10 Most Famous Submarines

9. U-boats

The Treaty of Versailles limited the number of a German surface navy. Therefore, the rebuilding of the German navy involved mainly the building of Unterseeboot (undersea boat) which is anglicized into U-boat. The newly created U-boat navy was one of the least politically Nazi in all German army. Before and during the World War II, more than a thousand U-boats were built with the sole purpose of defeating the Royal Navy through underwater warfare and commerce raiding. Despite the esteemed leadership of the Fleet Admiral Karl Döenitz (above), mass attacks (Rudeltaktik) and the coded communications through Enigma machine, U-boats failed to cut off Britain’s trade supply routes.

 

 8. Turtle

Although there were no substantiated accounts of its role in Battle of Kip’s Bay, Turtle was considered the first submarine used in battle. Designed in Connecticut in 1775 by American David Bushell, Turtle was funded by George Washington (although he doubted its military importance). Unlike the modern submarines, unshapely Turtle was to drill into another ship’s hull and plant a gunpowder keg there. About 8 feet long, 6 feet tall, and 3 feet wide, it is only big enough to contain a person (and contained air only for thirty minutes) who also has to propel it with hand-cranked propellers-the first recorded use of the screw propeller for ships. On September 7, 1776, Turtle attacked British Admiral Howe’s flagship HMS Eagle, but failed because of Eagle’s think copper-sheet hull and of the stability issues.

 

7. Plongeur

Designed by Captain Siméon Bourgeois, Plongeur (Diver) was the first submarine to be propelled by mechanical (rather than human) power. Between its launching in April 1863 and its eventual sinking a decade later, Plongeur was involved in many underwater experiments that greatly improved the later submarine designs especially concerning the stability of the vessels.  Plongeur dove to a maximum depth of 10 metres.

 

6. Drebbel’s submarine

The world’s first submarine was designed by a Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel. The court inventor for England’s James I, Drebbel was trying to convince the Royal Navy that this was the vessel of the future, and this he demonstrated in 1602 up the Thames River. Drebbel took a fishing boat, built a wooden roof over it, and covered everything with greased leather. It was powered by twelve oarsmen, who breathed air that came through a snorkel tube. King James himself even took a ride inside one of Drebbel’s later submarines. However, the Royal Navy wasn’t convinced that a vessel that traveled underwater could have any military use, and Drebbel died in poverty. It would take three hundred more years for the Royal Navy to change their minds.

 

5. U-96, Das Boot

Based on a novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, 1981 Wolfgang Petersen movie Das Boot made U-96-the title U-boat-almost synonymous with submarine warfare. The movie follows a single mission of the U-boat through the eyes of a war correspondent Lt. Werner. Juxtaposing claustrophobic interior of the vessel, monotony of day-to-day life in a submarine and the exciting alternative a battle offers to that monotony, Petersen paints a strong anti-war message through this “journey to the edge of the mind” (in German, Eine Reise ans Ende des Verstandes).

 

4. Red October

 

Based on two real-life deflection-related incidents, Tom Clancy’s highly successful debut novel The Hunt for Red October is about the deflection plans of a submarine captain Marko Ramius. The eponymous Red October is an experimental Typhoon class nuclear submarine equipped with a stealth propulsion system that renders sonar detection near-impossible. The propulsion system, nicknamed “Caterpillar Drive”, utilized a pumpjet system. Unlike its real-life counterparts, Ramius’ defection plans were successful, and Red October was delivered into American hands at the end of the novel. 

 

3. USS Nautilus

In 1951, the US Congress authorized the construction of a nuclear-powered submarine and three years later, USS Nautilus-the word’s first nuclear-powered submarine-was launched by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. On 9 June 1958, departing the Pacific coast, she began her history-making voyage-Operation Sunshine. After a long await at Pearl Harbor for better Arctic weather, Nautilus became the first vessel to reach the geographic North Pole on 3 August and the first to voyage across the North Pole submerged on 7 August. Because gyro- and magnetic compasses become inaccurate above 85 degrees N, a special gyrocompass was built, and the captain was authorized to use torpedos to blow a hole in the ice if the submarine needed to surface. In later years, Nautilus became ineffective as it generated more noise through vibrations of the hull. The Navy retired the ship and it is now a museum of submarine history.

 

2. USS Triton

 

In the dramatic age of nuclear submarine, USS Triton set numerous records. At the time of her commissioning in 1959, Triton was the largest, most powerful, and most expensive submarine ever built, costing over 100 million dollars. Also, it is the only non-Soviet submarine to be powered by two nuclear reactors, and also the first U.S. nuclear submarine to be taken out of service. However, every record pales in comparison with her monumental Operation Sandblast-a submerged circumnavigation of the Earth. On 16^th February 1960, Triton began its voyage patterned after the first circumnavigation led by Magellan.  It arrived back on 10 May 1960, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced its successful voyage at the White House. However, by this time, because of the public uproar over the U-2 Incident, most of the official celebrations for its circumnavigation were already canceled. Antigua and Barbuda issued a stamp commemorating its circumnavigation (above).

 

1. Nautilus

Named after Robert Fulton’s Nautilus, (the first practical submarine, invented in 1800), Nautilus is more than a plot device is Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Double hulled and separated into water-tight compartments, Nautilus can travel 50 knots and displaces 1500 cubic meters of water-a feat undreamt of when Verne published his novel in 1870. Nautilus uses a technique called “hydroplaning” to dive down in warped angles and powerful pumps that produce large jets of water when the vessel emerges rapidly from the surface of the water. It is driven by electricity through sodium-mercury batteries and was built piecemeal on a deserted island by its crew commandeered by one Captain Nemo, of indeterminate age and nationality.   

 

 

Bonus: Yellow Submarine

“Yellow Submarine” is a 1966 song by The Beatles (credited to Lennon/McCartney). It also became the title song for the 1968 animated United Artists film, also named Yellow Submarine, and the film’s soundtrack. The film is about Pepperland, a cheerful music-loving paradise under the sea, protected by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which falls under a surprise attack by the music-hating Blue Meanies. The film was based on many musical pieces by The Beatles. Paul McCartney was inspired by the Rime of the Ancient Mariner,  and originally conceived it as being about differently coloured submarines, but evolved to include only a yellow one. In 2005, a 51-foot long yellow submarine metal sculpture was placed outside Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport.

10 Forgotten People who made a Profound difference

10. John Fielding introduces law and order, crafts modern police force

With his brother Henry, Sir John Fielding (above left as seen in TV series City of Vice) established the Bow Street Runners, the world’s  first professional police force in 1750. John Fielding was blinded in a navy accident at the age of 19 but he served as his brother’s personal assistant from 1750 until Henry’s death four years later. Known as the “Blind Beak of Bow Street”, John Fielding expended the runners (which originally numbered eight) into the first truly effective organization, later even adding horseback patrols, street lighting and a maritime police force. He divided London into six areas with their own patrols and police stations, and introduced highways patrols which ended highway robberies.  His patrol, equipped with truncheon, cutlass and pistol, and dressed in leather hats, blue coats with brass buttons, blue trousers and boots, became a precursor for the modern police force. John Fielding also introduced a newssheet, Hue and Cry, which collected and disseminated information about crimes, suspected criminals, and convictions, placing Bow Street at the centre of a national criminal intelligence network. It is a feat worthy of a man who could reputedly tell 3000 criminals apart by the sounds of their voices.

9. Kankan Musa spends lavishly, invites greed

Mansa (Emperor) Kankan Musa, who ruled the Mali Empire in the 14^th century, was best known for his  hajj to Mecca. In the 14th year of his reign (1324), he set out on his famous pilgrimage to Mecca-the pilgrimage that revealed Mali’s wealth the world to the stupendous wealth of Mali. Traveling to Cairo, his retinue consisted of 60,000 men, 12,000 slaves (all of whom wore brocade and Persian silk), 80 to 100 camels loaded with 300 pounds of gold each. The emperor rode on horseback and was directly preceded by 500 slaves, each of whom carried a four-pound staff of solid gold. So lavish was the emperor’s spending in Cairo that he devalued gold prices there. He invited back Islamic scholars from Mecca to Mali. He embarked on large building projects in Timbuktu, which has since become synonymous with exoticism in Europe. His brazen statements of Mali’s wealth had but one result: it made Africa’s interior a more desirable target for the European conquest.

8. Jan Coen reforms trade, creates the modern colonialism

In 1619, Jan Pieterszoon Coen was appointed Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). A major problem in the European trade with Asia at the time was that the Europeans could offer few goods that Asians wanted, except silver and gold. By starting intra-Asiatic trade system between various colonies, Coen stopped the need for exports of gold and silver from Europe, making colonial ventures more profitable. By reinvesting the profits, the VOC became not only an economic but also a political power-something very different from the previous colonial models under the Spanish and the Portuguese. Coen also pioneered the introduction of Christian missionaries and modern technology to the East, and his trade post on Dejima was for more than two hundred years the only place where Europeans were permitted to trade with Japan. In one of the first examples of outsourcing, the VOC closed its shipyard in 1649, realizing it would be more profitable to hire others’ ships than to build its own. By 1669, the VOC was already the richest private company the world had ever seen, with over 150 merchant ships, 40 warships, 50,000 employees, a private army of 10,000 soldiers, and a dividend payment of 40% on the original investment, with only 4% of the ships imperiled. (In 2003, Microsoft’s dividend was .03 percent.)

7. Rhodopis sells her body, builds a pyramid, becomes Cinderella

According to the legends, in the 6th century B.C., a Greek slave Rhodopis worked in the same household as the slave Aesop. She was eventually taken to Egypt to work as a prostitute, where she was freed by an enamored Greek wine merchant Charaxus. Charaxus was the brother of the famous poetess Sappho, who wrote a poem chastising him for this deed. Charaxus eventually returned to Greece, while Rhodopis resumed her work as a high-class prostitute in Egypt. According to Herodotus, she became so famous and so rich that she singlehandedly financed the construction of her own pyramid. Another tale contradicts that a Pharaoh built a pyramid in her honor. Herodotus also claimed that Rhodopis donated a great number of “iron beef spits”–an impressive gift in those days–to the shrine at Delphi. In addition, Rhodopis inspired an early Egyptian story, which later became the basic of “Cinderella”, where she became the Queen of Egypt.

6. Sidney Smith spies, saves Britain

Sir Percy Blakeney, a.k.a. Scarlet Pimpernel, is the English spy who rescued the French aristocracy from the clutches of Madame Guillotine after the French Revolution. He is also entirely fictional-a literary creation on Baroness Orczy. Blakeney’s closest real-time counterpart is Sir Sidney Smith, a first cousin of Prime Minister William Pitt. Smith thwarted Napoleon’s planned invasion of Britain by burning down the entire French fleet at Toulon with eighteen small boats manned by the French royalists. Arrested, he  continued to lead his spy network from behind the bars at the Temple Prison, and later escaped to Constantinople. There, dressed in Turkish garb and enormous mustache, he scuttled Napoleon’s Egyptian fleet as well.  Years later, Napoleon commented: “That man made me miss my destiny.” In private life, arrogant and much disliked, Smith conducted an infamous affair with the Princess of Wales.

5. Stetson Kennedy recruits Superman, defeats KKK

After World War II, Ku Klux Klan experienced a huge resurgence. A young writer and activist named Stetson Kennedy decided to expose the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan and went undercover to infiltrate the group. By regularly attending meetings, he became privy to the organization’s secrets. However, when he tried to expose the organization, the local authorities themselves were intimidated by the Klan.  In his dilemma, Kennedy went to the writers of the Superman radio series which has become recently popular. With the Nazism finally defeated, the producers were also looking for a new villain. So serial “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” was conceived. The serial ultimately exposed many of the KKK’s most guarded secrets, thus stripping the Klan of its mystique. The Klan denounced the show and called for a boycott of the sponsor Kellogg’s products. In the 1950s, Kennedy wrote a bestseller which further damaged the Klan.

4. Robert Houdin magicks, saves an empire

In September 1856, the French Government asked a retired magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, ”the father of modern magic,” to help suppress tribal revolutions in the French Algeria. The revolts were led by local fakirs, marabouts, who used magic tricks to appear supernatural as prophets of Allah. Houdin was asked to outmagick the marabouts. On October 28, 60 tribal chiefs were invited to see Houdin, who subsequently vanished strength from one man, caught bullets, and made a wall bleed. After the show, Houbin explained his tricks and the tricks of the marabouts. Three days after the performance, the chieftains presented Houdin with an illuminated manuscript praising his art and pledging their allegiance to France. The French Algiers was saved. For a time being.

3. Doña Marina interprets, ends an empire

Doña Marina acted as an interpreter, advisor, intermediary and mistress of Hernán Cortés during the latter’s Conquest of Mexico. Ambiguously viewed either as a traitor or a victim, she played a decisive role in bringing down the Aztec Empire. History doesn’t remember her precise origins, but she was one of the slave girls presented to the Spaniards when they landed in the New World. Cortes proclaimed that he had come in peace but Aztec Emperor Montezuma ordered an attack on the invaders before they forged alliances with non-Aztec Indians. Without the help of Marina, Montezuma would have been successful; her negotiations with the native tribes rallied those tribes behind Cortes, thus dooming the tyrannical Aztec Empire. Cortes himself later wrote: “After God we owe this conquest of New Spain to Doña Marina.” After the Conquest, she introduced Christianity to the New World and attempted to end human sacrifice and cannibalism, before disappearing from history.

2. Stanislav Petrov does nothing, saves the world

In 1983, a Soviet ballistics officer Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov was duty officer at Serpukhov-15, the secret bunker outside Moscow that monitored the Soviet Union’s early-warning satellite system. One night, the alarm bells went off shortly after midnight. One of the satellites signaled Moscow that the United States had launched five ballistic missiles at Russia. The alarm coincided with the beginning of provocative NATO military exercises and it barely three weeks after the Russians shot down a South Korean airliner that had wandered into Soviet air space. However, Petrov was less sure; he realized that an American attack would come from more than five ICBMs. Therefore, he concluded correctly that it is a false alarm — thereby averting a potential nuclear holocaust. It was later found out that the malfunctioning satellite picked up the sun’s reflection off the cloud tops and interpreted that as a missile launch.

1. A Prostitute has sex with Hitler, causes the Holocaust

In Mein Kampf, volume 1, Adolf Hitler wrote extensively on syphilis and prostitution. Fourteen paged litany on what he called a “Jewish disease” caused some historians to speculate whether Hitler himself had the disease. Hitler reportedly had sex with a Jewish prostitute in Vienna in 1908. His possible discovery later that year that he had the disease may have been responsible for his demeanor; while his life course may have been influenced by his anger at being a syphilitic, as well as his belief that he had acquired the disease from undesirable societal elements which he intended to eliminate. A psychiatry team studied diary entries made by Hitler’s personal doctor, Theo Morrell, and concluded that there is “ample circumstantial evidence” for the theory. (Some, however, dispute that  Dr Morrell deliberately poisoned his patient).

Bonus: Urian bites the Pope, separates the Church and the State

In the late 1520s, Henry VIII of England wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon because  she had not produced a male heir. Catherine was his late brother’s wife, and Henry tried to annul the marriage on such grounds. In 1527 Henry asked Pope Clement VII to annul the marriage. Although  Clement has good relations with Henry, the Pope feared the wrath of Catherine’s nephew, powerful Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Henry sent Cardinal Wolsey to Rome to persuade the pope. As was the custom, the cardinal bent down to kiss the pope’s toe. However, Wolsey’s greyhound, Urian, thought his master was being attacked, and it lunged forward to bite the pope’s bare foot. Enraged, the pope called off the negotiations; the Catholic Church refused to grant the annulment. Henry went on with his divorce and established the Church of England.

12 Most Famous Stairs

12. The stairs of the House of Slaves

Slave exports from Goree Island off the coast of Senegal began about 1670. Despite its notoriety as the final exit point of the slaves from Africa, only an estimated 26,000 of the 12 million slaves that were abducted from Africa are thought to have passed through the island. The surviving House of Slaves on Goree was built by the Dutch in 1776, by which time the slave-trade from Africa was finally winding down. It was on the stairs of this house that the last sales in Africa took place. The house was the home of a wealthy trader (dealing with gold and ivory) of mixed descent, Signare Anna Colas Pépin.

 

11. Nu descendant un escalier n° 2

A famed mixture of Cubism and Futurism, 1912 painting by Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, was almost renamed by the sensitivities of the time. Although the depiction is neither explicit nor mundane (Duchamp used the notion of superimposing images), jurists at the Salon des Indépendants asked him to rename the painting. Duchamp chose the alternative: he voluntarily withdrew the painting. He submitted it a year later to Armory Show in New York, where it was again satirized against. However, it is now considered one of the best artworks of the age.

 

10. The Spiral Stairs of Round Tower

Connected to the Trinity Church in the old Latin quarter of Copenhagen is the Round Tower, commissioned by King Christian IV of Denmark in 1637 as an observatory. The tower, which is the oldest functioning observatory in Europe, has an unique architectural feat: a 209m long spiral walkway that winds 7.5 turns around the hollow core of the tower forming the only connection between the individual parts of the building complex. In 1716, the visiting Russian Tsar Peter the Great, on horseback, drove the horse carriage with his Empress Katharina inside up the rump to the top. In 1902, his footsteps were followed by a Beaufort car, which became the first motorised vehicle to ascend this tower.

 

9. Penrose Stairs

Best exemplified by sketches of M.C.Escher (most notable of which is Ascending and Descending, above), the Penrose Stairs are a visual paradox created by a two-dimensional figure in three dimensions  by distorting perspective. Envisioned by Lionel Penrose and his son Roger Penrose, it is a further variation on the Penrose triangle. It is a two-dimensional depiction of a staircase in which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a person (in Escher’s case above, monks) could climb them forever and never get any higher.

 

8. The Spanish Steps

The Spanish Steps (Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti) is the longest and widest staircase in Europe. The grand 138-stepped stairway connects the Bourbon Spanish Embassy to the Holy See (it still occupies the same spot in Palazzo Monaldeschi) to the church, Trinità dei Monti, which was under the patronage of the Bourbon kings of France. The project was envisioned since the 1580s, but debates over the style and execution (the proposed French plan once included an equestrian monument to Louis XIV) delayed the construction. Finally, compromise between a Bourbon fleur-de-lys and Papal Crown was reach and it was finally constructed in 1723. Today, in Christmas time, a crib is displayed on the first landing of the staircase, a tradition dating back to the 19^th century.

 

7. Double Spiral of Chateau Chambord

In Loire Valley lies the Chateau of Chambord, one of the most romantic castles ever built. It was begun by Francois I in 1519 (and would not be completed until 1547) but the archives offer no information as to the name of the architect. Some said an Italian Domenico da Cartona designed the building, but Leonardo da Vinci himself was consulted over its plans, and left his indelible mark on at least one of the chateau’s 13 grand staircases. The famed spiral staircase has two separate flights (with no connection between them) with numerous openings on the arms of the corridors. Leonardo’s notebooks show that he conceived a staircase comprised of not two but four distinct superimposed flights of stairs. Although it was devised for the king to have a better defense and escape means, the staircase was only used to prevent the king’s several mistresses from seeing one other.  

 

6. The Spiral Stairs of Vatican Museum

Even great museums like Musei Vaticani start with one single art work-that of the Trojan priest Laocoon, unearthed in 1506. On Michelangelo’s recommendation, Pope Julius II purchased it and put it on public display at the Vatican. The pope also founded the museums, which attract four million people annually. When these people exit, they exit via a huge spiral staircase, designed by Bramante, and emblazoned with papal crests and tiaras. Throughout the 17^th century, Bramante’s design was copied and expanded upon extensive, but the original is a staircase that even the people who haven’t been to the Vatican recognize-because it featured prominently on covers of many mathematic textbooks, like one above.

 

5. Tulip Staircase

 

The elegant spiral staircase at the Queen’s House of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England is world-famous. In 1966, it was made even more famous by a photograph. Rev. Ralph Hardy, a retired clergyman from White Rock, British Columbia, took a photograph of the stairs. However, upon development, he found a shrouded figure climbing the stairs. The figure, although hold the railing with both hands, is ethereal. Experts, including those from Kodak, who examined the original negative concluded that it had not been tampered with. The Queen’s House custodians say that unexplained figures have been sometimes seen near the staircase, and that unexplained footsteps have also been heard.

 

4. Copán Hieroglyphic Staircase

A major Mayan civilization thrived in Copán on Honduras-Guatemalan border from the 5th to the 9th centuries. In Copán, we find the longest hieroglyphic inscriptions left from the Maya era; the inscription on the stairs of the west side of Temple 26, details the history of Copan’s ruling dynasty:  births, accessions, important rituals, achievements, parentage statements, and deaths. When exactly the stairs were built is still a mystery, but the inscriptions tell us that the 13^th King of Copán built the Hieroglyphic Stairway to honor his predecessor and to compensate for burying Stela 63, and the Papagayo step, the previous record the dynastic history. The 15^th King, whose stela is found at the foot of the stairway, doubled the length and historical content of the stairway inscription, created the balustrades that framed it, and dedicated Temple 26.

 

3. Wienergraben Stairs of Death

Mauthausen-Gusen Concentration Camp was a large group of Nazi concentration camps in Upper Austria, twelve miles east of the city of Linz. Prisoners sent to Mauthausen were forced to work at its Wiener-Graben granite quarry, and because of the number of people needed for quarry works, the living conditions were lower even compared to other Nazi concentration camps. Prisoners were forced to climb the 186 steps of the Wiener Graben with large blocks of granite on their backs. Often the blocks would fall, crushing limbs and bodies of those following. The SS guards would force prisoners – exhausted from hours of hard labour without sufficient food and water – to race up the stairs carrying blocks of stone. Those who survived the ordeal would often be placed in a line-up at the edge of a cliff known as “The Parachute Wall” (German: Fallschirmspringerwand). At gun-point each prisoner would have the option of being shot, or to push the prisoner in front of them off of the cliff.

 

2. Mysterious Stairs of the Loretto Chapel

When the Loretto Chapel was completed in 1878, there was no way to access the choir loft twenty-two feet above. Carpenters concluded a staircase to the loft would be impossible given with the interior space of the small Chapel. Legend says that the sisters of the Chapel made a plea to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a man appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. Months later, the elegant circular staircase was completed, and the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks. The stairway’s carpenter, who didn’t even answer to an ad that ran in the local newspaper, built a structure that has two 360 degree turns and no visible means of support. Also, the staircase was built without nails-only wooden pegs.

 

1. Grand Staircase of White House

The State Floor (Entrance Hall) and the Second Floor of the White House is connected by the Grand Staircase. The original architect James Hoban envisioned two main staircases in the entrance hall, but the original ceremonial staircase at the west end of the Cross Hall was removed under Teddy Roosevelt. During the Truman White House renovation, the position of the Grand Staircase was a major headache, but an unanimous decision was reached with the current design. The staircase’s interior walls have the seals of the original 13 states, while above, it has a bas-relief American eagle. A stair carpet in a shade of red has been used since the days of Teddy Roosevelt.

 

Bonus: The Thirty-Nine Steps

In the original novel by John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps are the actual steps that lead to the shore-side house a German spy organization, the Black Stone, uses for their meetings. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1939 adapation gave the spy organization the name “The 39 Steps” but its significance was not explanied.  

Why Sudan must not be new Rwanda

Generation Y and Z are the terms demographers use to categorize the people born in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The world was at least a more serene place then, the Berlin Wall was coming down, the Communist bête noir is finally slain, and the forces of democracy seems thriving: from China to the Philippines to Kuwait. And then came Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the false illusions of a peaceful and glorious 21st century were shattered forever.

Fifteen years after the Rwandan Genocide (a term the Clinton Administration wavered in using), another conflict in Africa is quickly transforming itself into a catastrophe of Rwandan proportions. In 100-day genocide in Rwandan, an estimated one million people has perished. In Darfur, the death toll is nearing half-a-million now. Unlike Rwanda, the numbers are spread over the conflict’s five-year span (2003-2008). This makes the world less attentive but this does not mean that Darfur is not Rwanda, the Sequel. It is already becoming one.

Sudan’s main trading partners China and Russia are more concerned with oil rather than human lives. Currently, it will not be politically correct to point fingers for the Rwandan genocide, France and other Francophone nations of Africa that initially prevented the international intervention in Rwanda with their irrational fears that the American and British troops (who had just rolled back the Iron Curtain) would gradually diminish Francophone influence in Africa.

With Rwanda, the UN took forty days just to agree on the term ‘genocide’. On May 17, 1994, it pledged to send a peacekeeping force, which was further delayed by arguments over cost and contributions. A month later, the Security Council authorized the French forces to enter the country, but it was too late. They arrived in one area after another only to find burnt villages and killing fields. Later, the French Operation Turquoise was even accused to aiding the genocide perpetrators.

People who believe that the Western peacekeeping forces will only exacerbate the conflict between Islamic World and Judeo-Christian West need to revisit their creeds. The international community’s beliefs that the conflict is religious and political were the result of a false propaganda campaign by the Arab League, on whose leaders’ necks the scarlet letters of genocide should–and will–hang. Despite the Arab League’s ill omens, the Darfuri conflict is less religious in nature, but more political.

The Arab League has expressed ‘concern’ over the violence in Sudan’s Darfur which they term a ‘great regional instability’. The ongoing Darfur crisis that started in 2003 coincides with record high nominal oil prices, which resulted in record high budget surpluses in Gulf countries. However, their financial, humanitarian and peacekeeping contributions to the troubled region are farcical. The Arab League supported the ill-equipped African Union (AU) forces in Darfur (AMIS) as the only solution for Darfur but contributed only $15 million to AMIS (compared to the EU’s $520 million). Canada alone contributed more than all the Arab countries combined. Of 7,000 troops, only 76 (34 Egyptians, 20 Mauritanians, 13 Algerian and 9 Libyans) come from Arab countries.

However, the Arab countries are very active on Darfur issue-in thwarting international mediations. They justified their rejections by echoing the Sudanese government that even a neutral peacekeeping force will threaten the Sudanese sovereignty. This is double standard since a UN peacekeeping force is already working in the troubled Southern Sudan.

On Arab media–which gleefully glorified suicide bombers from Baghdad to Bethlehem, there are great censorships concerning Darfur. For example, when an Arab League Commission of Inquiry into Darfur (2004) found attacks on civilians as “massive violations of human rights”, the statement was later suppressed and removed from their website. Ironically–but predictably–the Darfur conflict was downplayed by the Arab media, which adores to vividly portray the violence in Israel, Lebanon-Syria and Iraq with morbid accuracy. They even recast the Darfur conflict as a cover for Palestine and Iraq. Hardest to understand is an editorial in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Gomhouriya dated April 20th 2007, which claims that only 200,000 people (instead of 400,000 as noted in the Western Press) are killed in ‘war crimes’ (which is the editorial’s substitute for the word ‘genocide’). Even if it is a civil war with only 200,000 casualties, it is time for international community to act.

In July 2008, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced the court’s decision to seek the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The Arab League has publicly condemned the resolution, and stated with a straight face that the domestic trials followed by justice systems of Arab League and the African Union will be a better substitute. In the case of pot calling kettle black, President Bashir had called Moreno-Ocampo a “terrorist” and suggested that he should be removed from office.

Already, the blood has been spilled and it is on the hands of Russia, China and the Arab countries. A 2006 UN report clearly states that the government supplied weapons to militias. However, Arab League, Russia and China rejected proposals to end the sale of weapons, which the Sudanese government also uses to attack civilian villages.

Hopefully, it will not escalate to a disaster of Rwandan scale. Let’s keep our fingers crossed, but let’s also keep our troops alert. With the horror of Somalia (and American intervention there) hanging above our heads, it will not be rational to green-light a military invasion, but it will be equally irrational to ignore the cries of millions of Sudanese people. Let’s just reflect about it.

10 Famous Bridges

10. Chapel Bridge of Lucerne

The oldest wooden bridge in Europe and the most photographed entity in Switzerland,  the Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge) spanning the Reuss River in Lucerne was built in 1333. Originally designed to protect the city from attacks, the original bridge and its paintings dating from the 17^th century were destroyed in a 1993 fire. The bridge is over 200 m long and adjoining it is the 43 m Wasserturm (Water Tower), an octagonal tower made from brick, which has served as a prison, torture chamber, watchtower and treasury. Today the tower, which is part of the city wall, is the guild hall of the artillery association.

 

9. Brooklyn Bridge

One of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, the Brooklyn Bridge, designed in 1867, was the dream of John A. Roebling, the inventor of wire cable and an accomplished bridge builder. Roebling was injured while surveying the property and died of tetanus before the bridge was built. Fourteen years later, the project was completed by Roebling’s daughter-in-law, Emily. The gothic towers of the bridge are entirely of granite, and the roadway platform is supported by two-inch diameter steel suspenders strung from two pairs of cables – the catenaries – sixteen inches in diameter. The opening of the bridge in 1883 was marred by the deaths of twelve pedestrians, who were trampled during a panic set off by an anonymous shouted warning that the bridge was in danger of imminent collapse.

 

8. The Bridge of Sighs (Venice, Oxford and Cambridge)

The view from the Bridge of Sighs in Venice is said to be the last view of the fabulous city that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge name, given by Lord Byron in the 19th century, comes from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice out the window before being taken down to their cells under the palace roof. In reality, the days of inquisitions and summary executions were over by the time the bridge was built, and the questioned cells were then occupied mostly by small-time criminals. A Venetian legend says that lovers will be assured eternal love if they kiss on a gondola at sunset under the bridge.

In 1914, a bridge, connecting the Old and New Quadrangles of Hertford College, Oxford was designed by Sir Thomas Jackson. It has since been referred as the “Bridge of Sighs” because of its supposed similarity to the famous Venetian bridge. In Cambridge also, there is a bridge named “Bridge of Sighs”. The bridge is one of Cambridge’s main tourist attractions and reputedly a favorite spot of Queen Victoria. Locals jest that the bridge is named in reference to the sound that Cambridge students make as they cross the bridge on their way out of exams.

 

7. Bridge to Nowhere

Gravina Island Bridge, a proposed road bridge over the Tongass Narrows to the town of Ketchikan in Alaska, became a controversial topic of the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaigns. The bridge was proposed to replace the ferry that connects Gravina Island’s 50 residents and the Ketchikan International Airport, and projected to cost $400 million. Members of the Alaskan congressional delegation were the bridge’s biggest advocates in Congress, and the bridge became an egregious symbol of pork barrel spending.

 

6. Stari Most

Mostar is a city and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the biggest and the most important city in Herzegovina. Mostar, on the Neretva river, was named after its Old Bridge, Stari Most, and its side-towers,   “the bridge keepers” (Mostari). The bridge was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557 to replace an older wooden suspension bridge. Charged under pain of death to construct a bridge of such unprecedented dimensions, the architect reportedly prepared for his own funeral on the day the scaffolding was finally removed from the completed structure. Upon its completion it was a technical marvel and contained the widest man-made arch in the world. The bridge was destroyed by the Croatians during the Bosnian War in 1993, to erase any sign of Ottoman architecture in Bosnia. After the end of the war, the bridge was rebuilt with the help of UNESCO. Its 1,088 stones were shaped according to the original techniques in a reconstruction that cost €12 million. It reopened in 2004.

It is traditional for the young men of the town to leap from the bridge into the Neretva. As the Neretva is very cold, this is a very risky feat and only the most skilled and best trained divers will attempt it. The practice dates back to the time the bridge was built, but the first recorded instance of someone diving off the bridge is from 1664.

 

5. The Bridge on the River Kwai

Originally a novel by Pierre Boulle (Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai), it is adapted into a movie which won seven Oscars, including the Best Picture and the Best Director, despite a controversy over the book’s portrayal of collaboration with the enemy in the building of the infamous Burma Railway. The bridge pictured in the movie is actually built (and destroyed) in Sri Lanka, and it is a fictive amalgamation of many railway bridges constructed over the Mae Klong River. The destruction of the bridge is also entirely fictional: two bridges, a temporary wooden one and a permanent steel/concrete one, were built; both were destroyed by Allied bombing (above), but the steel bridge was repaired and is still in use today.

 

4. Pont d’Arcole

The Battle of the Bridge of Arcole, which took place from November 15^th to 17^th 1796, was the result of a bold attempt by Napoleon to outflank the Austrian army. The road that went north across the bridge intersected the Austrian lines of communication, which Napoleon hoped to be able to cut. However, it proved to be difficult even to reach the bridge at Arcole, let alone capture it. Although the French did manage to cross the bridge on the first day of the battle, they had to retire again. By the time the French managed finally to cross the bridge, the Austrians had managed to move the bulk of their army to safety, but Napoleon could still count himself successful in that he had forced the Austrians to abandon their plan of relieving Mantua. The battle was a complex engagement that concerned more than the crossing of a bridge, but the bridge figured prominently in many paintings of the battle for dramatic and allegorical reasons. The most famous painting is Napoleon at the Bridge of the Arcole by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros which is based on one eye-witness account that he saw Napoleon holding a colour and leading his grenadiers in an assault.

 

3. Bering Land Bridge

The best-known of the geological land bridges, the Bering land bridge joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia at various times during the Pleistocene ice ages, enabling humans to migrate from Eurasia to the Americas. It is believed that a small human population of at most a few thousand survived the Last Glacial Maximum in Beringia, isolated from its ancestor populations in Asia for at least 5,000 years, before expanding to populate the Americas sometime after 16,500 years ago, as the American glaciers blocking the way southward melted.

 

2. Pons Sublicius

The Pons Sublicius is the bridge that led across the Tiber to Rome. According to Roman legends, a lone hero, Horatius Cocles held the bridge against the invading Etruscans army of Lars Porsena, King of Clusium, in 507 BC. In Livy’s account, two other men (Titus Herminius & Spurius Lartius) stayed with Horatius while the others fled. The other two eventually left at Horatius’ request. As he defended the way to the bridge, the Romans destroyed it behind him. When they were done, he either swam to safety on the Roman side (according to Livy), or was drowned in the Tiber (according to Polybius). According to Livy, Horatius was rewarded with as much land as he could plough around in a single day. A one-eyed statue (Cocles mean one-eyed) in the temple of Vulcan near the Vatican Hill was erected in his honor. The story is famously retold in Lord Macaulay’s the Lays of Ancient Rome.

 

1. The Tay Bridge

Dubbed by Ulysses S. Grant as “a big bridge for a small city”, Tay Bridge spanning Firth of Tay in Scotland was designed by Thomas Bouch, inspired by the innovative use of cast iron in The Crystal Palace. Upon its completion in early 1878 the Tay Bridge was the longest in the world. On 28 December 1879, the bridge swayed and collapsed during a violent storm, while a train was crossing it. Seventy-five people (including Sir Thomas’ son-in-law) died in the crash, in the worst bridge disaster in history. The disaster is made famous in a poem by William McGonagall, who is regarded as the worst poet in history. McGonagall, who had previously written a poem in praise of the Tay Bridge (and who would later write a similar ode for the replacement Tay Bridge), penned these immortal lines:

                “And the cry rang out all round the town,

                Good heavens! The Tay Bridge has blown down.”

9 Previous Economic Panics

1637: Tulipomania

In 1593 tulips were introduced to the Netherlands from Turkey. The novelty made it expensive. Later,   tulips contracted a virus known as mosaic, which altered some causing “flames” of color to appear upon the petals. The color patterns increased the rarity of the bulb. Everyone began to deal in bulbs, and as in all speculative bubbles, the prices became an inaccurate reflection of the value. Prices rose so fast and high that some traded their land and life savings to get more bulbs. Many Dutch believed that they would sell their vegetables to foreigners with enormous profits. Slowly, prices became lower as everyone tried to sell while not many were buying. Dealers refused to honor contracts and people began to realize they traded their homes for a piece of flower. The government tried to halt the crash by offering to honor contracts at 10% of the value, but by then, the market had plunged even lower, making such restitution impossible. A terrible depression followed.

 

1720: South Sea Bubble Bust

With the British empire vastly expending, the South Sea Company purchased the “rights” to all trade in the South Seas, with a ten-million pounds IOU with the government. SSC had no problem attracting investors because stocks of other companies (like East India Trading Company) were difficult to buy. The popular conception was that a South Sea trade would open a lucrative South Americas. With demand vastly exceeding the supply of stocks, the company became a pyramid scheme.

Meanwhile in France, an exiled Brit, John Law founded the Mississippi Company, which specialized in  exchanging gold and silver to a paper currency, and whose total stock came to worth 80 times more than all the gold and silver in France. Success of SSC and Mississippi Company fueled emergence of ludicrous ventures such as the ones that promised to reclaim sunshine from vegetables and to build floating mansions to extend Britain’s landmass-which were lampooned by Swift in his Gulliver’s Travels.

By 1720, the poor management team at SSC finally realized that the titular trading company is doing dismally. When the news leaked, the panic selling of worthless certificates of all companies ensued. The  South Sea bubble bust also killed the Mississippi Company. A complete crash was avoided alone due to the timely intervention of the British government, which outlawed the issuing of stock certificates, a law that was not repealed until a century later. 

 

1797: The Panic of 1797

Britain’s economy was hurt, as Britain was fighting France in the French Revolutionary Wars. To aid the ailing economy, the Bank of England introduced the deflationary measures in 1797. The deflation created a small panic in England, but it spread more intensively in real estate markets of the coastal United States and the Caribbean through the turn of the century. Many people in the New World were land-poor (i.e., they owned large plantations and lands but didn’t have enough hard money to pay off his creditors) and when faced with financial hardships, they absconded. Many American creditors including Senator Robert Morris the “financier of the revolution” (above) who once paid Washington’s troops from his own funds, ended up in the prison. The Panic of 1797 also changed American political landscape dramatically; Morris once contributed substantially to the Federalist cause, and his economic failure succumbed the Federalist party, and led to the election of Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson in 1800. 

 

1873: The Long Depression

It was the depression termed “the Great Depression” before the actual leviathan came along in 1929. The Long Depression (1873-1896) affected the entire world, and caused the Great Britain to lost its large industrial lead over Continental Europe. Although its main cause is the shortage of available money to facilitate the global trade, the Long Depression was triggered by 1870 Franco-Prussian War and large  reparations France owe to Germany. On May 9^th 1873, the Vienna Stock Exchange collapsed with the dramatic fall of silver. In America, the unhealthy railroad boom, rampant since the end of Civil War, busted. Many nations fell back to protectionism, but 19^th century tenets of classic liberalism (that it was not the government’s role to intervene in the economy) protracted the depression. Politically, the Long Depression revived a new wave of colonialism as the western powers sought new markets and new gold. Since this depression was caused by shortages of gold that undermined the gold standard, it was finally alleviated by Witwatersrand Gold Rush (1886) in South Africa and the Klondike (1898).

 

1926: Florida Real Estate Craze

In the gilded age of the 1920s, Americans believed that their prosperity would be infinite. Florida is a prime residence for people who don’t like the cold. The population was growing steadily and housing couldn’t match the demand, causing prices to double and triple. This increasing prices attracted speculators, and soon everyone in Florida became a real estate investor or a real estate agent. Land prices continued to increase until the moment when no one wanted to buy absurdly overpriced land. Then panic  selling, and bust ensued.

 

1929: The Great Depression

After the end of the First World War, with the industrialization of many parts of the world, stocks always went up on the Wall Street. Many speculated on the Wall Street without understanding system, and still made profits. With the flood of uneducated investors, the market was ripe for some manipulation and swindling. Investment brokers traded substantial stocks amongst one another at progressively increasing prices. When the public noticed this manufactured increase of stock values, everyone bought the stock, creating profits for the manipulators who would then sell off their shares. The herd mentality on the trading floor continued pleasantly until 1929 when the boom-bust wheel came one full circle and the ignorant investors mass-panicked. The twelve-year worldwide depression followed and ended only with the coming of WWII.

 

1987: The Crash of 1987

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was established by FDR to prevent further market crashes and fraudulent practices. However, the SEC couldn’t make the investors and public follow its advices. In the ’60s and ’70s, investors looked not at the value of the company but at the popularity of its marketed products. As it happened during 18^th century South Sea Boom, many dubious ventures thrived unabated until the ’80s. But when in early 1987, the SEC started to investigate insider tradings, investors abandoned lucrative dubious and mostly crooked ventures. This minor panic is coupled with lagging of the-then primitive NYSE’s computer system. Not knowing the actual prices on the Wall Street, people panicked and started dumping stocks. The Dow lost 22.6% and 500 billion dollars in a day.

 

1997: The Asian Financial Crisis

Between 1955 and 1990, land prices in Japan increased by 70 times and stocks increased by 100 times. Trading became a national pastime. During the eighties, large Tokyo firms worthed more individually than all their American counterparts combined, and Japanese golf courses worthed more than all the stocks combined on the Australian exchange. Investors saw a potential bubble, but believed that high level of collusion between the government and businesses could sustain the growth forever. Indeed, when the Japanese government intervened by regulation and raising interest rates, the Nikkei index plummeted 30,000 points. The bursting of the Japan bubble made a huge tsunami of credit crunches and loss capital in South and East Asia. It crippled the American economy as well.

 

2000: Dot-Com Bubble Bust

Commercially the internet became the ‘new economy’ in 1995 with an estimated 18 million users. The age-old specter is resurrected again: companies again pursued risky ventures akin to the ones that crippled 18^th century England and the 1980’s America. Investors wanted big plans instead of solid plan. Dotcom doublespeak, networking, new paradigm, information technologies, internet, consumer-driven navigation, tailored web experience, and many more, was created. Investors blindly purchased every new stock without even looking at the business plan. When many of these companies folded within months of their offering, the usual panic followed. The Nasdaq Composite lost 78% of its value. In 2001 the number of IPOs dwindled to 76 from 1999 numbers of 457 IPOs.

TIME Person of the Year: Barack Obama

TIME magazine today named U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama as her Person of the Year for 2008. This coming after rounds of debates and expert opinions (where they even considered iObama, his online persona) is a surprise indeed.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/personoftheyear

However, strictly speaking, this is Mr. Obama’s fourth Person of the Year honor. Born in 1961, Mr. Obama was a baby-bloomer and a Middle-American, both of which were chosen as TIME’s People of the Year in the 1960s. Obama’s last nod was two years ago, when coupled with an unusual bout of creativity, TIME magazine named “You” as People of the Year.

Meanwhile, people in Japan are wondering why “little beach” is named the Person of the Year. May be they will think this is a repeat of TIME’s 1988 nomination of Planet Earth as POY (Planet of the Year). Yes, Obama means Obama means “little beach” in Japanese, and it is even the name of a small fishing town in Fukui.

Britain’s Worst Prime Ministers

Arthur Balfour (1902-05)

A member of the powerful Cecil family, Arthur Balfour was given prominent government posts by his uncle, 3-time Prime Minister Lord Salisbury. Balfour excelled at those positions and when Salisbury retired, he was unanimously chosen by the conservatives to lead the country. The early days of Balfour Ministry were pleasant: reform-minded new King Edward VII is on the throne. The British had just finished a calamitous war in South Africa, and Balfour and his foreign minister narrowly averted the British participation in Russo-Japanese War. However, a disastrous debate between free traders and protectionists ensued in the Commons with both groups trying to protect “British interests” in face of German and American industrialization.  Balfour mishandled the situation. He proposed retaliatory tariffs yet called for the resignation of free-traders in his cabinet, to balance the situation. Weakened, Balfour Ministry fell in December 1905, and Labor party won a landslide election a month later. Balfour himself lost his Parliament seat.

Alec-Douglas Home (1963)

Sir Alec Douglas Home has many achievements in the office—for a trivia collector: he was the last member of the House of Lords to become Prime Minister; the last to be chosen personally by the monarch, and the only PM to have played first class cricket. (His cricket career helped him catch an egg thrown at him during a campaign) For the first three days of his ministry, he was even 14th Earl of Home, the title which he renounced to embark on the disastrous tenure in the Downing Street. His reputation already damaged for his proximity to Profumo Scandal, he spent only a year in office without, on his own admission, doing a damned thing. In 1970, he took Foreign Secretary job under Heath, establishing another record: he became the last former Prime Minister to take a Ministry in someone else’s cabinet.

Edward Heath(1970-74)

Sir Douglas-Home’s successor at Conservative Party, Edward Heath fared no better. His time was fraught with domestic problems in Northern Ireland and horrible industrial unrests, which culminates with the infamous ‘three-day week’, and eventual banning for free school milk. He brokered Sunningdale Agreement (1973) with the Irish, but the peace was short-lived. Mr. Heath dragooned Britain into the European Common Market, a decision which was tragic at the best and calamitous at the worst. When an early election which he called for ended with inconclusive results, and Heath promptly resigned. He never tried to stage a political comeback, for good reasons.

Harold Wilson (1964-70; 1974-76)

Edward Heath’s tenure was sandwiched by two Labor Ministries of Harold Wilson. He did preside over a period of low unemployment and economic prosperity in his first term, but his second ministry was a direct opposite and eventual reversal of everything he achieved in his first term. Wilson preoccupied himself with attempts to prevent the devaluation of the pound, and neglected to deal with the inherited problem of large external deficit. (The problem would be neglected again and again until Mrs. Thatcher came to office.) On the international scene, he fared better: he refused American President Johnson’s requests of an British intervening in Vietnam, and also refused to help minority white government of Rhodesia. However, there were even allegations that he was a Soviet spy: he withdrew the military forces from bases east of Suez, cancelled numerous defense projects (including a supersonic Harrier, a new transport aircraft American Hercules C130) and bankrupted Rolls-Royce in the process. (Rolls-Royce’s temporary nationalization began in 1971 and lasted 17 years.) He retired on his sixtieth year in 1976. He tried to enter television broadcasting, but his attempts floundered, not at least because Alzheimer was setting in.

Clement Attlee (1945-1951)

If Harold Wilson’s negligence was astounding, that of Clement Attlee was criminal. Voted Britain’s best 20th century Prime Minster (ahead of Churchill and Thatcher) by the voting public comprises mainly of the post-war generation whose fond memories of Attlee are of his universal healthcare, Attlee nonetheless lost the British Empire for which millions gave their lives. Attlee let India and various British Asian Dependencies to have independence, severely reducing British influence at the onset of the Cold War. In the task of transforming from a wartime economy to a peacetime one, he was marginally successful, but food rations continued well into next ministry. The adoring British public voted him out in the 1951 General Election, a dramatic twist for the man who was Labor’s first leader to form majority ministry.

Anthony Eden (1955-57)

In politics, the golden rule is never play second fiddle. The fine example was that of Anthony Eden, who served as a skilled diplomat, a stellar Foreign Secretary and capable deputy Prime Minister before destroying his entire reputation in his short ministry. Sir Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, aided Winston Churchill’s war ministry and was made a Knight of the Garter for his efforts. In 1953, he underwent a blotched operation to remove gallstones, which led to his permanent intake of painkillers and antidepressants. In 1956, General Nasser in Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. In Nasser, Eden saw a Mussolini and green-lighted an Anglo French invasion of Suez. Yielding to domestic and American pressure, Eden finally withdrew the troops, taking away with them the last shreds of dignity of the British Empire. (The Soviets, meanwhile, used the Suez Crisis as a diversion to invade Hungary.) He notably pardoned Nazi war criminals in the British prisons, and rejected the proposed idea of an economic and political union between France and Great Britain. After all, he should have taken that job as the Secretary-General of the newly-formed UN first offered to him in 1945.

Archibald Primrose (1894-1895)

Liberal statesman Archibald Primrose was the last Prime Minister to be chosen by the sovereign against the will of the government. Chosen because Queen Victoria detested other leading liberals, the 5th Earl of Rosebery formed a ministry which was idealistic in vision, but unsuccessful in reality. His domestic policies were defeated at the House of Lords, while his foreign policies (expansion of the fleet and expeditions to Africa) were killed by his own liberal party. He resigned, retired to write biographies, and eventually became harshest critic of ensuing ministries. By the time of his death, he not only died rich (as the richest Prime Minister England had ever had) but fulfilled his three aims in life: to breed a horse that win the Derby, to marry an heiress, and to become Prime Minister.

Andrew Bonar-Law (1922-1923)

During the Great War,  King George V asked Canadian-born Andrew Bonar-Law to lead the country. He deferred the Premiership to David Lloyd George—which is the only good decision Bonar-Law made in his career. However, when David Lloyd George tried to use armed force against Turkey in the Chanak Crisis, Andrew Bonar-Law set an anonymous letter denouncing the act. This and internal strife caused Lloyd George’s resignation and Bonar Law was given the ministry. Amid the post-war financial crisis and war debts, Bonar Law formed a new cabinet, which was referred to as “the Second Eleven” because it excluded many leaders of the Conservative Party. Stanley Baldwin, his inexperienced Chancellor of the Exchequer, agreed to repay war debt of £40 million per annum to the USA rather than feasible £25 million and announced the deal to the press before the Cabinet could review it. In poor health since 1921, Bonar Law was deprived of his speech due to a terminal throat cancer. He resigned and King George agreed to invite his handpicked successor, one-and-only Stanley Baldwin, to form the new government. When he died later that same year, Herbert Asquith famously eulogized that they had buried the Unknown Prime Minister next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

John Stuart (1762-63)

Even the title ‘Unknown Prime Minister’ will fare better when compared to an appellation ‘stupid person’. But that is exactly what ‘Jack Boot’, the term for Earl of Bute’s ministry, meant. John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, was a close friend (and alleged lover) of Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales. When her son became George III, he was appointed Prime Minister. His manipulative reign of tyranny was so far-reaching that the king himself was once criticized from reading from an official speech written by the Earl.

The Earl of Liverpool (1812-27) and Viscount Sidmouth (1802-04)

The Earl of Bute’s manipulation of the royal family pale in comparison to Robert Jenkinson, the 2nd Earl of Liverpool’s gambit with the nation. Liverpool presided over repression and recession which accompanied Napoleonic Wars. Liverpool engaged as his Home Secretary Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth (above right) who served as Prime Minster from 1802-04. Sidmouth got his ministry in 1802, because Pitt the Younger was defeated after his failure to achieve Catholic emancipation. Sidmouth did achieve a peace (albeit unfavorable) with France in the Treaty of Amiens, which it was short-lived. His management of war was so terrible that it led to restoration of Pitt ministry within two years.
Under Liverpool, Sidmouth worked behind the scenes to direct a police state with spies, informers and coercive legislation. He brutally crushed radical opposition, was responsible for the suspension of habeas corpus (1817), the Peterloo Massacre (1819) and the repressive Six Acts later that year. For the remainder of his life, he waged war against both Catholic Emancipation and Reform Acts, and his last speech was in opposition to Catholic Emancipation in 1829.

The Other Unknown Prime Ministers

Originally, since the office of the Prime Minister is crown-appointed, people held the office for a long time. The first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole’s term lasted nearly 21 years. However, not all royal picks are as fortunate:
Walpole’s successor (and Britain’s rare celibate Prime Minister) Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington (1742-3) served as a mere titular head of so-called Carteret Ministry dominated by Lord Carteret, Earl of Grenville only for a year before succumbing to his illness.
The Earl of Bath was asked to form a government but was unable to find more than one person who would agree to serve in his cabinet. His ministry lasted for only two days: 10-12 February 1746. A satirist commented: “the minister to the astonishment of all wise men never transacted one rash thing; and, what is more marvellous, left as much money in the Treasury as he found in it.” The 2nd Earl Waldegrave was prime minister for four days, from 8 June to 12 June 1757.

8 things we don’t need on airliners

Commercial air travel has become so expensive that a lot of airlines have either increased their fares or cancelled some of their routes or both. Can we get to the solution of the problem with a few modifications to the existing flying conditions? Here follows eight things that the airliner of the future shouldn’t have…

Sunshades

Nearly every passenger sitting at the window seat is asked to open his window shade during the take-off and landing. This is a wise decision, for allowing more light into the cabin and letting the passengers and the crew aware of their surroundings is crucial. However, closing them is essentially superfluous. It helps to nullify the external light and adjusts the passengers to the changing timezones, but apart from that, the window shade does nothing. So, it must go.

Headphones, entertainment systems

No doubt the movie studios got paid thousands of dollars to show their latest films in flights flying all over the world. Actually, we are paying the airlines to enjoy those songs, radio and TV shows and movies. Yes, a long flight can be pretty boring without any entertainment, but the cabin entertainment system is a relic in an age where people don’t have their ipods, iphones, laptops and other gadgets. Headphones, personally delivered to you by the flight attendants, are also covered in plastic wraps, which lead to …

Plastics

From headphones to pillows and blankets, everything is wrapped in plastics somehow. Maybe passengers think that only those under plasticized veneer are clean or worth using, but the logic is a flawed one. Airlines can just repackage those items without cleaning, just saying. So, after all, it seems like we are wasting a lot of money for something that is not even guaranteed. Maybe we need pillows and blankets for warmth, comfort or even for health reasons, but plastic wraps are just too much, and tones of plastics discarded from the planes also ruin the environment.

Food

In long international flights, you got offered a lot of food. In domestic flights, you are ‘encouraged’ to buy them. Not many people do. The take-away is that people can do without food for short flights. However, tonnes of food are delivered to the airport tarmacs, only to be wrapped in plastic and eventually wasted.

Skymall

Another thing people can buy while air are cosmetics and other products that cater to impulsive buying and people’s need to give gifts to the loved ones whom they are visiting. Perfumes, liqueurs, jewels and cosmetics may be duty-free in air, but their already-incremented price offset this taxation. Also, as with food, it wastes energy and it adds additional weight to the airplane.

Flight Attendants

In recent years, the position has been a bone of contention for feminists. Their main purpose to explain safety rules and to deliver food. Both can be substituted: first by automated messages (which already exist) and the latter by vendor machines.

First Class

Airbus A380, the largest passenger aircraft in the world, houses beds large enough to sleep two people. First class passengers pay more—but are they getting their money’s worth? A better legroom and gourmand food are the entices of the first class but in reality, there are no real “first class passenger” class. The Super-Rich and the celebrities fly in their own private jets. So who flew first class? Mostly, the executives who use their companies’ money for lucrative business trips. “First class passenger” class exist because First Class exists. If it doesn’t….

Private Jets

From First Class to Private Jets? ‘Is this becoming a class war?’ one may ask, but even if it is the case, it is not me who is waging this war. It is the progress of the age that is calling for abandoning of private jets. In recent years, despite high fuel prices and threat of global warmings, private jest have become so affordable (but still costs a few millions dollars). It is nothing more than an expensive toy—a toy that needs hiring experienced personals to operate.

Bratislava, Slovekia

The old guidebook which I found still refers to Bratislava by its pre-1919 German name Pressburg. The name is perhaps a fitting tribute to the city which has remained in an Austro-Hungarian time-capsule for the past century. The capital of the Magyar Kingdom under the Habsburgs from 1536 to 1783, Bratislava again became a capital in 1993, after Slovak independence.

The least known of the Danube capitals, Bratislava is slowly catching up: it now boasts a beautifully restored old town with thriving cafés, fashion industry and nightlife. However, if one is visiting the city for history (most tourists in Slovakia are), the Old Town is the place to go. The oldest part is the medieval fortifications, of which Michael’s Gate is the best preserved. It should be visited not only for the great views from its tower, but also for its gun museum. The oldest building is a small Franciscan Church, dating to the 13th century, has been a place of knighting ceremonies.

The most memorable building of Bratislava will be its Castle, on a hill overseeing the Danube. First constructed in the 10th century, the castle was remodeled in to Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque styles at different points in its life. The walls and corridors still contain the fragments of this various construction styles, but the original castle had been destroyed in 1811. It was rebuilt since the 1950s in the style Queen Maria Theresa under whom the castle became famous throughout Europe.

The castle’s courtyard contains notably 80 m deep water well. The biggest of four corner towers is the Crown Tower (south-east) of the 13th century, which housed the crown jewels. Near the main entrance is the walled up entrance gate from the 16th century. A grand Baroque staircase, leads the Slovak National Museum (City Museum is in the Town Hall), which contains the Treasure Chamber, which houses, among other precious archaeological findings, a prehistoric statute called the Venus of Moravany. The Slovak Parliamentary Council still meet in the Castle.

The walk up to the Bratislava Castle passes through the old Jewish quarter, half demolished to make way for the brash Novy-Most (New) Bridge, built by the communists with a revolving, flying saucer café on top. En route, three delightful museums waits – one for clocks, another for decorative arts, and a third for folk music. A curiosity underground (formerly ground-level) is the restored portion of the Jewish cemetery, at the base of the castle hill.

In addition to the Castle, Bratislava is known for its numerous palaces: the Grassalkovich, built around 1760, is now the residence of the Slovak president. The Slovak government has its seat in the former Archiepiscopal Palace. The famed Peace of Pressburg between Austria and France after the Austerlitz was signed in the Primate’s Palace in 1805. After Revolutions of 1848, Ferdinand V also signed the abolition of serfdom, at the Primate’s Palace, which now houses the mayoral quarters.

The most famous ruins in the capital was Devín Castle (in German: Burg Theben) at the confluence of the Morava and the Danube Rivers. Not only strategic but also important to national identity, Devín Castle was destroyed by Napoleon’s troops in 1809. The last owners were the Counts of the Pálffy. Only some restored parts of the castle can be visited, but it houses an interesting archeology museum.
The University Library, erected in 1756, was used by the Diet of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1802 to 1848. The Gothic St. Martin’s Cathedral built in the 13th–16th centuries, seen the coronations of eleven kings and queens of Hungary. The Art Nouveau Church of St. Elisabeth is better known as the Blue Church for colour.

Bratislava has various parks and forests, natural and man-made lakes because of its proximity to the Little Carpathians mountains. (Slavin Military Cemetery offers an excellent view of the city and the Little Carpathians.) Even if a visitor has no time, he should drive through in the Rusovce borough which has Roman ruins. The district is own for its neo-Gothic Rusovce mansion, with its English park, and Rusovce lake, popular with nudists.

From nudists to voyeurism, just off Hlavné Square in city centre is a pavement sculpture of a workman idly peering out of a manhole called Peeping Tom. Our tour-guide said it was a statement on the way communists dished out hollow jobs. Up the street from Hlavné Square is the Art Deco Roland Café, the green-roofed 14th-century town hall.

Music is a key to the city: in the picturesque Venturskala Street, a couple of precocious kids (nine-year-old Liszt and six-year-old Mozart) once awed the citizens. Even today, many young people are amazing the visitors with various musical instruments in the streets. The Bratislava Opera is popular among international tourists for its quality as well as for its prices. The Opera is located in a Habsburg building in the center of the city on Hviezdoslavovo Square. The Opera is only subtitled in Slovak or German. Performances usually start at 7 pm, and can be booked one month in advance. Also on the Square is Reduta Building, the abode of Bratislava Redoute, Slovak Philharmonic, and Hotel Carlton. Tickets for Opera and Philharmonic can be as cheap as a tenner for the citizens, but for foreigners, it is SKK 600 (EUR 19.78).

Also on the Hviezdoslavovo Namestie (Square) is famous Slovenski Restaurancia, which serves traditional cholesterol-laden Slovak cuisine. Slovaks being who they are, the meal starts with a trolley (literally) of spirits wheeled to your table. Only Becherovka (a herbal spirit) is recommended for the beverage but roast goose, pancakes with red cabbage, and apple strudel are other Slovek specialties.
Look down on the town, up to the bobsleigh, skiing and toboggan runs on Kamzik Hill, then across the Danube to the concrete jungle of Petrzalka and its acres of Soviet tower blocks. From the quayside you can take the hydrofoil to Vienna. The uniquely designed Kamzík TV Tower has an observation deck and rotating restaurant.

No Country for Old Retards

Although I am straight out of a writing class on film techniques, I am not a person who ruminates much on his experiences inside a theatre. However, since a lot of my friends scornfully dismiss the best picture winner of 2007 as a bad movie, I thought I should put a good word or two for the movie by Coen Brothers.

I saw the movie as an expansion, if not a continuation, of previously acclaimed Coen Brothers’ movie, Fargo, which if I remember correctly, won an Academy Award for deserving William H. Macy. As in Fargo, the landscape of “No Country” is not only primitive, but it is also filled with coarse, albeit well-defined, characters. This is Texan primeval landscape transformed into the antediluvian land of Genesis, and filled in with Neanderthals of the men.

There are only three main characters in the movie: Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) and Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) and Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who dominates the every scene he appears, with his signature haircut, taciturn contempt against human lives, and his home-improved cattle-gun (which is weirdly shaped like a fire-extinguisher).

The movie starts with Llewellyn Moss discovering a drug-deal which went wrong, and a brief-case full of American dollars. Chigurh was sent to reclaim the money, but eventually he not only hunts down Moss but also those who hired him. Chigurh with his singular cattle gun represents Death with its signature scythe. The drug lords who hired Chigurh inadvertently invoked Death, which ultimately destroys not only their target but also them. The money Llewellyn found, on the other hand, became a standing prop for our lives, which are easier to get than to retain.

Sheriff Bell who begins the story by saying he can’t believe how much evil it is out there in the world, provides the moral foundation for the movie. The most memorable scene is when Bell enters the hotel room Chigurh was hiding, knowingly that the latter is there. Bell knows his antagonist’s destructiveness and invincibility, but he walks bravely towards his nemesis, and he came out of the confrontation unscratched. It is a classic showdown between fate (Chigurh) and confidence (it can be said that Bell also represents faith and belief, but those are dangerous waters).

At the end of the movie, Chigurh got into a terrible car accident, which can either be interpreted as his comeuppance or his belated luck. He is disarmed of his cattle gun, or he was separated away from his cattle gun by a stroke of luck, which states that finally Chigurh managed to get rid of his demons and murderous instincts. Inclusion of sympathetic children, and Chigurh’s almost warm reaction with them further ascertain this interpretation.

Many criticize the ending since Chigurh presumably escapes. But we are not watching “No Country” for its views on justice and comeuppance. Like Cormac McCarthy’s book, the movie leaves the audience with something to ponder upon: who were the real villains of the piece? Anton Chigurh with his flawed character was a candidate, but he, like Ingmar Bergman’s Death in The Seventh Seal, is a character we love to hate. Then how about Llewellyn Moss, and other members of drug cartel, whose greed overwhelm them? How about Sheriff Bell and his jaundiced view of the world? The ending was a fitting touch to the story in which we don’t understand who resembles dark.

In fact, a character does refer to Chigurh as the bubonic plague—a direct reference to Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 classic, The Seventh Seal. Chigurh’s coin tricks, the clothing he wears and his macabre phone calls are just derivatives of Bergman’s Death. In the end, Chigurh did kill both Llewellyn and his wife—which is something he must, for in The Seventh Seal, both the knight and his lady were claimed by death.

These symbolisms start with Cormac McCarthy’s book: if we perceive Chigurh as Death, it is not hard to see that the story itself is a retelling of the Pardoner’s Tale. In this most famous of all the Canterbury Tales, three young men looking for Death are told that they will find him under an oak tree. There they find only a bag of gold, for which they kill one another and meet Death finally. Llewellyn also found money under a tree as well, besides a dead body. There, he opened it, and unleashed everything inside this Pandora’s Box. Other macabre symbolisms include Llewellyn’s jacket and Chigurh’s shirt, and the River (Styx?) Llewellyn crossed without being able to cross back.

All being said, the film is very deep in symbolism, and results in ambiguity for many first time viewers. A confused (or even vacant) state of mind will visit the first viewing just to miss enjoyable aesthetics of each scene. Yet, you will sense something bigger, something difficult to comprehend in the picture. It is something difficult to put into words. Watch it again, and you will see and understand it…

10 Most Famous Doors in History

10. Christ at Heart’s Door

Many British and German religious prints from the nineteenth century depict Christ knocking at the door of a home, symbolizing Jesus Christ’s importance at both a friend and a guest. The most famous of these images are the versions of The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt, the first of which Hunt completed in 1853 and which hangs today in Keble College, Oxford. In 1947, Warner E. Sallman rendered a 21st century version called Christ at Heart’s Door, in which a barely concealed heart on the doorway made prominent by the luminance of Christ. The absence of any outside knob or latch on the door indicates that one must open one’s heart to Christ from within.

9. The Portal to Narnia

Four Pevensie Children, evacuated from London during the Blitz, found a portal to a magical kingdom called Narnia in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Norse myths and Christian allegories intertwine in seven Narnia books, but The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is allegorically about Christ’s crucifixion. Christ-like figure in the book, Aslan (the eponymous lion) sacrifices himself for a sinner. The cross is replaced by a Stone Table (taken from Celtic religion), both of which are pagan symbols. The splitting of the Stone Table reflects the veil of the temple splitting at the point of Christ’s death. As with the Christian Passion, it is women who tend Aslan’s body after he dies and are the first to see him after his resurrection. (The freeing of Aslan’s body from the stone table by field mice an allusion to Aesop’s fable of “The Lion and the Mouse.”)

8.Monsters Inc.

From one magical portal to multiple. In this monster-inhabited world imagined by Pixar Animations in 2001, screams of the children generate electricity. So, the city’s power company, Monsters, Inc. sends its monsters/employees to human children’s bedrooms to scare the children via teleportation doors. The movie reaffirms our childhood fears that there are monsters in the bedroom closet, especially after the lights have been put out. However, it is ingenious of Pixar to have the monsters afraid of the children likewise, and to poke fun at how much we have become desensitized to violence and horror.

7. The Columbus Door

In the  heart of the U.S. Capitol is the Rotunda, decorated with paintings, reliefs and symbols of the important events in U.S. history. At the east entrance of the Rotunda are the Columbus Doors, a grand   welcome to the nation’s collective memory. The doors are nearly 17 feet tall, and wieghs 20,000 pounds. A New Yorker, Randolph Roger, created these alto-relief bronze doors in Rome. Intitially, he had wanted to create the doors out of George Washington’s life, but instead used Columbus’ life from Irving’s Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1835), and included in his design busts of 10 historians famous for their work on Columbus, and allegorical figures of the continents. The doors were installed in 1863, and in 1871 were moved to their current position of honor at the main entrance to the Rotunda when the building was later remodeled in the mid-twentieth century.

6. The State Opening of the Parliament

In England, each year, the parliamentary session begins with the State Opening of Parliament, a ceremony in the House of Lords’ Chamber during which the Sovereign, in the presence of Members of both Houses, delivers an address on the Government’s legislative agenda. The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod is responsible for summoning the Commons to the Lords Chamber. As part of the ritual, as Black Rod approaches the doors to the chamber of the House of Commons to make his summons, they are slammed in his face. This is to symbolise the Commons’ independence of the Sovereign. Black Rod then strikes the door three times with his staff, and in reply to the challenge “Who is there?” answers “Black Rod”. He is then admitted and issues the summons of the monarch to attend.
The ritual is derived from the attempt by Charles I of England to arrest five members in 1642, in what was seen as a breach of privilege. After that incident, the House of Commons has maintained its right to question the right of the monarch’s representative to enter their chamber, though they can not bar him from entering with lawful authority, hence the Black Rod.

5. The Westgate Hotel Door

The Newport Chartist Rising was the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain. Chartism was a movement for reform in the United Kingdom between 1838 and 1848. Its main aims of the movement included suffrage for all men age 21 and over, equal-sized electoral districts, voting by secret ballots, the end to the need for a property qualification for Parliament, etc.
On November 4, 1839, somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 Chartist sympathisers marched on the town of Newport, Monmouthshire, intent on liberating fellow Chartists who were reported to have been taken prisoner in the town’s Westgate Hotel. At the Westgate Hotel today, bullet holes from that insurrection can still be seen in pillars in the frame of the main door. The Hotel itself has since been converted into a shopping and entertainment complex.

4. Sliding Doors

In this 1998 movie, a young woman learns that she has been fired from her PR job. On the way home, two parallel story-lines unfold. For the audience, the main character (played by Gwyneth Palthrow) begins to live two lives, and it all started with the doors of a tube car closing on her, opening the “what if” floodgates. With her entire life hinging on whether she had made the train, it is the movie where the  audience can truly appreciates the deep meanings behind the axiom: “When one door closes, another opens.”

3.Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salons

In the 1930s, it was said that “there are only three American names that are known in every single corner of the globe: Singer sewing machines, Coca Cola, and Elizabeth Arden.” It is ironic because Elizabeth Arden was born in Canada in 1898. Starting in the 1910s, she expanded her international operations in 1915, by opening beauty salons across the world. All these “Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salons” graced the famous Red Door—the symbol which has become synonymous with the Elizabeth Arden brand and has become part of its logo. In 1989, the company launched Red Door Perfume with $10 million advertising campaign, one of the largest advertising campaigns for a perfume in fashion history. In May 2000, Red Door Saloons Acquired Mario Tricoci, forming the largest spa and salon business in the world.

2.Martin Luther’s 95 Theses

In 1517, a papal commissioner was sent to Germany to sell indulgences to raise money to rebuild St Peter’s Basilica, citing that dogma alone cannot justify man and that charity to the church is needed. On October 31st, a theology professor called Martin Luther wrote to the Archbishop of Mainz, protesting the sale of indulgences. His scholarly objection to the Church came to be known as The 95 Theses, of which the most famous was Thesis 86: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?” On the same day he wrote the letter, Luther nailed a copy of the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg (church doors are the bulletin boards in his time), an event now seen as sparking the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation spread quickly with the aid of the newly-invented printing press. Every October 31 is celebrated as the Reformation Day.

1. Number 10 Downing Street

With a stone front step and a plain black entrance door with number ten on it, it is perhaps the most famous address in London and one of the most widely recognized doorways in the world. Number Ten Downing street is the official residence of the Prime Minster of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The small, six-paneled black oak door is surrounded by cream colored casing and adorned above with an attractive semicircular fanlight window. Painted in white in the center of the door, between the top and middle sets of panels, is the number 10; between the two middle panels is a black iron knocker in the shape of a lion’s head and just below the knocker is a brass letter box with the inscription “First Lord of the Treasury”, one of the Prime Minister’s courtesy titles. A policeman always guards the door, which can only be opened from the inside. The original door installed in the 1770s was removed during the Second World War, and is currently housed in the Churchill Museum in the Cabinet War Rooms.

Bonus: The Doors

The Doors formed in 1965 in Los Angeles was a popular and influential American band. John Densmore played drums, Robby Krieger guitar, Ray Manzarek organ, piano, keyboard bass and Jim Morrison was the lead singer.

This article contains direct quotes from Wikipedia.

9 Most Famous Windows in History

9. Pitt’s Pictures

In an attempt to impose a tax relative to the prosperity of the taxpayer,  window tax was introduced in England in 1696. The bigger the house, the more windows it was likely to have, and the more tax the occupants would pay. The tax was extremely unpopular, because it was seen as a tax on “light and air”, and many people responded by bricking up their window-spaces. In Scotland, this Window Tax was imposed only a century later by William Pitt the Younger in the 1780s. It was first introduced in the financial district of Edinburgh, and to this day “Pitt’s Pictures” (blacked out windows with white painted cross-frames) can be seen in Charlotte Square. The tax was not repealed until 1851, by when it has already introduced another new word into English lexicon: “daylight robbery”.

8.Vostok’s Porthole

“I see earth, it is so beautiful.” These were the first words ever uttered by a human being in the space. Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin has become the first human in space only a few minutes earlier. At 06:07 UTC on Wednesday, 12 April 1961, Vostok I was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. Three minutes later, the payload shroud which covered the window at Gagarin’s feet was opened.  the capsule’s plexiglass window. The simple plexiglass window contained the Vzor (Eyesight) optical orientation device.

7.The Pope’s Window

It is but one of 12,523 windows in the Apostolic Palace, which, in addition, houses more than 10,000 chambers, three elevators, and 997 flights of stairs. However, it is the window. On every Sunday at noon, Pope John Paul II appeared at this window to recite the “Angelus” mass. The tradition is continued by his successor Benedict XVI. This is the  window in the papal study, one of 10 on the third floor of the building. The Pope, however, lives on the fourth floor.

6.Texas School Book Depository

On November 22nd, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year-old former Marine who was working as a holiday-rush temporary employee at the building, fired rifle shots from the sixth floor of the Depository into the Presidential motorcade of John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was 88 yards away. Some say Oswald shot the President with three bullets within six seconds. Some say the time window can be as large as 8.3 seconds.  The Book Depository Company moved out in 1970, and the memorial museum for the assassination was opened in 1989.

5.The Window Capet

Legends said that Louis XVI was captured at Varennes because he looked out of his carriage window. However, not even that window (nor any other window in the history) is as infamous as the window of the cell Marie Antoinette occupied in the Temple Prison.
Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, the Princesse de Lamballe was the Superintendent of the Queen’s Household and one of the Queen’s closest friends. When the Royal Family attempted to flee France, the Princess fled toward England. However, learning of their capture at Varennes, she returned to Paris, where she joined Marie Antoinette in the Temple Prison. In August 1792, the two women were separated when the Princesse de Lamballe was transferred to La Force Prison. A month later, the Princesse became the most prominent victim of the September Massacres when the crowd dragged her from her prison cell, killed her, and then mutilated her body. They then put her head on a pike and paraded it in triumph before the window of the terrified Queen. with the grotesque demand that she be  forced “to kiss the lips of her intimate.” The Queen however did not see the head of her friend; she fainted upon learning about the gruesome end that had befallen her former companion.

4. Lady of Shalott

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem Lady of Shalott was based on a thirteenth-century Italian novella entitled Donna di Scalotta.  In Tennyson’s Arthurian interpretation, Lady of Shalott is cursed to never look out her window. She is allowed to view the world only from her mirror, through which she sees “shadows of the world”. One day, Sir Lancelot passes by the window, and she forgets the curse and looks out her window to catch a glimpse of him. The mirror cracks, and she was cursed. The story ends tragically with her death.
In literature, there are many famous windows: Rapunzel’s bleak one, Juliet’s window-balcony, etc. In Tennyson’s poem, the window represented the divide between idealism and reality, and also the Lady’s voluntary desire to attempt to bridge these two.

3. Rear Window

If Lady of Shalott explored the divide between reality and idealism, Rear Window celebrated the identical nature of life on both sides of the window. In this 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie, James Stewart plays a photographer recuperating from a broken leg. In his boredom, Stewart’s character looks out of his rear window to spy upon his neighbours (whose personas eerily reflect and match those of Stewart’s and his girlfriend’s), only to discover not so savory details about one particular neighbour.

2. Niepce’s Heliograph

From the photographer to the photographed.  La cour du domaine du Gras is not the first photograph attempted by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce, but this June 1826 photograph featuring a pigeon house and a barn roof is one of the earliest surviving ones. The View from the Window at Le Gras was captured at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes on a sheet of 20 × 25 cm oil-treated bitumen. To make what he called a “heliograph,” or sun drawing, Niépce’s camera obscura required an exposure time of more than eight hours, which made the sunlight illuminates the buildings in the pictures on both sides.

1. Defenestration of Prague

In fact, there were two defenestrations of Prague, but only the second one was more historically notable. In 1617, Bohemian aristocracy rebelled the election of Duke Ferdinand of Styria as King of Bohemia, fearing that Catholic Ferdinand would revoke more Protestant rights.
At Prague Castle on May 23, 1618, an assembly of Protestants tried two Imperial governors for violating the Letter of Majesty (Right of Freedom of Religion), found them guilty, and threw them out of the windows of the Bohemian Chancellery. They landed on a large pile of manure in a dry moat and survived.
This defenestration started the Bohemian Revolt, and the Bohemians crowned their own king. Insulted, yet powerless to stop the revolt, the duke (now Ferdinand II of Austria) called his nephew Phillip IV of Spain for help. By 1620, the revolt has advanced into a continental conflict which will later be known as Thirty Years’ War.

Bonus: Windows

This article contains direct quotes from Wikipedia.

….suffer what they must?

“When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Every time I read a story about Zimbabwe (or Rhodesia as I grew accustomed to calling it), these immortal words from the American Declaration of Independence reverberate in my ears. This morning, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga called for a regime change in Zimbabwe. This is the sign that the writing is already on the wall for Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe.

2008 is the year everything changed in Zimbabwe. The first round of Presidential elections gave 5% lead to the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. A long-drawn dispute over a run-off election ensued—with the opposition claiming that violence has been enacted upon their party members. This led to Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the ballot, international condemnation of the one-party run-off election and subsequent power-sharing agreement brokered by outgoing South African President Mbeki.

Mr. Mbeki’s optimism towards the agreement is not shared by me. Instead of unifying the trouble nation, it tried to create the body politic out of two irreconcilable ideologies. The power-sharing plan failed in October and Zimbabwe is found itself on the square one once again.

On the UNSC floor, we listened to the Zimbabwean government—nay, the Mugabe government (for it will be injudicious to refer to a despotic few as a representative government of a nation). Mugabe and his ambassadors asserted that Zimbabwe is not a threat to other countries. Yes, it may be too failed a state to be a danger to the international community, but it still poses a danger to its own people.

The international community have tried both sanctions and negotiations on Zimbabwe. Tackling the situation seriously, the British government removed Mugabe’s knighthood. Needless to say, none worked. Now, Zimbabwe is mired in its worst humanitarian disaster since the independence—it is finally the time to act.

The Mugabe government is the greatest obstacle between the aid and Zimbabweans. When the United Nation Security Council decided to take action on Zimbabwe, Russia, China and South Africa wanted more negotiations. Well, three months and a handful of futile negotiations later, Zimbabwe has taken its final calamitous journey towards the failed statehood.

The main argument against the international intervention in Zimbabwe concerns the blotched US intervention in Somalia, which left the latter as a failed state and a breeding ground for the international terrorism. In comparison, however, Zimbabwe is very near to being a failed state. If it is not already a good reason for the West, the UN or the AU to intervene, the prospect that we should be facing the greatest humanitarian disaster in decades is an irrefutable one.

The intervention in Zimbabwe doesn’t mean a full scale war. It means a surgical strike to remove Mugabe and his cronies from the power. After the disputed elections and current crisis, the morale and loyalties of Zimbabwe’s 60,000 member army are low. So, if we act now, we can easily contain the situation before the New Year comes.

In 1979, Mugabe came to power in a coup supported by the international community, because it overthrew the white-supremacist government of Ian Smith. He was hailed as a liberator. Thirty years on, the title ‘liberator’ has been supplanted on his resume by ‘tyrant’ ‘murderer’ and ‘racist despot’–the words used thirty years ago to describe Ian Smith.

The story is ironic, as well as tragic. The fact that the  world let this to happen twice in the same country over a lifespan of a generation is more heartbreaking. We failed the Zimbabweans—we failed them repeatedly over the last few years. By our silence, we sinned—we lowered ourselves to Mugabe’s levels. It is now the time to repent and act. Twelve million Zimbabweans wait for us.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands….

I have been to the Netherlands only once—I visited Amsterdam a few years back. It is a city like no other; its brothels and marijuana cafes not withstanding, Amsterdam is safer than London or New York.  It is a city of vice, but also a city of law.

This extraordinary balance may be jeopardized by the City Council of Amsterdam’s decision to cut the brothels and  marijuana cafes by half. Some of these establishments are “a cover for organised crime,  drugs and human trafficking”, the City Council noted. It may be true, but I simply don’t see how reduction of these establishments will reduce crime.

Firstly, prostitutes will be driven out of their establishments. According to a 2004 census, only 10% of prostitutes in the Netherlands are driven into prostitution (primarily by drug addiction). The number is significantly larger in other EU countries. So if these prostitutes lost their jobs, where will they do? Take alternative jobs in factories and offices? I don’t think so. Unless the government offers a large subsidy for job training, they will be driven into the streets or into other establishments. If that is the case, they will need “agents”, whose connections with organized crime are more than a theory.

In 2006, de Rodedraad (the Red Thread), 20,000 member Dutch prostitute union, released a statement which noted that prostitutes are still treated terribly within some brothels. If the number of brothels are to be halved, such conditions are likely to exacerbate as supply of prostitutes in a city will overtakes maximum capacity a brothel can hold. As the result, the minimal wage will also fall, and the city, the police and the streetwalkers themselves may find themselves in an utter mess.

Drugs will take to the streets. This evokes the memory of the Prohibition instituted in the US. In the 1920s and 30s, the Prohibition not only created Jay Gatsbys but also Al Capones and Lucky Lucianos. Some will argue that reducing drugs by half is not comparable to the blanket sanctions of the Prohibition, but the latter example showed the prevalence of the organized crime during the eras of restriction.

Closing brothels and drug cafes to curb crime is like closing coal plants to fight global warming. It may work, but there will terrible consequences—the consequences that will make everyone unhappy, and angry, the latter especially with the utilitarians. Not all change is good. This change definitely not. So, Amsterdam should throw out this plan totally and find an alternative route to fight crime–like more involvement with De Rodedraad to systematically tackle the terrible conditions.