The Roving Reporter : 1,000 Years After This Dark Age Anglo-Saxon Queen Died, Archaeologists Made An Astounding Discovery

In 924, Edith’s half-brother, Athelstan, succeeded to the English throne after Edward the Elder’s death. His mother was Edward’s first wife, Ecgwynn, one of the more obscure figures in English royal history. And after Athelstan took the crown of England, European affairs began to impinge on the young woman’s life.

This happened when Henry the Fowler, King of the East Franks, decided it would be a good idea to unite with the English crown. East Francia occupied territory which now lies in modern Germany. According to legend, the monarch was named “the Fowler” because he was engaged in snaring birds when he heard he was to be ruler.

Henry then proposed to Athelstan that his eldest son, Otto, marry one of the English King’s half-sisters. This was one way of strengthening ties between the two kingdoms. The King, in fact, chose two half-sisters for a potential royal wedding: Edith and her sibling Edgiva. The pair then travelled to East Francia to meet their potential husband. Once there, Henry’s heir simply picked the woman he found most pleasing as his future wife.

In those days, royal marriages tended to be matters of high politics rather than romance. Otto evidently preferred Edith, as it was she he chose to marry. And well he might have done. A 2010 article about her in The Guardian quoted the words of tenth century German nun and poet, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim.

Describing Edith, Hrotsvitha wrote, “In fact, she was so very highly regarded in her own country that public opinion unanimously rated her the best woman who existed at that time in England.” A glowing tribute indeed… Even though no one was likely to utter an unkind word about a princess in tenth century Germany.

So Edith and Otto duly married in 930. In 936, a stroke killed Henry the Fowler, which may well have been welcome news for Germany’s bird population. For Otto, though, it meant that he now became the King of the Franks. And the tidings propelled Edith into the position of Otto’s queen at around 25 years old. The Wessex girl was now the Queen of Germany, or at any rate, East Francia.

Otto I went on to become known as Otto the Great. This accolade came about because of his success continuing Henry’s work in uniting the disparate tribes of Germany under his rule. He also took control of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. And he would go on to become Holy Roman Emperor from 962.

But by the time Otto became Holy Roman Emperor, Edith had already been dead for some 16 years. Her unexpected death came when she was only in her middle thirties, in January 946. We don’t know a great deal about how the queen occupied her time on the German throne. It’s said, though, that she was active in charitable works involving gifts to various religious institutions.

During Edith’s reign, she also gave Otto two children, a son and a daughter. Liudolf was born in 930, the very year the royal couple married. He died of a fever aged only 27 while invading Italy. The daughter, born in 932, was Liutgarde. She married Conrad the Red and died in 953 when she was only 22. Early death, it seems, was an occupational hazard of being born in the Middle Ages.

Edith was originally interred in the Benedictine Monastery of St Maurice. This was an institution that she and Otto had founded in Magdeburg in 937. St Maurice is believed to have been an Egyptian Christian who served in the Roman Army in the third century, rising to the rank of commander of 1,000 legionaries. He later died as a martyr for refusing to attack fellow Christians.

But the St Maurice monastery was not to be Edith’s final resting place. Her remains were, in fact, moved three times or more over the years until their re-interrment in 1510 at Magdeburg Cathedral. And there they remained, as far as anyone knew, for the next 500 years. Then, in 2008, German archaeologists prepared to open her tomb.

To be continued : 
The Roving Reporter

The Roving Reporter : 1,000 Years After This Dark Age Anglo-Saxon Queen Died, Archaeologists Made An Astounding Discovery

As we saw earlier, the strong assumption was that her tomb would actually be empty. Researchers thought it was likely to be a cenotaph, a memorial with no actual remains inside. The scientists first opened the stone sarcophagus. Inside that was a lead coffin. And the coffin had a Latin inscription on its lid.

The inscription read “Edit Regine Cineres Hic Sarcophagvs Habet…” which translates as “The remains of Queen Eadgyth are in this sarcophagus…” And once the archaeologists opened the lead coffin, much to their amazement, they did indeed find human remains. A remarkably well-preserved shroud of fine silk covered the ancient bones.

In the 2010 Guardian piece, historian and author Michael Wood described what the researchers found in the coffin. “Under the crumpled folds was a small, slim frame, slightly bent at the knees, like a child asleep,” he wrote. But this was not enough to convince scientists that the remains were definitely those of Edith.

A 2010 article on the University of Bristol website quoted Professor Harald Meller, project director from the German Saxony-Anhalt Heritage Management and Archaeology state office. He described the uncertainties that surround archaeological finds such as this. The professor also pointed out the difficulty of being sure of a particular identity for the bones.

Medieval bones were moved frequently and often mixed up. So it required some exceptional science to prove that they are indeed those of [Edith],” the professor said. That meant the next step in matching these bones to the historical figure required some high-tech scientific analysis. First stop for the remains was Germany’s University of Mainz.

In Mainz, Professor Kurt Alt examined the bones and was able to state categorically that they belonged to one female for whom death had come between the ages of 30 and 40. Alt was even able to say that one of the thigh bones offered strong evidence that she often rode horses. That meant the woman was more than likely from the upper echelon of her society. Just like Edith.

It’s worth noting that the skeleton of the woman from the Magdeburg lead coffin was far from complete. The feet, hands and a large portion of the skull were not present. Scientists think the bones perhaps fell foul to a common practise in medieval times ‒ removal and use as relics.

But further analysis of the bones required that the remains travel to England. If the skeleton did indeed belong to Edith, it would be her first visit to the country of her birth for more than 1,000 years. The remains from the coffin in the Magdeburg Cathedral then made their way to the University of Bristol.

Bristol University was the place where staff had the necessary expertise and equipment to perform an in-depth analysis of the ancient remains. Initial investigations, though, were not encouraging. Carbon dating produced a result that was two centuries older than the cathedral remains should be. But the fabrics in the coffin did exhibit the correct dates. This was puzzling.

Sadly, attempts to extract DNA from the bones failed, due to their lack of preservation. But the scientists persevered, now turning to a different technique. And that involved advanced analysis of the teeth found in the coffin. In fact, one of the only parts of the skull found in the tomb was the upper jaw, along with some teeth.

This particular technique involved analyzing the chemical compositions, or isotopes, of oxygen and strontium that all teeth contain. These chemical fingerprints build up as the dental structures develop over time. And the isotopes vary according to the environment and geological make-up of where an individual has lived.

The Roving Reporter

UN stands up for pro-choice and the right to safe abortions

 

The United Nations human rights office called on U.S. authorities Tuesday to ensure that women have access to safe abortions, saying bans lead to risky underground abortions that can endanger a woman’s life.
“We are very concerned that several U.S. states have passed laws severely restricting access to safe abortion for women, including by imposing criminal penalties on the women themselves and on abortion service providers,” U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told Reuters Television in Geneva.
Evidence and experience have shown that complete bans on abortions do not reduce their number, but drive them underground “jeopardizing the life, health and safety of the women concerned,” she said.
Such bans are also “inherently discriminatory,” affecting women who are poor, from minority backgrounds or other marginalized communities, Shamdasani added.
“So we are calling on the United States and all other countries to ensure that women have access to safe abortions. At an absolute minimum, in cases of rape, incest and fetal anomaly, there needs to be safe access to abortions,” she said.
The UN call came as hundreds of abortion-rights campaigners, including Democrats seeking their party’s 2020 presidential nomination, rallied in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to protest new restrictions on abortion passed by Republican-dominated legislatures in eight states.
Many of the restrictions are intended to draw legal challenges, which religious conservatives hope will lead the nation’s top court to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.
“We are not going to allow them to move our country backward,” U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, one of the two dozen Democrats running for president, told the crowd through a megaphone.
The rally is one of scores scheduled for Tuesday around the country by the American Civil Liberties Union, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and otherabortion rights group. The protests are a response to laws passed recently by Republican state legislatures that amount to the tightest restrictions on abortion seen in the United States in decades.

Missouri is one of eight states where Republican-controlled legislatures this year have passed new restrictions on abortion. It is part of a coordinated campaign aimed at prompting the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court to cut back or overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide and recognized a right under the U.S. Constitution for women to terminate pregnancies.
The most restrictive of those bills was signed into law in Alabama last week. It bans abortion at all times and in almost all cases, including when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest, but allows exceptions when the mother’s life is in danger.
Anti-abortion advocates are aware that any laws they pass are certain to be challenged. But supporters of the Alabama ban said the right to life of the fetus transcended other rights, an idea they would like tested at the Supreme Court.
Alabama passed an outright ban last week, including for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, unless the woman’s life is in danger, while other states, including Ohio and Georgia, have banned abortions absent a medical emergency after six weeks of pregnancy or after the fetus’s heartbeat can be detected, which can occur before a woman even realizes she is pregnant.

Protesters outside the Supreme Court waved signs saying “We won’t be punished” and “Protect Safe, Legal Abortion” and were joined by Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend, Indiana, mayor who also is vying for the 2020 nomination.
“My entire campaign is about freedom,” he said in a brief interview.
U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley also was a featured speaker, telling the crowd: “This nation was built on the backs and grown in the wombs of women, and our rights are not up for debate.” 
U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican who opposes abortion, has seized on the issue as one likely to fire up his core supporters.
The restrictive new laws are contrary to the Roe v. Wade ruling, which affords a woman the right to an abortion up to the moment the fetus would be viable outside the womb, which is usually placed at about seven months, or 28 weeks, but may occur earlier.
The bans have been championed by conservatives, many of them Christian, who say fetuses should have rights comparable to those of infants and view abortion as tantamount to murder. The Supreme Court now has a 5-4 conservative majority following two judicial appointments by Trump.
A federal judge in Mississippi on Tuesday heard arguments in a lawsuit challenging the state’s new fetal-heartbeart abortion law. District Judge Carlton Reeves asked questions suggesting he thought the new law to be even more unconstitutional than the state’s 15-week abortion ban he struck down last year.
And so the arguments go on and on. The one hundred and sixty two million women of the United States should vote as a body on this issue.... The one hundred and fifty seven million men should butt out.



United Nations Report claims one million species on verge of extinction

 

In a sweeping, first-of-its-kind report, the United Nations on Monday said that more species now are threatened with extinction than at any time in human history, and that the exploding human population has severely altered the Earth's land, ocean and freshwater regions.  

 “While the planetary garden still exists,” Thomas Lovejoy of George Mason University said about the report, “it is in deep disrepair, frayed and fragmented almost beyond recognition."

The report said 1 million of the planet's 8 million species of plants and animals are at risk of going extinct in the near future. Scientists blame human activities that have led to loss of habitat, climate change, overfishing, pollution and invasive species.

The pace of species loss “is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years," according to the report.  

 

For the past week, about 450 scientists met in Paris to come up with the 1,500-page report. The summary from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPEBS) was unanimously approved by more than 130 nations, including the United States

"The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture," IPBES Chair Sir Robert Watson said. "The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide."  Killing off animals and plants can threaten humanity's own future as the food chain and eco-systems collapse

The report says humans are ravaging the planet by: 

• Turning forests, grasslands and other areas into farms, cities and other developments. The habitat loss leaves plants and animals homeless.
• Overfishing the world’s oceans. A third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished.
• Permitting climate change from the burning of fossil fuels to make it too hot, wet or dry for some species to survive. 
• Polluting land and water.
• Allowing invasive species to crowd out native plants and animals. 

Habitats of Rain Forest Orangutans are being destroyed and cleared for human use. Their numbers

are dwindling rapidly

“Humanity, unwittingly, is attempting to throttle the living planet and humanity’s own future,” said Lovejoy, who has been called the godfather of biodiversity for his research

The report isn't all doom and gloom, however, as it offers a solution, radical and challenging though it may be: "The report also tells us that it is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global," Watson said.

"Through 'transformative change', nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably – this is also key to meeting most other global goals," Watson said. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values." 

Many of the worst effects can be prevented by changing the way we grow food, produce energy, deal with climate change and dispose of waste, the report said. That involves concerted action by governments, companies and people.

Lovejoy added that "the biological diversity of this planet has been really hammered, and this is really our last chance to address all of that,” he said.

The group is modeled after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has met every few years since the 1990s to confront the effects of global warming. 

Contributing: The Associated Press

 

 



Howdy Sweetie

Hello ,
Just a note  to let you know  how precious  you are to us  .
Had to change  my email address  ... it's on WAG ....also sent you an email .
Love you girl.
NEE

Mueller concludes Russia probe, delivers report to AG Barr

The Associated Press                 Mar 22nd 2019 
WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday turned over his long-awaited final report on the contentious Russia investigation that has cast a dark shadow over Donald Trump's presidency, entangled Trump's family and resulted in criminal charges against some of the president's closest associates.

The comprehensive report, still confidential, marks the end of Mueller's probe but sets the stage for big public fights to come. The next steps are up to Trump's attorney general, to Congress and, in all likelihood, federal courts.

The Justice Department said Mueller delivered his final report to Attorney General William Barr and officially concluded his probe of Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates. The report will now be reviewed by Barr, who has said he will write his own account communicating Mueller's findings to Congress and the American public.

Barr said he could send his account to Congress quickly.

"I am reviewing the report and anticipate that I may be in a position to advise you of the special counsel's principal conclusions as soon as this weekend," Barr said in his letter the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

With no details released at this point, it's not known whether Mueller's report answers the core questions of his investigation: Did Trump's campaign collude with the Kremlin to sway the 2016 presidential election in favor of the celebrity businessman? Also, did Trump take steps later, including by firing his FBI director, to obstruct the probe?

But the delivery of the report does mean the investigation has concluded without any public charges of a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and Russia, or of obstruction by the president.

It's unclear what steps Mueller will take if he uncovered what he believes to be criminal wrongdoing by Trump, in light of Justice Department legal opinions that have held that sitting presidents may not be indicted.

The mere delivery of a confidential report will set off immediate demands, including in the Democratic-led House, for full release of Mueller's findings. Barr has said he wants to make as much public as possible, and any efforts to withhold details will prompt a tussle between the Justice Department and lawmakers who may subpoena Mueller and his investigators to testify before Congress. Such a move by Democrats would likely be vigorously contested by the Trump administration.

The conclusion of Mueller's investigation does not remove legal peril for the president. Trump faces a separate Justice Department investigation in New York into hush money payments during the campaign to two women who say they had sex with him years before the election. He's also been implicated in a potential campaign finance violation by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who says Trump asked him to arrange the transactions. Federal prosecutors, also in New York, have been investigating foreign contributions made to the president's inaugural committee.

No matter the findings in Mueller's report, the investigation has already illuminated Russia's assault on the American political system, painted the Trump campaign as eager to exploit the release of hacked Democratic emails and exposed lies by Trump aides aimed at covering up their Russia-related contacts. Over the 21-month investigation, Mueller has brought charges against 34 people, including six aides and advisers to the president, and three companies.

The special counsel brought a sweeping indictment accusing Russian military intelligence officers of hacking Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign and other Democratic groups during the 2016 election. He charged another group of Russians with carrying out a large-scale social media disinformation campaign against the American political process that also sought to help Trump and hurt Clinton.

Closer to the president, Mueller secured convictions against a campaign chairman who cheated banks and dodged his taxes, a national security adviser who lied about his Russian contacts and a campaign aide who misled the FBI about his knowledge of stolen emails.

Cohen, the president's former lawyer, pleaded guilty in New York to campaign finance violations arising from the hush money payments and in the Mueller probe to lying to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal. Another Trump confidant, Roger Stone, is awaiting trial on charges that he lied about his pursuit of Russian-hacked emails ultimately released by WikiLeaks. It's unclear whether any of the aides who have been convicted, all of whom have pleaded guilty and cooperated with the investigators, might angle for a pardon. Trump has left open the idea of pardons.

Along the way, Trump lawyers and advisers repeatedly evolved their public defenses to deal with the onslaught of allegations from the investigation. Where once Trump and his aides had maintained that there were no connections between the campaign and Russia, by the end of the probe Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was routinely making the argument that even if the two sides did collude, it wasn't necessarily a crime. The goalpost shifting reflected the administration's challenge in adopting a singular narrative to fend off allegations.

Equally central to Mueller's work is his inquiry into whether the president tried to obstruct the investigation. Since the special counsel's appointment in May 2017, Trump has increasingly tried to undermine the probe by calling it a "witch hunt" and repeatedly proclaiming there was "NO COLLUSION" with Russia. But Trump also took certain acts as president that caught Mueller's attention and have been scrutinized for possible obstruction.

One week before Mueller's appointment, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, later saying he was thinking of "this Russia thing" at the time.

He mercilessly harangued Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing from the Russia investigation two months before Mueller was named special counsel, a move that left the president without a perceived loyalist atop the probe. And he helped draft a misleading statement on Air Force One as a Trump Tower meeting between his eldest son and a Kremlin-connected lawyer was about to become public.

The meeting itself became part of Mueller's investigation, entangling Donald Trump Jr. in the probe. Mueller's team also interviewed the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, multiple times.

Even as Trump blasted Mueller's team, his White House and campaign produced thousands of documents for the special counsel, and dozens of his aides were interviewed. The president submitted written answers to Mueller regarding the Russia investigation, but he refused to be interviewed.

Witchy's opinion  :
At last !!!   The country has truly been torn apart while all this was going on.
 We NEED closure - whatever it says .   They need to do a public service announcement first, warning people of mass suicides of liberal guys once their Russian men fantasies are shattered with Mueller's  of a report.   If  Trump  guilty or if he's innocent ...disclose the report to the Citizens !!!!!   Why did Trump do his very best to protest and attack Muller if he is innocent ???  You may have beat Hillary in the election Trump ... but she is way more powerful than you will ever be when it comes to political muscle !  The real story is that the Russians have never stopped attacking us and the Republicans have done NOTHING to ensure the integrity of the coming election.
87% of AMERICA DEMAND to see that REPORT! 
Until next time  Nuff  said.

Howdy Cutie

Howdy  Sweetie ,
Wrapped  you in a 'Rose' to keep you warm  and let you  know  everyone down here is thinking of you  we all want you to know  how much you are missed .

Note  on Wag
Love  NEE