Controversial Boineros: IPS officer Safeer Karim

IPS officer Safeer Karim who was caught red-handed while cheating in the UPSC examination in Chennai, had trawled the darknet to find ways to beat invigilators at the exam centre.

Karim used a micro camera mounted on his chest and connected to Google drive. The camera would scan the paper and send through Google drive to the intended recipient, in this case, his wife Joicy Joyce who was in Hyderabad. 

Joyce would give the answer orally, which would reach him through Bluetooth. If the voice was not audible, he would write on a paper with a pencil, which he would scan again and send to his wife. She would then speak louder.

Controversial Boineros: Michael John Carroll

A New Zealand repeat rapist in jail for more than 30 years has turned a corner on his path back to society.

Michael John Carroll, who turns 61 this year, was significantly changed from the man who had been before the Parole Board a year ago, the board's most recent decision on him says.

He explains that as a result of graduating from the Te Hikoitanga programme at Hawke's Bay Regional Prison and being presented with his taiaha and mere (traditional Māori weapons). As a result, he accepts responsibility to conduct himself as a rangatira (Māori leader), in other words, to a high standard, the board said.

"He presents as a strikingly different man from the one that we last saw in May [2018] who was frustrated and angry with the position he found himself in."

Carroll said he was now ready to take any opportunities offered and do what he could to "progress" from prison, the board said.

He was one of two long-term inmates who took complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Committee on issues including the failure to provide timely rehabilitation and treatment to increase their chances of release. In Carroll's case it was said that abuse in a State-run hospital as a child had affected his ability to "engage" with treatment.

Controversial Boineros: Marco Kroon

Major Marinus Johannes "Marco" Kroon (1970) is a Dutch officer serving with the Korps Commandotroepen ("Commandos").

Kroon is one of only four living knights of the Military William Order and the first new member appointed to this very exclusive Dutch Order in over half a century. The Military William Order is the highest honour in the Netherlands, bestowed for "performing excellent acts of Bravery, Leadership and Loyalty in battle".

In January 2010, Kroon and his girlfriend were suspected of possession of drugs and of violating the gun law.

 In 2018 the public prosecutor (OM) started an investigation into an incident from 2007 in Afghanistan. Kroon stated that he had killed an enemy, who during an earlier secret operation, had captured him and had subjected him to brutal interrogations, mistreatment, rape and humiliation. When he coincidentally encountered the man again, the man reached for a firearm, upon which Kroon shot and killed the man. Kroon kept the incident to himself due to the secrecy of the operation.

On Carnival Sunday in Den Bosch, on 3 March 2019, an incident followed in which Marco Kroon was approached by police officers about peeing in public spaces. Kroon allegedly treated the officers on duty in a criminal manner and arrest followed. The Public Prosecution Service will prosecute Marco Kroon for this incident. One of the agents claims shock damage for seeing Kroon's penis. The judge referred the case to the multiple military chamber.

Because of the seriousness of these allegations, the Ministry of Defense has decided to suspend Major Kroon. That means that for the time being he is not allowed to do his work and may not wear his uniform, green beret included.

Controversial Boineros/as: Mary Katherine Letourneau

Mary Katherine Schmitz (formerly Letourneau; 1962) is an American former schoolteacher who pleaded guilty in 1997 to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child, Vili Fualaau, who was 12 or 13 at the time and had been her sixth-grade student.

While awaiting sentencing, she gave birth to Fualaau's child. With the state seeking a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence, she reached a plea agreement calling for six months in jail, with three months suspended, and no contact with Fualaau for life among other terms. The case received national attention.

Shortly after spending three months in jail, the police caught Letourneau in a car with Fualaau. A judge revoked her plea agreement and re-instated the prison sentence for the maximum allowed by law of seven-and-a-half years. Eight months after returning to prison, she gave birth to Fualaau's second child, another daughter. She was imprisoned from 1998 to 2004. Letourneau and Fualaau began a 14-year marriage in May 2005.

Controversial Boineros: Jimmy Savile

Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE KCSG (1926 –2011) was an English DJ, television and radio personality who hosted BBC shows including Top of the Pops and Jim'll Fix It.

He raised an estimated £40 million for charities and, during his lifetime, was widely praised for his personal qualities and as a fund-raiser.

After his death, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse were made against him, leading the police to conclude that Savile had been a predatory sex offender—possibly one of Britain's most prolific. There had been allegations during his lifetime, but they were dismissed, and accusers ignored or disbelieved; Savile took legal action against some accusers.

In January 2013, a joint report by the NSPCC and Metropolitan Police, Giving Victims a Voice, stated that 450 people had made complaints against Savile, with the period of alleged abuse stretching from 1955 to 2009 and the ages of the complainants at the time of the assaults ranging from 8 to 47.

Controversial Boineros: Tony Martin

British farmer Tony Martin killed Fred Barras, 16, and wounded accomplice Brendon Fearon, 29, with his unlicensed shotgun after he found them late at night inside his home in August 1999.

He was jailed for life for murder at Norwich Crown Court in April 2000, but later had his sentence reduced to five years for manslaughter.

Mr Martin's case provoked a national debate about the measures homeowners can take to defend their property.

The farmer, who is known for his eccentric behaviour, was finally released in 2003, but never returned to live in his derelict detached home on his 300-acres of land at Bleak House Farm.

Instead he is thought to have spent the last 12 years sleeping in his car and at the homes of friends.

Mr Martin has often spoken about how householders should have the right to protect themselves.

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken

Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken is a 1991 drama film directed by Steve Miner. The screenplay concerns Sonora Webster Carver, a rider of diving horses. Gabrielle Anwar stars as Carver alongside Michael Schoeffling and Cliff Robertson. It is based on events in her life as told in her memoir A Girl and Five Brave Horses.

During the Great Depression Sonora learns that because of her accidentally letting the cows loose and her suspension from school, her treasured horse Lightning has been sold and she will be placed in an orphanage. Instead, Sonora slips out of the house during the night. She ends up at a county fair and sees a performance by Marie, a diving girl who rides a horse off a platform and aspires to do the same.

Sonora keeps her eyes open as they fall into the water. Both make it, but her vision is impaired, which she hides. She continued diving for eleven more years with the audience never learning of her blindness.

Bernie Glassman

Bernie Glassman (1939 –2018) was an American Zen Buddhist roshi and founder of the Zen Peacemakers (previously the Zen Community of New York), an organization established in 1980.

In 1982 Glassman opened Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York, which initially provided jobs for the Zen students and evolved into an effort to help alleviate the widespread homelessness in the area. The bakery provided jobs for inner city residents who lacked education and skills.

Through the success of his bakery–which in 2016 was earning $12 million in revenues–Glassman founded the Greyston Foundation (sometimes called Greyston Mandala) with his wife Sandra Jishu Holmes in 1989. He retired from the Greyston Foundation in 1996 to pursue socially engaged Buddhist projects through the Zen Peacemakers.

In 1996, he co-founded the Zen Peacemaker Order with his wife. Glassman was a Dharma successor of the late Taizan Maezumi-roshi and gave inka and Dharma transmission to several people.

Glassman was known as a pioneer of social enterprise, socially engaged Buddhism and "Bearing Witness Retreats" at Auschwitz and on the streets.

Pär Fabian Lagerkvist

Pär Fabian Lagerkvist was a Swedish author who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1951. Lagerkvist wrote poems, plays, novels, stories, and essays of considerable expressive power and influence from his early 20s to his late 70s.

I wanted to know

but was only allowed to ask,

I wanted light

but was only allowed to burn

I demanded the ineffable

but was only allowed to live.

I complained,

but nobody understood what I meant.

Me And Mr Fuji

From the beautiful street photography website: “Me And MrFuji”.

"Cliff, a Hispanic security guard  with a maroon beret and loads of tattoos – very friendly guy, and he agreed to a photo too".

Charles Blackman (2)

Charles Blackman’s back to front and upside-down world made him a shooting star of Australian art.

Learning to read the news upside down and back to front seems like a fitting first job for a 13-year-old who would, as an artist, be renowned for his absurdist and dreamlike creations.

Blackman was an elfin, quixotic character, as hard to pin down as a shadow. His sudden pronouncements on life and art would be as entertaining as they were strangely profound.

Alcoholism wrought havoc on Blackman’s health, and he developed Korsakoff syndrome. But he could always come up with a line that surprised everyone, according to Sydney artist Marina Finlay, who modeled for Blackman.

“He said, ‘don’t draw what you see, draw what you feel,’” Finlay said.

“He was like a combination of the Mad Hatter and the rabbit. These amazing pearls of wisdom would drop out of his mouth.”

Perry Wolff

Perry Sidney Wolff, a pioneer in the development of the television documentary form, was born in Chicago in 1921.

Perry Wolff won numerous Emmy and  Peabody Awards during a long career as an executive producer for “CBS Reports” and other news programs, but after he retired from CBS news, he made a series of art films for public broadcasting, including Images of Jesus, which won the Religious Broadcast of the year award, Michelangelo Restored, The Impressionists, van Gogh, Picasso, and An Essay on Matisse, which was nominated for an Oscar in 1996.

In this video Perry Wolff discusses "A Tour of the White House" with Jackie Kennedy.

On SPECIAL this week, Basukuberē Berets!

The Japanese import Basukuberē Beret Series is a very different type of beret. 

The beret is typical Japanese style with a roomy hood, slightly plumb appearance and without a cabillou (or 'chobo' in Japanese). Made of a combination of polyester and rayon fibers, these berets are light and, while keeping your head warm in winter, literally very cool in summer. 

Fitted with a broad elastic band and internal drawstring to make the beret fully size adjustable, this beret comes in black and 3 colours. 

For one week only from $40.00 @ $32.00 (as long as stock lasts)! 

Fred Herzog

Fred Herzog (1930 –2019) devoted his artistic life to walking the streets of Vancouver as well as almost 40 countries with his Leica, photographing - mostly with colour slide film - his observations of the street life with all its complexities.

Fred was born Ulrich Herzog in Stuttgart, Germany in 1930 and spent his childhood in Rottweil, Germany. He lost both of his parents during and directly after the war, and in 1946 Herzog went to work as an apprentice in his grandparents' hardware store. Disillusioned by the ravages of war and the situation in Germany, he immigrated to Canada in 1952 and settled in Vancouver in 1953.

During the next several years. Herzog studied photography magazines while working aboard ships for the CPR steamship line, and in 1957 he was hired as a medical photographer at St. Paul's Hospital.

Herzog ultimately became celebrated internationally for his pioneering street photography, his understanding of the medium combined with, as he put it, "how you see and how you think" created the right moment to take a picture.

Hangover versus New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year to you all, Boineros and Boineras!

If this New Year's celebration has been a bit much, you probably failed to have worn a suitable Reality Shield... So, the first thing to do is take care of your poor head.

And what better way to do so than by getting yourself a new beret? 

The choice is bigger than ever at South Pacific Berets!

Champagne

Champagne is sparkling wine. Many people use the term Champagne as a generic term for sparkling wine but in many countries, it is illegal to label any product Champagne unless it both comes from the Champagne region and is produced under the rules of the appellation. 

Where EU protectionism laws apply, this alcoholic drink is produced from grapes grown in the Champagne region of France following rules that demand, among other things, secondary fermentation of the wine in the bottle to create carbonation, specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from specific parcels in the Champagne appellation and specific pressing regimes unique to the region.

Primarily, the grapes Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay are used in the production of almost all Champagne, but a tiny amount of pinot blanc, pinot gris, arbane, and petit meslier are vinified as well. Champagne appellation law allows only grapes grown according to appellation rules in specifically designated plots within the appellation to be used in the production of Champagne.

Throne

Throne:

noun

1. 1.

   
   

   a ceremonial chair for a sovereign, bishop, or similar figure.

   "King Solomon's great ivory throne"

   
   

   synonyms:

   seat of state, royal seat "a golden throne"

Buildings with Beret

Stockholm, Sweden ©Frans Baert

Will Alsop’s award-winning Peckham Library

Cason Hotel, Spain