Israeli Proposal to Commemorate Armenian Genocide Causes Tension

At Los Angeles Times, "Tension over Israeli proposal to commemorate Armenian genocide."

Also at New York Times, "Turkey's Leader Counters French Law With Accusations of Colonial-Era Genocide."

Romney Used a 'Bucket' When He Was a Mormon Missionary in France in the 1960s

Well, that's just going to sink his candidacy.

At London's Daily Mail, "Too much information, Mitt!":

Mitt Romney is seen as a boring and risk-averse candidate by many voters, so this latest nugget of information might turn a few heads.

The GOP presidential candidate has revealed he defecated into a bucket while serving as a Mormon missionary in France in the 1960s.

Mr Romney spent two and half years knocking on doors as he was greeted by locals with guns, or their barking dogs chasing at his heels.

‘A number of the apartments I lived in when I was there didn’t have toilets,’ he said in Hudson, New Hampshire, reported the New York Times.

‘We had instead the little pads on the ground. OK, you know how that works. There was a chain behind you. It was kind of a bucket affair.’

They used to bathe by using a hose in a sink. ‘I said to myself: “Wow, I’m sure lucky to be born in the United States of America”,’ Mr Romney said.

More at that link.

That's just the way they do it over there, Mitt. You're making it sound more gnarly that it is.

On This Date

On January 13, 1898, the French writer Emile Zola published his famous letter,"J'accuse," in the French daily L'Aurore. Zola's letter exposed the Dreyfus Affair, in which a young Jewish officer was accused of treason for passing secrets to the Germans - a crime he did not commit. But he was railroaded by anti-semitic prosecutors and sent to Devil's Island. When the real culprit (a gentile) was identified, the Army sought to protect itself by suppressing the evidence against him and fabricating documents to point the finger at Dreyfus. Zola's brave letter (it was not fashionable to defend Jews at that time in France), though not the first publication to defend Dreyfus, garnered world-wide attention, which forced the case to be re-opened. After a second trial, which split public opinion between the openly anti-semitic media and the "Dreyfusards," including (in addition to Zola) Anatole France and Henri Poincare, Dreyfus finally was exonerated. A week later he was made a Knight in the Legion of Honour as a "soldier who has endured an unparalleled martyrdom." He went on to serve in World War I and finished his military career at the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.