red letter day

today was a big day. i gave 2 prayers in church this morning. i'm surprised this happened since i'm usually silent during prayer.

Theresa Knorr

i just got into learning a ton about her. she's seriously messed up. Theresa Jimmie Francine Knorr (née Cross) is an American woman convicted of torturing and murdering two of her six children while using the others to facilitate and cover up her crimes. She is currently serving two consecutive life sentences at the California Institution for Women in Chino, California. Early life: Knorr was born in Sacramento, California. She was the younger of two daughters born to Swannie Gay (née Myers) and James "Jim" Cross. Swannie Cross had a son and a daughter from a previous marriage. Jim Cross worked as an assistant cheese maker at a local dairy. He eventually saved up enough money to buy a house in Rio Linda, California. In the late 1950s he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease which forced him to quit his job. He developed depression and reportedly took his frustrations and anger out on his family. Swannie Cross kept the family afloat financially. Theresa was reportedly very close to her mother and was devastated when she died of congestive heart failure in March 1961. Thereafter, unable to keep the family home, Jim Cross sold it. Marriages: On September 29, 1962, 16-year-old Theresa married Clifford Clyde Sanders, a man five years her senior whom she had met a few months prior. Immediately she dropped out of high school and became pregnant, and on July 16, 1963, she gave birth to her first child, Howard Clyde Sanders. The Sanders' marriage was rocky as Theresa was possessive and repeatedly accused Sanders of infidelity. The couple argued frequently and on June 22, 1964, Theresa claimed that Sanders had punched her in the face during one such argument. Theresa reported the incident to police but refused to press charges against Sanders. The assault charges were subsequently dropped. On July 6, 1964, the day after Sanders' birthday, the couple were arguing because Sanders had spent his birthday out with friends instead of at home. During the argument, Sanders informed Theresa that he was leaving her. Theresa became enraged and shot Sanders in the back with a rifle as he was walking out the door. Theresa was arrested and charged with Sanders' murder, to which she pleaded not guilty claiming she was acting in self-defense. During her trial, Theresa, who was pregnant with her second child, claimed that she had shot Sanders because he was a violent alcoholic who physically abused her. Several of Sanders' relatives testified that Sanders was not violent or abusive while the prosecution claimed that Theresa killed Sanders "maliciously" and "without provocation." Theresa's older sister also testified stating that Theresa was possessive and jealous and "would kill him (Sanders) before any other woman could have him." She was acquitted of Sanders' murder on September 22, 1964. Theresa gave birth to her second child, Sheila Gay Sanders, on March 16, 1965. After Sheila's birth, Theresa began drinking heavily. She regularly drank at the local American Legion Hall where she met Estelle Lee Thornsberry, a disabled United States Army veteran. The two began a relationship and eventually moved in together. During the relationship, Theresa would routinely leave her children with Thornsberry while she went out drinking. Thornsberry began to question Theresa when she stayed out for days at a time and ended the relationship a few months later after he discovered that she was having an affair with his best friend. Shortly after the relationship with Thornsberry ended, Theresa met and began a relationship with a United States Marine private named Robert Knorr. She soon became pregnant and the couple married on July 9, 1966. Knorr's third child, Suesan Marline Knorr, was born on September 27, 1966. The couple had three more children. Theresa and Robert Knorr's marriage began to deteriorate after Theresa began accusing her husband of having affairs. Fed up with Theresa's constant accusations, Knorr left her in June 1969 and was granted a divorce in 1970. After the divorce, Robert Knorr attempted to see his children but Theresa prevented him from doing so. Theresa Knorr would marry twice more; in 1971, she married railroad worker Ronald Pulliam. That marriage began to fall apart when Knorr began leaving her children with Pulliam while she stayed out all night drinking and partying. He divorced her in 1972 after he became convinced that she was having an extramarital affair. Her final marriage was to Sacramento Union copy editor Chester "Chet" Harris, whom she married in August 1976. Knorr's daughter Suesan grew close to Harris which made Knorr jealous. She filed for divorce from Harris in November 1976 after she reportedly found out that Harris enjoyed taking consensual nude photographs of women. Child abuse: Knorr was physically, verbally, and psychologically abusive towards her children. After her fourth divorce, her alcoholism and abusive behavior escalated, and she also gained a tremendous amount of weight and became quick-tempered and reclusive. She disconnected the home phone and would not allow the children to have visitors. Knorr and her children lived in Orangevale, California for many years before moving into a two-bedroom apartment in Sacramento; Knorr's eldest son Howard reportedly left home before the move to Sacramento. According to neighbors, the apartment was filthy and smelled of urine. Neighbors also noticed that the children, whom Knorr never let go outside, seemed fearful, nervous and high-strung. For years, Knorr abused and tortured her children in various ways including beating them, force-feeding them, burning them with cigarettes, and throwing knives at them. She made her children hold each other down while she beat and tortured them. In one instance, she held a pistol to her youngest daughter Terry's head and threatened to kill her. Knorr primarily focused her anger and abuse on Terry's older sisters, Suesan and Sheila. In an interview, Terry said her mother resented that Suesan and Sheila were maturing and blossoming into attractive young women while she faced the prospect of losing her looks as she aged. Knorr also believed that her fourth husband, Chet Harris, had turned Suesan into a witch, so Suesan received the worst of Knorr's abuse. After one severe beating, Suesan ran away from home. She was picked up by police and placed in a psychiatric hospital where she told staff that her mother abused her. Knorr denied the abuse claims and told the hospital staff that Suesan had mental issues. Authorities did not investigate the matter further and released Suesan back into her mother's custody. Knorr punished Suesan for running away by beating her while wearing a pair of leather gloves. She also forced her other children to take turns beating their sister. In the subsequent weeks, Knorr handcuffed Suesan to her bed and ordered her other children to stand watch over her. Knorr refused to let Suesan leave the house and forced her to drop out of school. Knorr also pulled her other children out of school, and most of them never advanced past the eighth grade. Suesan's death: In 1982, Knorr became convinced that Suesan was casting spells on her to cause her to gain weight. Suesan denied doing so but Knorr became angry and shot Suesan in the chest with a 22-caliber pistol. The bullet became lodged in her back, but Knorr refused to allow Suesan to seek medical attention and left her for dead in the family bathtub. Suesan survived. So Knorr began to nurse her back to health and allowed her other daughters to aid Suesan as well. Suesan eventually recovered without receiving professional medical treatment. In July 1984, Knorr and Suesan got into another argument during which Knorr stabbed her daughter in the back with a pair of scissors. Knorr again refused to allow Suesan medical treatment. A few weeks after the stabbing, Suesan, fed up with the abuse, decided to move to Alaska. Knorr agreed to let her go under the condition that Suesan allow her to remove the bullet from her back so it could not be used as evidence in the event that Suesan reported the abuse. Suesan reluctantly agreed. Knorr gave Suesan Mellaril capsules and liquor as an anesthetic which caused Suesan to pass out. While Suesan was unconscious, Knorr ordered her then 15-year-old son Robert to remove the bullet with an X-Acto knife. Suesan awoke the following day in immense pain. Over the following days, she developed septicemia and became delirious. Knorr attempted to treat her with ibuprofen and antibiotics. The treatments were ineffective and Suesan's condition continued to decline. On July 16, 1984, Knorr packed all of Suesan's belongings in trash bags and, after binding Suesan's arms and legs and placing duct tape over her mouth, ordered her sons Robert and William to put Suesan in their car. They drove her to Squaw Valley where Robert and William placed her on the side of the road on top of the bags containing her belongings. Knorr then doused Suesan and the bags in gasoline and lit the girl on fire. Suesan's still smoldering body was found the following day. An autopsy determined that she was still alive when she was lit on fire. Due to the state of the remains, a positive identification was never made and Suesan was classified as Jane Doe #4873/84. Sheila's death: Following Suesan's death, Theresa Knorr began directing the majority of her anger and abuse towards her daughter Sheila. In May 1985, Knorr forced Sheila into prostitution to support the family. Knorr did not work and received money from the state of California. Knorr was initially pleased with this arrangement due to the large amounts of money Sheila was earning and allowed Sheila to leave the house whenever she pleased. After a few weeks, Knorr became angry and accused Sheila of being pregnant and contracting a sexually transmitted disease which Knorr claimed she caught from Sheila via a toilet seat. Sheila initially denied the accusations. So Knorr beat her, hog tied her and locked her in a hot closet with no ventilation. Knorr forbade her other children to give Sheila food or water or to open the door to the closet. Terry Knorr disobeyed her mother and gave Sheila a beer. Terry Knorr later said, "She (Theresa) wanted Sheila to confess. That was mother's way. Beat them until they confess." To end the punishment, Sheila confessed to being pregnant and having an STD but Knorr would not let her out of the closet claiming that Sheila was lying. Sheila died three days later, on June 21, 1985, of dehydration and starvation. Knorr left Sheila's body in the closet for an additional three days before discovering that Sheila was dead. Once again, Knorr ordered her sons William and Robert to dispose of Sheila's body which had begun to decompose causing an odorous smell that filled the apartment. The boys placed Sheila's body in a cardboard box which they disposed of near the airport in Truckee, California. Sheila's body was discovered a few hours after it had been disposed of but was never positively identified and was classified as Jane Doe #6607-85. Even though Sheila's body had been removed from the closet, the smell of decomposition still lingered in the apartment. Knorr became concerned that the smell and physical evidence in the closet could implicate her in Sheila's death. On September 29, 1986, Knorr moved the family's belongings out of the home and ordered her youngest daughter Terry to burn down the apartment in an effort to destroy any physical evidence. During the night, Terry Knorr dumped three containers of lighter fluid on the apartment floor and set it on fire. The fire did little damage as neighbors quickly reported the fire before it spread. The closet in which Sheila died was not damaged. After Knorr's arrest, investigators were able to remove the subfloor from the closet to test it for physical evidence. After leaving the Sacramento apartment, Knorr went into hiding. Her surviving children, who were by then of legal age, severed their ties with their mother. Knorr's youngest child, 16-year-old Terry, also left her mother's care and used Sheila's identification card to pass herself off as a legal adult. The only child to remain with Knorr was Robert, Jr. who was then 19 years old. Knorr and Robert, Jr. moved to Las Vegas and attempted to keep a low profile. In November 1991, Robert Knorr, Jr. was arrested after he fatally shot a bartender in a Las Vegas bar during an attempted robbery. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Shortly after Robert, Jr.'s arrest, Knorr left Las Vegas and relocated to Salt Lake City. Arrests and convictions: After escaping from her mother, Terry Knorr attempted to report her sisters' murders to the Utah police but they dismissed her stories as fiction as did a therapist she visited. On October 28, 1993, Terry Knorr contacted America's Most Wanted, who asked her to contact detectives in Placer County, California (the county in which Suesan's body was found) who took her claims seriously and followed up with an investigation. The detectives linked the two Jane Does found in the area in 1984 and 1985 to Terry Knorr's detailed stories of her sisters' deaths and concluded that she was telling the truth. Knorr's son William was arrested on November 4, 1993 in Woodland, California where he had been living and working. Robert Knorr, Jr. was charged with his sisters' murders while he was serving a 16-year sentence in an Ely, Nevada prison for the 1991 murder of a Las Vegas bartender. On November 10, 1993, Theresa Knorr was arrested at her home in Salt Lake City. At the time of her arrest, Knorr was using her maiden name of "Cross" and was working as a caretaker for her landlord's 86-year-old mother. On November 15, 1993, Knorr was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and two special circumstances charges: multiple murder and murder by torture. Knorr initially pled not guilty but then made a deal with the prosecution after learning that her son Robert, Jr. agreed to testify against her in exchange for a reduced sentence. She pleaded guilty on the condition that she be spared the death penalty. On October 17, 1995, Knorr was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. She is incarcerated at California Institution for Women in Chino, California. She will be eligible for parole in 2027. William Knorr was sentenced to probation and ordered to undergo therapy for participating in his sister Sheila's murder. In exchange for his testimony, the prosecution dropped all charges against Robert Knorr, Jr. save for one count of being an accessory-after-the-fact in relation to Sheila's murder. Robert Knorr, Jr. pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to three years in prison which was served concurrently with his 16-year sentence for the unrelated 1991 murder of a Las Vegas bartender. Aftermath: Following Knorr's arrest, police decided to reopen the murder case of her sister, Rosemary Norris. Norris was found strangled at the end of a dead end road in Placer County in 1983 after she went grocery shopping in Sacramento. Police later determined that Knorr was not involved in Norris' death. After moving out of her mother's home, Terry Knorr married twice and eventually moved to Sandy, Utah, where she lived with her second husband. She worked as a grocery store cashier in the same neighborhood where her mother also lived and worked before her arrest. Theresa and Terry apparently did not know they lived in close proximity and had no contact. Terry Knorr died in Saint Joseph, Missouri in December 2011. In popular culture: The 2010 horror film The Afflicted, which is also titled Another American Crime is loosely based on the Theresa Knorr case. The film follows the real-life events through a substantially-compressed timeline. Unlike the real case, the movie ends with the youngest daughter killing her mother and one of her brothers before committing suicide. The murders were profiled on the A&E series Cold Case Files, featuring an exclusive interview with Terry Knorr Walker. The case was also profiled on the series Most Evil, Wicked Attraction and Deadly Women. Details of Knorr's crimes are mentioned in Nicole Dollanganger's song, "In The Land," off of her album Natural Born Losers in 2015.

resurfaced

when i "resurfaced" in the singles ward after 5 weeks of being MIA i'd explained where i was to a friend who works in a tutoring center.

laughing

i sometimes watch the amazing atheist in the LDS church and laugh at the videos. he's freaking hilarious.

cheer me up

when i lost my grand-dad last December every effort was made to try cheering me and my brothers up. i was affected especially since i'd lost all my grandparents. i was dragged to church, made to watch a Christmas devotional and read a funny LDS comic. i had frequent crying bouts and being spacy since i'd lost him. luckily i was given a break.

Disappearance of Najeeb Ahmed

Najeeb Ahmed is a missing first year M.Sc Biotechnology student of Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi, India who has been missing under suspicious circumstances since 15 October 2016 from his college campus. Disappearance: Najeeb Ahmed was a newly enrolled student at JNU and he had resided in the JNU campus for hardly one week when he disappeared. The last time that anyone has seen or heard from Najeeb is in the JNU campus. It was reported that he was being treated for depression and Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) before his disappearance, according to the prescriptions found in his hostel room. Investigation and aftermath: The Vasant Kunj Police had filed an FIR for kidnapping and wrongful confinement based on Najeeb's parents complaint. Numerous searches by Delhi Police have turned up nothing in Najeeb's disappearance. A reward of ₹100,000 (US$1,600) has been issued for any information leading to the whereabouts of Najeeb by the Delhi Police. A Special Investigating Team (SIT) of Delhi police is now investigating the case. Jawaharlal Nehru University JNU issued a 25-point bulletin on Najeeb without mentioning of brawl a night before. The JNU Teachers' Association (JNUTA) blamed the administration for their apathy and bias in handling the issue. JNUTA has also criticized the 25-points bulletin released by the university " 'selectively omitting' the fact that Ahmed was attacked during a brawl a night before". Najeeb Ahmed's mother Fatima Nafees also accused the JNU administration of insensitivity. On 23 October 2016, JNU students protested and blocked the Administration Building for 20 hours. It was reported that there was an attempt on Najeeb's life. It was also reported that Najeeb might have moved to a small town to live in anonymity. In August 2017 students and family members protested outside the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headquarters to protest the lack of progress in the case. The Delhi High Court also reprimanded the CBI for lodging the same status report as they had lodged previously.

Zelim Bakaev

Zelimkhan Khoussainovich Bakaevis a Russian Chechen singer. He disappeared in Chechnya on 8 August 2017, while on a brief visit to the region to attend his sister's wedding. He is widely believed to have been abducted, tortured, and murdered by the Chechen authorities as part of their systematic persecution of homosexuals. Career: Zelim Bakaev (sometimes Bakayev) was born to Khoussain and Malika Bakaev in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic. Passionate about music, he began singing at a young age in Chechnya. He worked for a year and a half at the Department of Culture of the Grozny Mayor's Office, and became a one of the soloists of the song and dance ensemble "Stolitsa" (in Russian, Столица) and performed concerts in Chechnya and other North Caucasian republics. His repertoire included songs in Chechen language and in Russian. He became popular particularly in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan and eventually in Russia.[2] In 2013, he took part in the annual Vainakh Awards for upcoming artists. His big break came with singles like "Мичахь хьо лела безам", "Доьхна Дог" and "Нана" ("Nana" in English) and in collaboration with Elbika Jamaldinova hits "Не хватает тебя" (Miss You) and "Без тебя" (Without You). He also cooperated with the producer Gilany Stadnik and was managed by Leila Vakhayeva. In 2017, Bakaev applied for casting in the Russian version of Star Academy called Fabrika Zvyozd in its 10th season. The series was to start in September 2017 on the Russian television chain Muz-TV. Disappearance: On 6 August 2017, Bakaev travelled to Grozny to attend his sister's wedding. He was due back in Moscow few days later as he was scheduled to take part in a Russian musical contest on August 10. On August 8, he was reportedly arrested by Special Rapid Deployment (SOBR) security forces, this according to two eyewitnesses as they recounted to Dozhd TV. Bakaev's cellular phone was also disactivated the same day. Speculations ran that his arrest was for suspicion of being gay. Chechnyan authorities had declared an anti-LGBT campaign with many reports of persecution of homosexuals in the country. Bakaev had been previously forbidden from any public appearance in Chechnya. Bakaev's mother Malika and his aunt received a message that Bakaev had "left" Chechnya. On August 18, Malika filed a complaint for her son's disappearance with the Grozny police and on August 22 applied to the Human Rights Council demanding clarifications from them and the Chechen Interior ministry. The Chechen minister of Foreign Affairs and Information denied any involvement by the Chechen authorities in the affair. The Chechen police claimed that Bakaev had purchased a ticket for a train from Nalchik to Moscow with the departure on August 11. On September 14, the American human rights organization Human Rights First urged the US State Department to intervene with the Russian authorities about Zelim Bakaev. On 16 September 2017, the singer's mother publicly appealed to Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov asking about her son, but on September 18, the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs refused to open a criminal investigation into the disappearance of Bakaev. On 24 September 2017, a suspicious video appeared allegedly taken in Germany with a look-alike claiming to be Bakaev saying he was now in Germany. But many discrepancies were apparent including forced nature of the video, Russian furniture and equipment appearing in the footage including beverages and alcoholic brands not marketed in Germany. A high-ranking diplomat from the EU mission in Russia also confirmed that Bakaev did not cross the border of any of the Schengen countries in August 2017 or later. In October 2017, the international press outlets, and primarily the LGBT media alleged the singer had died as a result of torture at the hands of the Chechen police as part of the Chechen government's anti-gay purge.

naps

i'm frequently napping this semester. i'm tired and i'm in need of it.

long braided hair

my hair is thick and able to hold together without a hair tie.

hilarious

i couldn't write a talk (a sermon in the LDS church) without the cold case files. it's funny since i am wondering why i didn't write my talk 99% forensic science related.

Soap made from human corpses

this is gross but interesting. During the 20th century, there were various alleged instances of soap being made from human body fat. During World War I it was claimed in the British press that the Germans had a corpse factory in which they used the bodies of their own soldiers to make glycerine and soap. After the war the British government accepted that the stories were untrue. During World War II it was believed that soap was being mass-produced from the bodies of the victims of Nazi concentration camps located in German-occupied Poland. There is however, no evidence to suggest that the Nazis made soap from human fat; despite contrary claims. The Yad Vashem Memorial has stated that the Nazis did not produce soap from Jewish corpses on an industrial scale, saying that rumors that soap from human corpses was mass-produced and distributed were deliberately used by the Nazis to frighten camp inmates. Evidence was presented at the postwar Nuremberg trials that German researchers had developed a process for the production of soap from human bodies. History- 1786: In 1780, the former Holy Innocents' Cemetery in Paris was closed because of overuse. In 1786, the bodies were exhumed and the bones were moved to the Catacombs. Many bodies had incompletely decomposed and had reduced into deposits of fat. During the exhumation, this fat was collected and subsequently turned into candles and soap. World War I: The claim that Germans used the fat from human corpses to make products, including soap, was made during World War I. This appears to have originated as rumor among British soldiers and Belgians. The first recorded reference is in 1915 when Cynthia Asquith noted in her diary (16 June 1915): "We discussed the rumour that the Germans utilise even their corpses by converting them into glycerine with the by-product of soap." It became a major international story when The Times of London reported in April 1917 that the Germans had admitted rendering the bodies of their dead soldiers for fat to make soap and other products. After the war John Charteris, the former head of army intelligence, was reported to have claimed in a 1925 speech that he had invented the story. He subsequently insisted that his remarks had been misreported. The controversy led the British Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain to officially state that the government accepted that the "corpse factory" story was untrue. The belief that the British had deliberately invented the story was later used by the Nazis. World War II: Rumours that the Nazis produced soap from the bodies of concentration camp inmates circulated widely during the war. Germany suffered a shortage of fats during World War II, and the production of soap was put under government control. The "human soap" rumours may have originated from the bars of soap being marked with the initials RIF, which was interpreted by some as Reichs-Juden-Fett ("State Jewish Fat"); in German Blackletter font the difference between I and J is only in length. RIF in fact stood for Reichsstelle für industrielle Fettversorgung ("National Center for Industrial Fat Provisioning", the German government agency responsible for wartime production and distribution of soap and washing products). RIF soap was a poor quality substitute product that contained no fat at all, human or otherwise. Rumors about the origins and meaning of "RIF" soap extended into the concentration camps themselves. Naphtali Karchmer, in his book Solitary in the Overwhelming Turbulence: Five Years as Prisoner-of-War in East Prussia, describes his years in captivity as a Jewish-Polish POW. The author writes about gray, rectangular, low-quality pieces of soap he and other POWs received with the letters "RIF" inscribed on a center depression. When one of the POWs complained about the low-foam, smooth soap, the lady of the household answered it was made of "Rein Juden Fett" (pure Jewish fat), when asked "out of human fat?", she answered "No, just Jews". A version of the story is included in The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry, one of the earliest collections of firsthand accounts of the Holocaust, assembled by Soviet writers Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman. The specific story is part of a report titled "The Extermination of the Jews of Lvov" attributed to I. Herts and Naftali Nakht: In another section of the Belzec camp was an enormous soap factory. The Germans picked out the fattest Jews, murdered them, and boiled them down for soap. Artur Izrailevich Rozenshtraukh—a bank clerk from Lvov, in whose words we relate this testimony—held this "Jewish soap" in his own hands. The Gestapo thugs never denied the existence of a "production process" of this kind. Whenever they wanted to intimidate a Jew, they would say to him, "We'll make soap out of you." Raul Hilberg reports such stories as circulating in Lublin as early as October 1942. The Germans themselves were aware of the stories, as SS-chief Heinrich Himmler had received a letter describing the Polish belief that Jews were being "boiled into soap" and which indicated that the Poles feared they would suffer a similar fate. Indeed, the rumours circulated so widely that some segments of the Polish population actually boycotted the purchase of soap. Joachim Neander, in a German paper presented at the 28th conference of the German Studies Association, cites the following comment by Himmler from a letter of November 20, 1942 to the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller. Himmler had written to Müller due to an exposé by Rabbi Dr. Stephen Wise, which mentioned the soap rumor and had been printed in The New York Times: You have guaranteed me that at every site the corpses of these deceased Jews are either burned or buried, and that at no site anything else can happen with the corpses. Müller was to make inquiries if "abuse" had happened somewhere and report this to Himmler "on SS oath"; Himmler hence did not from the outset exclude the possibility that such had taken place. Neander goes on to state that the letter represents circumstantial evidence that it was Nazi policy to abstain from processing corpses due to their known desire to keep their mass murder as secret as possible. Danzig Anatomical Institute: During the Nuremberg Trials, Sigmund Mazur, a laboratory assistant at the Danzig Anatomical Institute (modern Gdańsk), testified that soap had been made from corpse fat at the camp, and claimed that 70 to 80 kg (155–175 lb) of fat collected from 40 bodies could produce more than 25 kg (55 lb) of soap, and that the finished soap was retained by Professor Rudolf Spanner. Eyewitnesses included British POWs who were part of the forced labor that constructed the camp, and Dr Stanisław Byczkowski, head of the Department of Toxicology at the Gdańsk School of Medicine. Holocaust survivor Thomas Blatt, who investigated the subject, found little concrete documentation and no evidence of mass production of soap from human fat, but concluded that there was evidence of experimental soap making. Testimony was given both by Nazis and by British prisoners of war about the development of an industrial process for producing soap from human bodies, the production of such soap on a small-scale basis, and the actual use of this soap by Nazi personnel at the Danzig Anatomic Institute. The prosecutor: The experiments of the Anatomical Institute in the production the soap from the corpses and tanning of human skin for industrial purposes were conducted on a wide scale. I submit a document ... to the tribunal, which consists of the testimony of Sigmund Mazur, one of the direct participants of the production of soap from the human fat, he was helper-laboratory assistant at the Danzig Anatomical institute. ... The question: Please tell us how soap was produced from the human fat at the Danzig Anatomical institute? The answer: In summer of 1943 in the yard of the Anatomical institute a two-storey stone building containing three chambers was built. This building was designed for the purpose of utilizing corpses and cooking the bones, as the professor Spanner officially declared. The laboratory was defined as the institution of taking down skeletons, burning meat and superfluous bones, but in the winter 1943-1944 he the year of the prof Spanner instructed us to collect the human fat which was not to be thrown away any more. This order was given to Reichert and Borkmann. Prof Spanner gave me the recipe for the production of soap from the human fat in February 1944. According to this recipe 5 kg (11 lb) of the human fat appertained to be mixed with 10 litres (2.2 imp gal; 2.6 US gal) of water and 500 to 1000 grams of the caustic soda. This mixture was cooked for two up to three hours, then it was allowed to cool. Then the soap rose to the surface, while water and settlings were under it. To this mixture a pinch of salt and soda was added and it was cooked again for two up to three hours. After cooling the soap was poured into a mould. In his book Russia at War 1941 to 1945, Alexander Werth reported that while visiting Gdańsk/Danzig in 1945 shortly after its liberation by the Red Army, he saw an experimental factory outside the city for making soap from human corpses. According to Werth it had been run by "a German professor called Spanner" and "was a nightmarish sight, with its vats full of human heads and torsos pickled in some liquid, and its pails full of a flakey substance—human soap". Jasenovac concentration camp: In the Independent State of Croatia, a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany and Italy established in part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia, in the Jasenovac concentration camp a small factory for converting human remains into soap was also established by members of the Ustasha movement. Parts of the "soap factory" still exist and can be seen in memorial zone "Donja Gradina". Postwar: The idea that "human soap" was manufactured on an industrial scale by the Nazis was first published after the war in 1946 by Zofia Nałkowska in her seminal Medallions (see Rudolf Spanner). It was not refuted for dozens of years in Polish official historiography. Alain Resnais, who treated the testimony of Holocaust survivors as fact, continued the accusation in his noted 1955 Holocaust documentary film Nuit et brouillard. Some postwar Israelis — in the army, schools, etc. — also referred disdainfully to Jewish victims of Nazism arrived to Israel with the Hebrew word סבון (sabon, "soap"). In fact, this offensive word was not linked to the rumors about the Nazi crimes and the human soap, but had the sense of "soft", "weaklings". Though evidence does exist of small-scale soap production, possibly experimental, in the camp at Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig/Gdansk, mainstream scholars of the Holocaust consider the idea that the Nazis manufactured soap on an industrial scale to be part of World War II folklore. Historian Israel Gutman has stated that "it was never done on a mass scale". In Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness Konnilyn Feig concludes that the Nazis "did indeed use human fat for the making of soap at Stutthof", albeit in limited quantity. Holocaust historian Robert Melvin Spector writes that "her analysis seems sound, given the known fact that the S.S. used everything it could obtain from its prisoners", including hair, skin and bones. In 2006 a sample of the soap archived at the International Court of Justice in The Hague was given for analysis to Andrzej Stołyhwo, an expert in the chemistry of fats from the Gdansk University of Technology in Poland. He concluded that some of the fat in the sample tested was of human origin. The sample of soap had previously been used as evidence in the post-World War II Nuremberg trials, but at the time the technology was unavailable to determine whether the soap had been produced from human fat. The human remains used to make the soap were believed to have been brought from Bydgoszcz and Stutthof concentration camp. Today Holocaust deniers employ this controversy to criticize the veracity of the Nazi genocide. Legacy: In the wake of the second world war, Rabbi David Polish wrote a poem, speaking of the Jewish soap: And on that day it will be, and one to one they shall gather in the valley of the bones: Human ashes from the furnaces, human vapor from Auschwitz, human parchments from the library of Satan himself, human soap, human unborn fetuses still without the human image... The master of all winds will command and bring forth a peddler to the world, who will gather us one to one, who will wonder around the world, and sell us for money, like precious ornaments, and not a high price shall he request. He shall announce his wares and call: "Who wishes to buy a souvenir—a memory from my memories? Little boys made of soap, or a rare parchment from the skin of the head of one of the biggest sages of Ashkenaz?" — Rabbi David Polish The BBC documentary about the death camps found during the end of the war shows similar atrocities including shrunken prisoner heads and preserved tattoos, recorded at a display in Buchenwald before the German people from Weimar after the camp's liberation. Several burial sites in Israel include graves for "soap made of Jewish victims by the Nazis". These are probably bars of RIF soap. Following a heated discussion on the media about these graves in 2003, Yad Vashem publicized Professor Yehuda Bauer's research saying that RIF soap was not made of human fat, and that the RIF myth was probably propagated by the Nazi guards to taunt the Jews. Yad Vashem includes an image of an emotional funeral and burial of "Jewish" soap in Romania. A small bar of soap was on display at the Nazareth holocaust memorial museum in Israel, and a similar bar of soap was buried in the "holocaust cellar" live-museum in mount Zion in Jerusalem, Israel, during the museum's inception in 1958. A replica was on display there. Following Professor Yehuda Bauer of Yad Vashem publicizing his conclusion that soap was not made in industrial quantities from the bodies of Jews or other Nazi camp inmates, Tom Segev, a "new historian" and anti-establishment Israeli author, wrote in his book "The Seventh Million" about the Holocaust-Cellar soap that it was "idol worshiping in Jerusalem".

maybe

i might go to a dance on Saturday with a friend. it would be nice

Bloody Mary (folklore)

I've heard this 1 several times. Bloody Mary is a folklore legend consisting of a ghost, phantom, or spirit conjured to reveal the future. She is said to appear in a mirror when her name is called three times. The Bloody Mary apparition may be benign or malevolent, depending on historic variations of the legend. The Bloody Mary appearances are mostly "witnessed" in group participation play. Ritual: Historically, the ritual encouraged young women to walk up a flight of stairs backwards holding a candle and a hand mirror, in a darkened house. As they gazed into the mirror, they were supposed to be able to catch a view of their future husband's face. There was, however, a chance that they would see a skull (or the face of the Grim Reaper) instead, indicating that they were destined to die before they would have the chance to marry. In the ritual of today, Bloody Mary allegedly appears to individuals or groups who ritualistically invoke her name in an act of catoptromancy. This is done by repeatedly chanting her name in a mirror placed in a dimly-lit or candle-lit room. The Bloody Mary apparition allegedly appears as a corpse, a witch or ghost; can be friendly or evil; and is sometimes "seen" covered in blood. The lore surrounding the ritual states that participants may endure the apparition screaming at them, cursing them, strangling them, stealing their soul, drinking their blood, or scratching their eyes out. The modern legend of Hanako-san in Japan strongly parallels the Bloody Mary mythology. A modern addition of taunting Bloody Mary regarding her baby indicates the legendary figure's conflation with the historic figure Queen Mary I, also known as "Bloody Mary", whose life was marked by a number of miscarriages or false pregnancies and is remembered for her violent religious reforms. Phenomenon explained: Staring into a mirror in a dimly-lit room for a prolonged period can cause one to hallucinate. Facial features may appear to "melt", distort, disappear, and rotate, while other hallucinatory elements, such as animal or strange faces, may appear. Giovanni Caputo writes that this phenomenon, which he calls the "strange-face illusion", is believed to be a consequence of a "dissociative identity effect", which causes the brain's facial-recognition system to misfire in an as-yet unidentified way. Other possible explanations for the phenomenon include illusions attributed, at least partially, to the perceptual effects of Troxler's fading, and possibly self-hypnosis. In popular culture: The legend of Bloody Mary has served as inspiration for a number of movies, television shows, and video games dealing with the supernatural.

caved

when my brother asked if i'd do a baptism for the dead for grandpa initially i said no since i wasn't sure if his sons would let me do it. i eventually caved and said i'd check. i was right. legally i caved because i wanted to do it i just needed my uncle's permission to do so since he was on the lawyers contact list.

Knitting needles

I'm getting some for a new hobby. It's nice, relaxing and relieves stress

My example

So I'd mentioned being mormon in dance class a few times and a few missionaries asked if anyone asked about it and I said no they didn't. The missionaries said that everyone will be inspired by my example

funny

i should've written and said this out loud in the mic when i gave my talk "bring in for extra credit".

pronounced correctly

yesterday in science class my last name was pronounced correctly. since graduating high school few people have pronounced it correctly. i've said it less and less and the person who said it correctly said he listened in attendance.

sleep in a tad

i slept in a bit this morning. i got 9 hours of sleep and since i took herbal tea and cold medicine i'm better. course my period likely helped me sleep like crazy.

Michael Blassie

Michael Joseph Blassie was an officer in the United States Air Force. Prior to the identification of his remains, Blassie was the unknown service member from the Vietnam War buried at the Tomb of the Unknowns and was awarded the Medal of Honor. Biography: After graduating from St. Louis University High School, Blassie entered the United States Air Force Academy, from which he graduated in 1970. He then attended Undergraduate Pilot Training, receiving his aeronautical rating as an Air Force pilot in 1971. He subsequently qualified as an A-37 Dragonfly pilot and served as a member of the 8th Special Operations Squadron, deployed to Southeast Asia. Blassie died when his A-37B Dragonfly was shot down near An Lộc in what was then South Vietnam. Vietnam Unknown: Partial skeletal remains were retrieved from the area of the crash five months after his aircraft was shot down and were initially identified by Mortuary Affairs as Blassie. The remains were reclassified as unknown when their projected age and height were judged not to match Blassie's. Blassie's remains were designated as the unknown service member from the Vietnam War by Medal of Honor recipient U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Allan J. Kellogg Jr. during a ceremony at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on May 17, 1984, and were transported aboard the USS Brewton to Naval Air Station Alameda. The remains were then sent to Travis Air Force Base on May 24, and arrived at Andrews Air Force Base the following day. Many Vietnam veterans, President Ronald Reagan, and First Lady Nancy Reagan visited Blassie as he lay in state in the U.S. Capitol. An Army caisson carried his coffin from the Capitol to the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, May 28, 1984. President Reagan presided over the funeral and presented the Medal of Honor to the Vietnam Unknown. The President also acted as next of kin by accepting the interment flag at the end of the ceremony. DNA identification had yet to advance to its current state when Blassie's remains were repatriated, and he lay in the Tomb of the Unknowns up to 1998, with visitors paying respects but unaware of his identity. A CBS News report in January 1998 claimed the Vietnam unknown was Blassie, and articles in U.S. Veteran Dispatch in 1994 and 1996 had made the same claim, drawing on Defense Department records. After Blassie's family secured permission, the remains of Blassie were exhumed on May 14, 1998. Based on mitochondrial DNA testing, Department of Defense scientists were able to identify Blassie's remains. On June 30, 1998, the Defense Department announced that the Vietnam Unknown had been identified. On July 10, Blassie's remains were transported to his family in Saint Louis, Missouri, and were later reinterred at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. The Medal of Honor bestowed upon him as the Vietnam Unknown was not transferred to Blassie after his remains were identified. Following the removal of Lt. Blassie's remains from the Tomb of the Unknowns, the marker at Arlington was replaced with one that read "Honoring and Keeping Faith with America's Missing Servicemen." Advances in technology, such as those that allowed the identification of Lt. Blassie, may lead to the eventual identification of all interments marked "unknown" from Vietnam.