Celine Dion sings L’Hymne a L’Amour in tribute to Paris attack victims at American Music Awards 2015
The American Music Awards took a sombre turn on Sunday when Celine Dion sang in tribute to the victims of Paris’s terror attacks.
The Canadian singer covered Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne a L’Amour after actor-musician Jared Leto delivered an emotional speech about the deadly events.
Leto spoke about an impromptu show his band Thirty Seconds To Mars had performed at Le Bataclan in Paris, the scene where 89 people lost their lives in the attacks 10 days ago.
He said: “Seven months later that same venue was under siege, one of a series of attacks that changed the world forever.
“Tonight we honor the victims of the unimaginable violence that took place in Paris and around the world.
“France matters, Syria matters, Russia matters, Mali matters, the Middle East matters, the entire world matters and peace is possible.”
Introducing Dion’s performance, Leto added:
“Many of us here are the sons and daughters of immigrants and Steve Jobs, the son of a Syrian immigrant, and President Barack Obama.
“The American Music Awards wanted to show its support for the people of France and the entire world.”
Major Mark Bieger found this little girl after the car bomb that attacked our guys while kids were crowding around. The soldiers here have been angry and sad for two days. They are angry because the terrorists could just as easily have waited a block or two and attacked the patrol away from the kids.
Instead, the suicide bomber drove his car and hit the Stryker when about twenty children were jumping up and down and waving at the soldiers. Major Bieger, I had seen him help rescue some of our guys a week earlier during another big attack, took some of our soldiers and rushed this little girl to our hospital. He wanted her to have American surgeons and not to go to the Iraqi hospital. She didn’t make it.
I snapped this picture when Major Bieger ran to take her away.
He kept stopping to talk with her and hug her.
The reaction to my photo of Major Bieger cradling Farah, the little girl who died in his arms, provoked a flood of messages and heartfelt responses from caring people around the world.
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”’
IF TASTEFUL NUDITY BOTHERS YOU, DON’T GO ANY FURTHER
LA-based fitness photographer Michael Stokes is putting a different spin on how wounded veterans are depicted. He’s raising money on Kickstarter for a book called “Always Loyal” that features stunning photos of 14 U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps veterans of the Iraq War, Gulf War, and War in Afghanistan.
Stokes told The Huffington Post that an interaction about two years ago with a veteran wounded in Afghanistan inspired the idea for his new book.
“I met this veteran, Alex Minsky, and talked to him about different approaches to a portrait session,” said Stokes. “I had already studied as many amputee photos that I could find. I noticed that most of them emphasized the lost limb, and that the mood was often sorrowful. That was not the vibe I was getting from him, so I decided to simply photograph him as if he were not an amputee, photograph him exactly the same way I would any of my fitness models.”
The result?
Minsky found fame as a model, and a new passion was born for Stokes. The photographer has so far raised more than $260,000 on Kickstarter for his two books, well above the goal of $48,250. One, called “Exhibition,” features fitness models as well as veterans, while “Always Loyal” — titled after the English translation of the Marine Corps motto “Semper Fidelis” — features 14 vets.
“Some people will say to me ’Oh, this is really helpful to the veterans’ self-esteem,’ or, ’You’re making them feel like men again,’” Stokes told MTV. “
The response I have to that is that these guys have come to me very healed and ready to take the world on. I’m not giving them back their confidence. They already have it.”
Revealing Photos Strip Off The Stereotype Of Wounded Warrior
Soon, you’ll be able to purchase a hardcover book featuring large glossy images of wounded veterans — but these aren’t your typical photos!
“If they want to be on the cover of romance novels, I can make that happen,” Stokes told The Telegraph.
In 2012, professional photographer Michael Stokes took snapshots of a US Marine who had survived a bombing in Afghanistan. The marine had lost part of his leg in the explosion, but his confidence prompted Stokes to shoot the photo in a more sensual style — focusing on the beauty of his figure rather than the amputation. Inspired by the marine, Stokes featured a chapter on wounded vets in a book he released last year called Bare Strength. Now, this year, he’s started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for two new books of photography — one of which exclusively features wounded vets.
These titillating images are not your traditional stereotype of dashing military men in full uniform and buzz cuts. The warriors in these photos are wounded, scarred, and missing limbs, but they’re incredibly fit, well-muscled, often draped with tattoos, and, well — smokin’ hot. The book features 13 men and 1 woman.
Each model had a say in how they posed, and Stokes helped them decide. This way, they had more control over how their images were marketed.
This is not the official video for Whitehorse’s song, Sweet Disaster, which is available on Itunes. Permission to use the music for this video has been obtained from the label. This is a teaser for my Kickstarter project, which is designed to publish two books, one featuring military veterans of war. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…
Restrain your anger
And run to find some shelter
Flames and eruptions
Are there only reactions
Comrades and brothers
Are facing all the slaughter
They will not surrender
To them you are the offender
Stop all the blood
They’ve had enough
If you keep fighting
People will keep dying
There’s got to be another way
Without causing pain everyday
Vengeance and sorrow
Will be yearning tomorrow
Twenty more years remain
Until we can conquer their reign
It seems never ending
As it ends everything
When will you learn that
There are other ways to combat
There are only two outcomes here
And each of them is very severe
You can either rise victorious
And to them you will be glorious
But just as you can rise, you can fall a failure
After all that you had to endure
It’s not worth going through
when there are other things you can do
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War — its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis.
In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
An exceptionally astute politician deeply involved with power issues in each state, Lincoln reached out to the War Democrats and managed his own re-election campaign in the 1864 presidential election. Anticipating the war’s conclusion, Lincoln pushed a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to reunite the nation speedily through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. On April 15, 1865, six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer.
Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents.
These words, spoken by Mr. Lincoln, are as true today as they were when he first said them
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow?
Never!
All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?
I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad.
If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.
As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
“IOTD” is image of the day, a concept I came up with. I teach visual meditative therapy – or in easy terms – a mini mental holiday. For some people it is very difficult for them to get their image right. I post an image a day for people to use in their mini mental vacay. Some are serious, some are silly, and some are just beautiful!”’
Woman in Gold is a 2015 British-American drama film directed byC and written by Alexi Kaye Campbell. The film stars Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Brühl, Katie Holmes, Tatiana Maslany, Max Irons,Charles Dance, Elizabeth McGovern, and Jonathan Pryce.
The film is based on the true story of the late Maria Altmann, an elderly Jewish refugee living in Los Angeles, who, together with her young lawyer, Randy Schoenberg, fought the government of Austria for almost a decade to reclaim Gustav Klimt‘s iconic painting of her aunt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which was confiscated from her relatives by the Nazis in Vienna just prior to World War II.
Altmann took her legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled in her favor in Republic of Austria v. Altmann (2004).
~~GALLERY~~
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~~PLOT~~
In a series of flashbacks throughout the film, Maria Altmann recalls the arrival of Nazi forces in Vienna, Austria, and the subsequent suppression of the Jewish community and the looting and pillaging conducted by the Nazis against Jewish families. Seeking to escape before the country is completely shut off, Maria Altmann and members of her family attempt to flee to the United States. While Altmann is successful in her escape, she is forced to abandon her parents in Vienna.
In the present, living in Los Angeles, a now elderly Altmann attends the funeral for her sister. She discovers letters in her sister’s possession dating to the late 1940s, which reveal an attempt to recover artwork owned by the Altmann family that was left behind during the family’s flight for freedom and subsequently stolen by the Nazis. Of particular note is a painting of Altmann’s aunt, now known in Austria as the “Woman in Gold“.
Altmann enlists the help of Randol Schoenberg, a lawyer with little experience, to make a claim to the art restitution board in Austria. Reluctantly returning to her homeland, Altmann discovers that the country’s minister and art director are unwilling to part with the painting, which they feel has become part of the national identity. Altmann is told that the painting was in fact legitimately willed to the gallery by her Aunt.
Upon further investigation by her lawyer and Austrian journalist Hubertus Czernin, this claim proves to be incorrect, as the alleged will is invalid due to the fact that her Aunt did not own the painting in question, the artist’s fee having been paid by her Uncle. Schoenberg files a challenge with the art restitution board, but it is denied and Altmann does not have the money needed to challenge the ruling. Defeated, she and Schoenberg return to the United States.
Months thereafter, happening upon an art book with “Woman in Gold” on the cover, Schoenberg has an epiphany. Using a loop hole and precedents in which an art restitution law was retroactively applied, Schoenberg files a claim in US court against the Austrian government contesting their claim to the painting. An appeal goes to the Supreme Court of the United States, where in the matter of Republic of Austria v. Altmann, the court rules in Altmann’s favor, which results in the Austrian government attempting to persuade Altmann to retain the painting for the gallery, which she refuses. After a falling out over the issue of returning to Austria for a second time to argue the case, Altmann fires Schoenberg, who then takes it upon himself to carry on the case of his own accord.
In Austria, the art restitution board hears the case, during which time they are reminded of the Nazi Regime’s war crimes by Schoenberg. Schoenberg implores the art restitution board to think of the meaning of the word restitution and to look past the artwork hanging in art galleries to see the injustice to the families who once owned such great paintings and were forcibly separated from them by the Nazis. Unexpectedly, Altmann arrives to speak before the board, reminding them of the atrocities of the Nazi regime and that while the gallery may see in the Woman in Gold a national treasure, she sees a family portrait.
After making their respective cases, the art restitution board ultimately sides with Altmann, returning her painting.
Altmann then elects to have the painting moved to the United States with her, and takes up an offer made earlier by a New York gallery to display the painting on condition that it be a permanent exhibit.
Academy Award winner Helen Mirren stars in the incredible story of Maria Altmann, a Jewish refugee who is forced to flee Vienna during World War II.
Decades later, determined to salvage some dignity from her past, Maria has taken on a mission to reclaim a painting the Nazis stole from her family: the famous Lady In Gold, a portrait of her beloved Aunt Adele.
Partnering with an inexperienced but determined young lawyer (Ryan Reynolds), Maria embarks on an epic journey for justice 60 years in the making.
Jeb Bush Says His Brother Was Misled Into War by Faulty Intelligence
That’s Not What Happened
Bush CIA Deputy Director Admits We Were Lied Into Iraq War
Last week, Jeb Bush stepped in it. It took the all-but-announced Republican presidential candidate several attempts to answer the most obvious question: Knowing what we know now, would you have launched the Iraq War? Yes, I would have, he initially declared, noting he would not dump on his brother for initiating the unpopular war. “So would almost everyone that was confronted with the intelligence they got,” Bush said.
In a subsequent and quickly offered back-pedaling remark—on his way to saying he would have made “different decisions”—Bush emphasized that a main problem with the Bush-Cheney invasion was “mistakes as it related to faulty intelligence in the lead-up to the war.” And as his Republican rivals jumped on Bush, they, too, blamed bad intelligence for causing the war. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), insisting that he would not have favored the war (if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction), commented, “President Bush has said that he regrets that the intelligence was faulty.” And former CEO Carly Fiorina noted, “The intelligence was clearly wrong. And so had we known that the intelligence was wrong, no, I would not have gone in.”
But here’s the truth Jeb Bush and the others are hiding or eliding: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, & Co. were not misled by lousy intelligence; they used lousy intelligence to mislead the public.
Wrong About Iraq, Wrong About Iran
by Robert Greenwald
The framework agreement that the U.S. and its international partners reached with Iran that blocks Tehran’s pathways to building a nuclear bomb is several weeks old, yet the usual suspects have already denounced it as a “bad deal.”
Former George W. Bush administration official John Bolton called the agreement “a surrender of classic proportions,” and for Bolton, war is the only answer.
“The inconvenient truth is that only military action … can accomplish what is required,”
Bolton wrote in The New York Times last month.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes it too. “I think this is a bad deal,” hesaid on Sunday, adding, “I think there is still time to reach a good deal, a better deal.”
How do we get a “better deal”? Netanyahu doesn’t have an answer.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) also criticized the agreement on Sunday, but he went a bit further than Netanyahu. “I don’t want a war, but…,” Graham said. But what?
The South Carolina Republican said that Iran would have to completely capitulate and agree to dismantle its entire nuclear program and address other issues that weren’t part of the nuclear talks or face war.
What do Bolton, Netanyahu, Graham and a whole host of others in Washington opposing this deal have in common?
They were passionate supporters of the Iraq war and continue to hold that view today.
~~GALLERY~~
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Here’s what Netanyahu told Congress in September 2002, five months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq: “If you take out Saddam … I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”
And here’s what the Israeli Prime Minister told Congress just last month: “The agreement … would all but guarantee that Iran gets nuclear weapons.”
Graham said in 2003 that Saddam Hussein “is lying … when he says he doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction.”
And here’s Bolton in late 2002: “The Iraqi people would be unique in history if they didn’t welcome the overthrow of this dictatorial regime.”
Of course, we all know how this played out: no WMDs, tens of thousands of Americans killed or wounded, countless Iraqi civilians dead, nearly $4 trillion spent, and ISIS on a rampage throughout the Middle East.
Why should we listen to these people again?
The reality is that there is no better Iran deal, and those calling for one never offer a viable plan on how to get there. In fact, the real alternative is war, which will come at tremendous cost.
“After you’ve dropped those bombs on those hardened facilities, what happens next?” former commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. Anthony Zinni (Ret.) once wondered.
“If you follow this all the way down, eventually I’m putting boots on the ground somewhere. And like I tell my friends, if you like Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ll love Iran.”
The framework agreement the U.S. and its international partners reached with Iran that blocks Tehran’s pathways to building a nuclear bomb is barely a week old and yet the usual suspects have already denounced it as a “bad deal.”
It Is What It Is 