News and Others

theatlantic: 147 Years Ago Today, the U.S. Outlawed Slavery Happy birthday, 13th Amendment! In honor of the anniversary, here’s a collection of excellent stories from The Atlantic’s archives. Where Will It End? (Dec. 1857): In The Atlantic’s second issue, Edmund Quincy urges readers to take a stand against slavery. “It is only the statement of the truism in moral and in political economy,” he wrote, “that true prosperity can never grow up from wrong and wickedness.” American Civilization (Apr. 1862): Ralph Waldo Emerson’s vehement argument for the federal emancipation of slaves. “Morality,” above all else, he asserted, “is the object of government.” The President’s Proclamation (Nov. 1862): Seven months later, Emerson hails Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation as an act that would mean “the lives of our heroes have not been sacrificed in vain.” Reconstruction, and an Appeal to Impartial Suffrage (Dec. 1866): In the same month the 13th Amendment was adopted, Frederick Douglass pushed lawmakers to grant black Americans the vote: “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.” The Death of Slavery (Jul. 1866): William Cullen Bryant’s stirring poem about the demise of the “cruel reign” of slavery. This is a very, very incomplete collection of stories from the era about slavery. (We were, after all, an abolitionist magazine.) For more, take a look at the commemorative Civil War issue we published last year. [Image: Wikimedia Commons/National Archives]

theatlantic:

147 Years Ago Today, the U.S. Outlawed Slavery

Happy birthday, 13th Amendment! In honor of the anniversary, here’s a collection of excellent stories from The Atlantic’s archives.

  • Where Will It End? (Dec. 1857): In The Atlantic’s second issue, Edmund Quincy urges readers to take a stand against slavery. “It is only the statement of the truism in moral and in political economy,” he wrote, “that true prosperity can never grow up from wrong and wickedness.”
  • American Civilization (Apr. 1862): Ralph Waldo Emerson’s vehement argument for the federal emancipation of slaves. “Morality,” above all else, he asserted, “is the object of government.”
  • The President’s Proclamation (Nov. 1862): Seven months later, Emerson hails Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation as an act that would mean “the lives of our heroes have not been sacrificed in vain.”
  • Reconstruction, and an Appeal to Impartial Suffrage (Dec. 1866): In the same month the 13th Amendment was adopted, Frederick Douglass pushed lawmakers to grant black Americans the vote: “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.”
  • The Death of Slavery (Jul. 1866): William Cullen Bryant’s stirring poem about the demise of the “cruel reign” of slavery.

This is a very, very incomplete collection of stories from the era about slavery. (We were, after all, an abolitionist magazine.) For more, take a look at the commemorative Civil War issue we published last year.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons/National Archives]

picturedept:

Daniel Traub, Mongolia Today

Genghis Khan, the 13th century conqueror, created an empire that stretched from the Pacific to the Caspian Sea. He also introduced an alphabet and a common currency. But despite his status as legend, Khan’s burial site has always been a mystery. Now, however, we may be close to locating it in the remote Khentii mountains of northwestern Mongolia, where American researchers and Mongolian archeologists are working together to scan the 4,000-square-mile landscape.

What they’ll find there is a country in flux. Several winters of extremely cold temperatures—followed by arid summers—have stalled the incomes of livestock herders, who make up roughly 30 percent of all Mongolians. Tens of thousands of them have migrated to city slums in hope of finding work. On the flip side, Mongolia is estimated to hold a projected $1.3 trillion bounty of natural resources: gold, copper, and coal.

Photographer Daniel Traub shot the landscapes and people of Mongolia while on assignment for Newsweek. View more from Mongolia Today on The Daily Beast.

(via newsweek)

theatlantic:

In Focus: 2012: The Year in Photos, Part 3 of 3

2012 was an eventful year, from big events like the London Summer Olympics and the U.S. presidential race, to regional conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, to smaller issues closer to home. Reverberations from last year’s transformative Arab Spring still heavily affect Syria and Egypt; and the slow recovery from the recent global economic crisis brought bitter austerity measures to parts of Europe, leading to widespread protests. Collected here is Part 3 of a three-part photo summary of the last year, covering its last few months. Be sure to also see Part 1 and Part 2. The series totals 135 images in all.

See more. [Images: Obama for America, Reuters, AP]

theatlantic: Crowdsourcing an Israeli-Palestinian Border A new interactive tool allows you to decide how many Israeli settlers to annex and what constitutes a viable Palestinian state. One day after the Palestinians successfully upgraded their state at the United Nations General Assembly, the Israeli government announced “preliminary zoning and planning preparations” for a plot of land just outside of Jerusalem known as E1. Many were quick to condemn the move as a significant blow to the already-gridlocked peace process, perhaps even more so than other settlement construction announcements, since construction in E1 would separate the major Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon decried the plan as “an almost fatal blow to remaining chances of securing a two-state solution,” while The New York Times declared that “If such a project were to go beyond blueprints, it could prevent the creation of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.” [Image: S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace/SAYA/Is Peace Possible?]

theatlantic:

Crowdsourcing an Israeli-Palestinian Border

A new interactive tool allows you to decide how many Israeli settlers to annex and what constitutes a viable Palestinian state.

One day after the Palestinians successfully upgraded their state at the United Nations General Assembly, the Israeli government announced “preliminary zoning and planning preparations” for a plot of land just outside of Jerusalem known as E1. Many were quick to condemn the move as a significant blow to the already-gridlocked peace process, perhaps even more so than other settlement construction announcements, since construction in E1 would separate the major Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon decried the plan as “an almost fatal blow to remaining chances of securing a two-state solution,” while The New York Times declared that “If such a project were to go beyond blueprints, it could prevent the creation of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.”

[Image: S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace/SAYA/Is Peace Possible?]

motherjones:  Photos: The last days of a rebel-held hospital in Syria (Warning: Graphic)

motherjones:

 Photos: The last days of a rebel-held hospital in Syria (Warning: Graphic)

(Source: http)

123 Obama / 153 Romney

123 Obama / 153 Romney

somewhereintheworldtoday: Get ready to hot-foot it in Singapore Thimithi (also Theemidhi or Theemithi) is a Hindu firewalking ritual carried out as a religious vow in which the faithful walk across white-hot coals in exchange for a wish or blessing from the goddess Draupadi. More on Thimithi (Firewalking) by Somewhere in the world today… Picture: Theemithi Fire Walking Festival by sensibles, on Flickr

somewhereintheworldtoday:

Get ready to hot-foot it in Singapore

Thimithi (also Theemidhi or Theemithi) is a Hindu firewalking ritual carried out as a religious vow in which the faithful walk across white-hot coals in exchange for a wish or blessing from the goddess Draupadi.

More on Thimithi (Firewalking) by Somewhere in the world today…

Picture: Theemithi Fire Walking Festival by sensibles, on Flickr

united-nations:

“The United Nations is not just a meeting place for diplomats. The United Nations is a peacekeeper disarming fighters, a health worker distributing medicine, a relief team aiding refugees, a human rights expert helping deliver justice.” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Sixty-seven years ago this week the United Nations Charter entered into force and that’s why we are celebrating UN Day on Wednesday! Watch this special message and see how you can get involved here:

We want to see how you “rock your UN blue!”

Go vote. It makes you feel big and strong.

—CBS News anchor and debate moderator BOB SCHIEFFER, being correct. (via inothernews)

(via newsweek)

anarcho-queer: Russell Means Dies At 72 Russell C. Means, the charismatic Oglala Sioux activist who held guerrilla-tactic protests in the 1970s that called attention to the nation’s history of injustices against its indigenous peoples, died on Monday at his ranch in Porcupine, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was 72. In 1968, he joined the American Indian Movement and soon became one its prominent leaders. Russell subsequently took part in an occupation of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington in 1972. But it was his leadership of an armed, 72-day standoff against federal authorities at Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge in 1973 that made him a national figure. The siege at Wounded Knee, protesting what Means believed to be a corrupt tribal government and maltreatment of American Indians by federal authorities, left two demonstrators dead, a U.S. marshal paralyzed and numerous others injured. Nearly 80 years earlier, Wounded Knee was the site of an 1890 massacre of scores of Lakota men, women and children by U.S. cavalry troops in what was the final major clash of the American Indian wars.

anarcho-queer:

Russell Means Dies At 72

Russell C. Means, the charismatic Oglala Sioux activist who held guerrilla-tactic protests in the 1970s that called attention to the nation’s history of injustices against its indigenous peoples, died on Monday at his ranch in Porcupine, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was 72.

In 1968, he joined the American Indian Movement and soon became one its prominent leaders.

Russell subsequently took part in an occupation of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington in 1972. But it was his leadership of an armed, 72-day standoff against federal authorities at Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge in 1973 that made him a national figure.

The siege at Wounded Knee, protesting what Means believed to be a corrupt tribal government and maltreatment of American Indians by federal authorities, left two demonstrators dead, a U.S. marshal paralyzed and numerous others injured.

Nearly 80 years earlier, Wounded Knee was the site of an 1890 massacre of scores of Lakota men, women and children by U.S. cavalry troops in what was the final major clash of the American Indian wars.

(via oldfilmsflicker)

life: On the anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum in New York opening to the public for the very first time (Oct. 21, 1959), LIFE pays tribute to the master architect who designed the museum: Frank Lloyd Wright. LIFE magazine paid tribute to Wright and to his eye-popping 5th Avenue museum this way, in its Nov. 2, 1959, issue: Last week, six months after he died, the spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright came triumphantly to life again in New York City. The revolutionary art museum he designed for Solomon R. Guggenheim was finally opened to the public. While it was under construction, the museum was the constant butt of jokes. Its cylindrical exterior was likened to everything from a washing machine to a marshmallow. The inside of the new Guggenheim Museum proved to be far more sensational than the outside. To the visitors who streamed through, it seemed like the inside of a giant snail shell … The museum was greeted with a barrage of praise and protest. Architects hailed the “fantastic structure,” museum directors complained of the slanting floors and walls. An art critic called it “America’s most beautiful building,” a newspaper labeled it a ‘joyous monstrosity.” Everyone agreed on one thing — the building was definitely dizzying. This physical reaction would have pleased Wright who predicted, “When it is finished and you go into it, you will feel the building. You will feel it as a curving wave that never breaks.” See more photos here on LIFE.com

life:

On the anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum in New York opening to the public for the very first time (Oct. 21, 1959), LIFE pays tribute to the master architect who designed the museum: Frank Lloyd Wright.

LIFE magazine paid tribute to Wright and to his eye-popping 5th Avenue museum this way, in its Nov. 2, 1959, issue:

Last week, six months after he died, the spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright came triumphantly to life again in New York City. The revolutionary art museum he designed for Solomon R. Guggenheim was finally opened to the public. While it was under construction, the museum was the constant butt of jokes. Its cylindrical exterior was likened to everything from a washing machine to a marshmallow.

The inside of the new Guggenheim Museum proved to be far more sensational than the outside. To the visitors who streamed through, it seemed like the inside of a giant snail shell … The museum was greeted with a barrage of praise and protest. Architects hailed the “fantastic structure,” museum directors complained of the slanting floors and walls. An art critic called it “America’s most beautiful building,” a newspaper labeled it a ‘joyous monstrosity.” Everyone agreed on one thing — the building was definitely dizzying. This physical reaction would have pleased Wright who predicted, “When it is finished and you go into it, you will feel the building. You will feel it as a curving wave that never breaks.”

See more photos here on LIFE.com