It's 72 years since the terrible night in Germany and Australia called Kristallnacht - the Night of Broken Glass. The organised mass violence against Jews saw rampaging Nazis smash Jewish stores and properties, kill nearly 100 people and intern 36,000 others in camps.
William Cooper
A month later, across the other side of the world in Melbourne, a remarkable elderly man organised a protest march to the German consulate, the only private demonstration against the pogrom of that night. The man was William Cooper, now recognised as one of the founders of modern Aboriginal activism, who fought for the plight of many oppressed groups as well as his own people.
Shmuel Rosenkranz was only 10 when the Nazis stormed his hometown of Vienna in the terrifying attacks of Kristallnacht. He and some of his family were among the relative few to escape the destruction of that night.
Decades later, he was to discover in his new home on the other side of the globe that back in 1938, an Australian man had stood up for the Jews in the only known private protest against Kristallnacht.
Shmuel Rosenkranz: "In my opinion, the man was a great humanist, above all."
William Cooper wasn't just half a world away from the Nazi horror, he was a man disenfranchised in his own country, the founder of the Australian Aborigines' League.
Aged 77, William Cooper led a delegation from his house in Melbourne's inner-west to the German consulate in the city to deliver a resolution, "... against the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi Government of Germany and asking that the persecution be brought to an end."
... he was 64 when he died from a heart attack, although he admitted he lied about his age on a number of occasions. According to www.tinytim.org, and photos taken of his passport and birth certificate, and his death certificate, Tiny was born on April 12, 1932.
Tiny Tim; was he a con artist, or just a really, really strange dude? (There's a hint at the end of this post.)
Born Herbert Buckingham Khaury in New York City, Tiny Tim was most famous for his rendition of 'Tiptoe Through The Tulips' sung in his distinctive high falsetto/vibrato voice accompanied by a ukulele.
When he was five years old his father brought home a wind up gramophone and a 78 rpm record that featured a 1905 recording of Henry Burr singing "Beautiful Ohio". Herbert immersed himself in the music of the past, listening for hours in his room to Rudy Vallee, Al Jolson, Henry Burr, Irving Kaufman, Billy Murray, Ada Jones, Byron G. Harlan, and Bing Crosby.
Khaury began singing and playing the ukulele in his natural voice, but it was not until 1952 that anyone paid attention to him. In a 1968 interview on the Tonight Show, Khaury described the discovery of his high voice: "I was listening to the radio and singing along as I was singing I said 'Gee, it's strange. I can go up high as well."
He then entered a local talent show and sang "You Are My Sunshine" in his newly discovered voice. Khaury then tried different stage names like Darry Dover, Vernon Castle, Larry Love, and Judas K. Foxglove. He finally settled on Tiny Tim in 1962 when his manager at the time, George King, booked him at a club that favored midget acts.
Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Tiny Tim developed a cult following. In the 1960s he was seen regularly near the Harvard University campus as a street performer, singing old Tin Pan Alley tunes. His choice of repertoire and his encyclopedic knowledge of vintage popular music impressed many of the spectators.
Tiny Tim's biggest break came when he was booked on the immensely popular Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. Dan Rowan announced that Laugh-In believed in showcasing new talent, and introduced Tiny Tim. The singer entered, blowing kisses, and sang "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" to an amused Dick Martin.
This stunt was followed by several more appearances on Laugh-In and a recording contract with Reprise Records. He made a name for himself as a novelty performer, appearingon The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (where he got married to 17-year old "Miss Vicky,") Ed Sullivan, and Jackie Gleason. At the height of his career, he was commanding a weekly salary of $50,000 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(His marriage didn't last long. They had a daughter, Tulip, and after she filed for divorce Vicki appeared nude in Oui Magazine, as Victoria Lombardi.)
In 2000, the Rhino Handmade label released the posthumous Tiny Tim Live at the Royal Albert Hall. This recording had been made in 1968 at the height of Tiny Tim's fame, but Reprise Records never released it. It sat on the shelf until its limited Internet release some 32 years later. The limited-numbered CD sold out and was reissued on Rhino's regular label.
While Tiny Tim was generally thought of as a novelty act, his records display a wide knowledge of American songs. In August 1970 he performed at the "Isle of Wight Festival 1970" in front of a crowd of 600,000 people.
His performance, which included English folk songs and rock and roll classics, was a huge hit with the multinational throng of hippies. At the climax of his set, he sang "They'll Always Be an England" through a megaphone which brought the huge crowd to its feet. This can be seen in the 1995 movie of the event, "Message to Love."
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Tiny Tim suffered a heart attack on stage at The Woman's Club of Minneapolis and was rushed to Hennepin County Medical Center where he died after doctors tried to resuscitate him for an hour and fifteen minutes.
One admirer recalled that Tiny Tim's outrageous public persona was a false front belying a quiet, studious personality: "Herb Khaury was the greatest put-on artist in the world. Here he was with the long hair and the cheap suit and the high voice, but when you spoke to him he talked like a college professor. He knew everything about the old songs."
"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."
— Claude Monet
French Painter
1840 - 1926
Water Lilies 1906
Why did you become a painter, a writer or a storyteller? Why did you start playing music and composing songs? Why do you love to take photographs? What drives you to be creative? What is your story? I began writing poetry when I was a junior in high school and I submitted my early poems as a paper for a social studies seminar. My English teacher asked me why I had not shown them to her. At the time I had not made the connection between writing and English class. I wrote because it was a way to express my ideas on societal problems. Why are you an artist? I'd love to hear your story.
Nurses in NSW public hospitals are caring for up to eight patients each, double the ratio the nurses' union says is needed for safe patient care.
A study of staffing in 332 hospital wards, commissioned by the NSW Nurses Association, found the ratio in general wards at most major hospitals averaged one nurse to 5.3 patients.
However the number of patients assigned to each nurse varied widely, with those on evening shifts often caring for seven patients each, and those on nights looking after more than eight.
The study, by nursing workforce experts at two Sydney universities, comes as the state government agreed to consider mandated staffing ratios in return for a halt to industrial action planned for today.
The minimum ratio sought for general wards at most major hospitals is one nurse for four patients plus a registered nurse (RN) in charge of morning and evening shifts. At night, the ratio could rise to one to seven.
The general secretary of the association, Brett Holmes, said: "Just one extra person on a shift can make the difference between a ward coping really well and a situation where there's lots of near-misses."
TELSTRA and NBN Co will submit a definitive agreement to the competition watchdog within weeks, as the first piece of legislation reshaping the telecommunications sector passed Parliament yesterday.
Smaller players say the new laws radically change the sector by providing a level playing field for the first time since the sector was opened to competition.
Changes to the 1997 Telecommunications Act passed the Senate with amendments on Friday and the lower house approved the amendments yesterday, bringing the new laws to life.
It is the first piece of legislation necessary for the government to build its national broadband network, while two more pieces - to establish NBN Co as a company and outlining access arrangements - were introduced last week.
The government has promised to publish NBN Co's full business plan next month.
An ACTU-commissioned review of the election had found union concern at a string of federal policy issues combined with anger at the unpopular Queensland and NSW governments undermined ACTU attempts to revive its anti-Work Choices campaign against Tony Abbott.
Unions found it difficult to mobilise members and the broader community to support the ALP at this year's election.
Issues included union concerns about the final form of the Fair Work Act; the failure to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the threats to the pay and conditions of workers as a result of Labor's award modernisation process.
The review says "teachers felt under attack by the Rudd government".
"Affiliates openly discussed the hostility of members towards the ALP, with a perception that they had not delivered on key issues and that this sense of disengagement led union members to vote for the Greens," it says.
"The perception that the ACTU was too close to Labor was a recurrent theme, as was the need to develop an independent voice on behalf of union members and their families.
"A complete list of the federal issues raised as a concern by affiliates includes: NAPLAN testing, the ABCC, the Fair Work legislation, My School website, the perceived attitude of the federal parliamentary Labor Party to union issues, Julia Gillard's perceived hostility to the teaching profession, award modernisation and OHS harmonisation."
Museum suspends expedition to meet uncontacted tribes in the Paraguayan Chaco
London's Natural History Museum has suspended a planned expedition to a remote region of Paraguay after protests that it might disturb one of the world's last uncontacted tribes.
Anthropologists estimate that around 150 Ayoreos are still living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Campaigners had warned that the expedition to the Chaco region was likely to encounter the Ayoreo people. Contact might expose them to infectious diseases that could wipe them out.
The 100-strong expedition was due to set off in the next few days in search of new species of plants and insects.
The Natural History Museum said the trip would now be delayed while its partners, the Paraguayan environment ministry, consulted further with indigenous representatives. It said it took concerns about uncontacted tribes extremely seriously.
The museum added that the expedition to record the rich biodiversity of the Dry Chaco region was important to the future management of the fragile ecosystem.
The trip is one of the largest the museum has organised in many years.
The Chaco, a semi-arid lowland area of forest and thorn scrub that stretches into Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil, is one of the last great wildernesses of South America.
It is the only place in the continent outside the Amazon where uncontacted tribes are known to live. Anthropologists estimate that around 150 Ayoreos in six or seven groups are still living a traditional hunter-gatherer existence in the region.
The nomadic groups live in voluntary isolation, rejecting all contact with outside society. Hundreds of others have left the area in recent years as the natural vegetation has been cleared by farmers and cattle-ranchers.
It is through these settled Ayoreos that the uncontacted groups have made it known that they wish to be left alone.
Anthropologists and indigenous campaigners fear that accidental contact with the expedition would put the Ayoreo at risk of infectious diseases that could wipe them out, and drastically disrupt their traditional lifestyle.
Clash Between Police, Indians in Argentina Leaves 3 Dead
BUENOS AIRES – The death toll from clashes between police and Toba Indian protesters in the northern Argentine province of Formosa has risen to three after authorities said a second indigenous man was killed.
The violence erupted Tuesday near Colonia La Primavera, a town 170 kilometers (105 miles) north of the provincial capital, when police tried to clear a road that Indians had blockaded to demand the return of land.
Felix Diaz, the Toba leader who headed the protests, on Wednesday accused the police of having repelled the protest with the “intention of killing.”
“They never showed us a dispersal order. They didn’t even want to chat. They came with the intention of killing,” Diaz told the media.
“Knowing that there is a right that protects us regarding the lands from July 25, we’d been cutting the route up until (Tuesday). In those four months, we never had the chance to be visited by an official and (on Tuesday) what we always expected occurred: the violent eviction by the police,” Diaz said.
“The provincial government has a lot to do with this because it never answered our request for dialogue,” he said. “Justice in Formosa does not work.”
But provincial interior minister Jorge Gonzalez said that the clash came when around 100 police entered a camp very near the roadway and came upon a similar number of Tobas.
He said the Indians opened fire on the police, killing officer Heber Falcon, after which further violence occurred that resulted in the death of Toba activist Sixto Gomez.
Authorities on Thursday said that another Indian identified as Roberto Lopez, 52, also perished in the fighting.
Another Toba Indian is reportedly in a coma, while a police officer is hospitalized in serious condition.
More than two dozen Indians arrested over the clashes have been released in recent hours by order of Judge Santos Gabriel Garzon, judiciary officials said Thursday.
Garzon “ordered the release of 27 detainees (on Wednesday) and (Thursday morning) set free the last of the Indians, accused of groping a police woman,” the officials said.
Following the clash, the Toba Indians lifted their long-running blockade of a provincial road near Colonia La Primavera.
Members of that community had been barricading the road for four months to demand the return of lands they say belong to them and from which they were evicted by the Formosa government to make room for a college campus.
The National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism has investigated allegations of abuse of authority in connection with the conflict, while a federal court had ordered the Indians to end the roadblocks.
The '80's continue to live. English new-wave pop band Duran Duran, will release a brand new album, produced by Mark Ronson on December 21, 2010 (digitally). You can check out the track list below.
All You Need Is Now
1. "All You Need Is Now" 2. "Blame the Machines" 3. "Being Followed" 4. "Leave a Light On" 5. "Safe" 6. "Girl Panic" 7. "The Man Who Stole a Leopard" 8. "Runway Runaway" 9. "Before the Rain"
... he was 57 when he passed away from lung cancer. He was also treated for a brain tumor.
George, like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, was born in Liverpool, UK. After his career as the Beatles' lead guitarist, he has continued success in his solo career.
Back to his Beatles days: Harrison left school at 16 and worked as an apprentice electrician at local department store Blacklers. John Lennon did not want George in the group initially he said because he was too young, but McCartney was insistent, and Lennon finally relented.
In 1960, when The Beatles were offered a gig in Hamburg, the musical apprenticeship that Harrison received, including guitar lessons from Tony Sheridan, laid the foundations of The Beatles' sound, and of Harrison's quiet, professional role within the group. The first trip to Hamburg was shortened when Harrison was deported for being underage.
After seeing them perform at The Cavern Club in November 1961, record store owner Brian Epstein became The Beatles' manager. One of the first things he did was change their image from leather-jacketed rock-and-rollers to a more polished look, and secured them a recording contract with EMI.
Their first single, "Love Me Do," with Harrison playing a Gibson J-160E, reached number 17 in the UK chart in October 1962, and by the time their debut album, Please Please Me, was released in early 1963, The Beatles had become famous.
(Continued below ...) (Watch the Beatles perform "With LoveFrom Me to You" & "This Boy.")
George contributed to the songwriting of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, firstly by adding ideas and guitar parts, and later with his distinctive style of music inspired by Eastern spirituality. His later compositions with The Beatles include "Here Comes the Sun,""Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
After the Beatles stopped touring George started writing more songs than could be fitted onto the albums so by the time of the split he had built up a collection songs, some used on his triple album, All Things Must Pass. The album, released in 1970, contains the two-time number one hit, "My Sweet Lord."
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Harrison went on to release several successful solo albums, and in the late 1980s collaborated with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty, in a group called Traveling Wilburys. The group released two albums.
Traveling Wilburys
Harrison is also credited for creating music benefits, notably the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh. Harrison played beside Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Ringo Starr, and Leon Russell to a crowd of 40,000 in Madison Square Garden, New York.
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Harrison is listed at number 21 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time."His last album, Brainwashed, was released posthumously and featured the single "Any Road."
Harrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist on 15 March 2004 by his Traveling Wilburys friends Lynne and Petty. He was inducted into the Madison Square Garden Walk of Fame on 1 August 2006 for the "Concert for Bangladesh."
"A poem . . . begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. . . . It finds the thought and the thought finds the words."
Does your art grow out of your emotions? How often does your pain find expression in your painting, your poem or your story? Does your joy find the words to express itself? Many times we forget the original emotion that triggered the thought that ultimately finds its expression in our art. Some art begins in anger, some in love. And if we paint or write well, our audience feels the emotion.
![All Things Must Pass [BOXED EDITION]](http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B00005214X&tag=widgetsamazon-20)
