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Norman Collins, better known as Sailor Jerry, is considered as the foremost American tattoo artist of his time. He expanded the array of colours available for commercial use by creating his own range of safe pigments. He was the first artists to use single use needles and hospital-like sterilization. He was known not only for his use of colour but also his incredible attention to detail. The riggings in his nautical tattoos were known for their perfect accuracy. Sailor Jerry’s influences ranged from the tough lifestyle of the American sailor, to the mystical curiosity of the Far East. Throughout his life he kept close ties to famous Japanese artists. For Jerry, tattoos were the ultimate rebellion against “the Squares”.

Jerry was legendary for his sense of humour; his “Aloha Monkey” being a famous example of his eccentricity and humour. However, he was also incredibly vocal about professionalism and craft. He taught aspiring artists who he respected and believed had talent. Today well known artists who were some of Jerry’s pupils include Don Ed Hardy, Cliff raven, Don Nolan and Mike Malone whom he left his legacy of Flash designs.

When Sailor Jerry was 19 he enrolled in the US Navy and remained a sailor for the rest of his life. Even when his tattoo career took flight, he continued to work as a licensed skipper on a three-masted schooner which he used to give tours of the Hawaiian Islands. But Jerry was talented on many levels besides his art and his sailing. He was a saxophone player in a dance band for many years and had a night show on KTKG radio where he spoke under the name of “Old Ironsides”. He stopped tattooing in the middle of life due to trouble with the IRS.

Jerry died in 1973 but his legacy has lived on through Mike Malone and Don Nolan, who opened a small independent clothing company in Philadelphia dedicated to the art work of Jerry, and dubbed the company name of Sailor Jerry Ltd. The company is anti-sweatshop and all the clothes are made in America and sold on the internet or at the store in Philadelphia. The store is host to many gigs featuring independent or up and coming bands.

By Christine Pinella for Black Cat Tattoo Aftercare

Theodore Herzl, the visionary who founded Zionism, was an assimilated Jew, who did not consider Palestine the optimal choice for a resurgent Jewish nationalism.

When the British offered to him a homeland in East Africa (today’s Uganda), he accepted and proposed it to the Sixth Zionist Congress in Basle in 1903. After bitter recriminations, the Congress decided (295 for, 178 against) to send an “investigatory commission” to the territory to inspect it and report back.

Herzl vowed that the Uganda scheme is not a substitute for the reclamation of Palestine as the historic homeland of the Jewish people. But his actions defied his speech. He pursued the British proposal to his death (in 1904) as did many other prominent Jewish leaders, organized in the Jewish Territorialist Organization (ITO).

The plan was decisively abandoned only after the Balfour Declaration which granted the Jewish people a homeland in Palestine under the British mandate.

Yet, in the meantime, other territorial plans emerged: in Canada, Australia, Iraq, Libya, and Angola. Close to 10,000 Jews settled in Texas. Stalin created a “Jewish Homeland” in Birobidjan. Even the Nazis tried to revive some of these “solutions to the Jewish question” - notably in Lublin, Poland and in the island of Madagascar.

Sam Vaknin ( samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

Visit Sam’s Web site at samvak.tripod.com

After seizing power in a bloody CIA-backed coup, General Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile with a rod of iron for two decades, during which human rights violations became the norm of Chilean life.

Hailing from an upper-middle class background, Pinochet entered the military academy in Santiago at the age of 18, graduating three years later as a second lieutenant. By 1968 he had risen to the rank of brigadier general.

In 1970, Salvador Allende, a Marxist, became president of Chile with the backing of the Christian Democrats, and began restructuring Chilean society along socialist lines. In the process he expropriated the US-owned copper-mining companies, alienating the US government and foreign investors. He further annoyed Washington by establishing relations with Cuba and Communist China, which the United States did not recognise at that time. As a result, America imposed tough economic sanctions and the CIA spent millions of dollars destabilising the Allende regime, much of it going into Pinochet’s pockets.

By 1972, the Chilean economy had collapsed. With no foreign investment, production had come to a standstill. There were widespread strikes, inflation, food shortages and civil unrest. With the backing of armed forces, Pinochet staged a military coup on 11 September 1973. It was bloody even by Latin American standards. The navy seized the key port of Valparaiso, while the army surrounded the presidential palace in Santiago. Allende refused to step down. When the palace was overrun a few hours later, he was found dead. It appears that he shot himself rather than face inevitable torture and execution.

A junta took over and declared marital law. Those who violated the curfew were shot on sight. Pinochet was named president two days later. He broke off relations with Cuba – Nixon had staged his famous rapprochement with China by then – and moved against Allende’s supporters. Some 14 000 would be tried and executed or expelled from the country, while Pinochet claimed he was only trying to ‘restore institutional normality’ of Chile.

In June 1974 Pinochet assumed sole power, with the rest of the junta relegated to an advisory role. Under Pinochet’s tyrannical rule, it is estimated that 20 000 people were killed and torture was widespread.
While Pinochet continued to maintain tight control over the political opposition, he was rejected by a plebiscite in 1988. He eventually stepped down in 1990 after immunity from prosecution in Chile. He stayed on as army chief of staff. However, during a shopping trip to London in October 1998, he was arrested on a Spanish warrant charging him with murder. He was later accused of torture and human rights violations. For 16 months, he fought his extradition through the British courts, and then in January 2000, Home Secretary Jack Straw decided that he was too ill to stand trial and sent him back to Chile.

More info about Augusto Pinochet

Written by Vassil Dimitroff