Serial cow killers baffle French farmers

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Le Parisien. | France
First Reported by: Ben McPartland  | LP -France
Photo by: Wendi Domeni

Who is slaughtering all the cows? That is the question being asked in the quaint village of Reignac, in Bordeaux’s famous wine region in the south west of France.

Since late November last year police have received reports of seven violent attacks against farm animals, leaving local farmers furious and increasingly concerned. In a bid to stem the bloodletting farmers have reportedly taken to patrolling their fields at night armed with loaded guns.

In the seven attacks four cows and a ram have been killed by a gunshot to the head whilst two other cows were left severely injured after being mutilated. In most cases the attackers helped themselves to the meat from the bodies of the dead beasts.

According to a report in the regional newspaper Sud-Ouest, the attacks occur each time at night under the light of a full moon.

The newspaper carries details of one incident in which a cow was completely mutilated.

“They cut it in two and took the right shoulder, the right leg and all the loin,” the animal’s owner, farmer Jean Claude Leroy told the paper.

In another incident just before Christmas a cow was killed by hammer blows to the head before its ear, testicles and neck were removed.

The village is awash with theories over who could be behind the killings.

“I think they have some knowledge of butchery, even if they sometimes butcher the cow in any old way,” another local farmer Xavier Chiché told French daily Le Parisien.

Others including the mayor of Reignac Alain Gandré believe the attackers could be from the local region or have been given help from someone local.

"They are amateurs, but knowledgeable amateurs," said the mayor.

Local police have said they are not ruling out any motive for the attacks including possible revenge, or simply theft for personal or commercial reasons.

“Samples have been taken and ballistic tests are being carried out,” police captain Jean-Yves Martin told Le Parisien.

'Human Zoos' go on show in Paris

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: La Local, France

First Reported by:  AFP, France | www.quaibranly.fr

 

 

"Exhibitions: the invention of the savage", at the Quai Branly museum, shows how up until the mid-20th century, labelling indigenous peoples of Africa, Asia, Oceania and America "savages" helped to justify the brutality of colonial rule.

Former football star Lilian Thuram, who was born on the French Caribbean island Guadeloupe, is chief curator of the show. He told AFP he was stunned by a visit to Hamburg zoo in Germany.

"At the entrance there are animal sculptures, but also ones of Indians and Africans -- letting visitors know they are going to see not just animals but human beings as well," he said. "They are still there today."

In 1931, the grandparents of another French footballer, Christian Karembeu, were put on display at the Jardin d'Acclimation in Paris, then in Germany, along with around 100 other New Caledonian Kanaks, cast as "cannibals".

From the Indians brought back to Spain by Christopher Columbus after 1492, until the end of the 18th century, the first wave of shows involved indigenous people seen as exotic or monstrous, shown to a limited European elite.

But the phenomenon expanded massively from the early 19th century on, when South Africa's Saartje Baartman, known as the "Hottentot Venus", was exhibited in London and Paris.

"We reckon that 1.4 billion people were exposed to these exhibitions of so-called 'savages', at universal exhibitions, fairs, circuses or theatres," between 1810 and 1958, said one of the curators, historian Pascal Blanchard.

Such shows took place across Europe, but also in the United States, Japan and Australia, involving some 35,000 people from the colonies, many of whom were paid for their appearance.

A hairy woman from Laos, known as "Krao", was exhibited at the end of the 19th-century as "the missing link" between man and monkey.

And William Henry Johnson, a black American child with a slight mental handicap, was bought from his parents aged four by the scam artist Phineas Taylor Barnum, who dressed him in a hairy suit and made him grunt in public -- under the title "What is it?".

The show brings together some 600 artefacts from paintings to sculptures, posters and books as well as skull-measuring devices used to demonstrate the supposed superiority of whites over other peoples.

The Paris exhibit, which runs until June 3, attempts to restore some dignity, centuries on, to the victims of the practice, by naming the people involved and tracing their individual life stories.

www.quaibranly.fr

The story of men, women and children plucked from their homes in the West's colonies and exhibited like zoo animals is the focus of a major show that opened on Monday at Paris' tribal arts museum.

Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore try to tweet away rumours of separation

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Postmedia News | The Wrap

First Reported by:  Tim Kenneally | Postmedia News

 

 

Can Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore save their marriage - or at least stave off divorce rumors - through the power or Twitter?

Hollywood's most intriguing May-December power couple have been ground up in the gossip mill in recent days, with rumors that their marriage is on the rocks. And now the pair of dedicated tweeters are addressing the scuttlebutt - although cryptically so - on their Twitter accounts, which combined boast nearly 12 million followers.

The most recent buzzing about discord in the couple's marriage began last Friday, on the eve of the couple's sixth wedding anniversary, when the pair were spotted on separate coasts.

Moore was in New York promoting her Lifetime movie Five. Kutcher, meanwhile, was seen partying with his former That '70s Show co-star Danny Masterson at San Diego, Calif.,
nightclub The Fluxx - after which, according to the current buzz, he spent the night with hitherto-anonymous San Diego blonde Sara Leal.

From there, the rumors - as they tend to do - blossomed.

As of Friday, according to esteemed celebrity journalist Perez Hilton, there might have been multiple women holed up in Kutcher's hotel room - though, apparently, the other women waited in a separate area while he and Leal commingled. (Memo to Ashton: If that is, indeed, the way it went down, you're doing it wrong.)

While neither Kutcher nor Moore have dignified the affair rumors with a direct response, they do appear to have obliquely addressed the issue via Twitter, which appears to be their favored method of communicating with their fans. On Thursday, Kutcher made sly reference to the brouhaha, tweeting a link to Spotify to indicate that he was currently listening to the Public Enemy chestnut "Don't Believe the Hype." He followed up with a variation on another chestnut, writing "When you ASSUMME to know that which you know nothing of you make an ASS out of U and ME."

Meanwhile, Moore offered her own puzzler Monday, posting a photo of herself with her eyes closed with the caption, "I see through you."

Though some reports have interpreted Moore's Twit-pic as a message to her 33-year-old husband, it's equally likely that she's broadcasting to the tabloid media that their methods and tactics are transparent, even with her eyes closed.

Or she could just be making a goofy joke unrelated to the affair rumors at all.

Leal's intentions seem to be a little more clear, at least if the New York Post is to be believed. According to the Post, Leal has met with Beverly Hills attorney Keith Davidson - who brokered a settlement between Lindsay Lohan and former Betty Ford worker Dawn Holland - and is shopping the story of her alleged fling with Kutcher.

The Post's source tells the paper, "Sara is talking to multiple media outlets for a deal.
She wants $250,000, but the offers haven't been as high.

What she really wants is to get a payoff from Ashton. She has reached out to Ashton's team."

We can only hope that Kutcher renders his response via Twitter.

Shania Twain stalker enters guilty plea

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Postmedia News | The Ottawa Citizen

First Reported by:  Linda Nguyen, News Wires

 

TORONTO — A former Ottawa doctor charged with stalking country singer Shania Twain entered a surprise guilty plea Friday during his criminal trial at the Ontario Court of Justice.


The development came after a day and a half of live video testimony by the five-time Grammy award-winning artist from an undisclosed location in Europe.


Through his lawyer, Giovanni (John) Palumbo told the court he wanted to plead guilty to one charge of criminal harassment and one charge of breach of recognizance for being within 500 yards of the singer at the Juno Awards last March at Toronto's Air Canada Centre.


At the time, he was arrested in the crowd wearing a Shania Twain T-shirt and was holding a book about her.

"He's devastated that she's afraid," said Palumbo's lawyer, Gary Barnes, following the pleas. "He never intended for her to feel that at all . . . but he realizes that because of his actions, he had that effect on her and that's why he pled guilty."


The Crown has asked that two other charges related to breaching conditions, including being in Toronto for non-Ontario College of Surgeons and Physicians business, be withdrawn.


Ontario Justice Richard Schneider ordered that Palumbo, 51, be subject to a psychiatric assessment in Ottawa before returning to court for possible sentencing on Oct. 18. If he is declared not criminally responsible for his actions, he will be sent to a mental health facility.


Barnes says his client, a former surgeon with a history of mental problems, is "still in love with Twain" and is sorry for putting her through the trial.


Palumbo now admits that for the past three years, he has sent Twain numerous love letters, photographs and has made several attempts to meet her, including parking his Lamborghini outside her Muskoka, Ont., cottage in the summer of 2009.


"He feels terrible," said Barnes. "He has upset the lady he loves. Who's not going to be sorry about this?"

Earlier on Friday, Twain, 46, testified she found Palumbo's letters "scary and haunting" and pleaded for him to stop harassing her.


Dressed in a white pullover shirt, with an orange shawl draped over her shoulders, she was testy towards Barnes, who questioned why she didn't remember specifics in relation to her involvement with the police.

"I'm not a walking information centre of dates and names," she said.


In November 2009, Palumbo had been arrested on similar charges related to Twain but those were withdrawn when she declined to appear in Ottawa court to testify against him.


Twain said she felt some sympathy towards Palumbo.


"I am torn emotionally because I have compassion for anybody who is reaching out. The fans often do that. I appreciate their trust," she said.


"Yesterday, I felt very sad and awkward. It's such an invasion of his privacy (to publicly release the letters). I'm so not enjoying this aspect of this. I still have fears and anxiety about being contacted by Mr. Palumbo. I just wish it to stop."


She also admitted she was "sensitive to domestic violence situations" because of her exposure to it as a child and was wary of getting involved with this case because Palumbo had served a jail time for threatening and assaulting his ex-wife.


Even so, she had to hire private investigators, extra bodyguards and then eventually contacted the police when the "one-way communication" with Palumbo persisted because she felt "responsible to my family and their safety."


"I really didn't want to get involved in any kind of judging process of any other human," she said. "It was a scary thing for me to do."


The situation culminated in the summer of 2009 when Palumbo was spotted by her in his car and in a boat near her cottage. He was also at her grandmother's funeral that year in Timmins, Ont.

She thought he should've gotten the message when as a married woman, she did not reply to any of the letters, and refused all his flowers.


"I love my fans and my fans love me but we don't invite each other out on dates," said Twain.

During the testimony, Palumbo, a slender grey-haired man dressed in a wrinkled black suit jacket, got into repeated disagreements with his lawyer, often standing and calling him back from questioning Twain so they could talk.


At one point, he interrupted the court with an outburst.


"But I didn't know you received any of them (the letters). Do you understand?" yelled Palumbo, rising on his feet in the prisoner box. He told Schneider that Twain's testimony has been "emotional" for him.


"It is emotional," he said. "I have emotions, very strong emotions especially when they (letters) are supposed to be lighthearted."


His lawyer said the case has been blown out of proportion.


"A lot of this is a misunderstanding between two people," said Barnes. "They got the wrong impressions of each other."

Featured Event: "Songs of Wonder" Yiddish poetry of A.J Heschel in song CD RELEASE PARTY

Event Date:Wedn. 11.30.2011	City:New York, NY |  Manhattan New York City	Site:  www.pharaohsdaughter.com
Event Time:8:00pm  - 11:00 pm	Location:Highline Ballroom -  431W. 16  Street	Site: Facebook Events

Setting the Yiddish poetry of the revered Civil Rights activist and Jewish philosopher Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to music, Basya Schechter has created with Songs of Wonder a rich new collection of Yiddish songs – colorful arrangements featuring many of the downtown Jewish scene's greatest musicians. This exciting project blends the soulful grooves and lush instrumentation of Pharaoh's Daughter (one of Schechter's other bands) with Schechter's lovely voice and Heschel's powerful poetry. After years of live gigs and months in the studio, this exciting music is finally available on the Tzadik label. It's an instant classic!

$12 in Advance $15 Door.
TKTS: 212-414-5994 or www.highlineballroom.com/Calendar

Blending a psychedelic sensibility and a pan-Mediterranean sensuality, Basya Schechter leads her band, Pharaoh's Daughter, through swirling Hasidic chants, Mizrachi and Sephardi folk-rock, and spiritual stylings filtered through percussion, flute, strings and electronica.Her sound has been cultivated by her Hasidic music background and a series of trips to the Middle East, Africa, Israel, Egypt, Central Africa, Turkey, Kurdistan and Greece.

She began retuning her guitar to sound like a cross between an Arabic oud and a Turkish saz, with harmonic minor melodies, and odd time signatures. With the many amazing musicians, named below and others as well she has recorded four albums, three with Pharaoh's Daughter and one instrumental exploration with Persian santur player, Alan Kushan. PD also appears on three Tzadik label compilations: Voices in the Wilderness, the 10 year of anniversary of Zorn's Masada compositions; a collection of Sasha Argov music; and, a Brazilian Jewish composer from earlier in the 20th century, Jacob Du Bandolim.

Pharaoh's Daughter has toured extensively through America, Eastern and Western Europe, as well as Greece and the UK. This past summer, Pharaoh's Daughter had the honor of debuting at Central Park's Summer Stage series in August 2004, and has played such presigious stages as Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park, and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. When she's not touring or performing, Basya plays darbuka, riq and frame drum as part of the B'nai Jeshurun music ensemble that accompanies Friday night services.

Over the past two years, Basya was the recipient of numerous compositional and project grants from NYSCA (New York State Council of the Arts) American Composers Forum (for Trance, and multilayered sound and video installation collaboration with fillmaker Pearl Gluck) and the American Music Center.

Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 11, 1907 – December 23, 1972) was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century.

Abraham Joshua Heschel was descended from preeminent European rabbis on both sides of the family. His great-great-grandfather and namesake was Rebbe Avraham Yehoshua Heshel of Apt. His father, Moshe Mordechai Heschel, died of influenza in 1916. His mother Reizel Perlow was also a descendant of Avraham Yehoshua Heshel and other dynasties. He was the youngest of six children. His siblings were Sarah, Dvora Miriam, Esther Sima, Gittel, and Jacob.


After a traditional yeshiva education and studying for Orthodox rabbinical ordination semicha, he pursued his doctorate at the University of Berlin and a liberal rabbinic ordination at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. There he studied under some of the finest Jewish educators of the time: Chanoch Albeck, Ismar Elbogen, Julius Guttmann, and Leo Baeck. Heschel later taught Talmud there. He joined a Yiddish poetry group, Jung Vilna, and in 1933, published a volume of Yiddish poems, Der Shem Hamefoyrosh: Mentsch, dedicated to his father.


In late October 1938, when he was living in a rented room in the home of a Jewish family in Frankfurt, he was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Poland. He spent ten months lecturing on Jewish philosophy and Torah at Warsaw's Institute for Jewish Studies. Six weeks before the German invasion of Poland, Heschel left Warsaw for London with the help of Julian Morgenstern, president of Hebrew Union College, who had been working to obtain visas for Jewish scholars in Europe.


Heschel's sister Esther was killed in a German bombing. His mother was murdered by the Nazis, and two other sisters, Gittel and Devorah, died in Nazi concentration camps. He never returned to Germany, Austria or Poland. He once wrote, "If I should go to Poland or Germany, every stone, every tree would remind me of contempt, hatred, murder, of children killed, of mothers burned alive, of human beings asphyxiated."


Heschel arrived in New York City in March 1940. He served on the faculty of Hebrew Union College (HUC), the main seminary of Reform Judaism, in Cincinnati for five years. In 1946, he took a position at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), the main seminary of Conservative Judaism, where he served as professor of Jewish ethics and Mysticism until his death in 1972.


Heschel married Sylvia Straus, a concert pianist, on December 10, 1946, in Los Angeles. Their daughter, Susannah Heschel, is a Jewish scholar in her own right.


Heschel explicated many facets of Jewish thought including studies on medieval Jewish philosophy, Kabbalah, and Hasidism. According to some scholars, he was more interested in spirituality than in critical text study, which was a specialty of many scholars at JTS. He was not given a graduate assistant for many years and was relegated to teach mainly in the education school or Rabbinical school, not in the academic graduate program. Heschel was particularly spurned by his colleague Mordechai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, and many students who attended JTS in the 50s sympathized with Kaplan over Heschel.


Heschel saw the teachings of the Hebrew prophets as a clarion call for social action in the United States and worked for black civil rights and against the Vietnam War  Heschel was an activist for civil rights in the United States.


He also specifically criticized what he called "pan-halakhism", or an exclusive focus upon religiously-compatible behavior to the neglect of the non-legalistic dimension of rabbinic tradition.


Heschel is among the few widely read Jewish theologians. His most influential works include Man is Not Alone, God in Search of Man, The Sabbath, and The Prophets. At the Vatican Council II, as representative of American Jews, Heschel persuaded the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate or modify passages in its liturgy that demeaned the Jews, or expected their conversion to Christianity. His theological works argued that religious experience is a fundamentally human impulse, not just a Jewish one, and that no religious community could claim a monopoly on religious truth.

Four schools have been named for Heschel, in the Upper West Side of New York City, Northridge, California, Agoura Hills, California, and Toronto. In 2009, a highway in Missouri was named "Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel Highway" after a Springfield, Missouri area Neo-Nazi group cleaned the stretch of highway as part of an "Adopt-A-Highway" plan. Heschel's daughter, Susannah, has objected to the adoption of her father's name in this context.

MUSICIANS:

Basya Schechter - oud, guitar, vocals: Uri Sharlin - musical directing, piano, accordian: Megan Gould - Violin: Yoed Nir - cello: Rich Stein - percussion: Frank London - trumpet .

GUESTS:

Many guests to come!! Keep track of this program through this events page..!!

SPONSORS:

YIVO, Congress For Jewish Culture, National Yiddish Theater - Folksbiene, Workman's Circle.

Mel Gibson to film story of Jewish hero Judah Maccabee

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: thejc.com | TVF

First Reported by:  Jennifer Lipman | thejc.com

 

 

 

Mel Gibson has already taken on Christmas, and is now set to turn his attention to the Chanucah story.

The actor, who was famously arrested for drink driving and launched into a tirade about Jews, is to bring the story of Judah Maccabee to the big screen.

The as yet unnamed drama will be written by Basic Instinct screenwriter Joe Eszterhas and Mr Gibson. It will follow the story of the legendary Jewish warrior, who along with his father and brothers led the Jews in a revolt against the Greek conquerors.

Mr Gibson’s previous biblical outing, The Passion of the Christ, was told in Aramaic, but there is no word yet whether the new film will feature any ancient languages.

Mr Gibson has a track record of playing maverick fighters; one of his most notable roles was that of Scottish rebel William Wallace in Braveheart.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Museum of Tolerance, said Mr Gibson should not be cast in the film or involved in it in any way.

"He has shown nothing but antagonism and disrespect to Jews," said Rabbi Hier. "There were the antisemitic remarks he made, his portrayal of Jews in The Passion of Christ.

"He's had a long history of antagonism with Jews. Casting him as a director or perhaps as the star of Judah Maccabee is like casting Madoff to be the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a white supremacist as trying to portray Martin Luther King Jr.

"It's simply an insult to Jews."

Venice Film Festival kicks off with Polanski and Madonna

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Associated Press

First Reported by: News Wires | Reuters

This year's Venice Film Festival boasted a star-studded lineup at its opening on Thursday, with Madonna presenting her second feature at the event while revered filmmaker Roman Polanski unveiled his new picture "Carnage".

 The Venice film festival promises a pop superstar and a whiff of scandal on Thursday, with Madonna presenting her second feature and Roman Polanski notable by his absence at the world premiere of his new picture.

Madonna, 53, is in the canal city for “W.E.”, a film loosely based on the relationship between American divorcee Wallis Simpson and Britain’s King Edward VIII, which eventually led him to abdicate the throne in 1936.

Starring Abbie Cornish and James Fox, it is the singer’s second outing behind the camera after the 2008 comedy drama “Filth and Wisdom”, which was generally poorly received by critics.

W.E. appears outside the main competition lineup of 22 films confirmed so far for Venice, but is set to dominate the second day of the 2011 festival on the Lido waterfront nonetheless.

George Clooney opened the 11-day cinema showcase with his political drama “The Ides of March”, which was generally well received by critics on Wednesday and seen as a solid launch of this year’s star-studded event.

Madonna’s track record in front of the camera has been patchy, with her performance as Eva Peron in “Evita” lauded but that in erotic thriller “Body of Evidence” broadly derided.

Competing for the attention of the thousands of journalists and fans who line the red carpet each evening for a glimpse of their idols will be Polanski’s “Carnage” starring Oscar winners Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and Jodie Foster.

The Franco-Polish director worked on the script of the in-competition Carnage, an adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s comedy play “God of Carnage”, while under house arrest in Switzerland in 2010.

The 78-year-old behind the classic “Chinatown” was freed after Swiss authorities decided not to extradite him to the United States, where he was wanted for sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 in Los Angeles.

Unsurprisingly, Polanski will not leave France for Italy to attend the world premiere, although some members of his cast, including Winslet, are expected.

“I think he can only travel, if he leaves France ... to Switzerland and Poland, so of course ... it is sad that he is not here but three out of his four lead cast will be here and that will create a sensation because it’s really a sensational film,” Venice director Marco Mueller told Reuters.

The movie centres around two couples whose children are involved in a playground brawl.

According to production notes, it promises to “shine a spotlight on the risible contradictions and grotesque prejudices of four well-heeled American parents.”

Also premiering on Thursday is “Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale”, based on the true story of an uprising by indigenous people in Taiwan against Japanese rulers in the 1930s.

Featured Event: Valerie Geffner at KDAR.tv 5th Episode launch party!

Event Date:Thursday 9.1.2011	City:New York, NY |  Manhattan New York City	Site:  www.valeriegeffner.com
Event Time:8:30pm  - 10:30 pm	Location:The Delancy  -  168 Delancy Street	Site: http://www.kdar.tv/

Episode 5 features KDARtv host Karen Fleisch interviewing multi talented performance artist  Valerie Geffner then grabs a late nite bite at the Snack Dragon with owner Josephine Jansen featuring music by Atomazul Media.



KDARtv launches episode #5 
Sept 1st
The Delancey
8:30 - 10:30pm

view screening of episode 5 at 9pm

followed by a live performance by Valerie Geffner!

See this event on FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=122459784517058