of armed and unarmed struggles against the system took place, which was crushed by the government. Students launched a major political movement in 1980 against the Panchayat system, during King Birendra’s regime. To resolve the tension, the King announced a referendum. People were to choose between multi-party democracy and an improved version of the Panchayat system. In a controversial result, the multi party democracy was defeated. However it weakened the Panchayat system, paving way for the restoration of democracy after a decade.
In 1950, a movement, jointly involving the people of Nepal and the King, overthrew the autocratic rule of the Ranas, and a parliamentary form of government was established. In 1960, the King banned the parliamentary system of government, and established a party-less, autocratic panchayat system.
For more than 30 years, Nepal had no party system. In the 1940s, the people of Nepal were greatly influenced by India’s freedom struggle against British colonial rule. They rose against the Rana regime, which had suppressed the growing people’s movement for democracy. Women started coming together, and from 1947 until 1952, several women’s organisations were born to raise the political and social consciousness among women in Nepal.
In 1960, the King of Nepal subverted the democratic panchayat system to an autocratic one. This put a sudden end to all associations and their activities. Women, however, remained politically active. In protest against the undemocratic royal proclamation of 1960, a group of women openly waved black flags in a public procession, and were imprisoned. Later, in the people’s movement of 1989, women actively participated to get rid of the autocratic panchayat system and to usher in a multiparty, democratic system. Women of various regions and ideologies contributed greatly to the success of this movement.
In 1989, there was a mass movement for the restoration of democracy. The constitution of Nepal, framed in 1990, after the restoration of democracy, mandates a parliamentary form of government, constitutional monarchy and the strengthening of multiparty democracy, and an independent judiciary.
The historical Movement of the people in 1990 overthrew the Panchayat system and restored multi-party democracy. Within a year, a democratic constitution was introduced, which, for the first time, made the people sovereign. Less than six years after the restoration of multi-party system, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist started an armed insurgency in 1996 claiming that the people had not yet received justice.
South Asia presents a unique paradox. Almost every country in the region, with the exception of Nepal, has had a woman leader at its helm at some point in time, a phenomenon unparalleled in other regions of the world. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have had the unique distinction of two women leaders in the course of their political history. This is in stark contrast to the dwindling numbers of women who are elected to national parliaments and legislatures during each election. The high visibility of women leaders is fully matched by the invisibility of women representatives in the national assemblies. In the case of Nepal, women’s access to positions of power in executive bodies and the courts has been limited. In the 25-member panchayat cabinet that was dissolved on 8 April 1990, there was only one female minister, who held the health portfolio. Very few women attained positions of office in panchayat institutions. Of the 140 members in the outgoing national panchayat, eight (5.7 per cent) were women.
In the May 1991 election to the House of Representatives, the final list of the 1,345 candidates included only 81 women (6.6 per cent). In the case of the two leading parties, the Nepali Congress Party had 11 women among its 204 candidates, while the United Marxist-Leninist (UML) party included only nine women among its 177 candidates. At the district and village level, the percentage of women candidates was a dismal 0.3 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively.
The results declared showed that of the 205 candidates elected, seven were women—five from the Nepali Congress Party and two from the UMI .Since the constitution requires that women make up five per cent of the upper house, three women were also nominated to fill the quota. At the national level, 10 per cent of the women candidates were elected. At the district level, although women constituted a negligible percentage of candidates, there was a 100 per cent victory for women, with all seven women winning. At the village level, 25 per cent of those women who stood for elections won.
The new constitution of Nepal promulgated in 1990, provided women with equal political rights. It states that women can vote, compete in local and national elections, involve in political parties, and support and adopt any political ideology. In 1990, constitutional provisions were introduced that made it mandatory to nominate at least five per cent of women candidates for the House of Representatives, and to provide for seven seats for women in the National Assembly. The only provision added to appease women is the article on election rules . The constitution now requires that women amount to at least five per cent of the candidates fielded by each political party in the elections for the House of Representatives.
In the decade long armed conflict more than 13 thousand Nepalese lost their lives. Thousands were displaced and hundreds disappeared. Terror, instability and infrastructure damage took its toll on the nation. In the meantime, the entire family of King Birendra was wiped out in the infamous Royal palace massacre. The subsequent rise of King Gyanendra, pushed the country to further turmoil. The government failed to hold elections in time. On charges of incompetence Sher Bahadur Deuba’s elected government was overthrown and the King formed his own government.
The Maoists movement had in the meantime gathered momentum, hindering the holding of elections. The new government under Lokendra Bahadur Chand also failed to conduct elections. Surya Bahadur Thapa was appointed as the new Prime Minister. He held peace talks with the Maoists to prepare an environment for elections, but that too resulted in a failure. Deuba was reappointed the Prime Minister, but only remained in office for a short time, as dialogue with the Maoists did not materialize. The escalation of violence and killings only added to the people’s desperation and increased security problem.
On February 1st 2005, the King took over absolute state powers and assumed the role of the Chairman of the cabinet, a cabinet that he had himself nominated. This led the political parties to form an alliance with the Maoist rebels. In November 2005, a 12-point agreement was signed by the seven political parties and the Maoists. The first objective of the agreement was to end the violent conflict and restore peace in the country. This agreement provided the Maoists an opportunity to suspend the armed movement and participate in a peaceful democratic movement.
The peaceful movement turned into a people’s movement. Millions of people marched onto the streets demanding an end to the tyrannical monarchy and the writing of a new Constitution through a Constituent Assembly. The people finally forced the king to relinquish state control on April 24, 2006. The success of the People’s Movement II left king Gyanendra powerless. The political parties are now committed to writing a Democratic Constitution through a Constituent Assembly elected by the people. The Maoists have become a part of the Parliament. The responsibilities vested in the King have now been transferred to the Prime Minister.
An election for the Nepalese Constituent Assembly was held in Nepal on 10 April 2008 after having been postponed from earlier dates of 20 June 2007 and 22 November 2007. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN (M)) placed first in the election with 220 out of 575 elected seats, and it became the largest party in the Constituent Assembly. It was followed by the Nepali Congress with 110 seats and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) with 103 seats. As of 17 April, 26 women have secured seats in the new assembly, 22 from the CPN (M), one from the Nepali Congress, two from the Madhesi Jana Adhikar Forum, Nepal and one from Tarai-Madhesh Loktantrik Party from direct election on the basis of first track past post.
South Asian nations share certain predominant features: centralised governments; socio-economic inequalities based on class, gender and caste; and nationalistic divisive claims on grounds of ethnicity, language and religion. India and Sri Lanka have remained democracies for the past 50 years, while Bangladesh and Pakistan have been swinging between democracy, militarism and autocracy. Nepal has passed from democracy to absolute monarchy and back to democracy, absolute monarchy, and federal democratic republic.
India was under British colonial rule for approximately 200 years, and became an independent State in 1947. India then encompassed today’s Pakistan and Bangladesh. Indian women’s involvement in politics started in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Although British imperialism profoundly influenced the political engagement of both elite and non-elite women during this period, its impact on the character and purpose of their engagement was very different. Non-elite women fought against the British colonialists. Moved by the hunger of their children, the British confiscation of their land (which was their means of livelihood), and oppressive taxes, women participated alongside men in `famine revolts’ in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and other revolts in the 19th century.
In 1947, with the end of British colonial rule and partition from India, Bengal became East Pakistan. The marriage with West Pakistan proved incompatible over issues ranging from language to economic exploitation of the east wing, and domination by the bureaucracy and military of West Pakistan. In 1971, Bangladesh was born to fulfil the dreams and aspirations of the people.
Historically, two important movements characterised South Asia. One was the political movement of challenge and resistance to British colonialism, and the other, the social movement to reform traditional structures.
The national movement against British colonial rule in undivided India, spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi, was instrumental in bringing women in large numbers into the public space. Gandhi played a crucial role in creating a favourable atmosphere for women’s participation in the freedom struggle by insisting that the struggle for women’s equality was an integral part of the movement of swaraj. His choice of non-violent Satyagraha as the mode of struggle also allowed women to play a far more active and creative role than was possible in more masculine-oriented movements.
While he wanted a vanguard role for women in the freedom movement, Gandhi did not encourage women to compete for power. Rather, he wanted them to enter public life as selfless, devoted social workers to undertake the crucial task of social reconstruction. He wanted women to cleanse politics, to feminise it by bringing in the spirit of selfless sacrifice, rather than compete with men in grabbing power, and thus prove their moral superiority even in the realm of politics. In Gandhi’s view, “Women are the embodiment of sacrifice, and her advent to public life should, therefore, result in purifying it, in restraining unbridled ambition and accumulation of property.” Gandhi, therefore, created a political space for women within the patriarchal system, projecting the concept of women’s role being complementary to men’s, and embodying virtues of sacrifice and suffering.
Gandhi, however, was very conscious of the power that women could have in a struggle based on the concept of non-cooperation. He stressed the importance of their participation in political and social matters, and exhorted them to join the nationalist struggle. Gandhi, therefore, played a vital role in attempting to feminise the nationalist movement in India. In the process, the values and views that he espoused influenced and shaped the women’s movement in the early phase of independence of the other nations of the region.
The leading South Asian social and religious reformers in the 19th century were males, whose principal objective was to cleanse and reinforce family life. For those early pioneers, women were, at first, objects of their emancipatory efforts. But, in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, they became more and more subjects in the political and social spheres, as is clear from the examples of women’s political struggles around a variety of issues in the countries of the region. Yet, the basic understanding of the national movement’s leaders on women’s issues continued to be filtered through the existing patriarchal system.
Women of India participated in demonstrations such as the all-night dharnas of 1930 against foreign cloth, and in selling `the salt of freedom’ during the salt Satyagraha. These campaigns succeeded in breaking the myth of segregation. They also articulated liberal sentiments like suffrage rights. To advocate women’s equality and their right to participate in nationalist politics, the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) was formed in 1927 through an amalgamation of various regional women’s groups. It also spearheaded constitutional reforms and other provisions for women. Consisting of reformist, revivalist and radical streams, the AIWC played a critical role during the freedom struggle, and helped women systematically articulate their political rights in public forums.
In Pakistan, in the 1946 election, two Muslim women, Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz and Begum Shaista Ikramullah, were elected to the Central Constituent Assembly. That same year, Muslim women organised and held demonstrations to prevent the government’s refusal to allow the Muslim League to form a ministry. Violence was used against the women demonstrators, and they were arrested as well. Initially, most of these activities were confined to Lahore and Karachi. However, the civil disobedience movement of January 1947 mobilised even the Pathan women, considered the most conservative in the subcontinent. They marched in support of the movement, publicly unveiled for the first time. The most interesting form of political participation was the secret organisation called the War Council, formed by the Pathans, in which women helped run an underground radio station until independence.
By 1947, Muslim women were organising funds for the Pakistan movement, fighting oppression on the streets, and addressing issues such as education. The greatest numbers of women were not mobilised around issues relating to women’s rights or their political and legal status. Instead, the rallying cause was the Muslim homeland. The women believed that the newly created government would automatically expand women’s rights and open avenues for their participation at all levels.
In Bangladesh, the provincial education minister, Abdul Hamid, decided to close down the girls’ schools, as there were not enough teachers and students. Jobeda Khatun Chowdhury, the first Muslim woman politician of East Pakistan, resisted the closure of Sylhet Women’s College. She sought an interview with the minister on this matter. He stipulated a one-year period to enrol the requisite number of students; otherwise, the college would be closed down. Jobeda and a few other dedicated women then began a door-to-door campaign in search of students. They succeeded, and the college remained open.
In Sri Lanka, the erstwhile Ceylon, several movements characterised the fight against British rule. The Suriyamal campaign, which was started as a counter to the sale of poppies to assist British soldiers, was the training ground for the rise of the leftwing socialist movement in Sri Lanka, which spearheaded activities against British imperialism. For the first time, women entered radical politics. They became vocal and visible, and a variety of women’s organisations emerged, like the Mothers’ Union, the Ceylon Women’s Union, the Women’s Franchise Union, the Women’s Political Union and the Lanka Mahila Samiti. The formation of the Eksath Kantha Peramuna (the United Women’s Front) was another great event in the political history of the country. It was the first autonomous socialist women’s group in Sri Lanka. This party asserted its socialist policies in its declaration seeking changes in the fundamental structure of society. The women of these organisations continued to take part in active politics as members of parliament and cabinet ministers.
At the grass-roots level, constitutional provisions have ensured reservation for women in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. In India, there is a 33 per cent reservation for women through direct elections to panchayats or local-level self-governance institutions that function in almost every State. At the local level, the new ordinance of 1997, which ensured a 20 per cent reservation of seats for women, has been a breakthrough, and has contributed to the increased participation of women in local elected bodies. One seat is reserved for women in each ward of the Village Development Committee. The new ordinance forced all political parties to support at least one female candidate. This fact encouraged women to get more involved in political activities in Nepal. About 40,000 female candidates were elected in the local elections of 1997. This provision has increased the numerical involvement of women in the local government units. However, their involvement in positions of decision-making and influence is insignificant. Overall, a strong male domination prevails.
The long history of struggles in South Asia–from women’s suffrage to women’s participation in electoral politics at national and provincial levels–is an ongoing one. The family and the community have replaced the State as the agency for granting voting rights to women. The State’s initiative of granting quotas or reservation for women has proved to be a mixed bag, depending on the country in question and the stipulation for reservation. India is still struggling for a constitutional amendment reserving 33 per cent seats for women in the parliament and State assemblies through direct election. The system of indirect elections through nominations to the national assembly and parliament, as in Pakistan and Bangladesh, has ended up in women depending on political patronage and becoming `secondary members’. Here, affirmative measures such as reservation and quotas end up as merely notional.
At the grass-roots level, the case of India, which now has direct election and 33 per cent reservation for elected members in the local bodies at all three tiers of administration, with an additional equal reservation for leadership position, has emerged as the best model. Bangladesh and Nepal feature restricted reservation at a particular tier of administration. Whatever the outcomes, the power of legislative reforms to ensure women’s participation in electoral politics cannot be underestimated. Women are emerging as leaders, waging struggles on several fronts.
South Asia boasts no documented case of political parties promoting the active participation of women in the party hierarchy or politics. In contemporary South Asia, the interaction of women in the public sphere has improved as a consequence of the women’s movement, particularly at the grass-roots level, and due to the proliferation of non-political women’s organisations. They have created alternative political spaces for women outside the party and other formal political structures, and women have started to engage with the State on a larger scale.
It is, however, evident that there are variations in this relationship between the State and women. Across countries in South Asia, constitutional provisions, legislative reforms and affirmative actions designed to encourage women’s participation in politics at the national level did not automatically result in the enhanced participation of women in politics. Socio-economic, religious and cultural factors remain major impediments. The governments of these countries are taking various initiatives to increase the political participation of women. However, it must be remembered that the affirmative measures are being injected externally into societies with extremely entrenched systems and traditions, and therefore, political restructuring will take a long time to usher in social transformations.
Women have greater potential and opportunities under democracy than under any other political system, although there are enough examples of autocratic and repressive practices within democratic systems, especially in the realm of party politics. The experience of democracy in practice in South Asia is that elected representatives routinely make politically expedient compromises and betray the confidence of their electors. That has been a negative development, as far as women in these countries are concerned.
The mere fact of being elected to office as a woman does not, however, automatically ensure gender sensitivity. This is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with, as it involves matters of class and caste. Having articulated the limitations of elected representative democracy, one must, however, emphasise that South Asian women would never have been able to rise to where they now are without democracy and reservation.
The women’s movement in South Asia, despite constraints and fragmentation, has had a number of achievements. In every country of the region, a vibrant movement has become a countervailing power to the State. However, the relationship between the State and the women’s movement is an uneasy one. There are attempts to co-opt leaders from the women’s movement through policies and actions. Once they are co-opted, self-aggrandisement gets priority over gender issues. Then the `female patriarchs’ perpetuate the existing system.
It is important to strengthen the links forged amongst the women’s movement, activists, civil society and women politicians. At the same time, there is need for extensive programmatic interventions to develop women’s skills to be efficient candidates and managers in governance, both locally and nationally. There is need to develop a system to provide women with information. Women also have to be taught to overcome the psychology of subordination, of being portrayed as victimised and helpless, and not be content with being guided by men. In all these countries, the training programmes on women in politics were received with great enthusiasm, despite the hurdles the women faced in getting to attend them. The women are fully aware of the importance of knowledge and skills to fulfil their new roles, and, in many instances, are creating new leadership models.
My family tree has been traced back to the early Kings of England from the 7th. Century AD. This gives me an interest in English History which is great fun to research. As I am a direct descendent of Sir Christopher Wren I have been interested in English history and researching fun and interesting bits of England. I was born in Portsmouth in 1961 and Southampton was classed as our biggest competing city especially in Football.
A graduate of Oxford University, Tim Berners-Lee ( born 8 June 1955 ) invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing while at Cern, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in 1989. He wrote the first web client and server in 1990. His specifications of URL’s, HTTP and HTML were refined as Web technology spread. He is also a Professor in the Electronics and Computer Science Department at the University of Southampton, UK.
On December 25,1990 he implemented the first successful communication between an HTTP client and server via the Internet with the help of_Robert Cailliau and a young student staff at CERN whose name is unknown. In terms of the technology that enables all forms of data communication (web,email,instant_messaging,digital phone, etc) between all the connected computer systems of the world.
The first Web site built was at CERN, and was first put on line on 6 August 1991.
The Internet and Transmission Control Protocols were initially developed in 1973 and published in 1974. There ensued about 10 years of hard work, resulting in the roll out of Internet in 1983. Prior to that, a number of demonstrations were made of the technology – such as the first three-network interconnection demonstrated in November 1977 linking SATNET, PRNET and ARPANET in a path leading from Menlo Park, CA to University College London and back to USC/ISI in Marina del Rey, CA.
Berners-Lee is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the Web’s continued development. He is also the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation and is a senior researcher and holder of the 3Com Founders Chair at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He is a director of The Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI),[4] and a member of the advisory board of the MIT Centre for Collective Intelligence In April 2009, he was elected as a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences based in Washington, D.C.
Recognition
In 1994 he is one of only six members of the World Wide Web Hall of Fame of 1994.
In 1999, Time magazine named Berners-Lee one of the 100 most important people of the 20th Century.
In March 2000 he was awarded an Honorary Degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University.
In 2003, he received the Computer History Museum’s Fellow Award, for his seminal contributions to the development of the World Wide Web.
On 15 April 2004, he was named as the first recipient of Finland’s Millenium Technology Prize, for inventing the World Wide Web. The cash prize, worth one million euros (about £892,000, or US$1.3 million, as of May 2009), was awarded on 15 June, in Helsinki, Finland, by the President of the Republic of Finland, Tarja Halonen.
He was awarded the rank of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (the second-highest class in this order of knighthood) by Queen Elizabeth II, as part of the 2004 New Year’s Honours, and was invested on 16 July 2004
On 21 July 2004, he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Lancaster University.
On 27 January 2005, he was named Greatest Briton of 2004, both for his achievements and for displaying the key British characteristics of “diffidence, determination, a sharp sense of humour and adaptability”,
In 2007, he was ranked Joint First, alongside Albert Hofmann, in The Telegraph’s list of 100 greatest living geniuses.
On 13 June 2007, he received the Order of Merit, becoming one of only 24 living members entitled to hold the award, and to use ‘O.M.’ after their name. (The Order of Merit is regarded as a personal gift bestowed by the reigning monarch, and does not require ministerial advice.)
On 20 September 2008, he was awarded the IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award, for conceiving and further developing the World Wide Web IEEE.
On 21 April 2009, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
On 28 April 2009, he was elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.
In 2009, he won the Webby Award for Lifetime Achievement.
In October 2009, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Vriji Universiteit Amsterdam.
In 2010 Berners Lee updated HM Queen Elizabeth II website which is now much easier to navigate and load and is full of really interesting details.
Please visit my Funny Animal Art Prints Collection @ http://www.fabprints.com
My other website is called Directory of British Icons: http://fabprints.webs.com
To visit the list and links to my other Blogg articles: http://bloggs.resourcez.com
The Chinese call England “The Island of Hero’s” which I think sums up what we English are all about.
Copyright © 2010 Paul Hussey. All Rights Reserved
BY MICHAEL WEBSTER: INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Nov 9, 2008 at 5:00 PM PDT
According to records kept by El Universal Mexico’s largest newspaper they report since 2005, the 24 hours of last Monday alone was the most violent for the year in the country, with 58 murders linked to organized crime. This figure surpasses the record set on Sept 12, 2008 when 41 murders occurred within a 24-hour period. Both records occurred in the same year. Among those murdered just in one day were seven police commanders and officers. One police officer was wounded and the severed head of a private security guard was left in a gasoline station restroom.
The overwhelming majority of main news items in Mexico on any given day is the killings and violence that happen in Mexico on a daily bases. At the current rate of violent deaths in Mexico it is projected that the number will reach 5,000. That is more deaths than in the Iraq war, where we as Americans are spending 10 billion per month of tax payer’s money to support that war and have over 150, 000 troops and other Americans in country today. Mexico is our immediate neighbor to the south with a population of well over 100 million people with a war that is killing it’s citizens at an alarming rate. Many of those murders kidnappings and violence in Mexico is spilling into the United States where Americans have been killed and/or kidnapped. This is all related to the drug war going on in Mexico between the powerful Mexican drug cartels and the Mexican Government.
What follows is a compilation of the comparison of deaths both in Iraq and Mexico. To date there have been more then 4,000 plus violent deaths in Mexico both Mexican and U.S. citizens. In comparison to date in Iraq there has been killed appax. 1,312.
During the last 24 hours 38 persons have died in different events caused by members of organized crime; the number has reached 4,052 in 2008 in this country (Mexico), surpassing by more than three times the number of dead in Iraq this year.
Additionally an alarming number of Americans are vanishing in Mexico where there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of U.S. citizens who have recently been reported missing or kidnapped along the border with Mexico, reports the Washington Post. Many who have vanished from U.S. cities are still missing and it is feared they will turn up in the mass graves that have been discovered lately in Mexico.
U.S. State Dept recently issued Mexico alert said “Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades. Confrontations have taken place in numerous towns and cities in northern Mexico, including Tijuana in the Mexican state of Baja California, and Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua. The situation in northern Mexico remains very fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements there cannot be predicted”. Public shootouts have occurred during daylight hours near shopping areas in many Mexican border towns. Click on or
What follows is the deadly and apparently relentless daily routine of blood and mayhem spread throughout the country of Mexico. Remember this is just one typical day of violence in Mexico. This is from only a few Mexican newspapers. There is no attempt to report every similar instance published in other Mexican newspapers for that day.
The following are item headlines appearing on 10/28/08 in the papers indicated.
From El Debate (Culiacan, Sinaloa)
- Unknown subject is murdered in Culiacan
- Traffic policeman found murdered in Culiacan
- Unknown subject is found incinerated
- Shootout between police and hit-men results in one death
- Guasave resident murdered in Tijuana (Guasave is a city in Sinaloa)
- Man found incinerated at the Linita de Hitaje Cemetery. The body was in a car reported stolen.
From Diario (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, edition
- Four executed and one abducted
- Bullet riddled body found in Chihuahua
- Policeman killed Saturday had been threatened in a banner
- Armed commando kills four outside a bar
- Shot with gun in the mouth
- Juarez resident murdered near Sateno
- Two executed in Chihuahua; they were police
- Chase and shootout reported in the state’s capital
- One more killed in Chihuahua City
There were at least 15 persons reported executed from dawn yesterday until press time for this edition; nine of them were in Tijuana, Baja Calif., four in Chihuahua and two in Sinaloa. The violence of criminal groups continues to be unstoppable in the country.”
The following is deadly attacks in Iraq so far this year 2008 totaling approx. 1,312
From BBC News: Deaths in Iraq
23 Nov 06 – 200 dead
- Five car bombs and mortar attacks in Sadr City, Baghdad
13 Aug 06 – 57 dead
Four-storey building destroyed in blast in Zafaraniya district.
18 July 06 – 53 dead
Car bomb in southern city of Kufa near Shia shrine
1 July 06 – 66 killed
Car bomb in Sadr City, Baghdad
7 April 2006 – 85 dead
Triple suicide bombing at Shia Buratha mosque
5 Jan 06 – 110 dead
Suicide bombers hit Karbala shrine and police recruiting station in Ramadi
18 Nov 05 – 80 dead
Multiple bombings in Baghdad and two Khanaqin mosques
14 Sept 05 – 182 dead
Suicide car bomber targets Baghdad laborers in worst of a series of bombs
16 Aug 05 – 90 dead
Suicide bomber detonates fuel tanker in Musayyib
28 Feb 05 – 114 dead
Suicide car bomb hits government jobseekers in Hilla
24 June 04 – 100 dead
Co-ordinated blasts in Mosul and other cities
2 March 04 – 140 dead
Suicide bombers attack Shia festival at Karbala and Baghdad
1 Feb 04 – 105 dead
Twin attacks on Kurdish parties’ offices in Irbil
28 Aug 03 – 85 dead
Car bomb at Najaf shrine targets senior Shia cleric
In Ciudad Juarez the body of a man who had been beheaded and whose hands were handcuffed behind him was found hung from the Rotario Bridge in Juarez across the border from El Paso Texas. He had been forcibly kidnapped and carried off two days before according to police. A message from a local criminal organization was left nearby. The gruesome display even for this northern border city long accustomed to drug-related violence was shocked.
Shortly after the grisly sighting about 5 a.m., police found the victim’s head in a black bag in a nearby plaza, said state police spokesman Alejandro Pariente.
Pariente said the body was wearing black jeans, a red T-shirt and white sneakers, and was handcuffed. A banner apparently directed at rival drug-gang members was hung next to the corpse.
The victim’s father was barely able to identify his 23-year-old sons body.
Caution what follows is a photo showing the hanging body just before its removal. Yet one more body was found near the Rio Grande in Juarez, this one shot in the head.
Elsewhere, masked men gunned down two police officers in a convenience store in Chihuahua City, the capital of Chihuahua state, where Juarez is located, said Eduardo Esparza, spokesman for the state attorney general’s office. After the killings assailants left a toy pig next to the bodies. A man wearing a pig mask was found hung in a residence in Juarez. Near the body was a message threatening to do the same to others. Police believe the message was from drug gangs.
Drug violence has been escalating across Mexico and cartels have turned to increasingly gruesome methods to send a message to their rivals and police.
Also in Juarez, the same day four men were found shot to death. And four other men fell victim to gunfire attacks in various places in the city.
Elsewhere in town, the cadaver of a man was found hanging from a metal fence in front of an empty house. A mask with the face of a pig had been placed over his head and his hands had been cuffed. There was also a threatening “narco-message” left with the hanged body.
Later the same day Mexican army personnel detained four heavily armed men in Cuauhtemoc, Chihuahua; the four had with them “an anti-tank rocket launcher, a high explosive rocket, two caliber 308 rifles capable of piercing armor, two cal. 223 AR-15 rifles, a caliber 556 rifle, a .22 caliber rifle, a .22 revolver, a caliber 11.25 pistol, 12 fragmentation hand grenades, a gas grenade and clips of various calibers.” They also had five “T3 level bullet proof vests, bandoleers, gas masks and ID cards of the PGR (Mex. Dep’t. of Justice) plus small amounts of drugs. Most of the front page and the headline on the printed version of a Juarez paper were devoted to the horror which Juarez residents feel because of the level and brutality of all the violence.
Tijuana violence does not cease there either it is becoming an everyday affair according to Jose Gonzalez a resident of Tijuana were there is more violence reported and where the finding of cadavers and narco messages keep police agencies on alert on both sides of the border and the civilian population in a state of panic.
In Tijuana alone there have been to date more than 700 execution type killings carried out by organized crime that have been counted this year, which makes it one of the most violent in the city’s history. Recently in TJ two more decapitated bodies were found, two police officers were murdered and so were eleven other men, all within a 14 hour period.
In a banner headlines on the printed front page of a TJ newspaper read: City policeman executed Physician kidnapped.
A second “ministerial police” agent lost his life Wednesday afternoon in TJ. He was driving his car when the occupants of two other vehicles opened fire killing him dead in his car. Two severed human heads were left on top of the lids of each of two blue plastic barrels found near the Otay Mesa border crossing point on the east side of TJ near the California border. The location is just four blocks away from where six persons were killed by gunfire on Monday. The headless bodies were inside the barrels, and a narco message.
A “Ministerial Police” commander was killed and his police officer escort was critically wounded Monday afternoon when killers shot them repeatedly while the two were eating at a restaurant. The hit-men left and disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.
Recently four men fell victim to a gunfire assault at a junkyard in the Lomas Verdes section of TJ but between 4 p.m. and late evening six other men were shot to death and two others were wounded in two other incidents elsewhere in town.
Just yesterday, ten gunmen lost their lives after a shootout with state agents in Nogales, Sonora. The police were attacked with fragmentation grenades; three police and three civilians were wounded.
The body of a gagged man was found in Cabo San Lucas; his fingers had been chopped off. Eight persons have died in Baja California Norte in the last 24 hours, the product of a spiral of violence.
Just recently two Rosarito police officers were assassinated while on patrol. Twenty kilometers away three other persons were murdered. Seven other crimes took place in Chihuahua; two men were found dead in Hermosillo, Sonora, two in Culiacan and “some others more” in Guanajuato, Guerrero, the Distrito Federal and Taxco.
A related account in “El Universal” (Mexico City) states that violence in Rosarito has cost the lives of seven police and at least a dozen other persons in less than thirty days; it adds that there have been mass resignations of police there because of fear of being murdered. Just some years back Rosarito was a laid back, peaceful ocean beach town.
Just recently Baja racer Arron Cooper another American was shot in Mexico while pre-running the Baja 1000 race. See: Baja Racing News.com for more details.
Sources:
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS (NAFBPO)
El Universal, El Debate and Diario newspapers. El Paso Police Dept. El Paso Sheriff’s Dept. Mexico City Police Dept., Juarez Police Dept.
Click on or Google:War on terror and drugs by Michael Webster
Early life
The archetype of the Creator is a familiar image in Blake’s work. Here, the demiurgic figure Urizen prays before the world he has forged. The Song of Los is the third in a series of illuminated books painted by Blake and his wife, collectively known as the Continental Prophecies.
William Blake was born in 28 Broad Street, London, England on 28 November 1757, to a middle-class family. He was the third of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Blake’s father, James, was a hosier. William never attended school, and was educated at home by his mother Catherine Wright Armitage Blake. The Blakes were Dissenters, and are believed to have belonged to the Moravian Church. The Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and would remain a source of inspiration throughout his life.
Blake started engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father, a practice that was then preferred to actual drawing. Within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms through the work of Raphael, Michelangelo, Marten Heemskerk and Albrecht Drer. His parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but was instead enrolled in drawing classes. He read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake was also making explorations into poetry; his early work displays knowledge of Ben Jonson and Edmund Spenser.
Apprenticeship to Basire
On 4 August 1772, Blake became apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street, for the term of seven years. At the end of this period, at the age of 21, he was to become a professional engraver. No record survives of any serious disagreement or conflict between the two during the period of Blake’s apprenticeship. However, Peter Ackroyd’s biography notes that Blake was later to add Basire’s name to a list of artistic adversariesnd then cross it out. This aside, Basire’s style of engraving was of a kind held to be old-fashioned at the time, and Blake’s instruction in this outmoded form may have been detrimental to his acquiring of work or recognition in later life.
After two years Basire sent his apprentice to copy images from the Gothic churches in London (it is possible that this task was set in order to break up a quarrel between Blake and James Parker, his fellow apprentice), and his experiences in Westminster Abbey contributed to the formation of his artistic style and ideas; the Abbey of his day was decorated with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies and varicoloured waxworks. Ackroyd notes that “the most immediate [impression] would have been of faded brightness and colour”. In the long afternoons Blake spent sketching in the Abbey, he was occasionally interrupted by the boys of Westminster School, one of whom “tormented” Blake so much one afternoon that he knocked the boy off a scaffold to the ground, “upon which he fell with terrific Violence”. Blake beheld more visions in the Abbey, of a great procession of monks and priests, while he heard “the chant of plain-song and chorale”.
The Royal Academy
On 8 October 1779, Blake became a student at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House, near the Strand. While the terms of his study required no payment, he was expected to supply his own materials throughout the six-year period. There, he rebelled against what he regarded as the unfinished style of fashionable painters such as Rubens, championed by the school’s first president, Joshua Reynolds. Over time, Blake came to detest Reynolds’ attitude towards art, especially his pursuit of “general truth” and “general beauty”. Reynolds wrote in his Discourses that the “disposition to abstractions, to generalizing and classification, is the great glory of the human mind”; Blake responded, in marginalia to his personal copy, that “To Generalize is to be an Idiot; To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit”. Blake also disliked Reynolds’ apparent humility, which he held to be a form of hypocrisy. Against Reynolds’ fashionable oil painting, Blake preferred the Classical precision of his early influences, Michelangelo and Raphael.
Gordon Riots
Blake’s first biographer Alexander Gilchrist records that in June 1780, Blake was walking towards Basire’s shop in Great Queen Street when he was swept up by a rampaging mob that stormed Newgate Prison in London. They attacked the prison gates with shovels and pickaxes, set the building ablaze, and released the prisoners inside. Blake was reportedly in the front rank of the mob during this attack. These riots, in response to a parliamentary bill revoking sanctions against Roman Catholicism, later came to be known as the Gordon Riots. They provoked a flurry of legislation from the government of George III, as well as the creation of the first police force.
Despite Gilchrist’s insistence that Blake was “forced” to accompany the crowd, some biographers have argued that he accompanied it impulsively, or supported it as a revolutionary act. In contrast, Jerome McGann argues that the riots were reactionary, and that events would have provoked “disgust” in Blake.
Marriage and early career
Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (1786)
In 1782, Blake met John Flaxman, who was to become his patron, and Catherine Boucher, who was to become his wife. At the time, Blake was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. He recounted the story of his heartbreak for Catherine and her parents, after which he asked Catherine, “Do you pity me?” When she responded affirmatively, he declared, “Then I love you.” Blake married Catherine who was five years his junior on 18 August 1782 in St. Mary’s Church, Battersea. Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an ‘X’. The original wedding certificate may still be viewed at the church, where a commemorative stained-glass window was installed between 1976 and 1982. Later, in addition to teaching Catherine to read and write, Blake trained her as an engraver. Throughout his life she would prove an invaluable aid to him, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits throughout numerous misfortunes.
At this time George Cumberland, one of the founders of the National Gallery, became an admirer of Blake’s work. Blake’s first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, was published circa 1783 . After his father’s death, William and his brother Robert opened a print shop in 1784, and began working with radical publisher Joseph Johnson. Johnson’s house was a meeting-place for some of the leading English intellectual dissidents of the time: theologian and scientist Joseph Priestley, philosopher Richard Price, artist John Henry Fuseli early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and American revolutionary Thomas Paine. Along with William Wordsworth and William Godwin, Blake had great hopes for the French and American revolutions and wore a Phrygian cap in solidarity with the French revolutionaries, but despaired with the rise of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror in France. In 1784 Blake also composed his unfinished manuscript An Island in the Moon.
Blake illustrated Original Stories from Real Life (1788; 1791) by Mary Wollstonecraft. They seem to have shared some views on sexual equality and the institution of marriage, but there is no evidence proving without doubt that they actually met. In 1793’s Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Blake condemned the cruel absurdity of enforced chastity and marriage without love and defended the right of women to complete self-fulfillment.
Relief etching
In 1788, at the age of 31, Blake began to experiment with relief etching, a method he would use to produce most of his books, paintings, pamphlets and, of course, his poems, including his longer ‘prophecies’ and his masterpiece the “Bible.” The process is also referred to as illuminated printing, and final products as illuminated books or prints. Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in the manner of earlier illuminated manuscripts. He then etched the plates in acid in order to dissolve away the untreated copper and leave the design standing in relief (hence the name).
This is a reversal of the normal method of etching, where the lines of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by the intaglio method. Relief etching, which Blake invented, later became an important commercial printing method. The pages printed from these plates then had to be hand-coloured in water colours and stitched together to make up a volume. Blake used illuminated printing for most of his well-known works, including Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and Jerusalem.
Engravings
A study in 2005 of Blake’s surviving plates showed that he made frequent use of a technique known as “repoussage” which is a means of obliterating mistakes by hammering them out by hitting the back of the plate. This discovery puts strain on Blake’s own assessment of his abilities as well of those of admirers and may also help to explain why some of Blake’s work took so long to complete.
Later life and career
Blake’s marriage to Catherine remained a close and devoted one until his death. Blake taught Catherine to write, and she helped him to colour his printed poems. Gilchrist refers to “stormy times” in the early years of the marriage. Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a concubine into the marriage bed in accordance with the beliefs of the Swedenborgian Society, but other scholars have dismissed these theories as conjecture. William and Catherine’s first daughter and last child might be Thel described in The Book of Thel who was conceived as dead.
Felpham
Hecate, 1795. Blake’s vision of Hecate, Greek goddess of black magic and the underworld
In 1800, Blake moved to a cottage at Felpham in Sussex (now West Sussex) to take up a job illustrating the works of William Hayley, a minor poet. It was in this cottage that Blake wrote Milton: a Poem (published between 1805 and 1808). The preface to this work includes a poem beginning “And did those feet in ancient time”, which became the words for the anthem, “Jerusalem”. Over time, Blake came to resent his new patron, coming to believe that Hayley was uninterested in true artistry, and preoccupied with “the meer drudgery of business”. Blake’s disenchantment with Hayley has been speculated to have influenced Milton: a Poem, in which Blake wrote that “Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies” (3:26).
Blake’s trouble with authority came to a head in August 1803, when he was involved in a physical altercation with a soldier called John Schofield. Blake was charged not only with assault, but also with uttering seditious and treasonable expressions against the King. Schofield claimed that Blake had exclaimed, “Damn the king. The soldiers are all slaves.” Blake would be cleared in the Chichester assizes of the charges. According to a report in the Sussex county paper, “The invented character of [the evidence] was … so obvious that an acquittal resulted.” Schofield was later depicted wearing “mind forged manacles” in an illustration to Jerusalem.
Return to London
Blake’s The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun (1805) is one of a series of illustrations of Revelation 12.
Blake returned to London in 1804 and began to write and illustrate Jerusalem (18041820), his most ambitious work. Having conceived the idea of portraying the characters in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Blake approached the dealer Robert Cromek, with a view to marketing an engraving. Knowing that Blake was too eccentric to produce a popular work, Cromek promptly commissioned Thomas Stothard, a friend of Blake’s, to execute the concept. When Blake learned that he had been cheated, he broke off contact with Stothard. He also set up an independent exhibition in his brother’s haberdashery shop at 27 Broad Street in the Soho district of London. The exhibition was designed to market his own version of the Canterbury illustration (titled The Canterbury Pilgrims), along with other works. As a result he wrote his Descriptive Catalogue (1809), which contains what Anthony Blunt has called a “brilliant analysis” of Chaucer. It is regularly anthologised as a classic of Chaucer criticism. It also contained detailed explanations of his other paintings.
The exhibition itself, however, was very poorly attended, selling none of the temperas or watercolours. Its only review, in The Examiner, was hostile.
He was introduced by George Cumberland to a young artist named John Linnell. Through Linnell he met Samuel Palmer, who belonged to a group of artists who called themselves the Shoreham Ancients. This group shared Blake’s rejection of modern trends and his belief in a spiritual and artistic New Age. At the age of 65 Blake began work on illustrations for the Book of Job. These works were later admired by Ruskin, who compared Blake favourably to Rembrandt, and by Vaughan Williams, who based his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing on a selection of the illustrations.
Later in his life Blake began to sell a great number of his works, particularly his Bible illustrations, to Thomas Butts, a patron who saw Blake more as a friend than a man whose work held artistic merit; this was typical of the opinions held of Blake throughout his life.
Dante’s Divine Comedy
The commission for Dante’s Divine Comedy came to Blake in 1826 through Linnell, with the ultimate aim of producing a series of engravings. Blake’s death in 1827 would cut short the enterprise, and only a handful of the watercolours were completed, with only seven of the engravings arriving at proof form. Even so, they have evoked praise:
‘[T]he Dante watercolours are among Blake’s richest achievements, engaging fully with the problem of illustrating a poem of this complexity. The mastery of watercolour has reached an even higher level than before, and is used to extraordinary effect in differentiating the atmosphere of the three states of being in the poem’.
Blake’s The Lovers’ Whirlwind illustrates Hell in Canto V of Dante’s Inferno
Blake’s illustrations of the poem are not merely accompanying works, but rather seem to critically revise, or furnish commentary on, certain spiritual or moral aspects of the text.
Because the project was never completed, Blake’s intent may itself be obscured. Some indicators, however, bolster the impression that Blake’s illustrations in their totality would themselves take issue with the text they accompany: In the margin of Homer Bearing the Sword and His Companions, Blake notes, “Every thing in Dantes Comedia shews That for Tyrannical Purposes he has made This World the Foundation of All & the Goddess Nature & not the Holy Ghost.” Blake seems to dissent from Dante’s admiration of the poetic works of the ancient Greeks, and from the apparent glee with which Dante allots punishments in Hell (as evidenced by the grim humour of the cantos).
At the same time, Blake shared Dante’s distrust of materialism and the corruptive nature of power, and clearly relished the opportunity to represent the atmosphere and imagery of Dante’s work pictorially. Even as he seemed to near death, Blake’s central preoccupation was his feverish work on the illustrations to Dante’s Inferno; he is said to have spent one of the very last shillings he possessed on a pencil to continue sketching.
Death
Monument near Blake’s unmarked grave in London
On the day of his death, Blake worked relentlessly on his Dante series. Eventually, it is reported, he ceased working and turned to his wife, who was in tears by his bedside. Beholding her, Blake is said to have cried, “Stay Kate! Keep just as you are I will draw your portrait for you have ever been an angel to me.” Having completed this portrait (now lost), Blake laid down his tools and began to sing hymns and verses. At six that evening, after promising his wife that he would be with her always, Blake died. Gilchrist reports that a female lodger in the same house, present at his expiration, said, “I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel.”
George Richmond gives the following account of Blake’s death in a letter to Samuel Palmer:
He died … in a most glorious manner. He said He was going to that Country he had all His life wished to see & expressed Himself Happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten’d and he burst out Singing of the things he saw in Heaven.
Catherine paid for Blake’s funeral with money lent to her by Linnell. He was buried five days after his death on the eve of his forty-fifth wedding anniversary at the Dissenter’s burial ground in Bunhill Fields, where his parents were also interred. Present at the ceremonies were Catherine, Edward Calvert, George Richmond, Frederick Tatham and John Linnell. Following Blake’s death, Catherine moved into Tatham’s house as a housekeeper. During this period, she believed she was regularly visited by Blake’s spirit. She continued selling his illuminated works and paintings, but would entertain no business transaction without first “consulting Mr. Blake”. On the day of her own death, in October 1831, she was as calm and cheerful as her husband, and called out to him “as if he were only in the next room, to say she was coming to him, and it would not be long now”.
On her death, Blake’s manuscripts were inherited by Frederick Tatham, who burned several of those which he deemed heretical or too politically radical. Tatham had become an Irvingite, one of the many fundamentalist movements of the 19th century, and was severely opposed to any work that “smacked of blasphemy”. Sexual imagery in a number of Blake’s drawings was also erased by John Linnell.
Since 1965, the exact location of William Blake’s grave had been lost and forgotten, while gravestones were taken away to create a new lawn. Nowadays, Blake grave is commemorated by a stone that reads “Near by lie the remains of the poet-painter William Blake 1757-1827 and his wife Catherine Sophia 1762-1831″. This memorial stone is situated approximately 20 metres away from the actual spot of Blake grave, which is not marked. However, members of the group Friends of William Blake have rediscovered the location of Blake’s grave and intend to place a permanent memorial at the site.
Blake is now recognised as a saint in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. The Blake Prize for Religious Art was established in his honour in Australia in 1949. In 1957 a memorial was erected in Westminster Abbey, in memory of him and his wife.
Development of Blake’s Views
Because Blake’s later poetry contains a private mythology with complex symbolism, his late work has been less published than his earlier more accessible work. The recent Vintage anthology of Blake edited by Patti Smith focuses heavily on the earlier work, as do many critical studies such as William Blake by D. G. Gillham.
The earlier work is primarily rebellious in character, and can be seen as a protestation against dogmatic religion. This is especially notable in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in which Satan is virtually the hero rebelling against an imposter authoritarian deity. In the later works such as Milton and Jerusalem, Blake carves a distinctive vision of a humanity redeemed by self-sacrifice and forgiveness, while retaining his earlier negative attitude towards the rigid and morbid authoritarianism of traditional religion. Not all readers of Blake agree upon how much continuity exists between Blake’s earlier and later works.
Psychoanalyst June Singer has written that Blake’s late work displayed a development of the ideas that were first introduced in his earlier works, namely, the humanitarian goal of achieving personal wholeness of body and spirit. The final section of the expanded edition of her Blake study The Unholy Bible suggests that the later works are in fact the “Bible of Hell” promised in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Regarding Blake’s final poem “Jerusalem”, she writes:
[T]he promise of the divine in man, made in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, is at last fulfilled.
However, John Middleton Murry notes discontinuity between Marriage and the late works, in that while the early Blake focused on a “sheer negative opposition between Energy and Reason”, the later Blake emphasized the notions of self-sacrifice and forgiveness as the road to interior wholeness. This renunciation of the sharper dualism of Marriage of Heaven and Hell is evidenced in particular by the humanization of the character of Urizen in the later works. Middleton characterizes the later Blake as having found “mutual understanding” and “mutual forgiveness”.
Religious views
Blake’s Ancient of Days. The “Ancient of Days” is described in Chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel.
Although Blake’s attacks on conventional religion were shocking in his own day, his rejection of religiosity was not a rejection of religion per se. His view of orthodoxy is evident in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a series of texts written in imitation of Biblical prophecy. Therein, Blake lists several Proverbs of Hell, amongst which are the following:
Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
In The Everlasting Gospel, Blake does not present Jesus as a philosopher or traditional messianic figure but as a supremely creative being, above dogma, logic and even morality:
If he had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,
He’d have done anything to please us:
Gone sneaking into the Synagogues
And not used the Elders & Priests like Dogs,
But humble as a Lamb or an Ass,
Obey himself to Caiaphas.
God wants not man to humble himself
Jesus, for Blake, symbolises the vital relationship and unity between divinity and humanity: “[A]ll had originally one language and one religion: this was the religion of Jesus, the everlasting Gospel. Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus.”
Blake designed his own mythology, which appears largely in his prophetic books. Within these Blake describes a number of characters, including ‘Urizen’, ‘Enitharmon’, ‘Bromion’ and ‘Luvah’. This mythology seems to have a basis in the Bible and in Greek mythology, and it accompanies his ideas about the everlasting Gospel.
“I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s. I will not Reason & Compare; my business is to Create.”
Words uttered by Los in Blake’s Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion.
One of Blake’s strongest objections to orthodox Christianity is that he felt it encouraged the suppression of natural desires and discouraged earthly joy. In A Vision of the Last Judgement, Blake says that:
Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed & govern’d their Passions or have No Passions, but because they have Cultivated their Understandings. The Treasures of Heaven are not Negations of Passion, but Realities of Intellect, from which all the Passions Emanate Uncurbed in their Eternal Glory.
One may also note his words concerning religion in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:
All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.
1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.
2. That Energy, call’d Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call’d Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.
But the following Contraries to these are True
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.
The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve, c. 1825. Watercolour on wood.
Blake does not subscribe to the notion of a distinct body from the soul, and which must submit to the rule of soul, but rather sees body as an extension of soul derived from the ‘discernment’ of the senses. Thus, the emphasis orthodoxy places upon the denial of bodily urges is a dualistic error born of misapprehension of the relationship between body and soul; elsewhere, he describes Satan as the ‘State of Error’, and as being beyond salvation.
Blake opposed the sophistry of theological thought that excuses pain, admits evil and apologises for injustice. He abhorred self-denial, which he associated with religious repression and particularly with sexual repression: “Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. / He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.” He saw the concept of ’sin’ as a trap to bind men desires (the briars of Garden of Love), and believed that restraint in obedience to a moral code imposed from the outside was against the spirit of life:
Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,
But Desire Gratified
Plants fruits & beauty there.
He did not hold with the doctrine of God as Lord, an entity separate from and superior to mankind; this is shown clearly in his words about Jesus Christ: “He is the only God … and so am I, and so are you.” A telling phrase in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is “men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast”. This is very much in line with his belief in liberty and equality in society and between the sexes.
Blake and Enlightenment Philosophy
Blake had a complex relationship with Enlightenment philosophy. Due to his visionary religious beliefs, Blake opposed the Newtonian view of the universe. This mindset is reflected in an excerpt from Blake’s Jerusalem:
Blake’s Newton (1795) demonstrates his opposition to the “single-vision” of scientific materialism: Newton fixes his eye on a compass (recalling Proverbs 8:27, an important passage for Milton) to write upon a scroll which seems to project from his own head.
I turn my eyes to the Schools & Universities of Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof rages dire Washd by the Water-wheels of Newton. black the cloth In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation; cruel Works Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic Moving by compulsion each other: not as those in Eden: which Wheel within Wheel in freedom revolve in harmony & peace.
Blake also believed that the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which depict the naturalistic fall of light upon objects, were products entirely of the “vegetative eye”, and he saw Locke and Newton as “the true progenitors of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ aesthetic”. The popular taste in the England of that time for such paintings was satisfied with mezzotints, prints produced by a process that created an image from thousands of tiny dots upon the page. Blake saw an analogy between this and Newton’s particle theory of light. Accordingly, Blake never used the technique, opting rather to develop a method of engraving purely in fluid line, insisting that
a Line or Lineament is not formed by Chance a Line is a Line in its
Minutest Subdivision[s] Strait or Crooked It is Itself & Not Intermeasurable with or by any Thing Else Such is Job.
Despite his opposition to Enlightenment principles, Blake thus arrived at a linear aesthetic that was in many ways more similar to the Neoclassical engravings of John Flaxman than to the works of the Romantics, with whom he is often classified.
Therefore Blake has also been viewed as an enlightenment poet and artist, in the sense that he was in accord with that movement’s rejection of received ideas, systems, authorities and traditions. On the other hand, he was critical of what he perceived as the elevation of reason to the status of an oppressive authority. In his criticism of reason, law and uniformity Blake has been taken to be opposed to the enlightenment, but it has also been argued that, in a dialectical sense, he used the enlightenment spirit of rejection of external authority to criticize narrow conceptions of the enlightenment.
Assessment
Creative mindset
Northrop Frye, commenting on Blake’s consistency in strongly held views, notes that Blake “himself says that his notes on [Joshua] Reynolds, written at fifty, are ‘exactly Similar’ to those on Locke and Bacon, written when he was ‘very Young’. Even phrases and lines of verse will reappear as much as forty years later. Consistency in maintaining what he believed to be true was itself one of his leading principles … Consistency, then, foolish or otherwise, is one of Blake’s chief preoccupations, just as ’self-contradiction’ is always one of his most contemptuous comments”.
Blake’s “A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows”, an illustration to J. G. Stedman’s Narrative, of a Five Years’ Expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).
Blake abhorred slavery and believed in racial and sexual equality. Several of his poems and paintings express a notion of universal humanity: “As all men are alike (tho’ infinitely various)”. In one poem, narrated by a black child, white and black bodies alike are described as shaded groves or clouds, which exist only until one learns “to bear the beams of love”:
When I from black, and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,
I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father’s knee;
And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.
In one poem, The Book of Thel, Blake questioned the necessity of life which is believed to be an elegy to his dead newborn daughter.
‘O life of this our spring! why fades the lotus of the water?
Why fade these children of the spring, born but to smile & fall?
Blake retained an active interest in social and political events for all his life, and social and political statements are often present in his mystical symbolism. His views on what he saw as oppression and restriction of rightful freedom extended to the Church. His spiritual beliefs are evidenced in Songs of Experience (1794), in which he distinguishes between the Old Testament God, whose restrictions he rejected, and the New Testament God (Jesus Christ in Trinitarianism), whom he saw as a positive influence.
Visions
From a young age, William Blake claimed to have seen visions. The first of these visions may have occurred as early as the age of four when, according to one anecdote, the young artist “saw God” when God “put his head to the window”, causing Blake to break into screaming. At the age of eight or ten in Peckham Rye, London, Blake claimed to have seen “a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.” According to Blake’s Victorian biographer Gilchrist, he returned home and reported this vision, and he only escaped being thrashed by his father for telling a lie through the intervention of his mother. Though all evidence suggests that his parents were largely supportive, his mother seems to have been especially so, and several of Blake’s early drawings and poems decorated the walls of her chamber. On another occasion, Blake watched haymakers at work, and thought he saw angelic figures walking among them.
The Ghost of a Flea, 1819-1820. Having informed painter-astrologer John Varley of his visions of apparitions, Blake was subsequently persuaded to paint one of them. Varley’s anecdote of Blake and his vision of the flea’s ghost became well-known.
Blake claimed to experience visions throughout his life. They were often associated with beautiful religious themes and imagery, and therefore may have inspired him further with spiritual works and pursuits. Certainly, religious concepts and imagery figure centrally in Blake’s works. God and Christianity constituted the intellectual centre of his writings, from which he drew inspiration. In addition, Blake believed that he was personally instructed and encouraged by Archangels to create his artistic works, which he claimed were actively read and enjoyed by those same Archangels. In a letter to William Hayley, dated May 6, 1800, Blake writes:
I know that our deceased friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part. Thirteen years ago I lost a brother, and with his spirit I converse daily and hourly in the spirit, and see him in my remembrance, in the region of my imagination. I hear his advice, and even now write from his dictate.
In a letter to John Flaxman, dated September 21, 1800, Blake writes:
[The town of] Felpham is a sweet place for Study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden Gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of Celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, & their forms more distinctly seen; & my Cottage is also a Shadow of their houses. My Wife & Sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace… I am more famed in Heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my Brain are studies & Chambers filled with books & pictures of old, which I wrote & painted in ages of Eternity before my mortal life; & those works are the delight & Study of Archangels.
In a letter to Thomas Butts, dated April 25, 1803, Blake writes:
Now I may say to you, what perhaps I should not dare to say to anyone else: That I can alone carry on my visionary studies in London unannoy’d, & that I may converse with my friends in Eternity, See Visions, Dream Dreams & prophecy & speak Parables unobserv’d & at liberty from the Doubts of other Mortals; perhaps Doubts proceeding from Kindness, but Doubts are always pernicious, Especially when we Doubt our Friends.
In A Vision of the Last Judgement Blake writes:
Error is Created. Truth is Eternal. Error, or Creation, will be Burned up, & then, & not till Then, Truth or Eternity will appear. It is Burnt up the Moment Men cease to behold it. I assert for My Self that I do not behold the outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance & not Action; it is as the Dirt upon my feet, No part of Me. “What,” it will be Question’d, “When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?” Oh no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty.’ I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning Sight. I look thro’ it & not with it.
William Wordsworth remarked, “There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott.”
D.C.Williams (1899-1983) said that Blake was a romantic with a critical view on the world, he maintained that Blake’s Songs of Innocence were made as a view of an ideal, somewhat Utopian view whereas he used the Songs of Experience in order to show the suffering and loss posed by the nature of society and the world of his time.
General cultural influence
Main article: William Blake in popular culture
Blake’s work was neglected for almost a century after his death, but his reputation gained momentum in the 20th century, both from being rehabilitated by critics such as John Middleton Murry and Northrop Frye, but also due to an increasing number of classical composers such as Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams adapting his works.
Many such as June Singer have argued that Blake’s thoughts on human nature greatly anticipate and parallel the thinking of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, although Jung dismissed Blake’s works as “an artistic production rather than an authentic representation of unconscious processes.”
Blake had an enormous influence on the beat poets of the 1950s and the counterculture of the 1960s, frequently being cited by such seminal figures as beat poet Allen Ginsberg and songwriter Bob Dylan. Much of the central ideas from Phillip Pullman’s famous fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials are rooted in the world of Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
In wider culture Blake’s poetry has been set to music by popular composers. It has been especially popular with musicians since the 1960s. Blake’s engravings have also had significant influence on the modern graphic novel.
Bibliography
Illuminated books
William Blake’s portrait in profile, from Songs of Innocence and Experience, published 1794
c.1788: All Religions Are One
There Is No Natural Religion
1789: Songs of Innocence and of Experience
The Book of Thel
17901793: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
1793-1795: Continental prophecies
1793: Visions of the Daughters of Albion
America a Prophecy
1794: Europe a Prophecy
The First Book of Urizen
Songs of Experience
1795: The Book of Los
The Song of Los
The Book of Ahania
c.1804.1811: Milton a Poem
18041820: Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion
Non-Illuminated
1783: Poetical Sketches
1784-5: An Island in the Moon
1789: Tiriel
1791: The French Revolution
1797: The Four Zoas
Illustrated by Blake
1791: Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories from Real Life
1797: Edward Young, Night Thoughts
1805-1808: Robert Blair, The Grave
1808: John Milton, Paradise Lost
1819-1820: John Varley, Visionary Heads
1821: R.J. Thornton, Virgil
1823-1826: The Book of Job
1825-1827: Dante, The Divine Comedy (Blake died in 1827 with these watercolours still unfinished)
On Blake
Peter Ackroyd (1995). Blake. Sinclair-Stevenson. ISBN 1-85619-278-4.
Donald Ault (1974). Visionary Physics: Blake’s Response to Newton. University of Chicago. ISBN 0-226-03225-6.
(1987). Narrative Unbound: Re-Visioning William Blake’s The Four Zoas. Station Hill Press. ISBN 1886449759.
G.E. Bentley Jr. (2001). The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of William Blake. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08939-2.
Harold Bloom (1963). Blake Apocalypse. Doubleday.
Jacob Bronowski (1972). William Blake and the Age of Revolution. Routledge and K. Paul. ISBN 0-7100-7277-5 (hardcover) ISBN 0-7100-7278-3 (pbk.)
(1967). William Blake, 1757-1827; a man without a mask. Haskell House Publishers.
G. K. Chesterton (1920s). William Blake. House of Stratus ISBN 0-7551-0032-8.
S. Foster Damon (1979). A Blake Dictionary. Shambhala. ISBN 0-394-73688-5.
David V. Erdman (1977). Blake: Prophet Against Empire: A Poet’s Interpretation of the History of His Own Times. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-486-26719-9.
Irving Fiske (1951). “Bernard Shaw’s Debt to William Blake.” (Shaw Society)
Northrop Frye (1947). Fearful Symmetry. Princeton Univ Press. ISBN 0-691-06165-3.
Alexander Gilchrist, Life and Works of William Blake, (second edition, London, 1880) (reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN 9781108013697)
James King (1991). William Blake: His Life. St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 0-312-07572-3.
Benjamin Heath Malkin (1806). A Father’s Memoirs of his Child.
Peter Marshall (1988). William Blake: Visionary Anarchist ISBN 0-900384-77-8
Blake, William, William Blake’s Works in Conventional Typography, ed. by G. E. Bentley, Jr., 1984. Facsimile ed., Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, ISBN 9780820113883.
W.J.T. Mitchell (1978). Blake’s Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-691-01402-7.
Victor N. Paananen (1996). William Blake. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-7053-4.
George Anthony Rosso Jr. (1993). Blake’s Prophetic Workshop: A Study of The Four Zoas. Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8387-5240-3.
G. R. Sabri-Tabrizi (1973). The eaven and ell of William Blake, (New York, International Publishers)
June Singer, The Unholy Bible: Blake, Jung, and the Collective Unconscious (SIGO Press, 1986)
Sheila A. Spector (2001). “Wonders Divine”: the development of Blake’s Kabbalistic myth, (Bucknell UP)
Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Blake: A Critical Essay, (London, 1868)
E.P. Thompson (1993). Witness Against the Beast. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22515-9.
W. M. Rossetti (editor), The Poetical Works of William Blake, (London, 1874)
A. G. B. Russell (1912). Engravings of William Blake.
Basil de Slincourt, William Blake, (London, 1909)
Joseph Viscomi (1993). Blake and the Idea of the Book, (Princeton UP). ISBN 0-691-06962-X.
David Weir (2003). Brahma in the West: William Blake and the Oriental Renaissance, (SUNY Press)
Jason Whittaker (1999). William Blake and the Myths of Britain, (Macmillan)
William Butler Yeats (1903). Ideas of Good and Evil. Contains essays.
References
^ Frye, Northrop and Denham, Robert D. Collected Works of Northrop Frye. 2006, pp 11-12.
^ Jones, Jonathan (2005-04-25). “Blake’s heaven”. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,1469584,00.html.
^ Thomas, Edward. A Literary Pilgrim in England. 1917, p. 3.
^ Yeats, W. B. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats. 2007, p. 85.
^ Wilson, Mona. The Life of William Blake. The Nonesuch Press, 1927. p.167.
^ The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge. 2004, p. 351.
^ Blake, William. Blake’s “America, a Prophecy” ; And, “Europe, a Prophecy”. 1984, p. 2.
^ Kazin, Alfred (1997). “An Introduction to William Blake”. http://www.multimedialibrary.com/Articles/kazin/alfredblake.asp. Retrieved 2006-09-23.
^ Blake, William and Rossetti, William Michael. The Poetical Works of William Blake: Lyrical and Miscellaneous. 1890, p. xi.
^ Blake, William and Rossetti, William Michael. The Poetical Works of William Blake: Lyrical and Miscellaneous. 1890, p. xiii.
^ Marshall, Peter (January 1, 1994). William Blake: Visionary Anarchist (Revised Edition ed.). Freedom Press. ISBN 0900384778.
^ poets.org/William Blake, retrieved online June 13, 2008
^ a b c Bentley, Gerald Eades and Bentley Jr., G. William Blake: The Critical Heritage. 1995, page 34-5.
^ a b Raine, Kathleen (1970). World of Art: William Blake. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20107-2.
^ 43, Blake, Peter Ackroyd, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995
^ Blake, William. The Poems of William Blake. 1893, page xix.
^ 44, Blake, Ackroyd
^ Blake, William and Tatham, Frederick. The Letters of William Blake: Together with a Life. 1906, page 7.
^ Erdman, David V. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (2nd edition ed.). p. 641. ISBN 0-385-15213-2.
^ Gilchrist, A, The Life of William Blake, London, 1842, p. 30
^ Erdman, David, Prophet Against Empire, p. 9
^ McGann, J. “Did Blake Betray the French Revolution”, Presenting Poetry: Composition, Publication, Reception, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p.128
^ “St. Mary’s Church Parish website”. http://home.clara.net/pkennington/VirtualTour/windows_modern.htm#Blake. “St Mary’s Modern Stained Glass”
^ Reproduction of 1783 edition: Tate Publishing, London, ISBN 978 185437 768 5
^ Biographies of William Blake and Henry Fuseli, retrieved on May 31st 2007.
^ Kennedy, Mave, Art historian dents image of William Blake, engraver – 2005-4-18. Retrieved 2009-7-6.
^ Bentley, G. E, Blake Records, p 341
^ Gilchrist, Life of William Blake, 1863, p. 316
^ Schuchard, MK, Why Mrs Blake Cried, Century, 2006, p. 3
^ Ackroyd, Peter, Blake, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995, p. 82
^ Damon, Samuel Foster (1988). A Blake Dictionary
^ a b Blake, William. Milton a Poem, and the Final Illuminated Works. 1998, page 14-5.
^ Wright, Thomas. Life of William Blake. 2003, page 131.
^ The Gothic Life of William Blake: 1757-1827
^ Lucas, E.V. (1904). Highways and byways in Sussex. Macmillan. ASIN B-0008-5GBS-C.
^ Peterfreund, Stuart, The Din of the City in Blake’s Prophetic Books, ELH – Volume 64, Number 1, Spring 1997, pp. 99-130
^ Blunt, Anthony, The Art of William Blake, p 77
^ Peter Ackroyd, “Genius spurned: Blake’s doomed exhibition is back”, The Times Saturday Review, 4 April 2009
^ Bindman, David. “Blake as a Painter” in The Cambridge Companion to William Blake, Morris Eaves (ed.), Cambridge, 2003, p. 106
^ Blake Records, p. 341
^ Ackroyd, Blake, 389
^ Gilchrist, The Life of William Blake, London, 1863, 405
^ Grigson, Samuel Palmer, p. 38
^ Ackroyd, Blake, 390
^ Blake Records, p. 410
^ Ackroyd, Blake, p. 391
^ Marsha Keith Schuchard, Why Mrs Blake Cried: Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual Basis of Spiritual Vision, pp. 1-20
^ “Friends of Blake homepage”. Friends of Blake. http://www.friendsofblake.org/home.htm. Retrieved 2008-07-31.
^ “Coming up – William Blake”. BBC Inside Out. 2007-02-09. http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/london/series11/week5_healthy_living_working.shtml. Retrieved 2008-08-01.
^ Tate UK. “William Blake’s London”. http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/learnonline/blakeinteractive/lambeth/london_05.html. Retrieved 2006-08-26.
^ The Unholy Bible, June Singer, p. 229.
^ William Blake, Murry, p. 168.
^ “a personal mythology parallel to the Old Testament and Greek mythology”; Bonnefoy, Yves. Roman and European Mythologies. 1992, page 265.
^ Damon, Samuel Foster (1988). A Blake Dictionary (Revised Edition). Brown University Press. p. 358. ISBN 0874514363.
^ Makdisi, Saree. William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s. 2003, page 226-7.
^ Altizer, Thomas J.J. The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake. 2000, page 18.
^ Blake, William. Proverbs of Hell, via The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. 1982, page 35.
^ Blake, Gerald Eades Bentley (1975). William Blake: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & K. Paul. p. 30. ISBN 0710082347.
^ Baker-Smith, Dominic. Between Dream and Nature: Essays on Utopia and Dystopia. 1987, page 163.
^ Kaiser, Christopher B. Creational Theology and the History of Physical Science. 1997, page 328.
^ Jerusalem Plate 15, lines 14-20 Complete Works of William Blake Online
^ *Ackroyd, Peter (1995). Blake. London: Sinclair-Stevenson. p. 285. ISBN 1-85619-278-4.
^ Essick, Robert N. (1980). William Blake, Printmaker. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 248.
^ Letter to George Cumberland, 12 April 1827 Complete Works of William Blake Online Blake is referring to his Illustrations of the Book of Job, often considered his artistic masterpiece.
^ Colebrook, C. Blake 1: The Enlightenment William Blake Retrieved on October 1st 2008
^ Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake, 1947, Princeton University Press
^ Blake, William and Rossetti, William Michael. The Poetical Works of William Blake: Lyrical and Miscellaneous. 1890, page 81-2.
^ A Blake Dictionary, Samuel Foster Damon
^ a b c Bentley, Gerald Eades and Bentley Jr., G. William Blake: The Critical Heritage. 1995, page 36-7.
^ a b Langridge, Irene. William Blake: A Study of His Life and Art Work. 1904, page 48-9.
^ Blake, William. Complete Writings with Variant Readings. 1969, page 617.
^ John Ezard (2004-07-06). “Blake’s vision on show”. The Guardian. http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1254856,00.html#article_continue. Retrieved 2008-03-24.
^ Letter to Nanavutty, 11 Nov 1948, quoted by Hiles, David. Jung, William Blake and our answer to Job 2001. http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/pdf’s/Microsoft Word – Jung paper.web.pdf, retrieved 13 December 2009
Secondary sources
External links
Poems by William Blake at Poetry Archive
William Blake on BBC Poetry Season
Works by or about William Blake in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Works by William Blake at Project Gutenberg
An Archive of an Exhibit of his Work at the National Gallery of Victoria
Ch’an Buddhism and the Prophetic Poems of William Blake
Contents, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake edited by David V. Erdman
See Blake’s notebook online using the British Library’s Turning the Pages system (requires Shockwave).
Tate’s online resource on William Blake with notes for teachers
The recent re-discovery of the location of William Blake’s grave
www.William-Blake.org 128 works by William Blake
The William Blake Archive, a hypermedia archive sponsored by the Library of Congress and supported by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The William Blake Archive’s searchable edition of Erdman’s The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake
William Blake and Visual Culture: A special issue of the journal ImageText
William Blake Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
Free scores by William Blake in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
Index entry for William Blake at Poet’s Corner
Archive of William Blake exhibit, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
v d e
Romanticism
Culture
Bohemianism Ossian Romantic nationalism Wallenrodism
Literature
Almeida Garrett Andersen Blake Bryant Burns Byron Chateaubriand Coleridge Cooper Eichendorff Espronceda Foscolo Goethe Grimm Brothers Hawthorne Heine Hoffmann Hlderlin Hugo Irving Jean Paul Keats Kleist Krasiski Lamartine Larra Leopardi Lermontov Malczewski Manzoni Mickiewicz Musset Nerval Norwid Novalis Oehlenschlger Poe Pushkin Schiller Scott M. Shelley P.B. Shelley Shevchenko Sowacki Madame de Stal Stendhal Tieck Wordsworth Zhukovsky Zorilla
Music
Alkan Auber Beethoven Bellini Berlioz Berwald Chopin Flicien David Ferdinand David Donizetti Field Franck Glinka Halvy Kalkbrenner Liszt Loewe Marschner Mhul Mendelssohn Meyerbeer Moscheles Paganini Rossini Schubert Schumann Thalberg Verdi Wagner Weber
Philosophy and aesthetics
Coleridge Feuerbach Fichte Goethe Mller Schiller A. Schlegel F. Schlegel Schleiermacher Tieck Wackenroder
Art
Blake Briullov Constable Corot Dahl Delacroix Dsseldorf School Friedrich Fuseli Gricault Goya Hudson River School Leutze Martin Michaowski Nazarene movement Palmer Runge Turner Ward Wiertz
Architecture
Gothic Revival National Romantic style
Age of Enlightenment
Realism
v d e
William Blake
Literary works
Early writings
Poetical Sketches An Island in the Moon
Songs of Innocence
and Experience
Unique to
Songs of Innocence
Introduction The Shepherd The Ecchoing Green The Little Black Boy The Blossom Laughing Song A Cradle Song Night Spring A Dream On Anothers Sorrow
Unique to
Songs of Experience
Introduction Earth’s Answer The Clod and the Pebble The Sick Rose The Fly The Angel My Pretty Rose Tree Ah! Sun-Flower The Lilly The Garden of Love The Little Vagabond London A Poison Tree A Little Girl Lost To Tirzah The School Boy The Voice of the Ancient Bard
Paired poems
Nurse’s Song Infant Joy The Lamb Holy Thursday Holy Thursday The Chimney Sweeper The Little Boy lost The Little Boy Found The Divine Image The Little Girl Lost The Little Girl Found The Tyger The Human Abstract Infant Sorrow
Prophetic
Books
The continental
prophecies
Europe a Prophecy America a Prophecy The Song of Los
Other
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell The Book of Thel The Book of Ahania The Book of Urizen Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion Milton a Poem The Book of Los The Four Zoas Visions of the Daughters of Albion The French Revolution
The Pickering
Manuscript
Auguries of Innocence The Mental Traveler The Crystal Cabinet
Mythology
Ahania Albion Bromion Enion Enitharmon Fuzon Grodna Har Hela Leutha Los Luvah Orc Spectre Tharmas Thiriel Tiriel Urizen Urthona Utha Vala
Art
Paintings and prints
Relief etching Nebuchadnezzar Descriptive Catalogue The Four and Twenty Elders Casting their Crowns before the Divine Throne The Ghost of a Flea The Great Red Dragon Paintings Illustrations of Paradise Lost Illustrations of the Book of Job Illustrations of The Divine Comedy The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides Illustrations of On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity A Vision of the Last Judgment Newton Original Stories from Real Life The Ancient of Days
The Ancients
Samuel Palmer Edward Calvert Frederick Tatham George Richmond John Linnell
Criticism and scholarship
Scholars and critics
Peter Ackroyd Donald Ault Harold Bloom S. Foster Damon David V. Erdman Northrop Frye Alexander Gilchrist Geoffrey Keynes E. P. Thompson
Scholarly works
Life of William Blake Fearful Symmetry Blake: Prophet Against Empire Witness Against the Beast
Wikimedia
Blake at Wiktionary Blake at Wikibooks Blake at Wikiquote Blake at Wikisource Blake at Commons Blake at Wikinews
Persondata
NAME
Blake, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Poet, Painter, Printmaker
DATE OF BIRTH
28 November 1757
PLACE OF BIRTH
London, England
DATE OF DEATH
12 August 1827
PLACE OF DEATH
London, England
Categories: William Blake | 1757 births | 1827 deaths | Artist authors | British vegetarians | English anarchists | English painters | English poets | English printmakers | English Swedenborgians | Christian mystics | Mythopoeic writers | People from Soho | Prophets | Romantic artists | Romantic poets | Writers who illustrated their own writing | English DissentersHidden categories: Wikipedia semi-protected pages | Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature
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