Please Help Someone Who Serves Our City « Baltimore Slumlord Watch

Please Help Someone Who Serves Our City « Baltimore Slumlord Watch:

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By Baltimore Slumlord Watch

On February 22nd, Baltimore City firefighter and medic Meredith Brothers (assigned to Medic 12) and his family lost everything in a house fire in East Baltimore. He and his wife have a two-year-old daughter — thankfully they are safe and unharmed, but they are in need of clothing and financial assistance.

You can drop off donations to the IAFF Local 734 Union Hall — please make checks or money orders out to Meredith Brothers. His daughter wears a size 2T/3T, if you would like to donate clothing. The Union Hall is located at 1202 Ridgeley Street, just west of M&T Bank Stadium. You can call the union at 410-234-0734 for more information.

This family has lost literally everything they own — please be generous, and show these folks that in Baltimore, we take care of our own. Especially those who risk their lives every day for us.

About Baltimore Slumlord Watch

Baltimore Slumlord Watch was created in January of 2009, as a way for city residents to discuss and share information on Baltimore’s many bad property owners. Started by a resident who was tired of watching out of town “investors” and others destroy neighborhoods as a result of their negligence, we hope this blog will serve as a valuable service to other city residents who are sick of the problems slumlords cause in our communities. Please note, we do not work for realtors, developers, or property investors, and have no financial interest in property in Baltimore City.

Lysenkoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lysenkoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

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Repercussions

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia'squality standards. (Consider using more specific cleanup instructions.) Please help improve this section if you can. Thetalk page may contain suggestions. (October 2009)

From 1934 to 1940, under Lysenko's admonitions and with Stalin's approval, many geneticists were executed (including Isaak Agol, Solomon Levit, Grigorii Levitskii, Georgii Karpechenko and Georgii Nadson) or sent to labor camps. The famous Soviet geneticistNikolai Vavilov was arrested in 1940 and died in prison in 1943.^[9]

Genetics was stigmatized as a 'bourgeois science' or 'fascist science' (because fascists — particularly the Nazis in Germany — embraced genetics and attempted to use it to justify their theories on eugenics and the master race, which culminated in Action T4).

Despite the ban, some Soviet scientists continued to work in genetics, dangerous as it was.^{[citation needed]}

In 1948, genetics was officially declared "a bourgeois pseudoscience";^[10] all geneticists were fired from their jobs (some were also arrested), and all genetic research was discontinued. Nikita Khrushchev, who claimed to be an expert in agricultural science, also valued Lysenko as a great scientist, and the taboo on genetics continued (but all geneticists were released or rehabilitated posthumously). The ban was only waived in the mid-1960s.

Thus, Lysenkoism caused serious, long-term harm to Soviet knowledge of biology. It represented a serious failure of the early Soviet leadership to find real solutions to agricultural problems, throwing their support behind a charlatan at the expense of many human lives.

Almost alone among Western scientists, John Desmond Bernal, Professor of Physics atBirkbeck College, University of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, made an aggressive public defense of Lysenko and some years later gave an obituary of ‘Stalin as a Scientist.’ However, despite Bernal's endorsement, other members of Britain's scientific community retreated from open support of the Soviet Union, and may have been one of the chief reasons for a retreat from Marxism in that country.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Neo-Lysenkoism

The word 'Neo-Lysenkoism' has occasionally been invoked by biological determinists as a rhetorical term in the debates over race and intelligence and sociobiology to describe scientists minimizing the role of genes in shaping human behavior, such as Leon Kamin,Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould and Barry Mehler.^[11][12] Some also use it in regards to claims of global warming and man-made climate change.^{[citation needed]}

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Gates of Vienna: How to Avoid Intellectual Hemophilia

Gates of Vienna: How to Avoid Intellectual Hemophilia:

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At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe.
We are in a new phase of a very old war.

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-avoid-intellectual-hemophilia.html

Friday, November 09, 2007

How to Avoid Intellectual Hemophilia

For several centuries an anatomical peculiarity known as the “Habsburg lip” (or the “Habsburg chin”) occurred repeatedly among members of the royal families and aristocracies of Europe. It was a genetic abnormality of the lower jaw, and made normal chewing difficult for those who suffered from it.

The Habsburg lip resulted from generations of inbreeding throughout the royal families of European countries. Within this rarefied society, cousin marriage was the norm, and the accumulated genetic defects led to the frequent expression of recessive genes among the monarchs of Europe. As a result, physical abnormalities, insanity, and idiocy manifested themselves within the aristocratic breeding stock.

Another famous example was Queen Victoria of Great Britain, who, through her numerous progeny and their descendents, contributed hemophilia to the list of ailments bequeathed to Europe’s ruling families. Inbreeding was simply the order of the day; Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are both great-great grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

The harmful effects of inbreeding reached their dubious climax in Charles II, the 17th-century Habsburg king of Spain. Not only did Charles have the Habsburg lip, but he was also mentally and physically disabled. More importantly for the politics of the day, he was unable to sire children. The Habsburg line in Spain ended with him, sparking the War of the Spanish Succession.

From a systems-analysis standpoint, the gene pool of the European monarchs was a small closed system, with no mechanism for correction should the information within the system become corrupted. In a modern computer system, the solution would be multiple-redundant offsite backups with a disaster recovery plan in place to cover emergencies in the event the system should be compromised.

Such an approach was not available to the collective royal DNA of Europe. The obvious solution was outbreeding, but that was simply unthinkable. Resorting to it might — horror of horrors! — contaminate the line with common blood. That was just what was needed, but the system did not allow for it. As a result it carried the self-limiting seeds of its own destruction.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The analogy with inbreeding can be extended to include other types of human information systems. Cultures, polities, corporations, and any other collectives of homo sapiens can be damaged by the informational equivalent of inbreeding.

In constructing a system, the trick is to keep it open enough so that it retains flexibility and responsiveness, while retaining a rule-based structure to avoid any descent into chaos. In classical capitalism, the “invisible hand” of the marketplace serves to keep the system open and functioning at maximum efficiency, but only as long as the rules constrain it. The enforcement of contracts, protection from theft and extortion, guards against monopoly, etc., are necessary preconditions before the invisible hand can work its magic.

When it does, millions of people can make their own uncoerced self-interested decisions. Information flows rapidly and effectively through the system, and the power of the market is unleashed.

To find its economic opposite we have only to look at the Soviet Union, a system that was so closed and encumbered with destructive rules that it failed to survive even for a century.
- - - - - - - - -
Obviously, political systems are subject to the same kind of rules. For a constitutional republic to be successful, it must be rule-based but open. It needs a well-constructed constitution, the rule of law, and a well-defined system for changing its laws in order to retain flexibility. The farther a democracy strays from these ideals, the more corrupt and sclerotic it becomes.

All human organizations have a tendency to become rigid and sclerotic with the passage of time. Those who benefit most from the system — the people at the top with all the perks, privileges, and power — understandably want to restrict the flow of information in order to preserve and extend their position.

The worst-case scenario occurs in those dictatorships which consolidate absolute power into the hands of a single person. Preserving his position requires the maximum leader to eliminate his potential rivals, who are also the people most likely to provide valuable information, new insights, and alternative political strategies. His inner circle is eventually reduced to yes-men and toadies who convey nothing to their boss that he doesn’t want to hear. The system becomes totally closed, and once corrupt information enters, it persists and becomes magnified, eventually bringing down the entire structure.

Stalin may be the most extreme example of this process. At the height of his rule, reliable information about the governance of the country not only never reached him, it simply didn’t exist. From the top to the bottom the Soviet Union was riddled with lies, false statistics, cover-ups, and deliberate inventions. This wasn’t a bug in the program; it was a feature — each person in the Bolshevik system had everything to lose and nothing to gain by passing on correct information to other parts of the system.

The Lysenko affair could only have occurred within a closed system as deranged and corrupted as the Soviet Union under Stalin.

read more:

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-avoid-intellectual-hemophilia.html

The “Habsburg Jaw”

The “Habsburg Jaw”:

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Of the many attributes identified with the Habsburg dynasty it is the hereditary over-grown jaw (mandibular prognathism) that captures the most attention.It is clearly visible in many of the increasing natural portraits of the family from the Renaissance and after, and also is seen on coinage of the period. (The coin of Leopold the “Hogmouth” shown above demonstrates the deformity.) What we do seem to see from the surviving portraits is that the deformaty developed and increased with the age of the victim. Sometimes so serious as to inhibit talking or eating, and often linked to a lack of mental sharpness, the problem never interferred with hereditary succession. Well served by an efficient bureaucracy, the Habsburgs long endured despite increasing inattention to duty and only disappeared in Spain due to the king's failure to produce an heir.

There is no dispute that the genetic flaw entered the Habsurg family with Cymburga of Masowia early in the fifteenth century when she married Duke Ernst of Inner Austria. The European nobility had, by this time, already thoroughly intermarried and so the true sources of such genetic aberations is too often shrouded in mystery and complex ancestry. Cymburga carried genes from Portugese, Spanish, Austrian and Burgundian ancestors. Who, or what pairing, or which ancestors brought the deformity is beyond telling. Her eldest son, Friedrich III, the German Emperor, shows a strong but not mishapen chin. However, his son Maximillian had a serious jaw deformation that was made more prominant by his chunky visage. From him the jaw descended into both the Spanish and Austrian/German Royal lines for at least two centuries before being seemingly disappearing. We have no idea if it is gone forever or may reappear again with a new marriage that revivies the gene.

Certainly the very high degree of intermarriage between the various branches of the Habsburgs greatly contributed to the prevalence of the problem (The Spanish king Carlos II is pictured at the left). There were multiple marriages of uncles and nieces, first cousins (not to mention second, third or more distant), nephews and aunts and in the case of Philip II all three. That one crucial marriage was with Juana "The Mad", who truly was unstable, only made the intermarriages more unfortunate for their offspring. Other known familial problems included stomach problems, asthma, gout, a tendency to dropsy (COPE), epilepsy, depression and a seeming weak resistence to syphilis (which might also have been spead through prenatal transmission).

There are few studies on prognathism and its hereditary transmission, but one by Schulze and Weise led them to believe the deformity was an irregualrly dominant gene but with variable penetrance. They could not determine if it was actually the result of multiple gene aberations or of one alone. The likely conclusion for the Habsburgs is that the gene is still present but weak and recessive. We do know that exhibiting the genetic malformation was not sexually linked as we have portraits of female Habsburgs with the deformed jaw, although transmission was sexually linked and afflicted some 50% of the dHabsburgs. Otherwise it remains a mystery of past history that troubles the Habsburgs no more.

It is still of interest to the medical profession today as the following medical article summary shows:

J Med Genet. 1988 Dec; 25(12): 838-42.
“ Another family with the 'Habsburg jaw'.”
Thompson EM, Winter RM.
Department of Paediatric Genetics, Institute of Child Health, London.
We report a three generation family with similar facial characteristics to those of the Royal Habsburgs, including mandibular prognathism, thickened lower lip, prominent, often misshapen nose, flat malar areas, and mildly everted lower eyelids. One child had craniosynostosis which may be part of the syndrome.

Personal Name as Subject:
Philip IV
Carlos II
Charles V
PMID: 3070045

Bibliography

Grabb, William C., "The Habsburg Jaw", Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Baltimore, Vol. 42 (1968), pp. 442-445.

Hart, Gerald D., "The Habsburg Jaw", C.M.A. Journal, Ottawa, April 3, 1971, pp. 601-3.

Schulze, C. and W. Weise, "The Heredity of Prognathism", Fortschr. Kieferorthop., 26: 213, 1965.

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What Happens to People Who Have An Overblown Sense of Self Importance

Inbreeding caused demise of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty, new study reveals - Telegraph:

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By Fiona Govan in Madrid

1:36PM BST 15 Apr 2009

The Hapsburgs ruled Spain from 1516 to 1700, presiding over the first global empire, but died out after generations of intermarriage, according to the first genetic analysis of the family.

The royal fashion of marrying relatives to preserve the dynastic heritage culminated in a monarch who was so genetically inbred that he was unable to provide an heir and power passed to the French Bourbons.

The dynasty was one of the most important and influential royal families in Europe - branches of the family ruled Austria, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands, the German empire and Spain.

Scientists have examined the family tree of the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, King Charles II, who died in 1700 at the age of 39, and discovered that, as a result of repeated marriages between close relatives, he was almost as inbred as the offspring of an incestuous relationship between a brother and sister or father and daughter.

The study found that nine out of 11 marriages over the 200 years were between first cousins or uncles and nieces, producing a small gene pool that made rare recessive genetic illnesses more prevalent.

Only half of the babies born to the dynasty during the period studied lived to see their first birthday, compared with about 80 per cent of children in Spanish villages at the time.

The study, published this week in the journal Public Library of Science One, indicated that Charles II suffered from two separate rare genetic conditions, which were almost certainly the result of his ancestors' marriage patterns and which effectively assured that the dynasty died out with him.

Nicknamed El Hechizado ("the hexed") because of his deformities, Charles II was not only inflicted with an extreme version of the Hapsburg chin, as immortalised in portraits by Titian and Velazquez, but his tongue was said to be so big for his mouth that he had difficulty speaking and drooled.

Historical accounts record that he also suffered from an oversized head, intestinal upsets, convulsions and, according to his first wife, premature ejaculation and his second wife, impotence.

"He was unable to speak until the age of four, and could not walk until the age of eight. He was short, weak and quite lean and thin," said Gonzalo Alvarez, of the University of Santiago de Compostela, who led the study.

"He looked like an old person when he was 30 years old, suffering edemas [swellings] on his feet, legs, abdomen and face. During the last years of his life he could barely stand up and suffered from hallucinations and convulsive episodes," he said.

The scientists concluded that medical problems of Charles II were not random but could be symptoms of two genetic disorders; an inherited thyroid deficiency, and renal tubular acidosis, a type of kidney failure that can cause metabolic problems.

Bloody Sunday (1972) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bloody Sunday (1972) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

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The dead

• John (Jackie) Duddy (17). Shot in the chest in the car park of Rossville flats. Four witnesses stated Duddy was unarmed and running away from the paratroopers when he was killed. Three of them saw a soldier take deliberate aim at the youth as he ran. He is the uncle of the Irish boxer John Duddy.^[38]

Belt worn by Patrick Doherty. The notch was made by the bullet that killed him.^[39]

Mural by Bogside Artistsdepicting all who were killed by the British Army on the day

• Patrick Joseph Doherty (31). Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety in the forecourt of Rossville flats. Doherty was the subject of a series of photographs, taken before and after he died by French journalist Gilles Peress. Despite testimony from "Soldier F" that he had fired at a man holding and firing a pistol, Widgery acknowledged that the photographs showed Doherty was unarmed, and that forensic tests on his hands for gunshot residue proved negative.^[38][40]

• Bernard McGuigan (41). Shot in the back of the head when he went to help Patrick Doherty. He had been waving a white handkerchief at the soldiers to indicate his peaceful intentions.^[6]

• Hugh Pious Gilmour (17). Shot through his right elbow, the bullet then entering his chest as he ran from the paratroopers on Rossville Street.^[38] Widgery acknowledged that a photograph taken seconds after Gilmour was hit corroborated witness reports that he was unarmed, and that tests for gunshot residue were negative.^[6]

• Kevin McElhinney (17). Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety at the front entrance of the Rossville Flats. Two witnesses stated McElhinney was unarmed.^[38]

• Michael Gerald Kelly (17). Shot in the stomach while standing near the rubble barricade in front of Rossville Flats. Widgery accepted that Kelly was unarmed.^[38]

• John Pius Young (17). Shot in the head while standing at the rubble barricade. Two witnesses stated Young was unarmed.^[38]

• William Noel Nash (19). Shot in the chest near the barricade. Witnesses stated Nash was unarmed and going to the aid of another when killed.^[38]

• Michael M. McDaid (20). Shot in the face at the barricade as he was walking away from the paratroopers. The trajectory of the bullet indicated he could have been killed by soldiers positioned on the Derry Walls.^[38]

• James Joseph Wray (22). Wounded then shot again at close range while lying on the ground. Witnesses who were not called to the Widgery Tribunal stated that Wray was calling out that he could not move his legs before he was shot the second time.^[38]

• Gerald Donaghy (17). Shot in the stomach while attempting to run to safety between Glenfada Park and Abbey Park. Donaghy was brought to a nearby house by bystanders where he was examined by a doctor. His pockets were turned out in an effort to identify him. A later police photograph of Donaghy's corpse showed nail bombs in his pockets. Neither those who searched his pockets in the house nor the British army medical officer (Soldier 138) who pronounced him dead shortly afterwards say they saw any bombs. Donaghy had been a member of Fianna Éireann, an IRA-linked Republican youth movement.^[38] Paddy Ward, a police informer^[41] who gave evidence at the Saville Inquiry, claimed that he had given two nail bombs to Donaghy several hours before he was shot dead.^[42]

• Gerald (James) McKinney (34). Shot just after Gerald Donaghy. Witnesses stated that McKinney had been running behind Donaghy, and he stopped and held up his arms, shouting "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!", when he saw Donaghy fall. He was then shot in the chest.^[38]

• William Anthony McKinney (27). Shot from behind as he attempted to aid Gerald McKinney (no relation). He had left cover to try to help Gerald.^[38]

• John Johnston (59). Shot in the leg and left shoulder on William Street 15 minutes before the rest of the shooting started.^[38][43] Johnston was not on the march, but on his way to visit a friend in Glenfada Park.^[43] He died 4½ months later; his death has been attributed to the injuries he received on the day. He was the only one not to die immediately or soon after being shot.^[38]

[edit]Perspectives and analyses on the day

Mural by Bogside Artists onFree Derry Corner depictingFather Daly waving a white handkerchief while trying to escort the mortally wounded Jackie Duddy to safety.

Thirteen people were shot and killed, with another man later dying of his wounds. The official army position, backed by the British Home Secretary the next day in theHouse of Commons, was that the paratroopers had reacted to gun and nail bomb attacks from suspected IRA members. All eyewitnesses (apart from the soldiers), including marchers, local residents, and British and Irish journalists present, maintain that soldiers fired into an unarmed crowd, or were aiming at fleeing people and those tending the wounded, whereas the soldiers themselves were not fired upon. No British soldier was wounded by gunfire or reported any injuries, nor were any bullets or nail bombs recovered to back up their claims.

In the events that followed, irate crowds burned down the British embassy on Merrion Square in Dublin.^[44] Anglo-Irish relations hit one of their lowest ebbs, with Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Patrick Hillery, going specially to the United Nations in New York to demand UN involvement in the Northern Ireland "Troubles".^[45]

Although there were many IRA men—both Official and Provisional—present at the protest, it is claimed they were all unarmed, apparently because it was anticipated that the paratroopers would attempt to "draw them out".^[46] March organiser and MP Ivan Cooper had been promised beforehand that no armed IRA men would be near the march. One paratrooper who gave evidence at the Tribunal testified that they were told by an officer to expect a gunfight and "We want some kills".^[47] In the event, one man was witnessed by Father Edward Daly and others haphazardly firing a revolver in the direction of the paratroopers. Later identified as a member of the Official IRA, this man was also photographed in the act of drawing his weapon, but was apparently not seen or targeted by the soldiers. Various other claims have been made to the Saville Inquiry about gunmen on the day.^[48]

The city's coroner, retired British Army Major Hubert O'Neill, issued a statement on 21 August 1973, at the completion of the inquest into the people killed.^[49] He declared:

This Sunday became known as Bloody Sunday and bloody it was. It was quite unnecessary. It strikes me that the Army ran amok that day and shot without thinking what they were doing. They were shooting innocent people. These people may have been taking part in a march that was banned but that does not justify the troops coming in and firing live rounds indiscriminately. I would say without hesitation that it was sheer, unadulterated murder. It was murder.

Two days after Bloody Sunday, the Westminster Parliament adopted a resolution for a tribunal into the events of the day, resulting in Prime Minister Edward Heath commissioning the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery to undertake it. Many witnesses intended to boycott the tribunal as they lacked faith in Widgery's impartiality, but were eventually persuaded to take part. Widgery's quickly produced report—completed within ten weeks (10 April) and published within eleven (19 April)—supported the Army's account of the events of the day. Among the evidence presented to the tribunal were the results of paraffin tests, used to identify lead residues from firing weapons, and that nail bombs had been found on the body of one of those killed. Tests for traces of explosives on the clothes of eleven of the dead proved negative, while those of the remaining man could not be tested as they had already been washed. Most Irish people and witnesses to the event disputed the report's conclusions and regarded it as a whitewash. It has been argued that firearms residue on some deceased may have come from contact with the soldiers who themselves moved some of the bodies, or that the presence of lead on the hands of one (James Wray) was easily explained by the fact that his occupation involved the use of lead-based solder. In fact, in 1992, John Major, writing to John Hume stated:

The Government made clear in 1974 that those who were killed on 'Bloody Sunday' should be regarded as innocent of any allegation that they were shot whilst handling firearms or explosives. I hope that the families of those who died will accept that assurance.^[50]

The 35th Bloody Sunday memorial march in Derry, 28 January 2007

Following the events of Bloody Sunday Bernadette Devlin, an Independent Socialist nationalist MP from Northern Ireland, expressed anger at what she perceived as government attempts to stifle accounts being reported about the day. Having witnessed the events firsthand, she was later infuriated that she was consistently denied the chance to speak in Parliament about the day, although parliamentary convention decreed that any MP witnessing an incident under discussion would be granted an opportunity to speak about it in the House.^[51] Devlin punched Reginald Maudling, the Secretary of State for the Home Department in the Conservativegovernment, when he made a statement to Parliament on the events of Bloody Sunday stating that the British Army had fired only in self-defence.^[52] She was temporarily suspended from Parliament as a result of the incident.^[53]

In January 1997, the United Kingdom television station Channel 4 carried a news report that suggested that members of the Royal Anglian Regiment had also opened fire on the protesters and could have been responsible for three of the fourteen deaths.

On 29 May 2007 it was reported that General Sir Mike Jackson, second-in-command of 1 Para on Bloody Sunday, said: "I have no doubt that innocent people were shot".^[54] This was in sharp contrast to his insistence, for more than 30 years, that those killed on the day had not been innocent.^[55]

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