Saturday, April 10, 2010

CURRENTBLIPS

CURRENTBLIPS

polish president plane crash lech kaczynski

Posted: 10 Apr 2010 10:06 AM PDT


Polish President Lech Kaczynski and some of the country's highest military and civilian leaders died on Saturday when the presidential plane crashed as it came in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia, killing 97, officials said.

Russian and Polish officials said there were no survivors on the 26-year-old Tupolev, which was taking the president, his wife and staff to events marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre in Katyn forest of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police.

He described Poland's civilian and military leaders who died with Kaczynski as having helped shape that country's "inspiring democratic transformation."

"On this difficult day the people of Russia stand with the Polish people," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

"The cause of the plane crash was apparently an error by the crew during the approach to landing," Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed official in the Russian region of Smolensk as saying.

Tags: polish president, lech kaczynski, polish president dead, polish president dies, polish president crash

chaka khan show Reading Rainbow

Posted: 10 Apr 2010 10:01 AM PDT


Chaka Khan (born Yvette Marie Stevens; March 23, 1953 is an American singer-songwriter best known for such hit songs as "I'm Every Woman", "Ain't Nobody", "I Feel for You" and "Through the Fire". She sang a modernized theme song for the popular children's TV show Reading Rainbow in the show's later years. Khan was featured vocalist in the funk band Rufus with hit songs, "Tell Me Something Good", "You Got The Love", "Once You Get Started", 'Sweet Thing", "Everlasting Love" and "Stay", before launching a solo career.



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Meinhardt Raabe dead at age 94‎

Posted: 10 Apr 2010 09:57 AM PDT


Meinhardt Raabe (September 2, 1915 – April 9, 2010) was an American actor. One of the last surviving Munchkin-actors in The Wizard of Oz, he was also the last surviving cast member with any dialogue in the film.

Raabe was born in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, resided at Penney Retirement Community, Penney Farms, Florida, where he died on April 9, 2010. Raabe graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1937.

Raabe, whose last visit to the Chesterton festival was in 2005 to autograph copies of his then-just-released autobiography, was one of the most recognizable Munchkins in the film's scene in which Judy Garland's character, Dorothy, arrives in Munchkinland.
"I will miss him terribly," Nelson said Friday. "He was always a favorite to so many. He always loved wearing a re-created version of his coroner's hat and cloak from the film to pose for photos with fans."

Raabe was about 3½ feet tall when the movie was made. He eventually grew to about 4½ feet. He toured the country for 30 years in the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, promoting hot dogs as "Little Oscar, the World's Smallest Chef."

He also enjoyed going to Oz nostalgia events and getting fan mail.

"It's an ego trip," he said. "This is our reward, the nostalgia."

Katyn Massacre lech kaczynski polish president

Posted: 10 Apr 2010 09:53 AM PDT


The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre (Polish: zbrodnia katyńska, 'Katyń crime'), was a mass murder of many thousands of Polish prisoners of war (primarily military officers), intellectuals, police officers, and other public servants by the Soviet NKVD, based on a proposal from Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps. Dated 5 March 1940, this official document was then approved (signed) by the entire Soviet Politburo including Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, the most commonly cited number being 21,768. The victims were murdered in the Katyn Forest in Russia, the Kalinin and Kharkov prisons and elsewhere. About 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, the rest being Poles arrested for allegedly being "intelligence agents, gendarmes, saboteurs, landowners, factory owners, lawyers, priests, and officials." Since Poland's conscription system required every unexempted university graduate to become a reserve officer, the Soviets were able to round up much of the Polish intelligentsia, and the Jewish, Ukrainian, Georgian and Belarusian intelligentsia of Polish citizenship.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland, held a separate commemoration three days ago and was seen by many as Putin's re-acknowledgment of Stalin's responsibility for the mass killing.

The Katyn Forest massacre was a criminal act of historic proportions and enduring political implications. When Nazi occupation forces in April 1943 announced the discovery of several mass graves, propaganda minister Josef Goebbels hoped that international revulsion over the Soviet atrocity would drive a wedge into the Big Three coalition and buy Germany a breathing space, if not a victory, in its war against Russia. (A headline in the May 1943 Newsweek read: "Poles vs. Reds: Allied Unity Put to Test Over Officer Dead.") But Goebbels miscalculated. Despite overwhelming evidence of Soviet responsibility, Moscow blamed the Germans, and for the rest of the war Washington and London officially accepted the Soviet countercharge. When the Polish government-in-exile in London demanded an international inquiry, Stalin used this as a pretext to break relations. The Western allies objected but eventually acquiesced. Soon thereafter, the Soviet dictator assembled a group of Polish Communists that returned to Poland with the Red Army in 1944 and formed the nucleus of the postwar government. Stalin's experience with the Katyn affair may have convinced him that the West, grateful for the Red Army's contribution to the Allied military effort, would find it hard to confront him over Poland after the war.

Tags: katyn, poolse president, polish president, smolensk, lech kaczynski
Posted by Suresh at 11:14 PM

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