To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Palestinians Blaming U.S. for Woes
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 08:41:47 -0400
Palestinians Blaming U.S. for Woes
By Laura King
Associated Press Writer
Monday, Oct. 9, 2000; 5:14 p.m. EDT
RAMALLAH, West Bank =96=96 Pressing a handkerchief to her nose,
eyes streaming from tear gas, 21-year-old Palestinian student
Houddeh Hamid gestured toward the rock-throwing clash in
progress just down the road. "This is all America's fault," she said
angrily.
Amid the 12-day outbreak of violence that has swept the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, many Palestinians are expressing growing
bitterness toward the United States =96 sentiments that could
complicate the long-running American bid to broker a Mideast
peace.
Israel, of course, is the primary target of Palestinian fury over the
clashes that have left dozens dead, nearly all of them Palestinians.
But the United States, as Israel's closest ally and chief protector,
is seen by many Palestinians as bearing a heavy share of
responsibility for the methods Israel has used to try to quell the
violence.
"With one word from America, all this would stop =96 the tanks, the
helicopters, the live ammunition," said Mohib Barghouti, a
Palestinian journalist, speaking as gunfire, apparently from both
sides, rang out during a clash Monday on the outskirts of the West
Bank town of Ramallah.
Israel has defended its tactics =96 including deploying battle tanks at
the edge of Palestinian cities and firing from helicopter gunships =96
as being necessary to protect Israeli soldiers. Israeli officials point
out that lightly manned Israeli military outposts have come under
attack from enormous mobs, and that Palestinian gunmen
sometimes use rock-throwing rioters as cover.
Among Palestinians, however, emotions are running high over the
bloodshed. Hamid, the young student, said many of her friends had
been killed or injured in the clashes.
"We all think America should help us, not let Israel do these things
to us," she said.
Palestinian resentment over the American role is beginning to
make itself felt on the ground. At a demonstration in the Gaza Strip
on Friday, the U.S. flag was burned. In the past week, some
American journalists covering street battles have encountered
hostile questioning from Palestinians about their nationality, or
been roughed up by protesters.
Palestinian newspapers have run frequent editorials criticizing the
U.S. stance, and Palestinian media have given prominent coverage
to anti-American protests elsewhere in the Arab world in recent
days. Syrians and Jordanians have marched on the U.S.
embassies in their capitals, and a Saudi cleric at one of Riyadh's
largest mosques called for jihad =96 holy war =96 against Israel and its
supporters, spelling out American embassies, companies and
individuals as legitimate targets.
In the past, Palestinians have often accused the United States of
favoring Israel in peace negotiations, but against a backdrop of
such carnage, the bitterness is running deep.
Last week, Palestinians watched with dismay as the United States
first sought to soften and then abstained from voting on a U.N.
Security Council resolution condemning excessive use of force in
the clashes. After U.S.-brokered talks in Paris failed to bring a halt
to the fighting, Palestinians accused the United States of siding
with Israel in its rejection of Palestinian demands for an
international inquiry into the violence.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat suggested that U.S.
pressure on Israel to accept an international inquiry could have
helped to produce a cease-fire days ago. "If the Americans had
agreed in Paris on the subject of an international inquiry, then
things would have been different," he said.
Israel, for its part, is eager to see U.S. mediation continue, and
quickly moved to smooth over tensions stemming from the U.S.
decision not to veto the Security Council resolution.
"We are interested in a strong U.S. role, and I don't think there is
any alternative to a strong U.S. role," said Avi Pazner, a veteran
diplomat who is now an acting government spokesman. "That
doesn't mean we agree on every single issue ... We would have
liked to see the United States veto the anti-Israeli resolution in the
Security Council, but these are normal issues between friends."
The current wave of violence erupted less than two months after the
unsuccessful Camp David summit, as some Palestinian officials
were still nursing grievances over what they felt was unfair blame
cast on them by the White House for those talks' failure.
"The American position was biased toward Israel even before the
Camp David summit, but at Camp David and after it, their bias was
very clear," said Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian parliament
speaker. "They are totally adopting the Israeli position without even
thinking."
Despite the tensions, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat himself is
taking pains to avoid alienating the Americans. He did not reply to
criticism over the weekend from U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, who suggested the Palestinian leader could bring a halt to
the violence if he so chose. On Sunday, President Clinton and
Arafat spoke by phone twice within a matter of hours.
The United States is weighing the possibility of convening a
summit this week in the region in hopes of getting the peace
process back on track, and Albright said Friday that the United
States had been deeply involved in the Mideast peace process
because it has the trust of both parties.
But Palestinians are making it clear they hope for a more
sympathetic hearing of their position in coming days and months.
"We still hope that the United States will continue to play a big
role," said Nabil Amr, a top Arafat adviser. "But we are looking for
intrepid steps ... We call on the United States for more effort to
stop the dangerous situation the Palestinian people face."
=A9 Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/aponline/20001009/aponline171425_000.htm
From: moza@butterfly.mv.com
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - How pedophiles have targeted the Boy Scouts
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 08:53:06 -0400
Rape of a sacred trust
How pedophiles have targeted
the Boy Scouts of America
Editor's note: The following report is excerpted from
an in-depth exploration of pedophilia, homosexuality
and the Boy Scouts of America in the October edition
of WND's sister publication, the monthly WorldNet
Magazine. Readers may subscribe to WorldNet at
WND's online store.
By David M. Bresnahan
=A9 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
"You shouldn't have done it. It ruined our
lives," cried one of several boys from the back
row of a Medina, Ohio, courtroom last week.
Michael Maggy, 35, a former Boy Scout leader,
had just pleaded guilty to rape and sexual
battery, and the poignant comments from his
victims were brought home by a sentence of life
in prison issued by Medina County Common
Pleas Judge Christopher J. Collier.
"I know what I have done to you," Maggy said
to his scout victims, as reported in the
Cleveland Plain Dealer. "I can't apologize
enough." Confessing that he too had been
sexually molested as a boy, Maggy said he had
lacked the courage to seek help.
"I did not get counseling or even talk about it.
Look where it got me," he said.
Crafting 'gay' children
Many homosexuals are attracted to young boys,
they fantasize about young boys, they frequent
websites about young boys, they cruise the
streets for young boys, and they volunteer as
Boy Scout leaders in an attempt to have sex with
young boys, according to a world-renowned
researcher and author.
Dr. Judith Reisman, formerly a research
professor at American University, veteran
pornography researcher and expert witness
before the attorney general's commission on
pornography, is the author of "Kinsey: Crimes
and Consequences." Having extensively
researched the homosexual lifestyle, Reisman
and other experts have reached some disturbing
conclusions. Contrary to the popular view that
there is little crossover between homosexuality
and pedophilia, she says homosexuals are
anxious to recruit young boys -- a practice that
is becoming easier thanks to sex education and
"diversity programs" in schools that teach
children to consider homosexuality as both
acceptable and normal.
In one of the major
cultural battlefronts of
the year, the Boy
Scouts of America has
taken the legal
challenges to it before
the Supreme Court
and won the right to
deny avowed
homosexuals entrance
as adult leaders.
Nevertheless, ever
since the BSA's
founding early last century, it has been plagued
with a constant undercurrent of pedophile scout
leaders preying on the vulnerable, trusting boys
they "lead."
Greg Shields, Boy Scouts of America's national
spokesman, says homosexuals cannot serve as
examples to young boys because they do not
live by the Scout Oath to be "morally straight."
Although painfully aware of the problems BSA
has had over the years of men preying on boys,
Shields takes a somewhat corporate and elusive
line in separating the organization's homosexual
policy from its child sexual abuse policy.
"Unfortunately, child molestation can come
from anyone. We are teaching boys character
values. Everyone knows where we stand on
this. We have never accepted homosexuals as
leaders and we never will," said Shields.
But Reisman says what 90 years of police blotter
statistics prove -- that young boys are in real
danger of sexual molestation, and that the BSA
has sound reasons to ban homosexuals.
Reisman conducted two recent scientific studies
that challenge the popular mantra of
homosexual activists who insist that: 1) they are
"born that way," 2) homosexuals make up 10
percent of the population, and 3) youths should
be able to have sex at an early age.
"Crafting 'Gay' Children: An Inquiry into the
Abuse of Vulnerable Youth Via Establishment
Media and the School Room" and "Partner
Solicitation Language as a Reflection of Male
Sexual Orientation," are continuations of the
work Reisman began with her study, "Kinsey:
Crimes & Consequences."
(Regarding her book, Charles E. Rice, professor
of law at Notre Dame Law School, notes, "Dr.
Reisman's study supports the conclusion that
Alfred Kinsey's research was contrived,
ideologically driven and misleading. Any
judge, legislator or other public official who
gives credence to that research is guilty of
malpractice and dereliction of duty.")
Since the Supreme Court's June 28 decision in
favor of the Boy Scouts, activist attacks on the
90-year-old organization have increased
dramatically.
Homosexual political organizations have gone
into overdrive, lobbying and threatening
corporate sponsors to discontinue their support;
President Clinton has been urged to step down
as honorary president of BSA; a few members of
Congress even tried -- unsuccessfully -- to
revoke the organization's honorary charter. And
Clinton even signed an executive order, which
was followed in lockstep by a Justice
Department memo designed to evict the Boy
Scouts from federal lands and facilities -- on the
grounds that the organization illegally
discriminates against homosexuals. All this, in
spite of the Supreme Court's favorable decision
three months earlier.
Although homosexual activists claim they are
no more likely to sexually molest children than
heterosexuals are, Reisman says research proves
the opposite.
"They're claiming that homosexuals are not
looking to have sex with boys, yet you have this
massive number of boys out there prostituting
themselves. And how do you have all these
Internet sites if they're not looking for boys?
This is not heterosexual. By definition, when
you're having sex with someone of your own
sex, that's homosexual," Reisman said.
Based on data from a study of non-incarcerated
child sex offenders, Gene G. Abel, M.D., has
found that homosexuals "sexually molest young
boys with an incidence that is occurring five
times greater than the molestation of girls."
A professor of psychiatry who has taught at
several medical schools, including Columbia
University College of Physicians and Surgeons,
Abel is currently affiliated with Emory
University School of Medicine and Morehouse
School of Medicine. He has been a research
scientist in the field of sexual violence for 25
years, and the National Institute of Mental
Health has awarded him funding for six
long-term studies to investigate sexual violence
and to design new ways to stop it.
Specifically, Abel's report provides data to show
that, on average, 150.2 boys are molested per
homosexual pedophile offender, whereas only
19.8 girls are molested per heterosexual
pedophile offender. Incredibly, homosexual
offenders admitted between 23.4 and 281.7 acts
of molesting boys.
Reisman's research in "Crafting 'Gay' Children"
determined that the total population of
homosexual men in America was no more than
2 million in 1991. During the same year, "U.S.
Population, Statistical Abstracts" show that 6-8
million boys under age 18 were sexually
abused.
Meanwhile, the population of heterosexual men
in the U.S. was approximately 86--88 million in
1991, and an estimated eight million girls were
sexually abused that year.
Based on the government's own statistics -- the
"Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1992,
Data on Boys and Girls," published by the U.S.
Commerce Department -- Reisman cited the
following for that year:
Of 86 - 88 million heterosexual men, 9
percent of them victimized 8 million girls
under age 18, which constitutes 25 percent
of all girls.
An uncertain percentage of the estimated 2
million homosexual men victimized 6-8
million boys, under age 18, amounting to
17 - 24 percent of all boys.
Therefore, considered in the aggregate, 3
to 4 boys are sexually molested per
homosexual adult male.
Only .09 girls are sexually molested per
heterosexual adult male, which is to say
that, on average, 1 in 11 heterosexual
males victimizes a girl under 18.
Within the child protection establishment,
sexual abuse is defined simply as an adult
having sex with a juvenile under age 18 --
whether "consensual" or not. When dealing with
children, "consensual" is not the legitimizing
criterion it is for adults. Indeed, almost
invariably, sexual predators defend their
"loving" physical relationships with children as
being "consensual," when in reality the
seduction and manipulation of children --
resulting in their "consent" -- is both an art form
and the stock in trade of pedophiles.
The Simon and Schuster book
"Homosexualities," by Alan Bell, reports that 25
percent of homosexual men admit to having had
sex with boys who are 16 or under.
Further corroborating this well-hidden
homosexual proclivity for targeting younger
males are the following findings published in
the Journal of the American Medical
Association:
50 percent of male AIDS victims reported
having sex with an adult male by the age
of 16.
20 percent of male AIDS victims had sex
with an adult male by age 10.
"The Advocate," a popular homosexual
newsmagazine, conducted a survey of its
readers. Of the 2,500 responses obtained, 21
percent admitted that an adult man committed a
sexual act with them by the time they were 15.
'The ideal situation' Boy Scout camping trips
provide a perfect setting for homosexuals to
pursue their forbidden desires, according to
Reisman, who added that any organization that
provides opportunities for homosexuals to
spend time with young boys will become a
magnet for homosexual child molesters.
In fact, Justice Ignazio Ruvolo of the First
District Court of Appeals in San Francisco
recently ruled that the Boy Scouts of America
should be held responsible for a Southern
California scout's sexual molestation at the
hands of a pedophile scout leader. Why? In
making his case that the Scouting organization --
despite a comprehensive national program to
prevent sexual abuse -- should have done even
more to protect kids from pedophiles, the judge
said, "It should be reasonably foreseeable to the
Scouts that a child participating in Scouting
might fall prey to a sexual predator."
Attorney Charles A. Bonner, representing the
victim who had been molested back in 1991 by
his assistant scoutmaster, Jorge Paz, was even
more direct. He said BSA national leaders know
that "the organization attracts pedophiles like a
magnet attracts metal."
Of all the various youth groups today, "the Boy
Scouts provide the ideal situation" for men to
find young boys to molest, according to
Reisman.
The BSA does all it can to protect boys from
child molesters, says Shields. Every "Boy Scout
Manual" comes with an insert about child abuse
placed in the front. Troops have a video to show
to boys, entitled, "A Time to Tell," which teaches
boys to recognize attempts to sexually molest
them, to resist the attempt and report the
offender.
The BSA has strict rules designed to prevent
child abuse of all kinds, said Shields. Rules
include "Two-Deep Leadership," which requires
a minimum of two adults to be present with
boys at all times. Another basic rule is that
adults may not be in the same tent as boys
(except their own children).
Shields told WorldNet that when the rules are
followed, there are no problems.
"Each incident (of abuse) took place when the
leaders were not trained or the rules weren't
followed," he said.
Despite the BSA training and rules, the incidents
of reported child molestation have been on the
rise. The scouting organization attributes the
increase to greater awareness because of the
training given to boys and to a record number of
boys in the program -- about 5 million. BSA
statistics and various media reports over the
past 20 years show a near-tripling of sexual
abuse cases -- from about 70 cases a year then to
about 200 annually now.
Reisman expressed concern that the BSA rules
may not go far enough.
The ideal situation, she said, is for fathers to go
on camping trips with their sons. Fathers should
stay in tents with their own sons, and boys who
are not related to them should not sleep in their
tent. She recognized, however, that not all boys
have a father to go with them.
She also advised that young, single men should
never be permitted to camp with boys, but that
it would be ideal, rather, if leaders are married
and have children participating in the program.
The 'helping hand'
In Gilbert Herdt's book, "Gay and Lesbian
Youth," Douglas Feldman, a medical
anthropologist and a member of the
homosexual activist community, is quoted as
saying, "These kids are our future and we must
invest in them." Feldman states that teen-agers
are "very susceptible to sexually transmitted
diseases," and that sexually abused boys "have
about a 1 in 4 chance of developing AIDS in
approximately five years."
Herdt speaks of adult male homosexuals as
"coaches" and "guides" who should help young
boys overcome their heterosexual "victim"
status by "coming out" into homosexuality.
Reisman blames the nation's public schools and
lawmakers for granting various protections to
such "coaches" and "guides" within the nation's
schools.
"They teach confused children about tolerance,
sexual diversity and such. They like to tell
young boys that 'at least one in 10 of you are
gay.' Anyone who objects is immediately
labeled homophobic," she said.
In his study, "The Role of Adult Advisors" (as
quoted from Herdt's "Gay Culture in America"),
homosexual advocate Frederick Lynch says,
"What has not been brought out fully in some
other coming-out studies is the role of the
guide, teacher or 'helping hand' in either the
signification state, the coming-out stage or both
... the often benign and helpful role that older,
more experienced homosexual men play with
regard to younger (males)."
Reisman is concerned that educators have
embraced the homosexual agenda and now
encourage boys to have sex with each other at
an early age. One of the places such
experimentation could easily take place is in a
tent during a Boy Scout camping trip, she said.
Boys who have been told that experimentation
is acceptable may also be willing to accept the
advances of an adult male or older boy, she
added.
"They tell these impressionable kids that if they
feel different, confused, strange, or if they are
questioning, that they may be gay," she said.
"What child isn't confused at that age, anyway?
These kids don't know what to think, and then
they're told it's OK to experiment to find out."
Project 10
School programs like "Project 10" -- a nationally
used public school curriculum which has been a
prototype for other similar programs -- teaches
students that 1 out of every 10 children is a
homosexual. Without question, claims Reisman,
such programs serve as a catalyst for the
seduction and homosexual recruitment of
young people. She adamantly disputes the 1 in
10 claim, as do many other researchers. But she
goes much further: Reisman blames the press
for not exposing what she says is the core
deception, one that began with "Sexual Behavior
in the Human Male" by Alfred Kinsey in 1948.
The text given to teens in the "Project 10"
program is "One Teenager in 10." Reisman
found that 38 percent of the short stories used in
the text describe sexual activity between
children and adults. One story begins:
"I have been a lesbian since I was 12. I had
known my dance teacher for three years before
she brought me out."
The claims made in the 1948 Kinsey report --
principally the claim that 1 in 10 people are
homosexual -- have been used ever since both to
legitimize homosexuality and to justify what
increasingly amounts to open near-recruitment
in the nation's schools. The recent, widely
publicized event at Tufts University in which
youths as young as 14 were taught the finer
points of "fisting" and other homosexual
practices -- by Massachusetts state employees --
is typical. That particular event was "outed" and
its participants rebuked only because a "mole"
critical of the program attended it and taped the
entire event, subsequently making the tape
available to the news media.
The media, however, never bothered to check
Kinsey's methods or his data, says Reisman.
And the burgeoning homosexual-rights
movement, flexing its newfound muscle, used
the Kinsey report as a battering ram to knock
down society's traditional condemnation of
homosexual behavior.
"They simply continued, with the support of the
media, to repeat and to desensitize [the public]
over and over and over again, until finally, at a
certain point, people believed what they were
being told," said Reisman. "Middle America
never applied [the Kinsey report] to themselves,
but their kids did. The kids believed it, and the
kids believe it about their parents.
"It happened in the '60s when the kids talked
about their parents being a bunch of hypocrites,
because allegedly their parents engaged in all
these sexual peccadilloes. See, the children went
to college and their professors told them, and of
course, the professors were engaged in such
sexual peccadilloes. So Mom and Dad got
smeared with the same brush. The American
public came to believe Kinsey because all the
authorities were saying this was true. It took on
a life of its own once it got underway," said
Reisman.
The homosexual activist movement's strategy,
she says, is classic -- basically, that if you repeat
a lie often enough, people will end up believing
it. Repeat often enough that an apple is an
orange, and sooner or later people will not only
believe that an apple is an orange, but will
argue the point and help persuade others to the
same viewpoint.
"It took 50 years," Reisman concluded, "but here
we are."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_bresnahan/20001005_xnbre_
rape_sacre.shtml
From: moza@butterfly.mv.com
_____________________________________
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Why Russia Stands to Profit From a Middle East War
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 09:05:22 -0400
Why Russia Stands to Profit From a Middle East War
YOWUSA.COM, October 10, 2000
Marshall Masters
Last Friday, Barak issued an ultimatum to the PLO that made the
whole world stand up and take notice. But it was reaction of the
Middle Eastern oil states that really put the ball in motion and now
world leaders are flocking to the Middle East in hopes of averting a
war. Meanwhile, America's role in the peace process is diminishing
just as fast at the hope for peace in this trouble region of the world.
Worse yet, if current events in the Middle East continue unabated,
the result is that the oil-dependent states of the world could face a
cold and economically tragic winter. That is, all except for Russia,
which stands to reap a tremendous fortune should the Middle East
explode in a new regional war.
http://www.yowusa.com/Archive/October2000/plo_4/plo_4.htm
From: moza@butterfly.mv.com
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - 18 Possible Planets Lacking A Central Star Discovered
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 09:10:52 -0400
American Association For The Advancement Of Science
(http://www.aaas.org)
Date:
Posted 10/6/2000
18 Possible Planets Lacking A Central Star Discovered
Scientists have discovered 18 planet-like objects, drifting free of
any central star, in a region of the Orion constellation. If the young,
cool bodies are in fact planets, these free floaters may pose a
considerable challenge to current theories about how planets form.
Spanish, American, and German researchers report their find in the
6 October issue of the international journal, Science.
Planets are generally thought to form over tens of millions of years,
as gas and dust in the disk swirling around a star condenses and
clumps together.
The objects discovered by the Science researchers seem to have
quite a different origin and evolutionary history. They lack a central
star like our sun, and they are part of a star cluster, sigma Orionis,
that is no more than five million years old. (Our sun is billions of
years old.)
"The formation of young, free-floating, planetary-mass objects like
these are difficult to explain by our current models of how planets
form," said lead author Maria Rosa Zapatero Osorio, of the Instituto
de Astrof=EDsica de Canarias, in Tenerife, Spain, and currently
working at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena,
California.
Reports of planets outside our solar system have been rolling in at
an accelerating pace recently-the current tally is well over 50-but
Zapatero Osorio's group is among the first to identify its candidates
directly.
Typically, researchers infer the planets' presence by measuring the
wobbling of their central stars caused by the planets' gravitational
pull. In this case, however, the Science authors detected light
emitted directly from the 18 objects. The team also is the first to
collect spectrographic information about the planets' temperature
and composition.
The researchers selected the sigma Orionis star cluster for their
planet hunt because it's nearby, young, and largely free of dust and
gas clouds that might obstruct the view.
They studied surveys of this region performed by visible and
infrared light-detecting "cameras" on telescopes in mainland Spain,
the Canary Islands, and Hawaii. Their results turned up 18 different
objects, whose relatively dim, reddish light suggests the cool
temperatures of planets.
Planets never become massive enough, and thus not hot enough,
to host the nuclear reactions that take place inside stars and
brown dwarfs.
But, a brown dwarf also can emit light that looks red from Earth if
it's veiled by a dusty cloud.
To confirm that the new objects truly had cool, planet-like
temperatures, the team used measurements from spectrographs
on the Keck telescopes in Hawaii to study the range, or spectrum,
of energy emitted by three of their candidates.
Because different types of molecules emit characteristic spectra,
these measurements can tell researchers about an object's
chemical makeup. And, because heavier molecules form under
cooler conditions, the spectra also reflect the object's temperature.
"The spectrographic results corresponded to our expectations that
these were young giant planets," said Zapatero Osorio.
The team determined the objects' mass by plugging their data into
models of planet and brown dwarf formation. Researchers generally
classify bodies less than 13 times the mass of Jupiter (13 Jupiter
masses) as planets, and bodies between 13 and 75 Jupiter
masses as brown dwarfs.
The model results vary a bit depending on the objects' age, but are
mostly well within the range for planets. Sigma Orionis is probably
5 million years old, so if the objects are equally old, they are
probably 8-15 Jupiter masses. If they are only 1 My, the fainter
ones could be as small as 5 Jupiter masses.
It's still a possibility that the scientists have found unusually small,
cool brown dwarfs. But, judging from previous sky surveys, it would
be surprising to find 18 brown dwarfs concentrated in such a
relatively small area, according to Zapatero Osorio and her
colleagues.
"If planets can only exist around a star, then our candidates are
very low-mass brown dwarfs. But if planets must be a certain
mass, then these objects are planets. This is only a problem of
terminology, however," said Zapatero Osorio.
"The most intriguing question now," she added, "is how can we
explain the formation and evolution of planetary-mass objects
outside the solar system?"
Zapatero Osorio also noted that many stars in the Milky Way
Galaxy are thought to have formed in star clusters like sigma
Orionis. Thus, older isolated planets, or planet-like objects, may be
abundant outside our solar system, awaiting detection by
instruments sensitive enough to pick up the objects' faint glow.
The other authors of the study are V. J. S. B=E9jar, of the Instituto de
Astrof=EDsica de Canarias, in Tenerife, Spain; E. L. Mart=EDn, of the
California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, California, and the
University of Hawaii, in Honolulu, Hawaii; R. Rebolo, of the Instituto
de Astrof=EDsica de Canarias, in Tenerife, Spain, and Consejo
Superior de Investigaciones Cient=EDficas, in Madrid, Spain; D.
Barrado y Navascu=E9s, of Max Planck Institut f=FCr Astronomie, in
Heidelberg, Germany, and Universidad Aut=F3noma de Madrid, in
Madrid, Spain; and C. A. L. Bailer-Jones and R. Mundt, of Max
Planck Institut f=FCr Astronomie, in Heidelberg, Germany.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by
American Association For The Advancement Of Science for
journalists and other members of the public. If you wish to quote
from any part of this story, please credit American Association For
The Advancement Of Science as the original source. You may
also wish to include the following link in any citation:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/10/001006075617.htm
From: moza@butterfly.mv.com
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Stratfor: Hezbollah And the Dynamic of Crisis
From: bpr-list@philologos.org
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 08:16:16 -0500
Stratfor.com's Global Intelligence Update - 10 October 2000
_________________________________________
Know your world.
_________________________________________
Also on Stratfor.com
Hot Spot: Middle East
Draw a series of concentric rings from the West Bank outward and a
stark reality becomes apparent. Each government in the region is
caught up in questions over its own stability. This has led to the
crisis and threatened full-scale conflict. Be sure to read our
comprehensive analysis on
http://www.stratfor.com/hotspots/israel_palestine/default.htm
Fourth Quarter Forecast
In the final months of the year, much of the world is struggling to
find
new solutions to problems now years old. Russia will seek new
alliances.
And much of Asia is bracing against a perceived economic crisis. Be
sure
to read our forecast for the final quarter of 2000, appearing Tuesday
on
http://www.stratfor.com/SERVICES/GIU/forecasts.asp
________________________________________
Hezbollah And the Dynamic of Crisis
Summary
In the emerging crisis in the Middle East, Hezbollah, or Party of
God, has seized a strategic vantage point. By kidnapping three
Israeli soldiers - along with improving its military positions in
southern Lebanon in recent months - the group is attempting to gain
new
leverage in the region, at the expense of both Israel and its
traditional sponsor, Syria. In this facet of the situation, Hezbollah
has the momentum on its side.
Analysis
In the tension unfolding in the Middle East, Hezbollah has seized
the opportunity to advance its own cause. For months, this
organization has seemed increasingly marginalized. But the capture
of three Israeli soldiers over the weekend follows a summer spent
consolidating military positions in southern Lebanon, following
Israel's withdrawal.
By demanding the release of prisoners in exchange for the Israeli
troops, Hezbollah appears to be resorting to its classic tactics.
But in fact, the group is occupying a key point in the emerging
crisis - prompting Israel to ponder striking targets in Lebanon -
in order to gain renewed leverage in the region, and ostensibly
over the peace process.
_____________________________________________________________
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colleagues and friends!
__________________________________________________________________
The Party of God, or Hezbollah, is a Shia group whose stated goal
is the creation of an Islamic republic in Lebanon and the removal
of all non-Islamic influences from the Middle East. The group
operates primarily from the Bekaa Valley, suburbs of Beirut and
southern Lebanon, but has established cells worldwide.
Historically, Hezbollah elements were involved in the kidnapping
and detention of Western hostages, truck bombings and other attacks on
targets both in and outside Lebanon.
Over the last few years, Hezbollah has focused its efforts to
remove Israeli forces from occupied areas in southern Lebanon. This
goal
was largely accomplished this summer when the government of Ehud Barak
withdrew Israeli forces to the border. The West often refers to
Hezbollah as a tool of either Syria or Iran. While it is true that
Hezbollah's primary benefactors are Syria and Iran and that they
receive
financial, training and weapons assistance from both nations,
Hezbollah
has also in the past undertaken independent missions not necessarily
sponsored or supported by either Syria or Iran.
During the summer, Hezbollah felt itself increasingly vulnerable
and dispensable, as Iranian and Syrian attention turned inward. In
the current crisis, the group is pursuing its own goals. Hezbollah
wants its demands to be heard. In Iran, Israel, Syria and the
Palestinian territories the current leaderships are grappling to
maintain power within their own governments. Their respective
attempts to remain moderate have failed as these regimes'
populations, political adversaries - and members of the government
- now swing widely in response to the growing violence.
Hezbollah is capitalizing on this situation to gain attention from
both the Syrian and Iranian governments - creating a situation of
struggling but linked internal politics where each internal dispute
reverberates throughout the region.
__________________________________________________________________
For more on Lebanon, see:
http://www.stratfor.com/MEAF/countries/Lebanon/default.htm
__________________________________________________________________
Seeking to prove itself and create new relevance in Damascus and
Tehran, Hezbollah has seized the opportunity before it. Hezbollah
actions have less to do with sympathy for the Palestinian cause or
even direct anger at Israeli response to the violence; this is a
cover. What Hezbollah really wants is to prove to Syria that
Hezbollah is still important.
By getting Syria to play into the current crisis, the group can
solicit concessions from Syria, including continued funding for
operations. The Hezbollah leadership is also seeking Syrian support in
maneuverings against the Druze, Amala and Maronites. With a fragile
new
government, the likely reaction in Damascus is one of annoyance.
To the south, Israel is particularly vulnerable to Hezbollah
actions, which threaten a multi-front war. The current situation is
just
the scenario Israel maneuvered to avoid: massive clashes and violence
in
the occupied territories and simultaneous potential for Hezbollah
operations from southern Lebanon.
The momentum in this multi-sided crisis is clearly on Hezbollah's
side. The group's kidnapping has proven explosive, capable of
driving the Israelis to shell positions in southern Lebanon and
threatening to drag the Syrians into conflict. The resulting
Israeli insecurity, in turn, is fueling calls for even harsher
crackdowns in the Palestinian territories.
__________________________________________________
For more on the Middle East see:
http://www.stratfor.com/MEAF/default.htm
_____________________________________________________________
(c) 2000 Stratfor, Inc.
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - IsraelWire recap of events on eve of Yom Kippur
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 09:18:03 -0400
Tuesday News Brief =96 00:00-IST
(IsraelWire-10/10) Following is a recap of events beginning on the
eve of Yom Kippur, Sunday afternoon, up to and including Monday
night. Additional news to follow in the coming hours. The amount of
reports of incidents from stones to shooting are mounting and it is
not possible to list them all in =91real-time=92.
COASTAL ROAD =96 A few minutes ago, a firebomb was thrown on
the coastal road near Gan Michael. A car caught fire and is ablaze.
Unknown if there were injuries.
TUL KAREM =96 An IDF patrol near the PA autonomous city of Tul
Karem was attacked on Monday with gunfire. No injuries.
SLA=92IT =96 The community in northern Samaria was attacked on
Monday with gunfire. No injuries.
NABLUS =96 An IDF position south of Nablus was attacked by
gunfire on Monday. No injuries.
IDF YESHA COMMAND =96 The IDF=92s Judea & Samaria Command
Headquarters came under attack on Monday with gunfire. No
injuries.
MAALE ADUMIM ROAD =96 A firebomb was thrown near the French
Hill trampiadia (hitchhiking post) in northern Jerusalem in the area
of Issawiya on Monday night. No reported injuries. The attack was
followed by a demonstration of tens of Jews who spontaneously
decided to close the road to Arab vehicular traffic.
RACHEL=92S TOMB =96 Multiple attacks with firebombs during Yom
Kippur. No injuries.
BET EL =96 On Monday towards evening, Arabs attempted to overrun
the Benjamin Regional Council community of Bet El, in Samaria.
The community=92s first-response unit began firing at the terrorists,
driving back the assault. There were no injuries among security
forces or Israeli civilians. Unknown if any of the terrorists were
injured.
OFRA =96 The Benjamin Regional Council community of Ofra was
fired upon on Sunday night, Yom Kippur. There were no reports of
injuries.
HEBRON =96 The Hebron Jewish community came under attack over
the Yom Kippur Day of Atonement. Bullet markings were seen on
homes in the Admat Yishai (Tel Rumeida) neighborhood). Shooting
attacks are also being reported on Monday night. At least one
soldier was lightly injured. On Tuesday at 10:00am, Kiryat
Arba/Hebron residents are planning to demonstrate on the Trans
Yehuda road, at Okfim Junction due to the continued deterioration
in security throughout Yesha and Israel. Hebron leaders and
residents are calling upon the IDF to take immediate and
appropriate action.
=B7 At the time of this report, sporadic shooting is still being reported
in Hebron.
P=92SAGOT =96 The Benjamin Regional Council community of P=92sagot
came under attack with gunfire on Sunday night. There were no
injuries among security forces or Israeli civilians. Tanks are on
standby in the community.
NEVE YAAKOV =96 The northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Neve
Yaakov was attacked with gunfire on Sunday night, the second
attack involving gunfire within 12 hours. There were no injuries
among security forces or Israeli civilians.
ELI =96 The Benjamin Regional Council community of Eli was
attacked by gunfire on Monday night. A resident driving between
the HaYovel and Harim neighborhoods (Hills 5 and 9) was attacked
by gunfire. The terrorists escaped in a waiting car in the direction of
the Arab village of Kablan. There were no injuries among security
forces or Israeli civilians.
GAZA =96 Two soldiers were lightly injured by gunfire in Gaza on
Sunday afternoon. Their military vehicle came under attack. The
attack occurred in the Gush Katif area.
=B7 The Office of the IDF Spokesman reports five soldiers injured in
Gaza on Yom Kippur.
=B7 A firebomb was thrown at the Gaza District Coordinating Office
(DCO) in southern Gaza. No injuries.
=B7 The northern Gaza DCO was attacked on Monday by stone-
throwers. No injuries.
=B7 Two soldiers were injured very lightly by an explosive device on
Sunday morning near the Gazan community of Morag. The soldiers
did not require hospitalization.
=B7 Two explosive devices were discovered on Sunday in the hot
houses of the community of Morag. Two soldiers were injured and
are admitted to Beersheba=92s Soroka Hospital.
NORTHERN BORDER =96 Soldiers stationed at the northern border
on Monday came under attack with stones, firebombs and stun
grenades. There were no injuries among security forces or Israeli
civilians.
=B7 An infiltrator attempted to cross into Israel from southern Lebanon
on Sunday. He was stopped by IDF forces.
ELON MOREH =96 Hillel Lieberman, 36, the missing Elon Moreh
resident, was found shot to death by IDF forces on Sunday night.
Israeli security teams trying to assess the scene of the terrorist
attack and remove the body came under attack from PLO Authority
(PA) military forces. The body was found by a military helicopter
searching the area. Lieberman, the father of 7, immigrated from the
United States at the age of about 20. He was among the founding
members of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva at Joseph=92s Tomb, where
he continued to study until he was murdered. When hearing of
another attack against the holy site on Friday, Lieberman set out
to make his way to the site but never arrived. The funeral will be
delayed until Wednesday to permit his family to arrive from
Brooklyn, NY. The funeral will leave Elon Moreh on Wednesday at
noon, and proceed to the Yitzhar Cemetery where he will be
interred.
SHAVEI SHOMRON =96 The Shomron Battalion commander
miraculously escaped death when a PA sniper fired a single shot
that penetrated his helmet. He was not injured according to the
report filed by Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, the spokesman for the Yesha
Council.
BETAR ELITE =96 An Israeli Arab was injured by gunfire and
transported to a local hospital. Heavy stone-throwing attacks are
reported on the road leading to the community.
EFRAT =96 Following the termination of the Yom Kippur Day of
Atonement, shots were fired into the Dagan neighborhood of Efrat,
in Gush Etzion, on Monday night. There were no injuries among
security forces or Israeli civilians. Unofficial reports indicate the IDF
is planning to order residents of Dagan to evacuate their homes in
the very near future.
LOD =96 A 31-year-old Jewish man who exited from a taxi near the
central bus station was fired upon by Arabs at point blank range
Monday night. The victim is in emergency surgery at this time in
serious condition. Police decline comment on the attack which has
not been labeled a terror incident at the time of this report.
DEFENSE MINISTRY =96 Over 100 persons are standing outside the
Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on Monday night, protesting the
continuing deterioration of the security situation as the government
holds its emergency meeting. Prime Minister/Defense Minister
Ehud Barak on Monday night, following the end of his 48-hour
ultimatum to Yassir Arafat, stated his words two days ago were not
an =93ultimatum,=94 but acknowledged the PA is not currently =93a peace
partner,=94 indicating the government may vote to take action to stop
the increasing warfare and shooting attacks against residents and
communities in Yesha and within the Green Line. The mood at the
cabinet meeting is described as =93pessimistic=94 vis-=E0-vis the
continuation of the Oslo process with the PA.
TIBERIAS =96 Police have arrested an unspecified number of Jews
who were demonstrating against Arabs on Monday night, trying to
stone Arab vehicles.
PETAH TIKVA =96 A booth owned by an Arab was set ablaze in the
city=92s marketplace. The blaze spread to two adjacent booths. No
reported injuries.
=B7 12 persons were injured in a demonstration in the HaTikvah
neighborhood.
HAIFA =96 Arab demonstrators at this time are trying to set Jewish
cars on Yefet Street ablaze. Police are responding to the scene.
Addition reports to follow soon=85.
http://www.israelwire.com
From: moza@butterfly.mv.com
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Barak launches 'unilateral separation' plan to isolate PA
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Moza")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 09:19:14 -0400
Barak launches 'unilateral separation' plan to isolate PA
By Aluf Benn
Ha'aretz Diplomatic Correspondent
Prime Minister Ehud Barak is planning a series of measures to
enforce "unilateral separation" from the Palestinian Authority,
starting today. These steps will be implemented in a piecemeal
fashion, and more drastic measures will follow if violence in the
territories does not subside and if the Palestinians issue a
unilateral declaration of statehood, a political source in Jerusalem
said yesterday.
[...]
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=14&datee=
10/10/00&id=96215
From: moza@butterfly.mv.com
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Re: "Mary, I am totally yours."
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Harry")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 10:18:22 -0400
The cult of the Virgin Mary appears to be eclipsing even the worship of
Jesus Christ as the redeemer of humankind within the Catholic church. I'm
amazed but not surprised by this Pope's continued exhaltation of Christ's
human mother as the principle intercessionary for God's grace in deference
to the role of the Holy Spirit. As many have shown, other than the story
of the wedding at Cana in John's gospel, there is NO biblical basis for
this role of Mary.
Once again, the Vatican is setting up road blocks between the faithful and
the Divine Spirit as a mechanism for justifying its' role in the spiritual
lives of its adherents. The leaders of the Reformation rebelled against
this deification and idolatry. And, to solidfy the vatican's powerful
control over the religious life of its' adherents, many who opposed this
idolatry were slienced by toruture and burning.
Good Catholics everywhere need to awaken from their quiet slumber. They
need to study the history of their church and its' long and shady history
of religio-political machinations and demand the removal of Marian idols
from their churches so that Jesus Christ is restored to His God-chosen
role as The Way and The Light to salvation. The cult of the Virgin
seriously demeans His important role in bringing God's Grace to all men
and women.
Harry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shophar_Sho_Good" <bpr-list@philologos.org>
To: BPR Mailing List <bpr-list@philologos.org>
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2000 4:29 PM
Subject: [BPR] - "Mary, I am totally yours."
Totus Tuus
"Mary, I am totally yours."
http://www.ewtn.com/entrustment/index.htm
The motto of Pope John Paul II contains within it the theology of the
Entrustment of the Third Millennium. "Mary I am totally yours! You, who
are the Mother of Jesus and our Mother, form us into images of your Divine
Son." As we begin the Third Millennium of the Christian era our world
desperately needs this entrustment, an act which begs the grace to reform
and renew human hearts. Only in this way can the Third Millennium become a
Civilization of Love, rather than a culture of death.
_____________________________________
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Re: "Mary, I am totally yours."
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Tracy")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 10:45:34 -0400
[Moderator: This message is from "Tracy"]
Wow! The whole world HAS gone nuts.
> "Mary, I am totally yours."
Well I personally am not. I totally belong to GOD, THE
FATHER, THE CREATOR! I do not worship Mary though I respect
her and what she has done.
> The motto of Pope John Paul II contains within it the theology of the
> Entrustment of the Third Millennium. "Mary I am totally yours! You, who
> are the Mother of Jesus and our Mother, form us into images of your
> Divine Son."
Jesus said that I am your teacher and my Father is your Father. Call
no one but me teacher (or rabbi) and no one but GOD as your father.
> As we begin the Third Millennium of the Christian era our
> world desperately needs this entrustment, an act which begs the grace to
> reform and renew human hearts. Only in this way can the Third Millennium
> become a Civilization of Love, rather than a culture of death.
We need to relax and have faith. If all people relax and had some
faith that every thing is going to be all right, we would loose our
motivation to fight or do wrong. There would be no reason to do wrong
if we didn't listen to the fear within us. Fear of not surviving as a
person, family, society, people and human race drives the evils
within all of us. We need to remove the pride within us. We should
never be afraid of being embarrassed or having to save face for this
is vanity. Free your self of fear not by fighting it or running
from it or responding to it. Take away the power of the fear and
weaken it. Have faith in Christ and watch it fade before your eyes.
For if you take on Christ as your teacher you will realize the truth
behind all things. You will find that truth will set you free from
your fear. Once you realize the truth fear can't stay with you unless
you choose to carry it. The truth will show that fear is irrational!
> After Holy Communion, the Pontiff will go before the image of the Virgin
> of Fátima and make the act of Entrustment.
Doesn't the POPE understand that this statue is not something to
worship or praise? Doesn't everybody? ........ Somebody? .........
Anybody?
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Controversial faith healer to make two appearances
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 12:20:59 -0500
Controversial faith healer to make two appearances
http://www.gulf-news.com/10102000/EMIRATES/emirates8.htm
By A Staff Reporter
Benny Hinn
Dubai - A controversial faith healer will address Christians here this
weekend. Television evangelist Benny Hinn will appear at the Dubai
International Airport Exhibition Centre's East Hall at 7pm on Thursday and
4pm on Friday.
Hinn, who has a daily television programme in the U.S., has thousands of
followers worldwide and has written a best-selling book, "Good Morning, Holy
Spirit".
But his teachings have been condemned by other Christian leaders as
unorthodox and even heretical, prompting the publication of a book entitled
"The Confusing World of Benny Hinn".
In a television appearance in October 1999 he prophesied that the dead would
return to life if their caskets were placed in front of the television
screen.
He also appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" programme and "healed" every
sick person watching. He told those who wanted to be healed to reach out
toward their television screens as he raised his hands and prayed for them
by "rebuking" their illnesses in Jesus' name.
He also claimed that once when he had a headache, he switched on his own
programme and healed himself in the same manner.
Hinn was born in 1952 in Jaffa, Israel. His father was Greek and his mother
Armenian. He was raised in the Greek Orthodox Church and attended French
Catholic schools in Israel before his family emigrated to Toronto, Canada,
in 1968.
His public ministry began in December 1974 in Oshawa, Ontario, and Hinn was
soon holding weekly healing meetings in Toronto that attracted thousands.
In the early 1980s he moved to Orlando, Florida, where he became pastor of
the World Outreach Center. The headquarters of his organisation has since
moved to Dallas, Texas.
His international crusade and daily television ministry began in 1990 and
has continued to expand. Crowds of over a million have attended services at
his international crusades.
Hinn reportedly dreams of having a $30 million, 50-acre theme park paid for
by donations from his followers, featuring a garden of life-size bronze
statues depicting healing scenes from the Bible.
Allegations of corruption and deception have dogged Hinn recently, although
no evidence of wrongdoing has been found.
A spokesman for King's Revival International, the organisers of the Dubai
appearances, said it was a free two-day programme "of praise and worship for
all the Christian community".
Leaflets advertising the event invite Christians to "enjoy the presence of
the Holy Spirit and worship with the Benny Hinn Miracle Choir".
When asked about the controversy surrounding Hinn, the spokesman said only,
"This is a private gathering." As at other meetings, Hinn is expected to ask
for donations.
Hinn is widely believed to have been the role model for Steve Martin's
character in the film "Leap of Faith", a movie which satirised TV
evangelists.
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Deciphering the music of the Levites
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 12:22:30 -0500
Tuesday, October 10, 2000
Deciphering the music of the Levites
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=10&datee=10/10/00&id=96189
King David's eulogy on the death of Jonathan, as sung by Mira Zakai,
reflects one way of interpreting the music hidden in the Bible
By Noam Ben Ze'ev
The disk, Without Accompaniment, which came out this year, reflects, in one
of its sections, a great musical and historical conundrum, a chain of events
veiled in mystery. The lovely disk contains 14 works courageously executed
in one voice, without accompaniment, by Israeli alto Mira Zakai. The editing
of the disk shows evidence of especially fine taste, which is exceptional in
the landscape of Israeli recordings, and reflects a multitude of modern
styles - contemporary Israeli and American music, a song in Ladino, songs
for texts from the 12th century and from ancient India.Among the works from
a variety of cultures and periods, one extraordinary piece stands out: Kinat
David, the eulogy by King David on the death of Jonathan, from Samuel II,
sung according to the ta'amei hamikra, the cantillation marks that indicate
the correct reading and singing of biblical texts.
Anyone who has read the Bible must be familiar with the 25 marks that appear
above and below the words. These are the ta'amei hamikra, which bear
colorful names like "karnei para" (a cow's horns), "shofar holekh" (a
walking ram's horn), "yareakh ben yomo" (a one-day-old moon), etc. Anyone
who has been in a synagogue is certainly familiar with the musical rendition
of the marks, with their trills and expressive melodies. But here, we have
to pause for a moment: What kind of synagogue are we talking about?
Moroccan? Ashkenazi? Sephardi? And if it's a Moroccan synagogue, are the
members from Casablanca or from another city?
The marks are in fact the same and turn the Bible into one huge musical
partitura. But throughout the generations, every Jewish community in the
Diaspora has interpreted the ancient partitura in its own way.
Out of this infinite and ancient musical and cultural wealth, there suddenly
appears, like a bolt from the blue, the enchantingly beautiful song on Mira
Zakai's disk, testimony to the deciphering of the original music hidden in
the ta'amim: the song of the Levites in the Temple.
In the ta'amei hamikra there is evidence of the great dilemma faced by the
sages of the ancient world in their attempts to invent a method of
graphically representing the sounds. Today, in hindsight, it seems simple.
One has only to draw a musical staff and in it small circles that represent
the pitch and duration of the sound - the system of notes which we use
today. But until this development, which was completed only a few hundred
years ago, attempts to express music in written words were complex and
hopeless.
These attempts were made in the Temple in Jerusalem, in the theaters of
Greece and in the Catholic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Every culture
wanted to write down its music, in order to perform it accurately and also
to pass it on to future generations. It seems that the ancient Jewish
culture was the only one that succeeded in preserving its musical tradition,
creating a notation that can be rendered musically. The proof is that it is
performed to this day.
But what is the correct musical expression? Is Zakai's Kinat David, as
reconstructed by French Jewish researcher Suzanne Haik-Vantura, the
authentic reflection of what the Levites sang in the Temple?
Avraham Zvi Idelson, a pioneer of Jewish ethno-musicology, once thought that
he had succeeded in finding a solution. At the beginning of the 20th
century, he began to research the various nusahim (musical renditions) of
the ta'amim among the various ethnic groups, comparing them and finally
claiming that their common elements - motifs and melodic renditions - could
lead back to the ancient archetype of the singing of the ta'amim.
Other researchers, however, disproved Idelson's somewhat slanted findings.
Their principle claim was that the tradition of song that was transmitted
orally for many generations - in far-flung communities, with different
cultures and subject to outside influences - had to have undergone great
changes, and therefore no conclusions about the original music can be drawn
from the present situation.
In desperation, the researchers started to study the written ta'amim alone,
without any relation to their musical interpretation. The present version of
the Bible is the result of a great deal of hard work by the ancient sages,
who diligently wrote and redacted for hundreds of years. Up until the sixth
century, there were several schools of thought, but from thereafter, the
Tiberian school, the Mesorah, whose scholars organized Bible research in a
more sophisticated manner, prevailed. They became the linguistic editors of
the Bible. They added and deleted words, amended them, commented as to how
to read them and explained them in articles.
Finally, the Tiberians formulated their own version, composing a unified
nusah that, fortunately, was generally accepted. Had this not been the case,
as a rabbi from Mantua wrote in the 16th century, "Everyone would have been
confused by the dispute ... and the Torah would have become like several
Torahs; we wouldn't have found two books in the entire Bible in agreement
with one another."
With the same dedication that they devoted to the correct version of the
text, the scholars of Mesorah also preserved the vowels and the ta'amim. But
they couldn't transfer the music hidden in them to the Jewish Diaspora.
Moreover, skeptical researchers have even claimed that these are not musical
notes at all, and that the ta'amim are mainly guides to the punctuation of
the sentences, reflecting the syntax and not necessarily the music.
But Suzanne Haik-Vantura, a productive composer and musicologist, who is
today in her nineties, thought otherwise. After winning prizes for her
research in the 1930s, she composed works for the piano and chamber
ensembles. After World War II, she became an organ player in synagogues and
churches in Paris, and also served as a professor of music. She studied the
ta'amei hamikra and started out on a long journey in search of the lost
music.
...more...
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=10&datee=10/10/00&id
=96189
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Scribe follows Jewish law to letter
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 12:26:31 -0500
Scribe follows Jewish law to letter
Scroll of Torah emerges under a devoted hand
By Fred Kaplan, Globe Staff, 10/9/2000
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/283/nation/Scribe_follows_Jewish_law_to_letter+.shtml
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. - Neil Yerman sits at his worktable, leaning forward with
a jeweler's intensity, his white-gloved hand guiding a goose-feather quill
across a calfskin parchment, sketching in each fine stroke another wisp of
God's presence.
Yerman is a sofer, the Hebrew word for a scribe who writes holy Jewish
documents, in Yerman's case Torahs. The Torah - the scrolled text of the
Five Books of Moses, the Old Testament from Genesis to Deuteronomy - is the
holiest of all documents, the centerpiece of religious observance, not just
on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (which began at sundown yesterday), but
on every Sabbath and, to the most observant of Jews, every day.
And by Jewish law, every Torah must be written out - painstakingly,
following certain rules precisely - by hand.
There are 304,805 Hebrew letters in the Torah: 42 lines in every column,
three columns on every parchment-page, 248 columns in all. And Yerman sits
there, writing them, eight or nine hours a day.
''It's a good day's work if you do one column a day,'' he says. ''Depending
on the temperature and humidity, which affect the ink and the parchment, I
can sometimes comfortably write two or three columns.''
In all, it can take as long as a year to write a single Torah, then
proofread it and stitch the pages into a scroll - which is one reason why a
Torah can cost a synagogue as much as $80,000.
The ink must be kosher, devised specially for holy writing. The type Yerman
likes is made from the outer bark of a vacated wasp's nest, crushed and
powdered, then colored with gum arabic and copper sulfate crystals. The
quill must also be natural, usually fashioned from a goose or turkey
feather. The cloth must be from a calf killed for food. Even the stitching
comes from the sinews or tendons of a kosher animal.
''We are creating a living Torah,'' Yerman says, ''so it must be created
from natural, living things - insects, a tree, a plant, a mineral - nothing
which is fabricated or artificial.''
Fulfilling this mandate makes Yerman's work strenuous. For one thing, the
quill's tip, which Yerman carves and sharpens with a small scalpel, must be
constantly maintained, so the print on the page appears absolutely
consistent from line to line. ''A difference in angle of one-128th of an
inch,'' he says, ''could make a perceptible difference in the thickness or
size of a letter.''
There are other rules. A scribe cannot write one of the Hebrew words for God
unless he has been that day to the mikvah, a religious house of cleansing.
If he has not gone that day, he must leave the space blank and fill it in
later. If he makes a mistake in writing a word, he can erase it - unless it
is one of those holy-name words, in which case he must bury the whole
parchment in a special ceremony and start that page all over again.
''Torah should not be easy to reproduce,'' Yerman says. ''It is said by our
sages that every letter contains worlds. Every letter represents every child
of Israel who has ever read from the Torah or participated in Torah study.
All Jewish souls connect centrally in Torah. If it would be an easy thing to
reproduce Torah mechanically, what are we saying about the people who came
before us?''
Yerman, 52, is a devout Jew and his wife and son are both rabbis. But he did
not come to his profession with any mystical inclination.
Through most of the 2,500 years that scribes have been writing Torahs, the
art has been passed down from father to son. In modern times, scribes have
also tended to be Orthodox Jews. However, Yerman - who figures he is one of
roughly 60 Torah scribes in the United States and 300 worldwide - is the son
of a baker. He liked to doodle as a boy in Brooklyn, got into calligraphy
very young, and about 20 years ago, found work doing the art and lettering
of Jewish marriage certificates, wedding invitations and, eventually, the
restoration of Torahs.
He is a Reform Jew - a much more secular branch of Judaism - and, as far as
he knows, the only Reform scribe in the world.
Yet, when he got his first commission to write a Torah - six years ago, from
Congregation Emmanu-El, the largest Reform synagogue in New York City, on
the occasion of its 150th anniversary - he experienced a very unsecular
sensation.
''I didn't realize what I was going to encounter,'' Yerman recalls. ''You
know, the Cecil B. DeMille version of `The Ten Commandments,' when Charlton
Heston as Moses stands in front of the Burning Bush and the Bush says, `You
are standing in a holy place, take off your shoes.' Well, when I started
writing the Torah, I felt as if I were standing in a holy place.''
The first letter in many of the Hebrew words for God is aleph, which looks
like a highly stylized capital N. ''When I was writing the holy name,''
Yerman says, ''you look at the aleph - the slanted line that divides heaven
and earth, the upward stroke that reaches up, the downward stroke that
points down to us - you see the pointed finger of God.''
In the Bible, at the Revelation on Mount Sinai, God gives Moses not only the
Ten Commandments but the entire Torah. In the aleph that he drew on his
first day at the job, Yerman saw the surviving symbol of, as he puts it, ''a
dialogue between Moses and God.''
''I found myself in awe of a connection which lies so deeply at the core of
our people, of our tradition,'' he adds. ''I was in a place of
transcendence. To me, the letter could never again be just a letter. These
letters - all the letters - constantly sing and constantly speak.''
Even now, writing his fifth Torah at a Reform synagogue in this Westchester
County village 15 miles north of Manhattan, Yerman quietly chants the name
of each letter as he writes it out, as if each one were a prayer.
''I know this sounds horribly New Age-y,'' he says, looking down, ''but the
melodies provide a way of channeling divine information.''
Not many Jews nowadays experience this sort of rapture when reading from the
Torah, but the rituals surrounding the Torah suggest to many scholars that
rapture is what the early rabbis and sages had in mind.
On every Sabbath, the Torah is taken out of its ark and carried through the
aisles of the synagogue, where each member of the congregation kisses his
prayer-book or the strands of his prayer-shawl and then touches either to
the scroll.
Different strands of Judaism see the Torah, in some ways, differently.
Orthodox Jews see it as literally God's words, to be followed to the letter.
Reform Jews view it as the written record of the Jewish people's
relationship to God, the central tangible element of the Jewish tradition
and community. Conservative Jews are somewhere in between - rejecting the
Orthodox notion that God literally wrote it, but accepting its laws as if he
did. Many Jewish mystics accept none of its laws, but share the Orthodox
worship of every stroke of its letters, as if they represented some DNA-code
of the universe.
Still, in all these traditions, Jews read, display, and venerate the Torah
in much the same way.
''The Torah is the physical trace of the encounter between the divine and
the human, however you define it,'' says Leonard Gordon, a leading
Conservative rabbi in Philadelphia. ''It is similar to what Christ
represents in Christianity. It is the embodiment of God in the world. It is
God as mediated in the world.''
Which is why Yerman must set down every letter, and every stroke of every
letter, exactly right. ''The scribe is a stand-in for the Jewish people as a
whole, in terms of their relation to the text,'' Gordon says. ''The scribe
is the guardian of the code.''
This story ran on page A02 of the Boston Globe on 10/9/2000.
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To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Germany has 3,000 unused embryos
From: bpr-list@philologos.org("Shophar_Sho_Good")
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 12:48:30 -0500
Germany has 3,000 unused embryos
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_81259.html?nav_src=newsIndexHeadline
At least 3,000 human embryos are being kept on ice in Germany after being
created for infertile couples who have not used them.
German Euro MP Peter Liese says he has information about the surplus embryos
despite every clinic director wanting to hide the fact that such surplus
embryos exist.
"Of course no clinic is going to admit that such cases exist and that
embryos are there," he says.
But Mr Liese, chairman of the European Parliament's Christian Democrat
working group on bioethics, insists that the information he has is reliable.
He says the law in Germany does not say what should happen to the embryos,
although it does ban the creation of embryos which are not destined to
become children.
Last updated: 13:52 Tuesday 10th October 2000.
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Subject: [BPR] - A Choice between Shame or Glory by Gary M. Cooperberg
From: bpr-list@philologos.org
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 12:54:10 -0500
A Voice from Hebron
by Gary M. Cooperberg
A Choice between Shame or Glory
October 10, 2000
11 Tishrei 5761
During our Days of Awe, Rosh HaShanna and Yom Kippur, we seem to
have been dealt our most vicious blows. It was at this time of year
that the Yom Kippur War broke out. It was at this time of year that
Oslo was signed. And, once again, our enemies have chosen precisely
this time of year to escalate the war to new and unprecedented levels
from within our country.
This is no accident. The Creator of the Universe has been trying to
tell us something. He is the One who has orchestrated these events
to take place at this time in order to wake us up to the reality that
it is He who is in control and none other. The Living G-d of Israel
is our True weapon and He is waiting for us to turn to Him. All of
our prayers and supplications during the ten days of tshuva were
designed to get us to truly accept G-d as our Father and our King.
He can and will save us. But we must first turn to Him.
Arafat is but an instrument being used to test our faith in G-d. He
has never possessed any serious power against us. It is we who cause
uprisings and terror by fleeing from our obligations as Jews. It is
only we who have brought this upon ourselves. Our leaders began by
recognizing a fraudulent people as having any kind of rights to any
part of our homeland. This led to the resurrection of a low-life
terrorist murderer who had no hope of as much as continuing to be a
terrorist leader. It was Shimon Peres to rescued Arafat and
transformed his image from that of the cutthroat murderer that he is
into international statesman and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. It was
this Jewish genius who concocted the absurdity of Oslo which
effectively established a terrorist state on Jewish soil. It was my
governments which nurtured this entity and strengthened the monster
by giving it arms and bases from which to attack us from within our
own homeland. It was the strong and wonderful Benjamin Netanyahu,
for whom so many still yearn to see back in office, who surrendered
the hills of Hebron to Arafat, along with the military compound
there. Today we are being fired upon from those very hills and by
the same weapons and ammunition which we gave to Arafat!
What exactly did Shimon Peres think that Arafat would do with the
weapons he gave him? Did he really expect the PLO to protect Israel
with those weapons? None of this should