Friday, June 25, 2010

The New Colossus-Emma Lazarus Poem for the Statue of Liberty




The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
'
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

By Emma Lazarus, 1883

European Court Rules Same Sex Marriag NOT A Universal Human Right

Click to read original Story from Fox News

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that countries are not obliged to allow gay marriage, rejecting a bid by an Austrian couple to force the state to let them wed.

The court said the rights of Horst Michael Schalk and Johann Franz Kopf had not been violated by their inability to get married.

In Austria, same-sex couples can enter into legally recognized partnerships, similar to marriage but different in some ways.

A panel of seven judges ruled unanimously Thursday that the couple was not covered by the guarantee of the right to marry in Europe's human rights convention
.

The judges said there was "an emerging European consensus towards legal recognition of same-sex couples," but left it to individual states to decide what form that should take.

Oil Spill Reaches Florida Shores

Click to read full story from Fox News

NEW ORLEANS — More dirty evidence of the massive oil spill washed ashore along the Gulf Coast for residents who don't need anymore reminders of their frustration over failed efforts to stop the crude gushing from a blown-out undersea well.

In Florida, officials on Thursday closed a quarter-mile stretch of Pensacola Beach not far from the Alabama line when thick pools of oil washed up, the first time a beach in the state has been shut because of the spill. A large patch of oil oozed into Mississippi Sound, the fertile waters between the barrier islands and mainland of a state that has mostly been spared.

The news came as a cap collecting oil from the well was back in place after a deep-sea robot bumped it and engineers concerned about escaping gas removed it for about 10 hours Wednesday.

Even before that latest setback, the government's worst-case estimates suggested the cap and other equipment were capturing less than half of the oil leaking from the seafloor. And in recent days, the "spillcam" video continued to show gas and oil billowing from the well.

BP's pronouncements that it would soon be able to collect more spewing oil have "absolutely no credibility," Jefferson Parish Councilman John Young said. The latest problem shows "they really are not up to the task and we have more bad news than we have good news."


Flooding In Brazil Leaves Thousands Homeless

China Flooding Claims Hundreds Of Lives

Click to read full story and view Photos From CNN

(CNN) -- Soldiers and rescue workers on Friday pulled stranded people out of deluged swathes of southern China inundated by 11 days of heavy rain, state media said.

The rains have led to the deaths of 211 people in 10 provinces, while 119 others are listed as missing, according to Xinhua news agency.

Two dikes on the eastern Fu River in Jiangxi broke on Wednesday, forcing another 100,000 people to join the 2.3 million already evacuated, state officials estimated.

More than 29 million people have been affected by the flooding, Chinese media reported.

The government sent thousands of soldiers and rescuers to the region to assist in the evacuation effort and help repair the broken dikes.

Officials said the repairs will run through next week, though storms could hamper the effort, Xinhua said.

Eleven days of heavy rains in China caused the flooding, according to Xinhua.

112 year old Shipwreck Found In Lake Michigan

Click to read full story from Yahoo News

MILWAUKEE – A great wooden steamship that sank more than a century ago in a violent Lake Michigan storm has been found off the Milwaukee-area shoreline, and divers say the intact vessel appears to have been perfectly preserved by the cold fresh waters.

Finding the 300-foot-long L.R. Doty was important because it was the largest wooden ship that remained unaccounted for, said Brendon Baillod, the president of the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association.

"It's the biggest one I've been involved with," said Baillod, who has taken part in about a dozen such finds. "It was really exhilarating."

The Doty was carrying a cargo of corn from South Chicago to Ontario, Canada in October 1898 when it sailed into a terrible storm, Baillod said. Along with snow and sleet, there were heavy winds that whipped up waves of up to 30 feet.

The Doty should have been able to handle the weather. The ship was only five years old, and the 300-foot wooden behemoth's hull was reinforced with steel arches.

But it was towing a small schooner, the Olive Jeanette, which began to founder in the storm after the tow line apparently snapped, Baillod said. The Doty probably sank when it came to the schooner's aid. All 17 of its crew members died, along with the ship's cats, Dewey and Watson.

As a maritime historian Baillod spent more than 20 years researching the shipwreck. He knew that swaths of debris had washed up afterward in Kenosha, about 40 miles south of Milwaukee. But he found news accounts that it had last been seen closer to Milwaukee, near Oak Creek.

Meanwhile, a Milwaukee fisherman in 1991 reported snagging his nets on an obstruction about 300 feet under water. The observation was largely forgotten for decades until diving technology improved enough to enable exploration at that depth.

A number of explorers did some preliminary scouting on the lake's surface in recent months, using deep-sea technology to find a massive submerged object. Divers waited until last week to descend, when the weather was just right.

As soon as they got to the lake floor they knew they had found the Doty.

"It felt so good to solve this," said Jitka Hanakova, 33, a diver and captain of the charter boat that led the exploration. "This ship has been missing for so many years and it's one of the biggest out there."

Divers found the ship upright and intact, settled into the clay at the lake's bottom. Even the ship's cargo of corn was still in its hold.

The Doty is so well-preserved because it's in a cold, freshwater lake. It's also far enough below the surface that storms don't affect it.