Iraq and Syria Attempt To Record And Save Art Before It Falls To ISIS

In the areas of Iraq and Syria controlled by the Islamic State, residents are recording on cellphones the damage done to antiquities by the extremist group ISIS.

At Baghdad’s recently reopened National Museum of Iraq, new iron bars protect galleries of ancient artifacts from the worst-case scenario.

These are just a couple of examples of the continuing efforts to guard the treasures of Iraq and Syria, two countries rich with artifacts created in the world’s earliest civilizations, according to The New York Times.

Yet only so much can be done under fire, and time is running out as the Islamic State moves forward with the systematic looting and destruction of antiquities.

Last week, officials said, the group ISIS (aka ISIL, Daesh) demolished parts of two of northern Iraq’s’s most prized ancient cities, Nimrud and Hatra, according to the New York Times.

Sunday, residents said militants destroyed parts of Dur Sharrukin, a 2,800-year-old Assyrian site near the village of Khorsabad.

Islamic State militants have called ancient art idolatry to be destroyed.  However, they also steal art and antiquities to sell for money.

Officials and experts who track the thefts through local informants and satellite imagery, according to the New York Times.

More here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/world/middleeast/race-in-iraq-and-syria-to-record-and-shield-art-falling-to-isis.html

ISIS Jihadists Destroy Ancient Artifacts

A new video reportedly shows militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) destroying ancient artifacts at a museum in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

Militants in the footage are shown pushing statues to the floor and smashing others with hammers. The Guardian reports that a man speaking to the camera then aims to justify the acts, citing how they didn’t exist in the time of the Prophet Muhammad and were worshipped by “irreligious people.”

Islamic State militants armed with sledgehammers and jackhammers have destroyed the priceless ancient artifacts, according to Yahoo News.

Some archaeologists and heritage experts compared it to the 2001 demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

The United Nations’ cultural agency immediately demanded an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the matter.

Strange: Cuomo Government Has Mass E-mail Purge During Corruption Probe

Newsflash:  Democrats are not always clean.

The New York state government ordered e-mails to be deleted during corruption probe.

The IB Times reports, in a memo obtained by Capital New York, state officials announced that the mass purging of email records is beginning across several state government agencies.

The timing of the announcement, which is following through on a 2013 proposal, is worth noting: The large-scale destruction of state documents will be happening in the middle of a federal investigation of public corruption in New York.

As IB Times reports, earlier this month in New York, a fire tore through a warehouse full of old government records from the bygone paper era.

Many probably felt relief in thinking that such records are now often digitized and therefore not at risk of being accidentally incinerated. Yet as Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration is showing this week, many records are vulnerable to another form of destruction: deliberate deletion.

“The Cuomo administration has now fully implemented a policy of automatically deleting emails of rank-and-file state workers that are more than three months old, resulting in an effective purge of thousands of messages in recent days, according to Capital.

“According to memos obtained by Capital, mass deletions began Monday at several state agencies after officials finished consolidating 27 separate email platforms to a single, cloud-based system called Office 365. It lets I.T. administrators purge any older messages, and can be set up to do so each day.”

Sam Seder

Is There A College Tuition Crisis?

According to Ring of Fire, one of the biggest problems facing college students and recent graduates in the U.S. is the staggering amount of student loan debt that they have to carry to be able to attend school.

The threat of these debts are keeping millions of high school graduates out of college, but a new proposal from President Obama is aimed at changing this cycle.

America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio, and progressive radio and TV host David Pakman talk about this.

Ring of Fire

More:

http://college.usatoday.com/2014/10/09/viewpoint-6-real-fixes-for-the-student-loan-debt-crisis/

http://www.flatheadnewsgroup.com/hungryhorsenews/obama-talks-about-middle-class-economics/article_a7d6be9a-ae57-11e4-9c9f-5396a21fb95b.html