Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

In France, A Renewed Push To Return Art Looted By Nazis

Excerpt from: NPR (click for full article)

 

During World War II, the Nazis plundered tens of thousands of works of art from the private collections of European Jews, many living in France. About 75 percent of the artwork that came back to France from Germany at the end of the war has been returned to their rightful owners.

But there are still approximately 2,000 art objects that remain unclaimed. The French government has now begun one of its most extensive efforts ever to find the heirs and return the art.

French law states that at art pillaged during World War II must be publicly exhibited, if its condition permits, so that it can be recognized and claimed.

"Up until now, France put the maximum information at public disposal and waited for reaction. For people to come forward. Now we're proactively tracking down the descendants and families of those who had their art stolen," says Thierry Bajou, who is coordinating the French government's efforts.

Celebrate ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’

Excerpt from: Teaching Tolerance (click for full article)

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke powerful words. Words that continue to inspire thousands of people around the world as they work toward equality.  King’s speeches have become so famous, in fact, that we often neglect his equally impassioned written work.

While confined in a Birmingham, Ala., jail in 1963 for violating a law prohibiting demonstrations, King received an open letter from white clergy criticizing his strategy and leadership in the Birmingham struggle for civil rights.

On April 16, 1963, King wrote “Letter From Birmingham Jail” in defense of his civil rights actions in Birmingham.

“I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states,” he wrote. “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

Today, on the 50^th anniversary of the writing of “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” people all around the world will host readings of King’s letter. Some will be in schools. Others will be in public parks or houses of worship. Still others will be at coffee shops or at bookstores. In Montgomery, Ala., the Civil Rights Memorial Center’s Director Lecia Brooks will read the letter aloud. You can hear the full 32-minute recording here.

J.R.R. Tolkien's Ring On Display At Estate's Exhibit

Excerpt from: NPR (click for full article)

 

J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy Lord of the Rings is filled with fantastical stories of elves, hobbits and wizards. But the ring at the center of his tale may have been inspired by a real ring. Owners of The Vyne, an English estate, say they possess the ring that inspired Tolkien's "ring of power."

The History of Lobotomy

Excerpt from: Cerebromente (click for full article)

 

The origins of modern psychosurgery are to be found in the last decades of the 19th century, when science was beginning to understand how the human mind and behavior could be mapped out into the anatomical features of the brain. A German scientist named Friederich Golz, doing experiments with the surgical ablation of neocortex in dogs, reported in 1890 that when the temporal lobe were removed, animals were more tame and calmer than the unoperated ones.

Greek Dances - What do they mean?

Excerpt from: Typical Greek Life (click for full article)

 

So Greek dancing is all about expressing emotions and telling stories. Traditional Greek dancing had plenty of stories: some were to ensure fertility, preparing for war, celebrating victories, overcoming depression and even curing illnesses. They are usually named after villages or places where they originated from.

The 'Zebekiko'
This is a solo dance usually performed by men (eh but you get the odd 'modern' woman sneaking in these days too!). The songs that you dance the 'Zebekiko' to (can also be called the 'vareto') are always very passionate and often reflect struggles and broken hearts. Hence, why it is also known as the 'drunken' dance... It's usually performed very late into the evening (once the booze has taken full effect, you know how it is...). The moves are generally actually very sporadic and drunken looking and although there are some signature moves, it is generally freestyle; just moving to your emotions. It is always danced with an audience knelt down in a circle clapping you on and appreciating your deep felt expressive emotions (unless you're in a fancy dress apparently...)

10 Reasons 19th Century Paris Was As Miserable As Les Mis

Excerpt from: Listverse (click for full article)

 

By now you’ve probably either seen the movie, watched the play or read the book Les Miserables, Victor Hugo’s classic tale of life in nineteenth century Paris. But have you ever wondered if life in Paris at that time really was as miserable as the movie depicts? Here are ten reasons why it was even worse:

10. Women Had It Really Rough

9. Children Were Regularly Abandoned

8. Child Prostitution

7. Lower Classes Were Despised By Upper Classes

6. Men Had It Just As Bad

5. Living Conditions Were Terrible

4. Life Stunk

3. Cholera Epidemic

2. The Morgue Became A Place of Entertainment

1. The Reign of Terror

Remarkable women who rose above disabilities

Excerpt from: This is Cornwall (click for full article)

 

Perhaps Sarag Biffin levels of fortitude and determination were in the family blood: "My great-uncle, Captain James King, sailed with Captain Cook in his famous voyage round the world and shared with him the glory of the discovery of the Sandwich Islands," she wrote. "When Cook was murdered. Captain King took command of the expedition and brought his vessels successfully back again into English waters. He was one of the most fascinating of men."

"I mention these circumstances connected with my family because they were an incentive to spur me on to get the better of the disadvantages of my blindness," she added.

And this was how Miss King described her disability: "My sight was from the first extremely weak and imperfect; all the objects around me appeared to my childish eyes as objects in a mist. Gradually this faint gleam of sight faded away, and when I was seven years old I became entirely blind.

"This, however, did not in the least terrify or grieve me. Throughout my whole life my blindness has had this remarkable feature in it – I have always before my eyes a brilliant light, so that the whole world around me seems, as it were, incandescent. I appear to be walking in light. In this light I can call up at will all sorts of beautiful colours, which I see mingled with the radiance and forming part of it. Thus my blindness has always been for me, in a certain sense, brightness."

Mackinac Island Worries About Preserving Its Past

Excerpt from: NPR (click for full article)

 

Michigan's Mackinac Island was fought over by France, England and the United States. The 200-year-old city in northern Lake Huron is a popular tourist destination. But the demolition of old buildings has raised a fierce debate about how to hold onto the past while profiting from it.

 

Click on link above to listen to show.

Bones tell story of compassion, caregiving of disabled people in ancient times

Excerpt from: Media dis&dat (click for full article)

 

The case that led Lorna Tilley and Marc Oxenham of Australian National University in Canberra to this idea is that of a profoundly ill young man who lived 4,000 years ago in what is now northern Vietnam and was buried, as were others in his culture, at a site known as Man Bac.

They gathered that he became paralyzed from the waist down before adolescence, the result of a congenital disease known as Klippel-Feil syndrome. He had little, if any, use of his arms and could not have fed himself or kept himself clean. But he lived another 10 years or so. 

They concluded that the people around him who had no metal and lived by fishing, hunting and raising barely domesticated pigs, took the time and care to tend to his every need. 

“There’s an emotional experience in excavating any human being, a feeling of awe,” Ms. Tilley said, and a responsibility “to tell the story with as much accuracy and humanity as we can.”

Einstein’s brain was unusual in several respects, rarely seen photos show

Excerpt from: The Washington Post (click for full article)

 

A study of 14 newly discovered photographs of Einstein’s brain, which was preserved for study after his death, concludes that the brain was indeed highly unusual in many ways. But researchers still don’t know exactly how the brain’s extra folds and convolutions translated into Einstein’s amazing abilities.

Over the decades, only six peer-reviewed publications resulted from these widely scattered materials. Some of these studies did find interesting features in Einstein’s brain, including a greater density of neurons in some parts of the brain and a higher than usual ratio of glia (cells that help neurons transmit nerve impulses) to neurons. Two studies of the brain’s gross anatomy, including one published in 2009 by anthropologist Dean Falk of Florida State University at Tallahassee, found that Einstein’s parietal lobes — which might be linked to his remarkable ability to conceptualize physics problems — had a very unusual pattern of grooves and ridges.