Challenges never stop for pioneering Elliott

Challenges never stop for pioneering Elliott - Paul Elliott never shirked a challenge as a player and as he considers an offer to become the first black chairman of an English League club, he clearly is not shirking them now either.

The highly articulate 48-year-old former defender, who became Celtic's first black player in the late 1980s, then one of the first black players in Italy at Pisa and Chelsea's first black captain in the early 1990s, is a man in demand.

He has been offered the chance to return to his boyhood club Charlton Athletic working with a black manager in Chris Powell.

Charlton, who spent seven successive seasons in the Premier League before falling to the third tier, are currently just above the relegation places in the Championship (second tier) - so an immediate challenge awaits him there if he goes back to The Valley.

"I have a long historical association with that club," he told Reuters in an interview this week.

"I was born and grew up in the area, started my career there and my family still live there. I'm very flattered to be associated with the club in this way - and we'll see how it turns out very soon."

Charlton would like him back because he is a highly-regarded and respected football man.

A tireless ambassador for the Kick It Out anti-racism campaign since its inception 20 years ago, he overcame a shattering career-ending injury at Chelsea when he was 28 and soon found himself attracted to the political and administrative side of the game.

His involvement today is just as intense as it was when he played with a calm elegance at the highest level.

But now, instead of tackling opposing attackers, he is tackling emotive issues involving racism in Serbia and the charges levelled against FIFA referee Mark Clattenburg by his former club Chelsea.

RACISM ALLEGATIONS

A few days after Chelsea players accused Clattenburg of making an inappropriate remark to their Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel during their match against Manchester United, Elliott for once found himself amazed at the turn of events and doubts allegations of racism are true.

"To me, what happened at Chelsea seemed like a car out of control, I thought with the John Terry thing, this had stopped," he said.

"I thought we were moving forward but it's like we've been hit by a two-footed challenge from the side and you've not seen it coming.

"Mark Clattenburg is a very capable and competent referee and I would be astonished if an authority figure in our game like him, an elite referee, could be found guilty of racism.

"Our referees, in general terms, are among the best in the world and Mark Clattenburg has a fundamental right to defend those allegations."

The "John Terry thing" involves Chelsea's current skipper, who was cleared by a court but found guilty and banned by the FA for racially insulting Anton Ferdinand of Queens Park Rangers.

In a year when Elliott was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours, there has also been the fallout from the racism case involving Liverpool's Luis Suarez and Serbian fans racially insulting black players in the England Under-21 team.

Assessing all that has occurred, Elliott said: "We have come to a watershed. If we look at the last 20 years, we're the country that has led the fight against racism and discrimination. We have been the leaders in world football.

"While we have made good progress what we can't afford is to be complacent and I think that is what has happened.

21ST CENTURY CHALLENGES

"What I think this last year has shown us is that here in the 21st century we, collectively, Kick It Out, the PFA (Professional Footballers' Association), the FA, the Football League, the Premier League, the LMA (League Managers' Association), we have all been in the forefront in the fight against discrimination.

"All our brands have been improved, but now we have all been affected by the Terry affair, the Suarez affair and now this Clattenburg case.

"We have all shared in the collective "upside" of it and I think that same collective engagement has to show we can have a collaborative strategy moving forward."

He is also adamant that the Serbian FA should be punished for the continuing racism at matches in their country following the latest abuse levelled at the England Under-21 team last month.

"I experienced racism in this country at its absolute worst, no question about it. I saw it as a footballer - the monkey chanting, the banana throwing, when my family would never come to a match and watch me play, but that was our society then and it is still like that in other countries.

"While we have to be mindful of what is going on in our own country first, we also have to say the Serbians have no excuses, none whatsoever.

"I hope that UEFA apply the same leadership as the FA have done here - zero tolerance. Apply the full sanctions. This is no longer about fines or deduction of points. This has to be expulsion from competition. That's the only way they will learn. For the Serbians to say it didn't happen - well that's just a classic denial. They are wrong."

On a personal note, he is upset that there has been talk of a breakaway movement by black footballers forming their own association to fight racism and the lack of inclusiveness in England.

Some black players refused to wear the Kick It Out t-shirts during their recent week of action against racism, but Elliott is convinced that while they have legitimate concerns, they went about their grievances in the wrong way.

"It was reckless disrespect and disregard of what Kick It Out has done and what it stands for. It has enabled today's black players, who were 10 or 11 when it started, to grow up and develop their careers in a largely racism-free football environment in this country," he said.

"For them to act as they did was a kick in the teeth. Did they really understand the core functions of Kick it Out?

"We all want more inclusivity and by that I mean greater visibility of black and ethnic minorities within the corridors of power. As far as the decision-making process is concerned, where is that greater visibility that is a reflection of British society and the community? Where is it?"

A breakaway is not the answer though for Elliott.

"You know 25 percent of the members of the PFA are black, yet there are only four black coaches," he added.

"These are the 21st century challenges we are facing. But a black players' association would be the worst thing that could ever happen.

"The PFA has been around for more than 100 years and is the benchmark of a successful union because of its solidarity and unity and its ability to serve all its players. I am utterly against any breakaway. I think that would be the biggest mistake they could make." ( Reuters )

Blog : The Challenge

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The Best Tech Gifts for Moms

The Best Tech Gifts for Moms - Looking for a gift for the mom in your life and want to get a little fancier than a scarf? How about some high-tech toys that will help make her life a little easier?

Below are a few gadgets that the moms I know would be thrilled to find under their trees this year.

Amazon Kindle

Amazon's new lineup of Kindle eReaders are sure to impress. Whether mom is a news junkie or enjoys her alone time with bodice ripping romance novels, she'll love having an eReader that's easy to use and light enough to fit in a purse or coat pocket. Prices start at $79.


Tag by Cobra

I don't want to insinuate that Moms lose their keys more than Dads -- but that's sure true in my house. My wife's keys are forever getting lost in the black hole that is the diaper bag. With the Cobra Tag, you can find your keys with a small keychain tag that pairs with a BlackBerry or Android phone. When the keys go missing, use the app on the phone to signal to them. When the phone goes missing, the keychain tag can signal to the phone to help you find it too. If they both go missing, of course, you're really out of luck.


Dyson Hot

For the woman who is always cold, consider this portable heater with a lot of panache. It's a bladeless heating fan that can turn itself off and on to keep any room at your desired temperature. It's portable and handy with its remote control. It is also safe to use around children and pets.


Brookstone Body Bean

This is the modern day equivalent to the hot water bottle or electric heating pad -- only much safer. Plug the Body Bean in for 15 minutes and it stays warm for up to four hours! It is small and compact and would make a great stocking stuffer.


iRobot Roomba 700 Series

Want to help mom clean the house? You can weather vacuum the floor yourself -- or buy her a robot to do it more regularly (and with less complaining than you would offer). The Roomba vacuums every part of a room multiple times and can run on your schedule with its timer mode. It cleans carpet, tile, or hardwood floors and is a great gift for the mom who deserves a break from housework. And who doesn't? ( foxnews.com )

READ MORE - The Best Tech Gifts for Moms

The Best Gifts for Dads

The Best Gifts for Dads - I'll be the first to admit that dads are just big kids -- and we like toys. Shiny ones with buttons. So here are my suggestions for some tech gifts to put under the tree for dear old dad.


1. Video games Two of my favorites this year are Batman: Arkham City and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. I've been spending most of my gaming time with Batman lately. This is the much-anticipated sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum. And it's just as awesome. In the new game, the joker takes over the city and you -- as Batman of course -- have to find him and take it back.

Modern Warfare 3 is a first-person shooter and one of the most realistic ones yet. There is a reason this is such a hot seller this year. It's like playing the hero in a Die Hard movie!

2. Powermat Assuming Dad already has a smartphone, tablet, gaming device, etc., he'll need to power them up. The Powermat is a wireless charging system that lets you charge your gadgets on a plate-like device that sets on your table. It's clean and wire-free. No more spaghetti system of wires coming out from behind the couch. This is one system that charges them all while you're home or at work.

3. PowerBag Speaking of power, a dead cell phone battery is the bane of a traveling man's existence. If the dad in your life does business on the go, he needs a bag that can charge his gadgets while he travels. Meet the PowerBag. You charge the bag overnight and the connected chargers inside will charge your gadgets when you leave the house. It comes with adapters to charge smartphones, tablets, laptops, and more.

4. iPod Nano and HEX Watch Band The new iPod Nano doubles up as a watch with the HEX Watch Band. It's stylish and unique, turning your watch into an MP3 player with all of your music and photos! I've been wearing one of these and I use the Mickey Mouse watch face, which my 1 year-old gets a huge kick out of.

In some cultures, it's considered bad luck to gift a watch so get around that with an iPod Nano that can be used as a watch. Plus, it's a great conversation piece. Is it a watch? Is it an iPod? It's both!

5. iHome iW1 AirPlay Speaker Dad could make good use of this speaker system in his man cave. It's a speaker system that can either plug in or stream music from any Apple device -- iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, etc. It works with Apple's AirPlay system so you can play music wirelessly from your device of choice. And it has great sound quality. ( foxnews.com )

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Censoring ‘your friends and neighbors’

Censoring ‘your friends and neighbors’ - “...the most interesting part about her work is that you can almost imagine how the people in the picture look like… One could think of him/herself in it....” (An accidental eavesdrop on a conversation, although not intentionally, may I honorably add.)

I was at the solo exhibition of Jowhara Al-Saud, a photographer who by all means is certainly not your “yet-another-chip-off-the-block” or recent addition to the score of shutterbug snappers. Her work has traveled extensively all over Europe and the United States since 2005, and two of her photos are now housed as part of the public collection at Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Green Box Museum in Amsterdam.

A series of photographs from her work, “Out of Line,” were hosted in Saudi Arabia for the first time as part of her solo exhibition last week at ATHR gallery. They have been previously seen at regional art fairs, including Art Dubai and NABATT in the recent past.

Biased by the header or not, her work certainly evokes the senses of the censors that find synonymy in our everyday manifestations of the ordinary. One way or another, we have learned to live with expurgation of skin, opinions, affections, ideas, necessities and everything else in no particular order.

Exploring a plethora of visual dynamics that may challenge traditional or religious sensibilities in view of public display, Al-Saud has managed to elegantly labor her way into combating the possibility of objections. She does this while still maintaining the freedom of self-expression in her photos, albeit through total ambiguity, by stripping her subjects of all facial recognition. A cleverly initiated trick worthy of all artistic appreciation, this element maintains the core of Al-Saud’s work. Yet, the visuals project an anonymity that becomes universal to all, regardless of race, culture, religion or geography.

Her photos beg a narration an observer can easily provide and be an intimate participant of. They represent a creative freedom without the scope for social judgments toward attitude, clothing and disposition or in addressing social taboos like mixed gender mingling. In a large sense, it is emblematic of a frank discourse of everyday occurrences, speaking mostly of friendship, family, relationships and the personal space of being.

It may not calculatingly challenge the status quo on the perpetration of heavily-exercised censorship, yet the entire series reflects an off-hand oblique satire of the issue prevailing largely in all spheres of public discourse and communication. Almost all her photos find a strong female centrality around which events seem to be woven, deliberating a subtle suggestion toward the existence of female bigotry.

“Many of the men in the photographs wouldn’t appear in a portrait meant for a public space in the same dress or playful poses. So, while I agree that the stigma is infinitely stronger toward females, men have different restrictions to contend with,” said Al-Saud.

She is also quick to point that she believes other issues addressed through her work find more relevancy, namely: “The stigma attached to publicly displaying portraits, the limitations of photography as a medium and the ubiquitous ‘snapshot,’ which in its candor and immediacy is able to transcend most geographic and cultural boundaries.”

“While the work started as an exploration of censorship, that isn’t what held my interest nor do I feel the final results are a mockery of anything. There’s no value judgment here, but just a highlight on a few things I felt merited a discussion,” she added.

Al-Saud uses uncommon paraphernalia like dental rotary instruments and near obsolete photography developing practices that are time-consuming, strenuous and technique-sensitive to obtain the desired imagery in her prints.

“Digital photography has come a long way and you can achieve wonderful things with it, but I always miss the hands-on technique. We’re human and not machines, yet, this is what we’re competing with. Nothing I make by hand will ever measure up to the precision of a machine-made or digitally doctored piece. However, there’s something beautiful about the striving. As with many other things, beauty lies in the attempt and is celebrated in the tell-tale human flaws,” explained Al-Saud.

She shared that she has begun work on another series that explores themes in a similar photographic medium although she refrained from discussing further.

“This show really has been a long time coming. Trust me when I say that I have been looking forward to this for a long time,” she said.

The most endearing part of the exhibition remained in tear-away postcards found in the guest art catalog: Ready for snail mail postage! ( arabnews.com )

READ MORE - Censoring ‘your friends and neighbors’

44 years after Israeli assault on USS Liberty ... killers still not called to account

44 years after Israeli assault on USS Liberty ... killers still not called to account - On June 8, 1967, a lightly armed, clearly marked communications vessel sailing peacefully in the eastern Mediterranean, was suddenly attacked without warning by Israeli jets and torpedo boats, leaving 34 US servicemen dead and another 171 wounded and maimed for life. The ship was the USS Liberty.

Its mission was to monitor the fighting going on between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which were then at war. Details of this vicious, cold-blooded atrocity by America's favorite rogue state are recounted by James Bamford in his no-holds-barred examination of the National Security Agency, Body of Secrets. Below are several excerpts from this devastating exposé.

Without warning the Israeli jets struck-swept-wing Dassault Mirage IIICs.

Lt. Painter observed that the aircraft had "absolutely no markings," so that their identity was unclear. He then attempted to contact the men manning the gun mounts, but it was too late. "I was trying to contact these two kids," he recalled, "and I saw them both; well, I didn't exactly see them as such. They were blown apart, but I saw the whole area go up in smoke and scattered metal. And, at about the same time, the aircraft strafed the bridge area itself. The quartermaster, Petty Officer Third Class Pollard, was standing right next to me, and he was hit.

"With the sun at their backs in true attack mode, the Mirages raked the ship from bow to stern with hot, armor-piercing lead. Back and forth they came, cannons and machine guns blazing. A bomb exploded near the whaleboat aft of the bridge, and those in the pilothouse and the bridge were thrown from their feet."

An undated file photo the US Navy's USS Liberty, which Washington's most reliable ally, Israel, destroyed in 1967.

'We are under attack'

In the communications spaces, radioman James Halman and Joseph Ward had patched together enough equipment and broken antennas to get a distress call off to the Sixth Fleet, despite intense jamming by the Israelis. "Any station, this is Rockstar," Halman shouted, using the Liberty's voice call sign. "We are under attack by unidentified jet aircraft and require immediate assistance."

"Great, wonderful, she's burning, she's burning," said the Israeli pilot.

After taking out the gun mounts, the Israeli fighter pilots turned their attention to the antennas, to sever the Liberty's vocal cords and deafen it so it could not call for help or pick up any more revealing intercepts. "It was as though they knew their exact locations," said Senior Chief Stan White. Lt Cmdr Dave Lewis, in charge of the NSA operation on the ship, agreed . . . "It took a lot of planning to get heat-seeking missiles aboard to take out our entire communications in the first minute of the attack. If that was a mistake, it was the best-planned mistake that has ever been perpetrated in the history of mankind."

Then the planes attacked the bridge in order to blind her, killing instantly the ship's executive officer. With the Liberty now deaf, blind and silenced, unable to call for help and unable to move, the Israeli pilots next proceeded to kill her. Designed to punch holes in the toughest tanks, the Israeli shells tore through the Liberty's steel plating like hot nails through butter, exploding into jagged bits of shrapnel and butchering men deep in their living quarters.

Refined cockpit conversation

"Menachem, is he screwing her?" (Israeli) headquarters asked one of the pilots, excitedly.

As the Israelis continued their slaughter, neither they nor the Liberty crew had any idea that witnesses were present high above. Until now. According to information, interviews and documents obtained for Body of Secrets, for nearly 35 years NSA has hidden the fact that one of its planes was overhead at the time of the incident, eavesdropping on what was going on below. The intercepts from that plane, which answer some of the key questions about the attack, are among NSA's deepest secrets.

At 2:24, minutes after the air attack, horror once again washed over the crew. Charles Rowley, the ship's photographer, was lying in the ward room being treated for shrapnel wounds when armor-piercing bullets began penetrating the bulkhead. Through the porthole he saw three sixty-two-ton motor torpedo boats rapidly approaching in attack formation.

Closing in at about 40 knots, each of the French-built boats had a crew of fifteen and were heavily armed with a 40mm cannon, four 20mm cannons and two torpedoes. Like a firing squad, they lined up in a row and pointed their guns and torpedo tubes at the Liberty's starboard hull. Seeing that the Israeli fighters had destroyed the American flag, Cmdr. McGonagle ordered the signalman to quickly hoist another-this one the giant "holiday ensign,"graphic the largest on the ship.

Almost immediately, the boats opened up with a barrage of cannon fire. One armor-piercing bullet slammed through the ship's chart house and into the pilothouse, coming to rest finally in the neck of a young helmsman, killing him instantly. Three other crewmen were slaughtered in this latest shower of steel.

Israelis ready for the kill

"Stand by for torpedo attack, starboard side," McGonagle shouted frantically into the announcing system. The Israelis were ready for the kill. At 2:37 p.m., the safety plug was pulled from a 19-inch German-made torpedo on Motor Torpedo Boat 203. Seconds later it sped from its launcher and took direct aim at the Liberty's NSA spaces. Four other torpedoes-more than enough to sink the largest aircraft carrier-were also launched. Had all or most of them hit their mark, the Liberty's remaining life would have been measured in minutes. Through a miracle, only one struck home. But that hit was devastating.

To prevent anyone from escaping the badly wounded ship, the Israelis even destroyed the few surviving life rafts that were put into the water following the call to abandon ship.

"I watched with horror as the floating life rafts were riddled with holes," said Lt. Lloyd painter, in charge of the evacuation. "No survivors were planned for this day!"

Earlier that day, the Israelis had massacred civilians and prisoners in the (northern Sinai)

desert; now they were prepared to ensure that no American survived the sinking of the Liberty. Another witness to the lifeboat attacks was pipefitter Phillip F. Tourney. "As soon as the lifeboats hit the water they were sunk. They would shoot at us for target practice . . . They wanted to kill and maim and murder anyone they could."

President would not 'embarrass' his Israeli allies

Black smoke was still escaping through the more than 800 holes in the Liberty's hull, and the effort to hush up the incident had already begun. Within hours of the attack, Israel asked President Johnson to quietly bury the incident. "Embassy Tel Aviv," said a highly secret, very-limited-distribution message to the State Department, "urged de-emphasis on publicity since proximity of vessel to scene of conflict was fuel for Arab suspicions that US was aiding Israel." Shortly thereafter, a total news ban was ordered by the Pentagon.

No one in the field was allowed to say anything about the attack. All information was to come only from a few senior Washington officials.

At 11:29 a.m. (5:29 p.m. Liberty), (President) Johnson took the unusual step of ordering the JCS to recall the (American fighters being sent to the aid of the stricken vessel) while the Liberty still lay smoldering, sinking, fearful of another attack, without aid, and with its decks covered with the dead, the dying and the wounded. Onboard the flagship of the Sixth Fleet, Rear Adm. Lawrence R. Geis, who commanded the carrier force in the Mediterranean, was angry and puzzled at the recall and protested it to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.

Admiral Geis was shocked by what he heard next. According to information obtained for Body of Secrets, "President Lyndon Johnson came on with a comment that he didn't care if the ship sunk, he would not embarrass his (Israeli) allies."

Survivors threatened with courts-martial

The hole in the Liberty's twenty-three-year-old skin was nearly wide enough to drive a bus through; the ship had a heavy list to starboard . . . thirty-two of its crew were dead (two others would later die) and two-thirds of the rest wounded; its executive officer was dead, and its commander officer was badly hurt. Despite all this, the Liberty was heroically brought back to life and slowly made her way toward safer waters.

Once the Liberty pulled into Malta on June 14, the effort to bury the incident continued at full speed ahead. A total news blackout was imposed. Crew members were threatened with courts-martial and jail time if they ever breathed a word of the episode to anyone- including family members and even fellow crew members. "If you ever repeat this to anyone else ever again, you will be put in prison and forgotten about," Larry Weaver said he was warned. ( arabnews.com )

READ MORE - 44 years after Israeli assault on USS Liberty ... killers still not called to account

USS Liberty hero dies without seeing justice

USS Liberty hero dies without seeing justice - Forty-four years ago, on June 8, 1967, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attacked a US intelligence ship, the USS Liberty, with gunfire, napalm and torpedoes in international waters for more than two hours.

My friend, John Hrankowski, was on board.

During the assault, hours before Israel’s invasion of the Golan Heights during the six-day war, Israel destroyed the ship’s antennas and jammed its radios.

Finally, the crew managed to send a distress call to the USS America, which sent two fighter aircraft to save the ship.

But then US Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, and then President, Lyndon Johnson, recalled the planes — giving Israel time to fire torpedoes.

When the Liberty failed to sink, the Israeli government concocted a bizarre tale of mistaken identity to cover its crime. and they’ve stuck by that claim ever since.

By the time two US destroyers reached the Liberty — 16 hours after the attack — 34 officers and civilians of the 294-man crew were killed, and 174 injured — many, like my friend John Hrankowski, seriously.

Hrankowski, then 20, who worked as a technician in the ship’s engine room, received the Purple Heart-and a lifetime of serious medical problems.

The USS Liberty was the most decorated ship since the Second World War, and perhaps the most decorated for a single attack in the history of the US Navy.

It is also entirely possible that Liberty survivors broke another record-dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the nearly 44 years since the attack.

Because the few who survived without physical wounds had to gather up their buddies’ body parts, no one left that ship unscathed.

When the Liberty limped into port, the crew was threatened with courts martial if they discussed the incident, even with their wives and parents.

As everyone now knows, it is essential that victims of trauma talk about their experience.

Even harder to bear than the physical and mental anguish these Americans have endured, however, has been their government’s betrayal and silence for more than four decades.

President Johnson hid the facts to avoid harming ties with Israel.

Every subsequent administration has followed suit, resisting the calls by USS Liberty survivors for an independent investigation and the release of classified information, which would set the historical record straight.

“It is the only such event in US Naval history the cause of which has never been formally investigated either by Congress or by the Navy itself,” Richard Curtiss, former Arab News columnist, executive editor of the Washington Report, and this author’s father, frequently points out.

In the years since the attack, many survivors suffered emotional problems, nightmares, alcoholism or divorce.

Others tried to escape their pain by burying the memories so deeply they wouldn’t hurt.

It was not until Jim Ennes, a survivor, published Assault on the Liberty in 1980 that the crew began to go public with their story to tell their country what had really happened to their shipmates.

With the encouragement of his wife, Mary Ann, John Hrankowski dedicated much of his personal time to telling Americans about the Liberty and the US cover-up that continues to this day.

He was one of the most active and committed members of the Liberty Veteran’s Association.

Last year Hrankowski worked with the Veterans of Foreign Wars to create a handsome USS Liberty Memorial at Lake Ontario Beach Park, a few kilometers from his home in Rochester, NY.

A year ago, on June 12, 2010, Hrankowski helped unveil the memorial, and said the event was one of the best days of his life.

His shipmates, friends and even his doctors came to pay tribute at the memorial-but also to honor Hrankowski for his continuous efforts to educate the country on the fate of the USS Liberty.

Keynote speaker Capt. Steven Momano, USN-Ret., said: “For the ship’s survivors, today is a day to remember, to mourn, and to reflect on their lost shipmates who remain to them eternally youthful and vigilant. This has not always been easy for them or for us, because there are no tombstones in the sea, no markers or places for us to pay our respects or grieve for our lost friends and loved ones. As the saying goes, we can only visit them in our hearts and in our dreams. That is why this memorial is so important. If, in some small way, we can keep alive the memory of the men who perished on June 8, 1967, we will have kept faith with them and their loved ones, whose rallying cry, ‘Remember the Liberty,’ remains as strong as ever.”

Michael Skowronski, commander of VFW Post 16 in Rochester, which created the memorial, put it eloquently when he said of Hrankowski and the Liberty crew: “The sacrifices they made and the deeds they performed are written in history and shall remain alive in our memories for generations to come. We sincerely express our pride and gratitude for tasks they fulfilled.”

Hrankowski was 64 when he died on March 22, 2011 from a heart attack at home, after a tough winter battling increasingly poor health.

I called him the day before he died, and he said he was getting out again, seeing friends and family and going to his favorite diner, a place my parents and I enjoyed when we visited him and Mary Ann in Rochester several years ago.

Everywhere he took us, people waved when they saw John, who was immediately recognizable thanks to his USS Liberty hat, jacket, T-shirt or license plate.

Hrankowski said he was anxious to see the new film, “Justice for the Liberty,” due out later this summer. Then he was gone.

Hrankowski’s friends shared their memories of this gentle hero, known to many of them as “Ski,” who was always eager to place the spotlight on his shipmates instead of himself.

“John remained a lifelong giant in his absolute devotion to the glorious traditions of the US Navy and his endeavors to enlighten all Americans on the unsung heroism of his shipmates,” former Congressman Paul Findley wrote. “He was one of the great people of my acquaintance.”

Don and Eva Pageler said they were thankful that the new Liberty memorial was completed before Hrankowski’s death.

“Now I have a place to go,” Hrankowski told his friend. John was “a shining example of courage” and a man Pageler said he could trust.

Robert A. Casale, a crewman on the Liberty from 1964 to 1966, before the attack, said he “remembered dearly” some of the men who lost their lives that day.

Casale recalled that he first met John at the first USS Liberty reunion in 1981, and said they became “loyal friends” over the years.

“He was one person you could never forget in a million years... He was a hero. That is something he never talked much about because I could tell he was uncomfortable....”

John was eager to give credit to others whom he envisioned as the real heroes.

Wrote Phillip Tourney: “Ski did his duty during the attack and served this country honorably, a fine tribute in itself considering we all should have been killed that day....We talked about how God had blessed us — we were not killed in action (KIA) and it was our duty to let the world know what happened June 8, 1967. But Ski did much more than most, and it cost him his health.”

Hrankowski was instrumental in helping the village of Grafton, Wisconsin weather a storm of protests from Jewish organizations when it sought to honor the crew with a town library named USS Liberty Memorial Library.

“We were so proud to build the library in Grafton and have John be such an important part of the effort,” Jim and Carol Grant wrote.

“He was the beacon that the crew followed while trying to pull out the truth about the Liberty attack.”

Ron Kukal, who worked to recover and identify bodies aboard his ship, also recalled the “Library Wars” in Grafton during the late 1980s, and John’s sadness that protesters at the ground-breaking ceremony called Liberty survivors, state dignitaries and Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-CA), who were there to honor the fallen crewmen, anti-Semitic.

“If I could speak to John today, I would say, ‘John you broke ground again-you were one of the first to leave us. There are people out there waiting for us to die, and the Liberty story to die with us. That is not going to happen...The truth will finally win out,” Kukal said.

“I interviewed John for our BBC film “Dead in the Water” and spent a very happy day with him at his home,” Peter Hounam wrote from Scotland.

“His passion and anger for what happened to the USS Liberty came over vividly.”

“John was the greatest,” his shipmate David Lewis wrote from Lemington, Vermont, and he’ll “remain an inspiration for those of us who remain to keep up the fight until justice prevails.”

“We’ve lost a great friend and shipmate. No one worked harder than Ski to tell our story even while his health failed,” shipmate Jim Ennes said.

“Anchors Away, My Friend...May you rest in peace. I know you’re making the angels around you smile because you had a way of doing that every time you met someone new,” Tom Richardson, Jr. wrote from Rochester, New York.

Bruno Barsoum, the jeweler who designed the USS Liberty ring and gives them without charge to families of men who died in the attack, wrote: “Rest in Peace. Justice for Liberty.”

John Hrankowski is survived by Mary Ann Natalie Hrankowski, the wife he cherished and who listened, laughed and helped him love his all-too-short life, his son, David and his faithful pup, “Baci.” ( arabnews.com )

READ MORE - USS Liberty hero dies without seeing justice

New Zealand set for 'Wellywood' challenge Hollywood

New Zealand set for 'Wellywood' challenge Hollywood - The New Zealand capital of Wellington is to have a giant "Wellywood" sign emblazoned across a hillside despite criticism and threats of legal action for the blatant copy of the famed Hollywood symbol.

Wellywood was first mooted 15 months ago, prompting Hollywood Chamber of Commerce chief executive Leron Gubler to challenge the idea saying the world famous Hollywood lettering was trademarked.

"If they do that with the Wellywood sign then I would think that would be a violation of our trademark ... I am checking that with our attorney," he said.

But Wellington Airport announced Saturday it will erect an eight-by-30 metre (26x100 foot) Wellywood sign on a hillside it owns overlooking the city.

View of Hollywood sign - View of the Hollywood sign. The New Zealand capital of Wellington is to have a giant "Wellywood" sign emblazoned across a hillside despite criticism and threats of legal action for the blatant copy of the famed Hollywood symbol.

Airport chief executive Steve Fitzgerald said they wanted to promote the film industry in the city which is home to acclaimed director Peter Jackson and the Oscar-winning Weta Workshop which designs and manufactures movie props.

"At Wellington Airport we are proud to do this through celebrating Wellington's talent and success," Fitzgerald said.

"Wellington has already produced two of the top five highest grossing films of all time and there are high hopes that there is much more success to come."

However, a New Zealand marketing company director Wayne Attwell described a Wellywood sign as "quite crass" and said it would detract from the perception of Wellington as a sophisticated city.

"The sign is positioning the city as 'We are Wellywood. We are a bit try-hard. We are a bit behind the times. We are a follower'."

A Wellington MP, Trevor Mallard, joined the criticism saying "this is a pale imitation of the Hollywood sign which makes us look like try-hards".

Jackson, the director of the much-garlanded "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, supports the Wellywood idea but British actor Sir Ian McKellen, who played the wizard Gandalf in the three movies, has given it the thumbs down.

Jack Yan, co-author of Beyond Branding and a director of the Medinge Group branding think-tank in Sweden, believed Wellywood breached intellectual property law and has notified the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce the sign is going ahead.

"I do not believe parody is a defence in this case," he said. ( Agence France Presse)

READ MORE - New Zealand set for 'Wellywood' challenge Hollywood

Face-to-Face Moments That Changed the World

Face-to-Face Moments That Changed the World - History usually unfolds on a large scale: a clash of civilizations, a battle between armies, a global war that redraws the map. But it is also written in smaller increments and by individual contributors

when two rival leaders set aside their differences and resolve to come to terms, for example, or when silenced groups of creative thinkers dare to question the status quo. These are just a few of the many face-to-face meetings that have altered the course of history and changed the world, demonstrating all that can be accomplished when perfect strangers become willing partners.

Geneva Summit

Ronald Reagan shakes hands with Mikhail Gorbachev. (Corbis)

Ronald Reagan was a firm believer in the powerful role personal communications could play in shaping world affairs. Early in his presidency, he had reached out to the leaders of the Soviet Union, only to be rebuffed. So, when the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev assumed power in the USSR, Reagan seized the opportunity. In November 1985, the leaders of the world’s two superpowers met for the first time in Geneva, Switzerland. Expectations for the summit were low, as the two sides remained far apart on key issues. However, Reagan and Gorbachev both agreed on the need for open dialogue and frank discussions. In a break with tradition, the two men met alone, without advisors, throughout the two-day summit. The Geneva summit did not result in an immediate treaty or agreement, but it opened the door for future communications; Reagan and Gorbachev would meet four more times.

End of Apartheid

Nelson Mandela and Frederik W. de Klerk. (Getty Images)

In the 1990s, two men from vastly different backgrounds worked together to forever change their nation. Nelson Mandela had spent the last 27 years in prison for his active role in the fight against racial apartheid in South Africa. F.W. de Klerk was a white politician from the country’s ruling class who had slowly shifted his position on reform and called for a non-racist South Africa. After Mandela’s release in 1990, de Klerk began negotiations with Mandela and Mandela’s African National Congress that eventually led to a new constitution and Mandela’s election as president. The meetings were often tense and difficult, but both men were able to put aside their differences for the greater good and a new South Africa.

Seneca Falls Convention

Postage stamp of Stanton, Catt, and Mott. (National Park Service)

The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention marked the first step in the long march toward gender equality in America. When a small group of activists and reformers met in a sleepy upstate New York town demanding equal opportunity, including the right to vote, they launched a revolution. Within weeks, local, state and national organizations sprang up, and thousands of women (and men) were inspired to join the crusade for gender equality. Working together, they drafted legislation and lobbied governments to overturn unfair laws. It would be nearly 75 years before the ideas put forth at the convention came to fruition with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, but it all started at Seneca Falls.

Continental Congress

A meeting of the Continental Congress.

In the early 18th century, the American colonies were suffering under what they considered to be unfair British policies. Early communication between the colonies was limited to local meetings and letter writing. As tensions with Britain rose, the need for an organized political response was clear. In September 1774, colonial representatives met in Philadelphia for what would be known as the First Continental Congress. Members included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The delegates came from different backgrounds and regions but were all committed to the idea of open dialogue and free debate. By 1776, this formerly disparate group of activists had become united, formally breaking with England and adopting the Declaration of Independence.

International Space Station

Crew members on the International Space Station. (NASA)

The end of the Cold War had an unintended consequence. As the Space Race ebbed and nations cut back funding and cancelled expeditions, the future of space exploration was in jeopardy. However, out of this dilemma came a rare opportunity for cooperation between former enemies. In 1992, the United States and Russia announced plans for a joint space program. The project would soon grow to include Japan, Canada and Europe, and lead to the creation of the International Space Station, launched in 1998. For more than 10 years, astronauts from around the world have lived and worked together, millions of miles above the Earth. Their collaborative, face-to-face efforts have produced scientific breakthroughs and discoveries that will continue to inspire the entire world. ( history.com )

READ MORE - Face-to-Face Moments That Changed the World

This Social Network's Value Jumped $1 Billion In A Week

This Social Network's Value Jumped $1 Billion In A Week — Investors are clamoring to connect with the online networking service LinkedIn Corp. in the latest sign of the fervor for Internet companies that specialize in bringing together people with common interests.

The demand to buy a piece of LinkedIn is so intense that the 8-year-old company is expected to make its stock market debut Thursday with a value of at least $4 billion. That would make LinkedIn's initial public offering of stock the biggest by a U.S. Internet company since Google Inc. went public in 2004, according to the research firm Renaissance Capital.

The appetite for LinkedIn's IPO encouraged the company's bankers to raise the asking price by about 30 percent Tuesday to $42 to $45 per share. It won't be surprising if the IPO is priced even higher Wednesday evening and then sells for more than that Thursday morning when they are expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "LNKD."

The IPO is expected to raise about $200 million for LinkedIn and produce $125 million to $135 million for existing stockholders, who plan to sell some of their shares. The biggest winner will be LinkedIn's co-founder and chairman, Reid Hoffman, whose 20 percent stake in the company will be worth more than $800 million.

The coming-out party on Wall Street for LinkedIn, which focuses on connecting professionals online, could be the prelude to even more excitement if several popular Internet companies decide to go public during the next year. The list of candidates includes the online messaging service Twitter, online game maker Zynga, online coupon service Groupon and the biggest social network of all, Facebook.

"LinkedIn will be used very heavily as a modeling tool for other companies in this space," predicted David Menlow, founder of research firm IPO Financial. "The pricing is going to have a dramatic effect. This is just the starting point for valuation adjustments."

Facebook is the most prized among the Internet companies still awaiting an IPO. It was valued at $50 billion as part of an investment organized in January by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., a major shareholder in LinkedIn. If Goldman Sachs follows through on its plan to sell its entire LinkedIn stake in the upcoming IPO, the bank would receive about $38 million at the mid-point of the targeted price range.

LinkedIn, based just down the street from Google's Mountain View, Calif. headquarters, has become profitable by building a website that acts both as a Rolodex and a hiring center.

People set up LinkedIn accounts to post the resume on a page and connect with current and past colleagues. LinkedIn members can then ask the people they know to introduce them to other connections that might help further their careers.

Although not nearly as popular as hanging out on Facebook, LinkedIn has emerged as a widely used directory. Through March, it had 102 million members and is adding another million each week.

The company gets about two-thirds of its revenue from fees that it charges for greater access to the website and more data about the expertise listed on each member's page. Businesses and job headhunters use LinkedIn to recruit people who might not even be looking for a job at the time. LinkedIn also has made money from business surveys of its members and a service that offer career advice to college graduates.

The rest of LinkedIn's revenue comes from Internet ads, which serve as the financial backbone for Google, Facebook and many other Internet companies.

The lofty appraisals being given LinkedIn and other online networking companies have raised worries of an investment meltdown if the businesses don't turn out to be as successful as enthusiastic investors anticipated.

That is what happened in the late 1990s when hundreds of unprofitable Internet companies attracted billions in venture capital and then went public to much fanfare. That led to a devastating collapse that still haunts Internet investors.

The big difference this time is that the current Internet darlings haven't rushed to the public markets. Instead, they are waiting until they have developed ways to make money while amassing massive audiences.

"These are serious businesses with huge global market opportunities ahead of them," said John O'Farrell, a partner with Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that owns stakes in Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and Groupon. "To an uninformed person, the valuations may look like a bubble, but we believe they will in fact prove to be very low valuations."

Last year, LinkedIn earned $3.4 million on revenue of $243 million. Its growth accelerated during the first three months of 2011, putting it on a pace to generate $500 million in revenue this year. Management, though, has warned that the company might lose money this year as it invests in more products and more computers to run its website as it tries to ward off competitive threats overseas.

If LinkedIn's IPO is priced at the mid-range target of $43.50 per share, the company would have a market value of $4.1 billion – about 17 times its 2010 revenue. By comparison, Google's current market value of $170 billion is less than six times its revenue last year. When Google went public, though, its market value of $24 billion was 16 times higher than its revenue from the previous year. ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - This Social Network's Value Jumped $1 Billion In A Week

Average age for women to marry hits 30 for first time

Average age for women to marry hits 30 for first time - Women, on average, are waiting until they are 30 before they get married, according to official figures which indicated people are leaving it later than ever before to tie the knot

The average age at which a woman gets married for the first time climbed from 29.9 years in 2008 to 30 years in 2009, figures published by the Office for National Statistics said. This is the first time that the symbolic age barrier has been reached.

The average age at which women and men get married has been getting consistently later in recent years. The mean year for first marriages for women in 1991 was 25.5 and just 23.1 back in 1981, the year of the last major Royal wedding.

Lady Diana Spencer, as she was then, had just turned 20 when she married Prince of Wales. Catherine Middleton, in contrast is 29 years old, suggesting that the forthcoming Royal Wedding is – despite its pomp – more reflective of British social trends than some admit.

The average age of men has climbed from 25.4 in 1981, to 32.1 years in 2009.

The figures also confirmed the long-running decline in the institution of marriage, with the number of marriages hitting a fresh all-time low, with fewer people being married in 2009 than in any year since figures started to be recorded in 1895.

There were 231,490 marriages in 2009, more than 4,000 fewer than the year before and a lower number than the 228,204 marriages recorded in 1895. Just 1.92 per cent of unmarried women and 2.13 per cent of unmarried men wed during the year, compared with peak of 8 per cent of men and 6.3 per cent of women during World War II, when many rushed to marry before they were sent off to fight.

Experts said the poor state of the economy was a leading factor in the deterioration of marriage rates.

Jenny North, head of public policy at Relate, the counselling charity, said: “A continued fall in marriage rates and numbers is no great shock to Relate, but it is worrying. Research shows us that the aspiration to marry is still high amongst the younger generation of the UK, but fewer and fewer are fulfilling that aspiration.

“There is evidence that couples are setting themselves a ‘to do’ list before getting married – perhaps buying a house, getting the perfect job or buying the dream car. As money gets tighter, these things get harder to achieve, and we could see less couples tying the knot as a result.”

Anastasia de Wall, director of family a the think tank Civitas, said that it was inevitable as a greater proportion of women went to university that marriage ages would increase. "Your 20s have now became a decade for establishing yourself, education, degrees and a career. The 30s is now the decade for establishing a family.

"What is worrying, however, is if unemployment and financial insecurity are thwarting people's aspirations to get married. We know from studies that people still very much want to get married."

The ONS figures also showed that – for the first time – the proportion of weddings that took place as part of a religious ceremony declined to below a third, with 32.7 per cent of marriages taking this form.

Back in 1981, just over half – 51 per cent – of wedding were part of a religious ceremony. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Average age for women to marry hits 30 for first time

Rising to the Challenge

Rising to the Challenge - Of all the calamities that have befallen Kouhei Nagatsuka, age 18, in the past month — the March 11 earthquake that devastated his home in Futaba town, the radiation seeping from the quake-and-tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant next door, the fleeing from shelter to shelter with nothing more than the clothes on his back — it is the smallest of privations that elicits emotion. In March, Nagatsuka graduated from high school in Futaba. But there was no commencement ceremony.

Describing his family's plight, Nagatsuka answers questions in a brave monotone, assuming the mantle of the eldest of five siblings, the man in the house now that his father is in the hospital. It is only the lack of a proper graduation in this ritual-based nation that finally makes him crack. "Graduation ceremonies are for sending us out into the world as adults," he says, blinking hard as he waits in line for free clothing at an evacuation center in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo. "But for me, I cannot start my future yet. I don't know what I will do."

As Japan has floundered for two decades since its economic bubble burst — a postindustrial, high-tech society that had resigned itself to a slow, inexorable decline after the boom years of the 1980s — its young people have languished. The over-indulged and underemployed cohort has given rise to a dictionary's worth of sociological neologisms: freeters, young Japanese who choose part-time, dead-end, low-paid work instead of striving for more fulfilling careers; hikikomori, anxious youth who have completely withdrawn from society, even locking themselves in their bedrooms for years at a time; herbivores, grazing, passive young men who care more about their looks than their careers; and parasite singles, young adults who, even if they have good jobs, live at home to avoid paying rent and rely on their parents for food and laundry so they can use their disposable income for frivolous purchases.

Any way they can In Tokyo, young people have sent donations and cut electricity consumption to help the victims up north

But as their nation tries to cope with the costliest natural disaster the world has ever seen, one that has left tens of thousands dead or missing and some 360,000 homeless, the country's coddled youth are rising to meet a new era's challenges. In unprecedented numbers, young Japanese have volunteered to help earthquake victims, bringing time, money and in some cases social-networking expertise that can reunite missing family members and coordinate aid efforts.

At the Saitama Super Arena, where recent graduate Nagatsuka is sheltering, crowds of local teens who usually come for rock concerts are here today for another reason. By 9:30 a.m., the emergency center has reached its maximum of 500 volunteers, most of whom are young. An additional 1,500 waiting for a chance to help will have to come back tomorrow. Masayuki Ishii, 18, is one of the lucky ones who scored a volunteer spot. He wears a big grin and is holding a sign that says 60s. His friend is holding another that says WOMEN. Together they form a duo that is organizing evacuee women in the 60-to-69 age bracket to go for their daily baths. "Some people say that young Japanese don't have a good spirit," says Ishii, stamping his feet in the frigid weather. "But when it comes down to it, we want to help, not just with money but with real work."

Other young people are battling a bureaucracy so swaddled in red tape that it has strangled attempts to provide speedy aid to quake survivors. "We've always thought that, even with our problems, Japan is No. 1," says Tomoko Yamashita, a 29-year-old employee of Peace Winds, a Japanese NGO that was one of the few local groups to immediately assess the needs up north. "But we have staff who've worked in places like Haiti or Sudan, and we've discovered that Japan's plans for emergencies are not adequate and need to be changed."

Still others are contributing just by changing their personal priorities. Many older Japanese — like 78-year-old Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who initially called the earthquake "divine retribution" for the country's consumerist excesses — fulminate against the material addictions of the young. But there's not much sign of that where you would most expect to see it. In Shibuya, the nerve center of Tokyo youth, a self-described freeter named Hikaru Tanaka giggles with her girlfriends in a usually neon-dazzled square now dark because of power cuts. With her designer handbag and geisha-style slathering of makeup, the 20-year-old looks like the ultimate material girl. But Tanaka bats her false eyelashes and says she has happily reduced the heat at home to save electricity and has sent a donation up north. "I know it's a small thing, but I want to do all that I can," says Tanaka. "Japan may be dark right now, but if we all come together, it will be bright again."

Looking for a Catalyst

It's standard history that the unexpected can turn social attitudes upside down. "Often it takes a huge crisis to make a society change," says Toshihiko Hayashi, an economics professor at Doshisha University in Tokyo, who has studied the legacies of natural disasters. "For Japan, even two lost decades after the bubble burst were not enough to fundamentally change the country's economic and political systems. But this crisis is different. It could be the catalyst that finally changes Japan."

There are precedents. Twice last century, Japan rose from the ashes, first from the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which killed 140,000 people, and then from World War II, which left about 3 million dead and many cities in ashes from U.S. firebombings. But these days, few would have predicted that Japan's way to renewal would be blazed by its young people, who were supposed to have other things on their minds: nearly 1 in 10 young Japanese is unemployed, and almost one-third of university graduates get no job offers. Many more can find only part-time work.

Yet even if the new mood of sleeves-rolled-up volunteerism persists among young Japanese, they may still need leadership: someone to organize where the supplies and relief efforts should go. But in today's Japan — a nation of lackluster politicians, bureaucrats and salarymen — that seems to be lacking. "The sad fact about many young people today is that if there's one person who leads the way, they will follow and work hard," says Ayumi Yamamoto, a Tokyo graduate student who has volunteered to help earthquake survivors as part of a newly formed group called Tohoku Rising. (Tohoku is the northeastern region that bore the brunt of the disaster.) "But right now I don't see that one person stepping forward on the political stage."

The country has cycled through five Prime Ministers in the past four years. The current one, Naoto Kan, was supposed to be different. For one thing, he is from the Democratic Party of Japan, not the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the epitome of the Establishment, which ruled Japan almost without break from 1955 to 2009. Second, as Health Minister in the mid-1990s, Kan won popular support for daring to take on a Japanese bureaucracy that had hidden the fact that hemophiliacs were given HIV-tainted blood. But now, at a time when the country is craving leadership, Kan has not provided it. He labeled the March 11 disaster Japan's worst crisis since World War II — then abruptly receded from public view. As the recovery phase has gathered steam, he has largely left day-to-day management of the quake's aftermath to a snail-paced bureaucracy. One of his only public moves has been to call for a national-unity government, but the LDP — with grim predictability — snubbed his offer. Given the uninspired state of Japan's politics, it's no surprise that one-third of young Japanese are what are called election virgins — people who have never bothered to vote.

It's not just that Japan's politicians and bureaucrats are dull. They also form an Establishment phalanx with Japanese industry. In a phenomenon known as amakudari, which literally means "descent from the heavens," retiring government officials often take on top jobs at companies, some of which they were once charged with regulating. The cozy ties between government and Big Business are exemplified by Tokyo Power Electric Co., the operator of the damaged Daiichi nuclear plant, whose executives are beneficiaries of amakudari. The power company has been criticized not only for being less than forthcoming with information about the ongoing nuclear crisis but also for securing a license for an aging reactor earlier this year without making adequate safety checks of equipment that ended up failing during the March 11 disasters.

Outside the Establishment, though, the ice may be cracking. In Tokyo, one unlikely change agent could be 38-year-old Yujiro Taniyama, who has used Facebook to organize earthquake donations. Brash and flashy, the sometime TV entertainer is running against Ishihara, whom he refers to as "a dinosaur," in the race to be Tokyo's next governor. Taniyama, who grew up outside Japan and wants the country to embrace internationalism, won't win. For one thing, election regulations prohibit the use of the Internet for campaigning. The Web didn't exist back when the laws were enacted, and Taniyama's support base is the wired generation. But at least he is articulating the frustrations of a younger cohort that has tended to isolate itself from politics rather than do something about it. "We're floating adrift in the ocean, and there's no dynamic leadership in Japan," Taniyama says. "The young people have to say, Enough is enough. I want to shake up this outdated system."

Can the new generation actually change Japan? If they're to do so, the first step will be simply recognizing the magnitude of the problems facing the country. "After this earthquake, a lot of us feel energized for the first time," says Kentaro Adachi, a student at Waseda University in Tokyo, who admits he has never voted. "My friends who were never interested in politics, even if they majored in politics, are saying, What can we do?"

Whether that momentum will carry through in the months and years needed to rebuild Tohoku is far from clear. Nevertheless, encouraging signs are emerging even from the most ruined places. Keita Kanazawa just graduated from the middle school in Kesennuma, a town largely torn up by the tsunami. After the 15-year-old's apartment building was damaged by the tidal wave and later consumed by flames, he and his family evacuated to the middle school, which was turned into an emergency shelter. To fill his free time, Kanazawa has volunteered at the school, helping to clean floors made dirty by evacuees who, eschewing custom, are wearing their shoes inside. "When we do something, we forget," says the rosy-cheeked, broad-shouldered boy.

And if you're young, even in Kesennuma, there are things to look forward to. On this sunny day, as puffy clouds drifted through a brilliant blue sky, Kanazawa and two friends took off for another school, where the results of the high school examination they had taken before the earthquake were posted. All three, it turned out, had made the grade for their high school of choice. Head butts, high fives and much whooping ensued. For a moment, life on Tohoku's wounded coast was bright with hopes and dreams for the future. ( time.com )

READ MORE - Rising to the Challenge

Do women really want to marry for money?

Do women really want to marry for money? - A report from the London School of Economics says that women want rich husbands not careers. A work-weary Judith Woods agrees

Your husband sweeps through the door this evening, Mad Men style, just as you’ve settled at the kitchen table, slumped over some reports. He strides over, encircles your waist and tells you he’s had such a whopping pay rise that his pretty liddle lady Need Never Work Again.

Do you a) feel insulted by his inherently unegalitarian, outdated patrimony: b) politely demur; after all you’ve spend years effortfully hauling yourself up the career ladder, one broken nail extension at a time or c) rip up your spreadsheets in a joyful frenzy and actually volunteer to have conjugal relations – after you’ve quickly logged on and ordered the Aga?

When I heard the news that these days modern women crave a wealthy breadwinner rather than a high-flying career, I had to pause and think about it. For a nanosecond!

Jon Hamm as Don Draper and January Jones as Betty Draper in the US series Mad Men

Of course we do! Since when did the bleedin’ obvious qualify as news? Past the age of 35, where two or more of us are gathered together in a room, the talk invariably turns to wistful longings of “getting some chickens”, which as we all know is code for “a property porn house in a shire with Cath Kidston tea towels, Emma Bridgewater crockery and a City husband who is so preposterously well-remunerated he can almost afford the outrageous commuter rail fare rises.”

According to a report researched at the London School of Economics and published by the Centre for Policy Studies, women are more determined than ever to bag a partner who will improve their financial prospects – think Jane Austen, but with Dragon’s Den venture capitalist Deborah Meaden as Mrs Bennett.

“Women’s aspirations to marry up, if they can, to a man who is better-educated and higher earning persists in most European countries,” says the report’s author, Catherine Hakim, a senior research fellow in sociology who is no stranger to controversy, having last year coined the neologisms “erotic capital” and “beauty premium” to describe the key professional attribute of our times.

Presumably this is why, to quote the old joke smart girls get minks, the way minks get minks.

“Women continue to use marriage as an alternative or supplement to their employment careers,” she concludes. Cue howls of outrage from the sisterhood.

At the risk of being clubbed to death with a copy of the Female Eunuch; what’s so wrong with that? By logical extension, it would appear men are keen to “marry down” , although nobody seems to query, much less gather statistics on, their matrimonial motives.

Apparently in the 1940s, 20 per cent of British women “married up.” By the 1990s that had climbed to

38 per cent, with a similar pattern in Europe, the US and Australia. I would aver this reveals more about social mobility in general than gold-diggers in particular. But even if women are becoming shrewder in their criteria for choosing a mate, surely that makes them sensible rather than cynical?

Look at any female executive returning to work after maternity leave, and once the thrill of wearing proper shoes and being asked her opinion has worn off, a single glass of wine will often see her tearfully confess she’s desperate to get pregnant again so she can give up work, go part-time or set up a kitchen table industry involving local, organic, Fair Trade, biodegradable children’s eco-muffins.

“I was dying to give up work after Number One, but nobody else did, so I felt obliged to stay in my job,” says my friend Elaine, 38, who has two children aged six and two. “There’s an unwritten rule that Number Two means you get to go part-time or give up altogether if your husband earns enough. If you want to make absolutely certain, you brace yourself and have a third, which means you definitely don’t go back to work but it’s murderously hard when they’re all little.”

It’s not then, that women of my generation are lazy (although maybe a little work-weary), just Ready to Reprioritise. Remember you read it here first; and doesn’t it sound intelligently wholesome rather than shockingly retrograde?

For my Girl Power generation, it’s been a bit of a toughie to admit that Having It All really isn’t the same as Having a Ball. As I shoulder-padded my way through the late Eighties, I would never have contemplated marrying for money. Then again, I wouldn’t even let any of my suitors pay for dinner. More fool me.

But does that mean I envy iPhone widows whose high net worth husbands are so immersed in derivatives or mergers they rarely see daylight and forget their children’s names? Yes, but only occasionally, I swear.

Before you judge, let me say I know for a fact – a fact, I tell you – I’m not alone in feeling that I’ve done the whole career thing and now I’d like to try the whole flapjacks and hand-stencilling the nursery thing. If my husband could please just sell a little bit more of his soul?

“I see a lot of previously ambitious women who are very confused by a sudden urge to bake cakes and sew curtains, which totally flies in the face of everything they strived for,” says clinical psychologist Kathleen Cox. “They begin to wonder 'Who am I?’ because they don’t recognise themselves any more. I see it as a positive thing, because society allows women to question their role, whereas men are expected to knuckle down and keep on doing jobs they may hate.

“Does that mean women are hardwired to stay at home and look after the nest? The longer I live the more I think perhaps, yes.”

Seditious talk maybe, but perhaps it’s time we tackled the ultimate taboo and rehabilitated the “H” word; after all, if you look deep into your social circle, you may discover some of your best friends are housewives in all but name.

“I never refer to myself as a housewife,” says Kate Brown, 37, who gave up her job in the retail industry last year to care for her twin girls, aged 18 months. “If anyone asks me what I do, I simply say I’m micromanaging twins, which is pretty self-explanatory. My husband doesn’t earn a huge amount, but it was more than I did, so it made the decision easier.”

Oliver James, author of the parenting book How Not To F**** Them Up, applauds any couple where mother or father takes childrearing seriously enough to take time out. He has written at length about how the first six years of a child’s life are crucial in safeguarding their future mental health and economic independence.

“I want to see a world where women or men want to care for their children, and if that means 'marrying up’ to ensure they are bringing their children up in a solvent household, where one of them can stay at home and do the most important job of all, then that’s fine by me,” he says.

Arguably, there’s nothing surprising in these findings. A study by the National Centre for Social Research, commissioned in 2009 by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, revealed that a third of all mothers would prefer to give up their jobs if they could afford to and three fifths said they would want to work fewer hours.

Life coach Fiona Harrald insists that women are only doing what comes naturally, and have been hardwired for millennia to “marry up”. It’s only relatively recently that they have had any other realistic chance of improving their lot in life.

“My mother’s generation couldn’t even open a bank account or enter into a hire purchase agreement to buy a sofa without a husband’s signature,” she says. “These days we can chose to work or choose to concentrate on being at home with our children – that’s the essence of feminism and we should all just calm down, stop being judgmental and get comfortable with the choices we, and other women, make.”

If all things were equal – looks, charm, humour, a decent head of hair – any sensible girl unencumbered by professional ambition would probably choose a prince over a pauper. Just ask Kate Middleton.

And if I’m honest, if I were still 28 and with the benefit of hindsight, I’d do exactly the same. Yes, I once wanted to smash through the glass ceiling. But now, truth be told, I’d much rather polish it. Pass the Windowlene on your way out to work, darling.

YES, says Jemima Lewis

Women want rich husbands… and this is news? Perhaps we don’t often say it – perhaps we don’t even care to admit it to ourselves – but women are practical creatures. A rich husband gives you options.

One of the perks of being female is that you grow up knowing there’s a chance, however slim, that you might be able to marry a gazillionaire and retire from office life before you hit middle age. If you have babies, of course, you’re in for a different kind of work – every bit as gruelling in its way, but at least a change of pace. Most working men (gazillionaires included) are stuck in Groundhog Day for around 50 years, with no prospect of a significant change in their daily routine until they are fit for nothing but retirement and death. It’s amazing, when you think about it, how cheerfully they accept this.

If he is rich enough, your husband might pay for teams of nannies to look after your children while you busy yourself with pilates and managing the estate. Working mothers like me tend to regard such well-kept wives with a disapproving eye. We call them “trophy” wives, as if to distinguish them from the real thing, but that is partly just to distract ourselves from the boiling envy inside.

Whether you fill your days with pilates or child-rearing, not having to work is… well, less like hard work. Unfortunately, it turns out that rich husbands, like handsome princes, are not so easy to come by. This survey, after all, is about women’s aspirations, not their reality.

Most of us, not moving in gazillionaire circles, are likely to fall in love with and marry a more humble Joe. In the meantime, you might have built up a career that you are proud of, and reluctant to give up. If you then have a baby, you are doomed to an inner life of conflict, vacillation and guilt as you try to find a way to bring up your own child without going bankrupt or doolally.

Like a winning lottery ticket, but one you could warm your feet on at night, a rich husband would solve everything at a stroke, allowing you to calibrate your work/life balance to suit yourself, rather than your mortgage provider.

Myself, I’m thrilled to have found a husband at all, and in real life I would no more swap him for Sir Philip Green than he would swap me for Scarlet Johansson (or would he?). What this survey tells us is only this: a girl can dream.

No, says JoJo Moyes

SO, today’s young women, having observed mothers for whom “having it all” seems to mean “having all the domestic responsibility”, “having the odd nervous breakdown” and “still having to wax one’s unmentionables”, have decided they’d prefer a WAG lifestyle.

Who can blame them? There are times – usually when sick children and deadlines collide – that I think the same thing.

But marry rich, and you may marry a man who views you as a commodity. You may spend much of your time alone; a high-flying career often means an absent husband and father. You can marry for money, but it’s not a marriage. It’s a deal. And I suspect only the toughest of women can see that with the clarity it requires.

The divorce courts are littered with high-earners, as well as the shattered dreams of traded-in middle-aged wives. My children have long played a game called “Who’s got the sourest face?” in Waitrose. It’s always the wives in the really expensive cars.

My husband and I have taken turns as the highest earner. Earning my own money means I don’t have to justify my shoe habit, and he doesn’t shoulder the mortgage alone. And having a career brings me more contentment than a designer handbag.

So, I wouldn’t be delighted if my daughter ended up with a yurt-dweller. But I’d feel worse if she thought the most important thing about a man was his bank balance. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Do women really want to marry for money?

Dressing For A Job Interview

Dressing For A Job Interview - Dressing for a job interview was once a simple proposition. Wear a suit and tie, polish your shoes, shave, and comb your hair. Today, however, the casual workplace and the desire to immediately fit in has confused all that we once knew about dressing for a job interview.

Knowing what to wear and when to wear it is now as important as your handshake and maintaining eye contact. Even more important is knowing how to dress for the different working environments you might aspire to join. To help you make the decision before you go out and spend a lot of money on a suit you don’t need, we’ve investigated three job markets to get a better understanding of what’s expected in the business attire department.

Conservative jobs


OK, if you want to save the world from financial ruin, you better dress like you know what you’re doing. This means dressing like the big dogs in the tall weeds, which means power suits and plenty of them.


Don’t even think about pulling on that old blue blazer with chinos for your interview in sales or finance. Dressing for a job interview in the conservative market requires you to wear a black, charcoal or dark blue suit (like this affordable J.Crew Ludlow suit) with a crisp white button-down shirt and black leather shoes with laces. Avoid funky patterns and bold color combinations -- they will speak louder than you think.


Dress code: Although your look will approximate the more traditional image of what dressing for a job interview entails, that doesn't mean you should fade into the background. Learn how to be memorable by adding a bit of spice to your suit with a tie that strains against the conservative, like one of these Band of Outsiders ties. You are projecting responsibility and confidence when you wear a suit as much as you’re giving the interviewer a sense of your perspective on working in a conservative environment. When in doubt, stick with dark and solid colors, a proper fit and accessorize with cuff links and a modern briefcase.


Creative jobs


While liberating, working in the cultural arts jobs of publishing, photography and media does not mean that all rules of men's fashion are thrown out the window. If anything, the rules become more difficult as you balance the creative -- and often casual -- nature of the office with the need to be professional. A suit might not be necessary, but arriving in your weekend casual clothes won’t do either.


You will want to wear jeans, but don’t. Plain-front trousers with modern cuts, subtly striped shirts and cardigans are all acceptable options.


Dress code: Creative jobs allow for wardrobes that feature sharp pattern and color coordination. Striped or checked shirts (like this Reiss Checked Shirt) under collared sweaters will work best with twill trousers. While you might feel compelled to arrive in those high-tech sport/dress sneakers, you should also consider wearing leather loafers, lace-up oxfords or even suede boots.


Service jobs


Whether you’re working retail or in an administrative office, you’re still working for the people and you need to be comfortable and able to move with what the day throws at you.


With comfortable, professional clothes in mind, it is OK to wear a blazer or sweater over a tie and chinos when dressing for a job interview in the service industry. You want to look responsible and well-pressed as well as approachable to the public.


Dress code: For the interview and the work afterward, pair a crisp shirt with a conservative tie under a J.Crew Shawl-Collar Cardigan sweater. For the interview at least, wear trousers or corduroy pants, but experiment with dark-washed jeans once you have the job.


look the part


The dress code in the work world has changed, which means there are a number of fashion pitfalls to be made by the uninitiated. If you want to dress for success, you have to know how to make the most of those first 30 seconds in the room. Your most important step is to match your own personal style to that of the job you want and project not only professionalism but a sense of self and self-worth by being confident in what you wear. ( askman.com )

READ MORE - Dressing For A Job Interview