Shuttle Discovery rides piggyback into posterity

Posted on 17th April 2012 in The monuments of world

Win Mcnamee  /  Getty Images

Space Shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a 747 shuttle carrier aircraft, flies over the U.S. Capitol during a flyover of the nation’s capital on its final trip to its retirement place in Washington, DC.
updated 4/17/2012 11:48:48 AM ET 2012-04-17T15:48:48

WASHINGTON — Sitting on top of a modified Boeing 747 jet, the shuttle Discovery made a sentimental journey on Tuesday, visiting its old haunts in Florida as well as its new environs around the nation’s capital. And thousands thronged to see it pass.

Tuesday’s flight began just after dawn at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and ended at midday at Washington Dulles International Airport, adjacent to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

Over the next two days, the world’s most traveled space plane will be lifted off its perch on NASA’s Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and readied for Thursday’s official handover to the Smithsonian.

Although Discovery hasn’t flown in space since its final mission to the International Space Station, more than a year ago, the ferry flight was even more definitive as a signal that a 30-year era in spaceflight was finally going into the history books.

“It’s kind of bittersweet,” said Henry Taylor, one of the flight engineers on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. “This is the last flight, but it’s great to have it here at the museum for people to see.”

NASA’s deputy administrator, Lori Garver, put a positive spin on the proceedings: “We’re very proud,” she told me. “I like to equate it to your child going off to college.”

In a flood of social-media updates, witnesses to the final flight wondered whether Discovery’s retirement also signaled that America’s space aspirations were fading. Garver would have none of that.

“To those who say our best days of space exploration are behind us, I simply must disagree,” she told dignitaries, journalists and other guests assembled on the runway alongside the shuttle-jet combo. She pointed to NASA’s future plans to go beyond Earth orbit, and eventually to a near-Earth asteroid and beyond.

Nevertheless, Tuesday’s events were clearly more of a time to look back than to look ahead. Among those in the crowd was Ron Bledsoe, a 38-year-old resident of Manassas, Va., who was one of 50 people invited to the landing as part of a promotion for the Dulles airport’s 50th anniversary.

“I feel like a 10-year-old kid again,” Bledsoe told me.

He wasn’t alone. Thousands turned out to cheer the shuttle’s flight — first at Kennedy Space Center, where about 2,000 shuttle program veterans paid their last tribute to Discovery. Still more watched the skies from Florida’s Space Coast, where Discovery lingered before heading up the East Coast.

In Washington, the National Mall filled with onlookers who watched the shuttle-jet combo fly over the U.S. Capitol, the White House and other historic monuments at an altitude of 1,500 feet. “Oh my God, look at that,” Terri Jacobsen of Bethesda, Md., told The Associated Press when she first spotted the double-decker craft. “That thing is mammoth.”

“It was pretty amazing,” her 12-year-old son, Riley, said later. “Pretty freaking crazy. It looked like it was inflated.”

Interactive: Discovery space shuttle flies over Washington on last voyage (on this page)

The Smithsonian’s curator for shuttle artifacts, Valerie Neal, was all smiles when Discovery and its carrier airplane touched down at Dulles, a little more than four hours after its Florida takeoff. Discovery will take the place that had been held by the shuttle Enterprise, a prototype shuttle that was handed over to the Smithsonian in 1985.

On Thursday, Discovery and Enterprise will be displayed together outside the Udvar-Hazy Center. In an interview, Neal mused over the place that the shuttles will hold in history for future generations.

“I’d love to be here 100 years from now,” she said. “People might say, ‘Well, isn’t that quaint?’”

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There’s nothing quaint about Discovery’s 28-year history as a spaceship: The orbiter has flown 39 missions, more than any other single spacecraft. It has logged more than 148 million miles of travel, over more than a year’s worth of days in space.

Discovery’s list of achievements includes delivering the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit, carrying the first Russian cosmonaut to launch on a U.S. spaceship, performing the first rendezvous with Russia’s Mir space station (with the first female shuttle pilot in the cockpit), returning Mercury astronaut John Glenn to orbit, and bringing shuttle flights back to life after the Challenger explosion in 1986 and the Columbia tragedy in 2003.

Three more shuttle shifts remain: Enterprise will be ferried to New York City as early as next week and will eventually go on display at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. The shuttle Endeavour will be flown to the California Science Center in Los Angeles this fall. Atlantis will have the shortest journey of all: It will be towed from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to the nearby visitor center in Florida.

With the shuttles in retirement, private U.S. companies hope to pick up the slack, beginning with space station cargo and then, hopefully, astronauts. The first commercial cargo run, by California-based SpaceX, is set to launch from Florida on April 30.

For at least the next three to five years — until commercial passenger craft are available in the United States — NASA astronauts will have to hitch multimillion-dollar rides on Russian Soyuz capsules to get to the International Space Station.

Follow msnbc.com’s science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle). This report includes information from The Associated Press.

© 2012 msnbc.com Reprints

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Ceremony honors warships named Lexington

Posted on 17th April 2012 in The monuments of world

Maritime bells sounded on the town common yesterday as residents and visitors honored veterans of the five Navy vessels named USS Lexington.

Several speakers made note of the impressive ships and their history, and members of the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps laid wreaths at each of the five monuments. The Lexington Minute Men fired volleys in salute, while the Lexington High School band performed the national anthem and a lone trumpeter played Taps.

Standing beside a row of plaques, Selectman Peter Kelley said Lexington is a name synonymous with freedom and democracy.

“On such a glorious day for America,” he said, “this is a tribute to the name Lexington, which is not just a ship, but a name that means so much more all over the world.”

Ed McGlew, 90, a Navy veteran from Springfield, Vt., thanked the crowd for remembering his comrades.

“CV-2 and CV-16 guys, we’re dwindling,” said McGlew, who was an aerial photographer for the USS Lexington CV-2 (1927-1942) and CV-16 (1943-1962). “We appreciate you coming out very much. It’s a special thing for us.”

He also showed the crowd a diary from his Navy days, noting that the most intense entries — about battles at sea — were stained with seawater. He declined to read the entries, saying that he will read them at the 25th annual event next year.

State Sen. Ken Donnelly, D-Arlington, noted the heroism of the servicemen aboard all the ships named Lexington since the first one launched in 1776.

“Even great ships don’t steer themselves. As recognized by the 13 battle stars … these ships were manned by America’s finest,” Donnelly said. “Today, we acknowledge the many men and women who served on the USS Lexington since our revolution. These five ships have carried not only the names of our great town but the resilience, brilliance and pride of Lexington as well.”

Guest speaker Lt. Albert Sharlow, the operations officer for the USS Constitution, the longest-serving American warship, encouraged the crowd to give back to their country.

“Find a way to serve, no matter how big or small an undertaking,” Sharlow said. “We will seek to make a better tomorrow if we can start today.”

SHIPS TO BEAR THE NAME ‘USS LEXINGTON’

THE FIRST LEXINGTON

Originally the “Wild Duck,” the 16-gun brigantine was purchased by the Continental Congress in March 1776 and renamed in honor of Lexington’s Minutemen. The ship took many British vessels before being captured by the British off the coast of France on Sept. 29, 1777.

THE SECOND LEXINGTON

An 18-gun sloop-of-war commissioned on June 11, 1826. After serving in various capacities, the ship joined Commodore Matthew Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1852. It was decommissioned in 1855.

THE THIRD LEXINGTON

This steamship was purchased in 1861 and converted into a gunboat for the Union army during the Civil War. It was decommissioned in 1865.

THE FOURTH LEXINGTON

This aircraft carrier (CV-2), also known as “Lady Lex,” was the namesake ship of her class. She was built in Quincy and commissioned on Dec. 14, 1927. The 36,000-ton vessel was the first ship to average more than 30 knots on an ocean voyage. Pilots from “Lady Lex” sank the first Japanese carrier of World War II during the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942. The carrier was severely crippled by Japanese airstrike in the same battle. A gas explosion later mortally wounded the vessel, which was abandoned and then scuttled by a Navy destroyer to prevent its capture.

THE FIFTH LEXINGTON

This Essex-class aircraft carrier (CV-16), also known as “The Blue Ghost,” was built in Quincy and commissioned on Feb. 17, 1943. The vessel participated in 35 engagements during World War II. When it was decommissioned in 1991, the Lexington was the oldest Navy carrier in service. The ship is now a naval aviation museum in Corpus Christi, Texas.

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GayTravel.com Identifies the Gayest Monuments in the USA

Posted on 16th April 2012 in The monuments of world

Wherever your travels take you, there are always plenty of noteworthy monuments to get your gay-pride juices flowing! Every city has a different flavor of gayness that comes across in its statues, buildings, and famous photo-opp destinations. These are some of our favorites of America’s Gayest Monuments.

The Gateway Arch – St. Louis

The Gateway Arch is the highlight of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States. Because it is the tallest monument in the country as well as the cornerstone of the city’s foundation, The Gateway Arch is a highlight of Gay St. Louis that is not to be missed! St. Louis has a great Midwest gay scene, so start enjoying this Missourian city by checking out its Gateway Arch.

The Andy Monument – New York City

The Andy Monument is a figurative sculpture of Andy Warhol that towers above Union Square, right across from the building where his factory was located. Andy’s figure is seven feet tall, cast in concrete, and covered in chrome to reflect the world changing around it. Andy Warhol embodies the New York spirit and the American dream made glitzy and glamorous! In his sculpture, he even holds a Bloomingdales shopping bag! Boy knows where to shop.

Full Story from GayTravel.com

Click here for gay travel resources.

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74 Philly-area veterans escorted to the WWII Memorial in Washington

Posted on 15th April 2012 in The monuments of world

WASHINGTON – Big Fred, that’s what they call him. Even at 90, Frederick Shahadi, a D-Day veteran from Wallingford, Delaware County, attracts a certain respect for the way he carries himself as a former Navy captain.

For Michael Hare, a generation younger, talking to Big Fred is like having the conversations he wishes he could have had with his father, James, who died in 1980 of Alzheimer’s disease.

“By the time I was growing up,” Hare said, “my father couldn’t remember anything.”

On Saturday, when 74 World War II veterans from the Philadelphia area went on a bus trip to the World War II Memorial, Hare was seated next to Shahadi – officially designated as his escort for the day.

The three busloads of veterans and escorts constituted the first trip sponsored by Honor Flight Philadelphia, patterned on groups in other states that provide free trips to the memorial for any WWII veterans who would like to see it. The Philadelphia group is planning other trips in the months ahead.

Hare is himself a veteran, a Marine who served in the Vietnam War. But he has always been fascinated by the men whom former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw dubbed “the greatest generation.” Other escorts included sons, grandsons, and neighbors of the veterans, the youngest of whom was in his mid-80s and the oldest, Henry Cox of Centennial Village in Philadelphia, 103.

On D-Day, Shahadi was a chief petty officer on a Navy minesweeper helping to clear thousands of floating mines that the German military had planted in the English Channel, off the coast of Normandy, to deter an Allied invasion. The mines had to be cleared for U.S. troops to go ashore June 6, 1944.

When another minesweeper hit an explosive off Cherbourg and blew up, his ship had to help pick up survivors, he remembered. “I saw enough death and destruction to last me a lifetime.”

The memorial was built too many decades after the war for most veterans to see it.

The Vietnam and Korean memorials already had places of honor in Washington before a largely private fund-raising effort for a WWII memorial began in the 1990s, at the time of 50th anniversary war commemorations.

Only about 3.8 million of the original 16.3 million WWII veterans were living Memorial Day weekend 2004 when the massive, $67.5 million monument was dedicated on the National Mall, halfway between the Lincoln and Washington Monuments.

Thousands of veterans turned out for the ceremony, at which President George W. Bush said of their generation: “They saved their country and, thereby, saved the liberty of mankind.” The monument includes a wall of 4,000 gold stars, remembering the estimated 400,000 men and women who died.

From that weekend on, there were calls for all remaining veterans to have a chance to see the memorial.

In 2005, an Ohio doctor led in organizing a trip to Washington, at no cost, for 12 veterans. What became the Honor Flight Network rapidly spread to other states – some so far from Washington that veterans had to take airplanes, and some, like New Jersey, that were close enough for bus trips.

The network has grown so large and active that this month alone, 22 Honor Flight groups, while in Washington, are scheduled to visit Arlington National Cemetery.

Today, 70 years after American entry into the war, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that fewer than 1.7 million veterans are living, including about 94,000 from Pennsylvania and 47,000 from New Jersey.

Honor Flight Philadelphia, coming relatively late in the game, was organized by Andrew Schiavello, 52, of Springfield, Delaware County, who owns a business that distributes its own brand of coffee.

Schiavello is not a veteran, but his father, Dominic, was a Navy medic on the battleship Missouri.

After seeing a TV program about Honor Flight, he called and “they said, ‘We’ve been trying to get a hub from your area for six years.’ “

He is trying to get a Pittsburgh group organized. The key, he said, is sponsors. Many of the trip expenses, including a breakfast and after-trip dinner in Drexel Hill, were donated by businesses.

It was a first-class outing all the way. Police with flashing lights even led the bus armada on the highways and through the streets of Washington, congested with thousands of sightseers.

“I want these guys to realize how much they are appreciated and loved – and they are not forgotten,” Schiavello said.

In its declining years, the WWII generation has gotten much attention – so much that Bob Davis, 88, of Havertown, suggested some of it ought to be deflected to veterans of other wars. The Korean War is often referred to as “the forgotten war,” he noted, and it has taken decades for the nation to give respect to Vietnam War veterans.

He recalled a saying by famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle: “Every man’s war is the worst.”

And now, he said, America is at war again.

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Brilliant design in Modernist towers that ventilate the Holland Tunnel: Legends & Landmarks

Posted on 10th April 2012 in The monuments of world

Sometimes close to a century or more must pass before we take notice of monuments in the neighborhood.

When that magic chronographic moment arrives, surrounding streetscapes become cleared. Gates and blockades are unlocked, de-hinged, swung open. Distance and dormancy are dismantled before us. What was once off-limits becomes, all at once, passable. The ancient, inaccessible throughout time, suddenly becomes within reach.

DISCOVERY ON PIER 9

Walking across the wide breadth of Washington Boulevard toward the neatly landscaped junction of River Drive and Newport Parkway, in the Newport section of Jersey City, I find two Holland Tunnel ventilation towers positioned among circuitous clumps and clusters of glass residential buildings and multi-level, concrete parking decks.

Backdropped behind them, Manhattan’s architectural fabric pops in pure prismatic clarity. The Hudson River’s sweeping surface breaks and shatters at balustraded esplanade bulkheads. Clouds are pulled across a stunning day moon sky.

Once again I am here to experience — as I have over the last year during deep-trenched research in preparation for an illustrated lecture I will be giving at the Hoboken Historical Museum on Sunday as part of their extraordinary exhibition “Driving Under the Hudson: The History of the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels” — one of the region’s finest, and yet overlooked, works of early-modernist architecture.

I look intensely at the first ventilation tower flanking the waterfront walkway and am amazed to think that until recently residents and passersby were prevented from seeing them. Their seclusion and virtual invisibility, I discerned in the archives, had been dictated by the Erie Railroad, which owned this property from the mid-19th century until the 1960s when all of the pioneer railroad companies crumbled under consolidation or bankruptcy. Only wharf workers and harbor mariners were privileged with access. All others could only peer in from what was then a walled-off Henderson Street (now Luis Munoz Marin Boulevard).

But not anymore — at least not in the eyes of intelligent architects and visionary developers who, by building new structures right at the bank, have brought the towers to the public forefront.

Over the last 30 years, the smoke has been slowly cleared and a pulsing community — a city within a city — has risen around them. Rotted rail yards, ruinous warehouses and collapsed pier after collapsed pier have all been erased and transformed into the vibrant Newport community.

The ventilation towers, undoubtedly due to their importance to the Holland Tunnel infrastructure and function, were left standing, becoming powerfully familiar — yet still mysterious — monuments to us.

HOLLAND’S WONDER

Though still fenced off to the public, only a few feet separate the viewer from the two androidic vents soldiered at the base and foot the former Erie Pier 9, their forked H-shaped forms and raised corner crenellations figured by the 84 enormous fans that spin constantly to clean out and purify the 1.6-mile-long twin-portal tunnel.

Across the river, aligned with the Jersey City towers on an almost straight axis with Canal Street, two additional vents loom, completing a transverse flow system never attempted before in tunnel design.

Standing close to the base tower’s concrete cloister-like passage that casts darting shadows onto the sidewalk, I can see that they stand on a visual axis with two others across the river at Canal Street. It is an order devised by Clifford Holland, one of history’s greatest tunnel engineers, who worked with other brilliant scientists and scholars from 1920 to 1927 to create a vehicular tunnel system that would be the envy — and wonder — of the mechanized world.

When the tunnel opened in 1927, it spoke to the advent of both the automobile and Modernism. Sure enough, Holland — who died before the tunnel’s completion, leaving the project’s completion to his team of engineers, including the famous Ole Singstad — commissioned the best scientists and engineers from scientific government agencies and universities to conduct intricate physiological and mechanical tests that would successfully prevent motorists from inhaling car exhaust.

The whole engineering task at first seemed impossible. The tunnel, experts argued, was too long to be properly ventilated.

The digging itself through sludge and bedrock would be challenge enough. Build a bridge instead, they said. Even Thomas Edison expressed his doubts.

Holland, fueled by engineering obstacles, proved his critics wrong. By 1925, his innovative ventilation system was in place — all that was needed was a worthy architectural enclosure.

OUTSIDE OF THEIR TIME

But Holland’s focus went beyond ethereal engineering. His mechanical magnum opus had to be inviting. The entire machine, to him, would have to be breathtaking. Only the most progressive architects could bring his tunnel to architectural life.

The Norwegian architect Erling Owre was his first and only choice. Trained at the famed Polytechnic Institute in Trondheim, Owre brought a Scandinavian sensibility to the drafting table — minimalism, craftsmanship, form. He would have been schooled in the traditional — medieval motives like the Romanesque, the Byzantine and the Gothic — but also the newly established Bauhaus in Germany, Russian Constructivism, and the architecture of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. The Art Moderne movement raging across America at that time was largely ignored by Owre — his towers would be original works that had no contemporary, not even in his native Norway where Modernism was already the norm.

For Holland he erected edifices from spectacular steel girders, colossal poured-in- place concrete columns and yellow cathedral brick — all expressed through slender strings of rounded arches, corbeled courses, glass louvre panels, small gargoyle heads and striking cantilevered bases.

Owre’s ventilation towers opened doors for him in mid-career. Thereafter he was the supervising architect on the Lincoln Tunnel ventilation shafts, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel — each more mechanically forward, each more architecturally advanced.

TUNNEL TALK

Standing there as I have done before, I try to envision their steel pilings woven into the actual tunnel tubes far below. Machine sounds emanate from their louvres. I can hear waves crashing and fizzing below piered floors and low-tide shores.

I turn to Aquablu, a stepped glass tower designed by Poskanzer Skott and Page + Steel that finds roots in and rises literally from the ventilation towers via a row of attached crenellated buildings. I understand that finally, after decades, the towers show their purpose and place in the landscape.

This will be the architectural discourse offered when I stand at the podium on Sunday inside the museum — that from architecture come chapters and continuums, that our hidden built heritage, when finally unveiled, reveals inspiration.

Editor’s Note: John Gomez is founder of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy and holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from Columbia University. E-mail him at preservationtv@gmail.com and follow his preservation news network on Twitter @PreservationTV.

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World War I vets deserve their memorial

Posted on 6th April 2012 in The monuments of world

On April 6, 1917 America declared war against Germany and became involved in “the war to end all wars” — World War I. In just 18 months of that war 116,000 Americans died. They are mostly forgotten. Their deaths amounted to more than the combined total of American military killed in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Frank Buckles, the last veteran survivor of World War I, at age 108, had heard there was a World War I memorial in Washington, D.C. He went to visit that memorial. As he approached the site, his wheelchair had difficulty maneuvering around the disintegrating stone path leading to the memorial, mostly hidden from public view because of the overgrown trees.

When he came close to the memorial he found it was in a state of decay. The marble was stained and cracked in places. To his amazement he found that the memorial was not honoring all those who served in World War 1, but only represented the 26,000 who served, and the 499 who died, from Washington, District of Columbia. It is the only local memorial on the National Mall; a domed structure 43 feet high supported by 12, 22-foott high Doric columns dedicated in 1931.

Frank, with his friend, David De Jonge, formed the World War I Memorial Foundation. Frank was made honorary chairman. Frank appeared before Congress and met with several members from both Houses, to persuade them that the World War I Memorial on the Mall in Washington be also designated as a National Memorial. Since the monument was a local memorial permission was received from the City Council to restore the memorial.

Several millions of dollars were given by the federal government for the restoration, which included lighting, proper water drainage, landscape improvements and repair of the marble structure. In addition, several bills were written in Congress (House Bill H938and Senate Bill S2097) to the “rededication of the District of Columbia War Memorial as a National and District of Columbia World War I Memorial to honor the sacrifices made by American veterans of World War I” and “the addition of an appropriate sculptural or other commemorative element, which shall complement and preserve the existing memorial and its landscape.”

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The city council of D.C. had issued a resolution that “supports passage of the Frank Buckles World War I Memorial and the rededication of the District of Columbia War memorial as a National and District of Columbia World War 1 Memorial.” After the restoration process was completed, however, the city council of D.C. reversed their support and opposed making the site of the D.C. Memorial part of a national memorial claiming it “ignores the rights of the District’s residents and the fact that it was from the District’s residents that so much of the funds for the memorial were raised.”

In reply the World War I Memorial Foundation stated, that “the classic simplicity of the (present) circular temple, and its location in a quiet secluded grove, give it a contemplative character that should not be altered., and any additions should complement and preserve the existing monument and it’s landscape.” In addition, they argued that the D.C. monument is appropriate as a national monument because of its proximity to other national monuments recognizing veterans of other eras. The project is now on hold pending Congress’ passage of the bills to make this combined Washington, D.C. and National Memorial a reality.

There is an old saying in the military: “Never leave anyone behind.” Have we left 4,734,991 American veterans of World War I behind? Isn’t it time for all veterans, and all veterans organizations, to unite in a single cause to bring about this national memorial to honor our fellow veterans of World War I and push Congress to pass Bills H938 and S2097. The memorial will be funded by private donations.

For more information contact David De Jonge at 1-616-540-4922 or the WW1MemorialFoundation.Org.

Frank Buckles never got to see the World War I Memorial restored, or have his dream of a National World War I Memorial fulfilled. He died on Feb. 27, 2011, at the age of 110.

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Crime-prevention authority David Kennedy addresses violence in Kalamazoo as ISAAC keynote speaker

Posted on 25th March 2012 in The monuments of world

KALAMAZOO – For portions of two days last week, author and crime-prevention authority David Kennedy saw the worst Kalamazoo had to offer.

He spent the day Saturday looking at street-corner memorials and sidewalk monuments dedicated to victims of violence.

Most were young, black men who were gunned down. Others were innocent victims who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Kennedy met with mothers and grandmothers of the victims. He had conversations with police. Kennedy also learned more about the city’s homicides from leaders in the city’s religious community.

The 53-year-old Kennedy said the memorials he saw and comments from the people he talked to were consistent with what he anticipated.

“I’ve seen these street-corner shrines all over the country … they’re so common in some sections of Boston that the city council considered bans on them because they were considered impediments in the public right-of-way,” Kennedy said. “Overwhelmingly, the victims are African-American and Hispanic.”

Kennedy was the keynote speaker before a crowd of almost 500 people Saturday at the 10th Interfaith Strategy for Advocacy and Action in the Community banquet. The program took place at Western Michigan University’s Bernhard Center.

The author of “Don’t Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship and the End of Violence in Inner City America,” Kennedy is the director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College and Criminal Justice in New York City.

Kennedy said no matter the community, it’s clear that a new approach to combating inner-city homicides needs to be employed.

He cited an excerpt from his book, in which he discussed how, after several months of arrangements, 40 men considered the most dangerous in Cincinnati were asked to attend a meeting that involved police, social services representatives and mothers whose children were dead; victims of violence.

Kennedy detailed a woman whose son, an African-American teen, was defying the odds by leaving his troubled neighborhood and heading to Indianapolis to join a work corps program. On the day he was supposed to leave, however, her son didn’t return home. Days passed before his body was found, discarded behind a store’s Dumpster.

The detail Kennedy gave in describing the meeting made clear that the woman’s devastation struck a chord with the 40 dangerous men.

“A couple years after that meeting, homicides in Cincinnati’s worst neighborhoods decreased by 50 percent,” he said.

Kennedy stressed that mothers who have lost children to such violent crimes seem to resonate with the known bad guys. Yet the number of bad guys in any community is actually small, according to Kennedy and his research.

He hopes Kalamazoo finds a way to organize such summits with its known bad guys or gang members, and include police, social-service representatives and community activists.

“It takes some time but get everybody together, sit down with the bad guys, treat them with respect and tell them there’s right and wrong,” he said. “They know what wrong is and they know it’s wrong to kill people.

“We tell them, ‘You love your mother. If you kill someone, think how that’s going to hurt their mother,” Kennedy added.

Linzy Buchanan, pastor of First Hope Church in Kalamazoo, was one of three members of the religious community to escort Kennedy Saturday around the city’s high-crime neighborhoods.

Buchanan said he’s hopeful that Kennedy’s solution will help Kalamazoo as much as it’s shown positive results in other, larger communities.

“We’re ready for a change … I think we’re all ready for a change all over Kalamazoo,” he said. “This could be a new beginning for the city.”

Kennedy afterward said the power of testimonials from all people involved in violent crimes is strong. He said communities and neighborhoods where violence is common feature people who live the realities of danger every day.

He said the law-abiding residents, the emergency medical technicians who attempt to treat a shooting victim, the police who are exposed to dangerous situations, family members who are left to grieve over the loss of a loved one and the people who are to blame for the violence all stand to benefit from changing patterns.

“We want people in the community to be heard and we want there to be no reason people have to put up a curbside shrine anymore,” Kennedy said.

He noted that the number of black men 24 years and younger who die annually from an act of violence – typically a shooting – in the United States is almost equivalent to the number of people killed in the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11.

Kennedy said he remains dismayed over the unfathomable amount of money the government has spent for better, all-around security as a result of 9/11, but no such urgency is given to improving living conditions in dangerous neighborhoods and other measures to reduce violence.

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Website touts monuments

Posted on 24th March 2012 in The monuments of world

Students, parents and residents now are able to take a journey to the past right from West Perry School District’s homepage.

West Perry has erected monuments honoring veterans of America’s various wars and established a Veterans’ Memorial Grove honoring those who died in the service of their county. Among the monuments are World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War and the Battle of Mogadishu.

“West Perry is the only place in the country that has a Mogadishu memorial. Even Arlington National Cemetery just has a little dedication, but we have the only memorial,” said Harold Weaver, department chair of social studies and adviser of West Perry Senate Club.

Now the memorials are featured under the “Community” tab of the district’s website.

Weaver, history teacher Jeff Popchock and Weaver’s predecessor, Jeff Zeiders, worked on a project to create a website based on each memorial. Each website features a photo gallery and a story behind the names inscribed on the memorial.

Students also have helped with the project, seeking guidance from the Perry County Historical Society.

“We want people to be able to put names with faces on the memorials,” said Weaver.

Weaver and the students have learned a lot over the research process, and the project is far from complete.

Biographies about the deceased military men reflect their happy lives, their dreams, hopes and recount stories about families and long lost love.

There is SP4 William Bernard McGarvey, a track-and-field athlete who attended Blain Union High School and found himself in the Vietnam conflict. He was awarded two Purple Hearts, posthumously, having been killed by enemy fire on Nov. 18, 1967.

SFC Albert K. Comp of Elliottsburg, one of 15 children, loved to hunt and learned crocheting from his mother. Comp died at age 33 on Sept. 16, 1950, a member of the 1st Cavalry Division while fighting in the Korean Conflict.

McGarvey and Comp’s stories and pictures, along with those of many other men killed in duty, are detailed in their respective memorial sites. There also are short videos on each website showing the creation of the memorials.

“This will take us a while to finish, but the students are learning new things … I’m learning, too,” said Weaver.

A future memorial is planned for Jason Frye, Brent Dunkleberger and Scott Ball, West Perry graduates who were killed in action in Iraq.

David Dietrich of Marysville, a Susquenita graduate, also will be honored. He was killed in action in Iraq.

Plaques of the deceased West Perry grads are displayed in the high school.

West Perry’s War Monuments pages can be viewed at www.westperry.org by clicking on the “Community” tab, select “West Perry’s War Monuments.”

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American Civil War anniversary: the battlefields where north met south

Posted on 16th March 2012 in The monuments of world

Another focal point is the Burnside Bridge, which an army of Union soldiers, led by General George B McClellan, attempted to cross, against a continuous curtain of Confederate fire from the bluffs above. The Federals finally made it, but too late – Southern reinforcements had arrived. I walk across the bridge and stroll the Snavely’s Ford Trail through a tranquil province of oak, poplar, sycamore and American beech.

The trim town of Fredericksburg, about an hour south of Washington, lies midway between Washington, DC, and Richmond, Virginia (the Northern and Southern capitals respectively during the war), making it one of the conflict’s most hotly contested regions.

There are four pivotal battlefields in the vicinity, including Fredericksburg city proper, Spotsylvania Court House, The Wilderness and Chancellorsville. This trip I stick to the city proper. Many of its red-brick buildings – now housing shops, historic inns and restaurants – existed during the Fredericksburg battle of December 11-15 1862, and I conjure in my mind a time when Union soldiers quickstepped along these very streets toward entrenched Confederates defending the heights behind the city – most of them headed for certain death.

President Lincoln meets Union generals

After visiting the battlefield and seeing the infamous Sunken Wall behind which the Confederates hid, I retreat to my attic-level, antique-filled room at the Richard Johnston Inn.

The two terraced houses that comprise the inn existed during the battle (they date from 1770), and I could still see damage inflicted during the war on my attic room’s wooden beams. The proprietor tells me that a Confederate sniper named David haunts the house, but that doesn’t prevent me from having an exceedingly sound sleep.

My triumvirate of Civil War towns is not complete without the biggest and most famous of all (at least in the North): Gettysburg. The South’s high-water mark of the war, Gettysburg is the farthest point fought in by the Southern forces. Here, on July 1-3 1863, they confronted (and lost to) the hunkered-down Northern troops, and were forced to retreat south to Virginia.

Did you know?
An estimated 620,000 soldiers died during the Civil War. Two thirds of them were killed by disease

Perhaps the most significant event here, however, came several months after the battle, when President Lincoln presented The Gettysburg Address to dedicate the cemetery, one of the most celebrated yet briefest (at just over two minutes) “key” speeches ever delivered in the United States. Acknowledging the dead, he said: “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”

At first glance, Gettysburg is a touristy destination, with the entire town given over to marketing the war in battle-themed restaurants, hotels, souvenir shops and ghost tours (21 different companies offer them). Walking along Baltimore Street, I see a Northern soldier and a Southern soldier, re-enactors in town for a special event – sitting side-by-side on a pavement bench, while a bevy of Confederates mill about nearby.

A memorial at Gettysburg

Once on the famous battlefield, however, I can’t help but be pulled in by the visceral realities of war, by the sense of loss and tragedy and a sense of awe at the events that unfolded here. I stand atop Little Round Top, a granite knoll at the extreme left of the Union line, where Union soldiers had to fend off a desperate Confederate flanking move. The open view below makes it easy to visualise the various manoeuvres that occurred over those fateful three days: Pickett’s Charge across the mile-long open field; hand-to-hand combat at Devil’s Den; the famous Union defensive “fishhook” that followed strategic landmarks all the way to Culp’s Hill off to the right.

It’s on the last, Culp’s Hill, where most people don’t go, that the war truly touches me. The rough terrain is steep and boulder-strewn and tangled with vines and trees. I head down a pretty trail through the woods, replete with monuments and historical markers that record the events of July 2-3, 1863, when 3,800 died in one of the seminal moments in the forging of America and its character.

Later, back in town, I dine at the Dobbin House Tavern, a celebrated inn and restaurant that serves colonial-style cuisine in an authentic, candlelit setting – complete with hostesses wearing period dress and a menu with what, at first glance, appear to be spelling mistakes but actually are 18th- and 19th-century renditions.

Leaning back on a soft armchair in the antique-filled dining room, tucking into pork tenderloin with raspberry sauce and sipping moscato, I revel in the relaxing, enjoyable ironies of spending a weekend on a battlefield.

Getting there

British Airways (0844 493 0787; britishairways.com) flies to Washington from Heathrow, as do United Airlines (0845 844 4777; united.com) and US Airways (0845 600 3300; usairways.co.uk).

Getting around

Rent a car to drive from Washington to Antietam (70 miles north west), Fredericksburg (50 miles south) and Gettysburg (75 miles north); it’ll also be useful for the battlefields; or cycle – all towns have local bike rentals; inquire at visitor centres.

Further information

Antietam National Battlefield (001 301 432 5124; nps.gov/ancm); Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park (540 373 6122; nps.gov/frsp); Greater Fredericksburg Tourism (540 373 1776; visitfred.com); Gettysburg National Military Park (717 334 1124; nps.gov/gett); Gettysburg Convention & Visitors Bureau (800 337 5015; gettysburg.travel/150).

Anniversary events

Battlefields throughout the South are arranging special events over the four-year course of the war’s 150th anniversary, typically including re-enactments, concerts, battlefield hikes, firing demonstrations, and more. Further information at the Civil War Trust website (civilwar.org/150th-anniversary/150-events).

More Civil War sites

Arlington House, Arlington National Cemetery
General Robert E Lee and his family once lived in this Greek Revival-style mansion. In 1864, the army started burying soldiers on the Arlington estate – the beginning of Arlington National Cemetery (nps.gov/arho).

Harpers Ferry
Radical preacher and abolitionist John Brown staged his raid on the federal armoury in Harpers Ferry in 1859, kick-starting the southern states’ move toward secession. You can visit the armoury and museums that detail aspects of the war (nps.gov/hafe and historicharpersferry.com).

Harpers Ferry

Manassas
The first major battle of the Civil War unfolded in July 1861 at this strategic railway junction 25 miles west of Washington. Washingtonians packed picnics and headed out in their carriages to “see the wah”. Union troops fled back to Washington, marking the First Battle of Manassas a Confederate victory. The next year, the armies clashed here again, with another Confederate triumph (nps.gov/mana).

President Lincoln’s Cottage
In 1862, 1863 and 1864, Lincoln and his family escaped Washington in this Gothic Revival, 34-room “cottage” three miles north of the White House. He wrote the Emancipation Proclamation here (lincolncottage.org).

Richmond, Virginia
Visit the American Civil War Center (tredegar.org), which examines the Civil War from the points of view of the Confederacy, Union and African Americans; the Richmond National Battlefield Park (nps.gov/rich); the Museum of the Confederacy (moc.org), including the former White House of the Confederacy; and Hollywood Cemetery (hollywoodcemetery.org), where Davis and 22 Confederate generals are buried.

Appomattox Court House
At the end of it all, on April 9 1865, General Robert E Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S Grant in this central Virginia village. A six-mile History Trail connects most of the historic sights (nps.gov/apco).

The best hotels

Antietam/Harpers Ferry

The Jackson Rose B & B £
General Stonewall Jackson headquartered in this 1795 federal town house at the beginning of the war; three guest rooms (001 304 535 1528; thejacksonrose.com; from $120/£77).

The Angler’s Inn ££
Victorian b & b on main street, with gourmet breakfasts and guided fishing trips (304 535 1239; theanglersinn.com; from $115/£74).

Antietam Overlook Farm ££
A 19th-century Keedysville farmhouse atop a secluded ridge overlooking Antietam Battlefield, with superb views and big breakfasts (800 878 4241; antietamoverlook.com; from $165/£105).

Gettysburg

Baladerry Inn £
A field hospital during the war; three miles from the battlefield visitor centre. Rooms are warm and cosy, some with fireplaces and patios (717 337 1342; baladerryinn.com; from $124/£79).

Brickhouse Inn £
In the heart of the old town, this inn is located in two historic buildings: an 1898 mansion and a 1830 house that Confederate sharpshooters occupied during the Battle of Gettysburg (717 338 9337; brickhouseinn.com; from $114/£73).

Gettysburg Hotel £
Established in 1797 in the heart of town, with 119 rooms and suites with modern amenities and a rooftop pool (717 337 2000; hotelgettysburg.com; from $85/£53).

The Gettysburg Hotel

Fredericksburg

The Kenmore Inn £
A beautiful late-1700s mansion, with a sweeping staircase, high ceilings, canopy beds and nine guest rooms (540 371 7622; kenmoreinn.com; from $130/£83).

Richard Johnston Inn £
A genteel inn in two 18th-century houses with seven guest-rooms and two suites; it witnessed fighting on its doorstep (540 899 7606; therichardjohnstoninn.com; from $115/£74).

The Schooler House B & B £
Occupying a house built in 1891 and filled with antiques (540 374 5258; theschoolerhouse.com; $150/£96).

The best restaurants

Canal House Café, Harpers Ferry £
Soups, salads, sandwiches and fresh baked goods (1226 W Washington St; 304 535 2880).

Carl’s Ice Cream, Fredericksburg £
Locals have been coming to this roadside stand since 1947; it’s now a national historic landmark (2200 Princess Anne St; 540 372 4457).

La Petite Auberge, Fredericksburg £
Traditional French cuisine with a menu that changes daily; the early bird four-course menu during the week is a steal at $23/£15 (311 William St; 540 371 2727).

TruLuv’s: A Modern American Bistro £
A neighbourhood bistro on the Rappahannock featuring seafood, sandwiches and burgers. Eat in the white-tablecloth dining room or on the patio overlooking the river (1101 Sophia St; 540 373 6500; truluvs.net).

Gettysburg Food and Restaurant Saloon £
Replicates a Civil War-era saloon in the museum and visitor centre.“Taste of the period” menu, including cast-iron chicken pot pie, chilli with Grandma Sarah’s cornbread, and peanut soup with “hardtack” soda crackers (1195 Baltimore Pike; 717 338 1243; lunch only).

Bavarian Inn, Shepherdstown ££
Overlooks the Potomac, across the river from Antietam; it’s a formal restaurant with an extensive German/American menu (164 Shepherd Grade Rd; 304 876 2991).

Dobbin House Tavern, Gettysburg ££
Beautifully restored Revolutionary War-era inn, with candlelit tables, waitresses in period dress, and a colonial-style menu (89 Steinwehr Ave; 717 334 2100; dobbinhouse.com).

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Chinese economic crash could create big bang

Posted on 14th March 2012 in The monuments of world

Anyone who stands in the middle of Guangzhou’s high-rise district and looks up is liable to suffer dizziness.

The 600m Canton Tower, China’s tallest structure, sits across the Pearl River from several other newly-constructed giants, including the 103-storey International Finance Centre. The sensation is akin to strolling through a forest of enormous metal trees.

If the Chinese economy – represented by these vertiginous monuments – does fall to earth, one cannot help thinking that it would create a very large bang indeed; one that would be felt in every corner of the earth.

And fears have been spreading in recent months that China might be heading for precisely such a scenario. Economic indicators have been flashing red in recent months. There has been a sharp drop in residential property prices and a succession of disappointing car and retail sales figures.

But the most alarming news came at the weekend with the revelation by the customs department that China experienced a dramatic fall in exports in February.

Much of this was attributable to the Chinese New Year holiday, when factories traditionally shut down.

But concerns have also grown that China – the world’s workshop – is beginning to suffer from falling demand from Europe and America. China’s gigantic export sector is simultaneously the source of China’s strength and also its great weakness. Even the most prosperous of shops cannot remain in business if its customers decide to stop buying.

The country’s leadership is certainly preparing for a slowdown. At the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing last week, the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, lowered this year’s growth target from 8 per cent to 7.5 per cent.

So the question is, will the Chinese economic landing will be hard or soft?

The soft argument is more popular. China rode out the 2008 global financial crisis with a colossal state spending and lending programme, equal to 15 per cent of GDP. If necessary, it can repeat the trick, say analysts.

“In China, the fundamentals are good, confidence is likely to prove resilient and the policy cupboard is still pretty full,” says Gerard Lyons, of Standard Chartered Bank.

Stephen Roach, a former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, agrees. He argues that because inflation has been falling in recent months, the Chinese central bank has plenty of room to cut interest rates to stimulate the economy. Others argue that even if the property market correction were to turn into a rout, which wiped out the country’s over-extended local banks, Beijing would be able to spend some of its vast currency reserves to stabilise the situation.

Yet the Communist Party authorities might not be able to manage events in the manner the optimists suggest. In China there is the wild card of social unrest.

There are some tens of thousands of riots every year in the countryside, prompted by the seizures of land by corrupt officials. China’s great metropolises, such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, are also hubs of discontent. Around 200 million internal migrant workers are treated as second-class citizens. They are denied the same healthcare benefits as local residents. Their children attend sub-standard schools. The 2008 financial crisis cost around 20 million jobs across China.

There is another problem with the optimistic scenario. Investment accounts for a full 45 per cent of China’s GDP. And that investment has primarily been in factories, heavy industry and infrastructure geared towards bolstering the country’s export capacity. Even if China does manage to avoid a hard landing, it is on an economically unsustainable road.

What the country urgently needs is a rebalancing of its economy away from exports and investments to domestic consumption and the services sector.

The country’s giant annual trade surplus – which results in China sending hundreds of billions of dollars of capital every year to wealthy America and Europe – needs to come down. China needs to grow organically, by allowing Chinese workers a greater share of the fruits of their labour. And workers need to be encouraged to spend, rather than save.

This means providing a more comprehensive social safety net so ordinary Chinese feel they do not need to put aside such a high proportion of their income to cope with old age or potential sickness.

The authorities in Beijing do acknowledge these realities. The Communist Party’s 12th “five-year plan”, unveiled last year, promises reform along these very lines. They have also pledged to allow the Chinese currency, the renminbi, to increase in value against the US dollar, which should facilitate rebalancing.

But it remains to be seen whether they will be able to deliver. The Chinese export lobby is likely to resist any measures that could undermine its profit margins. Some within the regime are already saying the renminbi has appreciated enough.

Who will prevail: technocrats or vested interests? The fortunes of China in the coming months and years do not only depend only on skilful economic management – they also depend on messy politics. And those battles take place behind closed doors.

- Independent

By Ben Chu

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