Barrie Schwortz was the Official Documenting Photographer for the Shroud of Turin Research Project, the team that conducted the first in-depth scientific examination of the Shroud in 1978. Today, he plays an influential role in Shroud research and education as the editor and founder of the internationally recognized Shroud of Turin Website (www.shroud.com), the oldest, largest and most extensive Shroud resource on the Internet, with more than ten million visitors from over 160 countries.

In 2009 he founded the Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association, Inc. (STERA, Inc.), a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, to which he donated the website and his extensive Shroud photographic collection, as well as many other important Shroud resources, in order to preserve and maintain these materials and make them available for future research and study. He currently serves as the Executive Director of STERA, Inc.

Mr. Schwortz has conducted Shroud lectures around the world. He has appeared in programs and documentaries on every major broadcast television network, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, the National Geographic Channel, CNN, PBS, the BBC, Fox News, the Coast to Coast AM radio show, Catholic answers radio and Vatican Radio. His photographs have appeared in hundreds of books and publications including Life Magazine, National Geographic, Time

Magazine and Newsweek and in countless television documentaries. He has written many Shroud articles and papers that have been published in periodicals or presented at conferences around the world, the most recent in the March 2010 issue of Catholic Digest. He continues to participate in Shroud research with experts around the world and co-authored a book with Ian Wilson titled, “The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence” that was published in August 2000 by Michael O’Mara Books,Ltd., London, and distributed by Barnes & Noble in the U.S.Barrie Schwortz began his professional photographic career upon graduating from Brooks Institute of Photography in 1971. He operated an award winning commercial photographic studio specializing in product, food, advertising, technical and editorial illustration for fifteen years and founded his firstvideo production company, Educational Video, Inc., in May of 1978.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1985, Mr. Schwortz became more involved in the entertainment field.

He was the editor and post-production supervisor for the best selling 17 episode “Rocky and Bullwinkle” home video series for Buena Vista Home Video (Disney), which garnered a Silver Medal for Best Children’s Video at the 1992 International Film and Video Festival. He co-produced, directed and edited “Money, History In Your Hands,” a home video program starring James Earl Jones that won the Parent’s Choice Video of the Year award in 1995 as well as two Silver Screen Awards at the International Film and Video Festival in 1996. The program was broadcast on PBS in 1999.

From 1987 to 2001, Mr. Schwortz was an independent imaging consultant to the Laser Research and Technology Development Laboratory at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He employed video, still photography, high speed cinematography and microscopy in imaging research projects with major universities, hospitals and medical device manufacturers and produced hundreds of presentations for the medical field, including slide and video programs that taught new surgical techniques to surgeons. In 1998, he developed two digital imaging protocols that were accepted and approved for use in clinical trials by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and his company served as Core

Laboratory for one of those trials. His clients have included many of the largest corporations in the

world and his presentations have been shown at major medical and scientific conferences worldwide and to the FDA, U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

In recent years, due to the slow abandonment of medical-marijuana research and the increasing politicization of the drug laws, the number of federally permitted users has dwindled nearly to zero. Many research programs were discontinued during the Eighties “Just Say No” campaign led by first lady Nancy Reagan, and under the Clinton administration the incarceration of marijuana users and small-time drug users greatly accelerated

Yet throughout the same period, public sentiment and even state and local laws have grown increasingly tolerant of marijuana use, especially for medical purposes. In 1988, Drug Enforcement Agency administrative law judge Francis Young concluded that “marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.” Since 1996, 14 states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Rhode Island, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont) have legalized state medical-marijuana programs — with a consequent backlash from the federal government. According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, when the Bush administration took office federal drug enforcement officials acted against more than 35 medicinal-marijuana patients, cooperatives, and providers in California alone.

Since 1991, George McMahon has smoked 10 marijuana cigarettes every day (a quarter ounce in all) to relieve pain and nausea, and to help him sleep. Accordingly, the U.S. government provides McMahon with seven and a half ounces per month. (These are rough estimates, since the marijuana supplied by the government is of poor quality, and McMahon estimates that in cleaning it, he loses about 25%.) Since he first gained access to the Investigational New Drug program in Iowa, he must make the long drive from Tyler to Iowa every three or four months for a new supply of pot, which is actually grown at the University of Mississippi under the supervision of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The cost to the government of growing the marijuana is negligible, so McMahon is not charged for his share.

Before he began smoking marijuana, McMahon was taking nearly 20 different medications — a total of 51 pills daily. The cost, as well as the numerous side effects, was too much for him to bear. “All those pills damaged my stomach and made it nearly impossible to eat, as I was continually nauseated. Now I only take one medication. It’s all I need.”

McMahon explains how the marijuana works for him. Each morning, most of the pain he suffers subsides after he smokes his first joint upon awaking. Throughout the day, he smokes when he feels the need to relieve his recurring pains caused by his weak, brittle bones. Smoking before meals, he says, restores his fragile appetite.

In 1997, the doctor monitoring McMahon’s condition wrote, “I do feel that [McMahon] continues to benefit from marijuana and hope that we can continue providing [him] with marijuana medication.” Asked recently about his overall state of health, McMahon replied, “I am alive, with some quality of life. I do not ask what my doctor thinks. I am not interested in any treatment or drug. So my health is what it is, today — how long I will live, no one knows. As long as I smoke MJ I am fairly comfortable.”

McMahon has followed his routine with the aid of his wife, Margaret. “Margaret is my other half,” he says. “Without her, I wouldn’t have made it this long. She takes care of me when I cannot take care of myself.” In the years since McMahon began using medicinal marijuana, George and Margaret have traveled the country to discuss the issue with college students, professors, and medical associations, and he has also testified at congressional hearings. Recently, he testified in a lawsuit that reached the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — the court ruled that in moving to revoke a physician’s license for recommending medical marijuana, the federal government had violated the First Amendment.

In the early Nineties, in honor of his personal campaign promoting the availability of medical marijuana for all patients who need it, McMahon was awarded a certificate of heroism from the president’s Drug Awareness Program. The certificate was signed by Nancy Reagan.

Karen Hinton is the President of Hinton Communications, a public relations firm based in Washington, DC. Since 2000, her company has provided media relations, media training and event planning services to corporate, non-profit and government clients. Her expertise is promoting advocacy issues through the news media and media-related events. She previously worked as Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo. Before that, she served as Secretary Cuomo’s Senior Advisor for Communications. As the Vice President for External Affairs for New American Schools, Hinton led the communications, advocacy and fundraising arms of one of the nation’s leaders in educational consulting. She served as Press Secretary for former U.S. Congressman and Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy and as Director of Marketing/Communications for the D.C. Public School System. Hinton also worked as a senior account executive for two prominent public relations firms, Conway & Company in Washington, DC and The Gable Group in San Diego, California.

LAURA GARR

Laura Garr is a legal consultant to Ecuadorian indigenous and farmer communities suing Chevron for oil-related contamination in the Amazon rainforest, considered the largest oil-related eco-disaster on the planet. Ms. Garr graduated (Magna Cum Laude(include this?)) from Fordham University School of Law where she was a Stein Scholar for the Public Interest, and a member of the Leitner Center Human Rights Clinic and Feerick Center for Social Justice. She co-authored, “Rights-Based Sex Worker Empowerment Guidelines: An Alternative HIV/AIDS Intervention Approach to the 100% Condom Use Programme,” as a formal response to the April 2007 UN Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work and “Rainforest Chernobyl Revisited. The Clash of Human Rights and Investor Claims: Chevron’s Abusive Litigation in Ecuador’s Amazon.” She has conducted humanitarian fieldwork in Kenya, India, and Ecuador. Previously, Ms. Garr worked as a Case Manager in New York City for people experiencing homelessness.

When Israeli commandos boarded the Sfendoni, Paul non-violently resisted, refused to sign any papers without his lawyer and as a result the Israelis tased, tied-up, twisted his limbs, slammed his head into concrete repeatedly, and hit him with a flash bomb. Paul suffered multiple bruises, 2 black eyes, but refused to be treated by Israeli doctors as he did not trust them, especially since he suffers from Diabetes and needed special treatment and compatible medication. Paul was kept in prison for two days at Givon Prison, Ramle, Israel.

In Paul’s own words:

“The wrath of other nations might be a reasonable price for us to bear if Israel were pursuing a policy of peace with justice. It is not. Israeli policy is and always has been to apply pain and suffering to get what it wants, whether by torturing and killing humanitarian aid volunteers, by maintaining its cruel blockade against 1.5 million Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, or by making millions of Palestinians homeless, confiscating their lands, and destroying lives.

Neither Americans nor Israelis would stand still for such treatment, so why should Turks, Greeks, Palestinians or anyone else? Why should Israeli thugs be allowed to push around and abuse ordinary citizens anywhere?”

The Shministim (Hebrew for “twelfth-graders”) are an informal group of young Israelis who openly declare their refusal to join the Israeli military. Every year, the Shministim sign a different letter, a tradition harkening back to the 1970s when the first Shministim class expressed their dissent in a letter to Prime Minister Golda Meir. The 2008 letter, signed by both Maya and Netta, declares, “We cannot be moral and serve the occupation.”

MAYA WIND

Maya Yechieli Wind, 19, grew up in Jerusalem during the second Intifada, where she was raised in a secular home but educated in religious schools. Her first experience with conflict resolution was at age fifteen in “Face to Face” – a dialogue group for Israeli and Palestinian youth. Later she became involved in various co-existence initiatives in the West Bank. She joined the Shministim in December 2008 and refused to serve in the Israeli army. She spent several weeks in detention and forty days in military prison and was exempted in March 2009. Today she works for Rabbis for Human Rights, and guides political tours in East Jerusalem and the West Bank for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. She also co-leads the Jerusalem dialogue youth group of New Profile, the feminist movement for the demilitarization of Israel.

This is the statement she read before going to jail:

At first, like many other Israeli citizens, I too could not bring myself to confront or criticize the Israeli military’s immoral actions. I realize that this difficulty originated from my sense of identification with soldiers my own age, to whom I could relate. Today it is precisely this realization that leads me to refuse to serve. I cannot recognize the humanity of Israelis but not that of Palestinians. It is because of my deep sense of commitment and responsibility to the community in which I grew up that I am refusing to contribute to this cycle of bloodshed.

We can no longer term our military a “Defense Force.” A defense force does not conquer lands of another people. A defense force does not assist in the building of settlements on those lands. A defense force does not permit settlers to throw stones at Palestinian civilians, nor does it deny them access to their lands and source of livelihood. None of these are acts of a defense force.

The occupation has no defensive advantages. On the contrary, the pointless occupation of millions of people only leads to radicalization of opinions, hatred and the escalation of violence. Violence is a cycle that feeds into itself. This cycle will not stop until someone stands up and refuses uncompromisingly to take part in it.

This is what I am doing today.

My views are also relevant to the current operation in Gaza. One form of violence cannot stop another. This current violence is the result of decades of ongoing occupation of the territories and sieges on Gaza since the disengagement. I mourn the unnecessary deaths of both Palestinians and Israelis.

Yet again we have chosen war.

But there is a way out. As Perkins makes clear, we can create a healthy economy that will encourage businesses to act responsibly, not only in the interests of their shareholders and corporate partners (and the lobbyists they have in their pockets), but in the interests of their employees, their customers, the environment, and society at large.

We can create a society that fosters a just, sustainable, and safe world for us and our children. Each one of us makes these choices every day, in ways that are clearly spelled out in this book.

“We hold the power,” he says, “if only we recognize it.” Hoodwinked is a powerful polemic that shows not only how we arrived at this precarious point in our history but also what we must do to stop the global tailspin.

Amb. Peck has been highly critical of U.S. policy toward Israel, arguing through the Council for the National Interest (CNI) in which he plays an active role, that the U.S. should be more even handed in its Middle East policy. He claims that in 2000, at the Camp David talks, Israel offered the Palestinians “12 little Bantustans.” His speech was publicized in a documentary produced by an organization, If Americans Knew, a non-profit organization that focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict and United States foreign policy regarding the Middle East.

In May 2010, Peck was among the pro-Palestinian activists in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla trying to break through Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Peck was not harmed in Israel’s raid; he reported he was brought to Israel “at gunpoint” and expelled the same day for “having illegally entered Israel”; he flew to Newark, New Jersey.

JANET KOBREN, co-founder of the Free Palestine Movement, is a Jewish American living in Oakland, California, a former public high school math teacher and information technology professional who has worked on numerous social justice, environmental, housing justice, democratic media, and human rights issues. She was a member of the Free Gaza Movement Steering Committee and worked behind-the-scenes on FGM’s first successful voyage by two small boats that broke the siege of Gaza in August 2008.

JOE MEADORS resides in Corpus Christi, Texas and lived in Saudi Arabia for over 20 years. He is a survivor of the June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty and for decades has been in the forefront of the effort to persuade the US government to conduct an investigation of the attack. The USS Liberty was a lightly armed US Navy spy ship and was attacked by Israeli unmarked aircraft who jammed the Liberty’s radios and by Israeli torpedo boats who deliberately machine gunned the Liberty’s life rafts that had been dropped over the side in anticipation of abandoning ship.

GENE ST. ONGE, Principal of St.Onge and Associates, is a Lebanese-American, licensed civil/structural engineer who lives and works in Oakland, California. He has over 30 years of experience with all types of structural building systems worldwide. Most recently, he has been involved with the Qatar Working Group (QWG), established by the Qatar Foundation, which is developing a program for rebuilding in Gaza. As part of his work with the QWG, once reaching Gaza with the flotilla, he is planning to meet with the lead UNRWA engineers in charge of reconstruction to better assess needs and resources. Gene is working with the QWG in exploring ways to use appropriate technology, i.e. local materials with green building systems, to substantially reduce cost and increase the use of locally trained labor. Gene is also co-founder of the Middle East Policy Advisory Committee (MEPAC), a consortium of over 15 peace and justice groups in the SF Bay Area, that works towards transforming US policy in the region to one based on respect for human rights and international law.

The Free Palestine Movement Mission

The purpose of the Free Palestine Movement is to defend and advocate for the human rights of all Palestinians, and in particular the right of access to all of Palestine. We propose to support these rights by defying barriers imposed by Israeli and international authorities upon travel and trade to, from and within Palestine for Palestinians and persons invited by Palestinians, such as visitors, human rights observers, humanitarian aid workers, journalists, merchants or others, and to impose pressure and sanctions upon any parties that deny such rights.

His honest reporting made him an enemy of President-in-waiting Banda. Shortly before white colonial rule ended Alan was declared persona non-grata and thrown out of the country with his wife and a month-old son. He was given 48 hours to sell-up and leave.

Back in England he got a job with the Daily Telegraph. He was the youngest ever reporter to have a staff job in Fleet Street, but within a month, bored out of his mind he decided to get into television.

He became International Television News’s (ITN) chief foreign correspondent covering wars and conflicts wherever they were happening in the world. While at ITN he was credited with pioneering the “as live” style of reporting by doing his commentaries live into the microphone as events were happening. It was a style of reporting that helped ITN’s 30-minute News-at-Ten (in its pioneering days) attract and hold big audiences, often double the size of those for the BBC’s main news

It was in Vietnam, observing America spending six million dollars a minute destroying two countries in a war it could not win and should not have fought, that he first started to ask himself questions about why things are as they are in the world.

While reporting in India he was offered a job as BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama (a weekly 60-minute slot).

In his tv reporting days he was celebrated within the industry for my scoops and my special relationships with leaders on both sides of the many conflicts I covered.

I think I must be, for example, the only person on Planet Earth who enjoyed intimate access to, and on the human level friendship with, arguably the two greatest opposites in all of human history - Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine.

On the Arab side, in addition to Arafat, who he rote a book about, he enjoyed special relations and private conversations with Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal (He was the first Western correspondent to interview him on film - great story to this), Jordan’s King Hussein and Egyptian Presidents Nasser and Sadat.

How was it that a lad from the bottom of the UK’s working class heap became a friend and confident of world leaders?

Two reasons, “I think. One is that I don’t give a damn about being white and British. I’m a citizen of the world, period; a true believer in one common humanity. Empathizing with people on the human level came and comes easily to me, says Alan.” Main reason was the advice given to me my ITN’s legendary editor, Geoffrey Cox, when I joined his reporting staff. He said: “You’ll be engaging with prime ministers and presidents, kings and queens. Never forget that leaders are the most lonely people in the world because they are surrounded by sycophants who only tell them what they want to hear. They, leaders, are crying out for honest conversation.” “I became a visitor with whom leaders could have honest conversations in private, said Alan ”

At a point Alan’s understanding of what a mess our leaders had made of managing Planet Earth caused him to be frustrated and angered with the media’s superficiality and refusal to come to grips with some of the major issues of our time.

He set up my own independent production company and, on the strength of his international reputation at the time, raised £1 million sterling (a lot in 1973) from international development agencies and some governments to make the first ever and to date only documentary on the full and true reality of everyday global poverty and its implications for all.

The end product, a two-hour film titled FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT, had its world premiere, hosted by Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, at the formal opening of the 7th Special session of the UN General Assembly, (called to discuss the need for a New World Economic Order); was screened on television in most countries of the North; was versioned for schools in many countries; and became something of a standard work of reference

Alan is a fiercely independent thinker. He hates all labels and isms and has never been a member of any political party or group. He prefers to judge issues on their merits.

Today, Alan is an author who writes about the Middle East.

Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of depression and recommends a meditation or reflection. With these tools, coping with depression becomes a way to mend the spirit while enriching the soul.

What makes this spill relentless and most similar to Ixtoc 1 is that it’s an active well that keeps flowing. The Exxon Valdez was a tanker with a limited supply of oil. The rig 40 miles from the Gulf Coast may leak for months before a relief well can be drilled to stop the flow.

Hedy never saw her family again. Hedy’s parents and other family members were deported on October 22, 1940 to Camp de Gurs, a concentration camp in what was then Vichy France. France at that time was occupied by the Nazis. Men and women were separated by barbed wire. Living conditions were horrendous. Hedy, however, did not learn of this until after the war.

Soon after arriving in GursDue to an aberration of the war, inmates of the camp in Gurs could correspond with the outside world. Each person was allowed to write one page each week. Hedy’s parents sent her letters for the next two years, but they were careful not to mention the atrocious living conditions they had to endure. They wanted to protect their daughter.

The last communication Hedy ever received from her mother was a postcard dated September 4, 1942. The postcard said, “Traveling to the east … Sending you a final goodbye.”

Hedy spent the rest of World War II in England. She went to school and then went to work in a variety of jobs, including a factory producing war materials.

Once the war was over, Hedy went back to Germany to work for the American government. First she was with the US Civil Censorship Division, and later she worked at the Nuremberg Medical Trial, which tried the doctors accused of performing medical experiments on concentration camp inmates. Part of her reason for returning to Germany was to find her family, but she was unsuccessful.

Hedy came to the United States in May 1948. Her only living relatives were an uncle and an aunt who had emigrated to the US in early 1938. Once here, she worked in a variety of jobs. Although she did not realize it at the time, many of those jobs were part of her quest to find her parents and her family.

Hedy became active professionally and personally in the causes of civil and human rights and social justice. Some of her causes have included fair housing, abortion rights, and antiwar activities. As a peace delegate, Hedy journeyed to Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Cambodia in 1989. Hedy visited the Israeli Occupied West Bank five times since 2003, to witness the facts on the ground. She participated in several non-violent demonstrations, together with Israelis, Palestinians & other internationals, in opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, the 25-foot high cement wall, and the demolition of Palestinian homes and olive orchards.

Hedy began speaking to audiences in 1970. Her topics include her Nazi Holocaust experiences, her work at the Nuremberg Medical Trial, and her five trips to Palestine since 2003. Equally conversant in English and German, she has spoken in the US, Germany, and Austria to audiences of schoolchildren, college students, and adults. In addition, she has appeared on several radio and television shows as a guest. She is a member of the Speakers Bureau of the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center.

Hedy has written many articles on social issues. These articles can be found in newspapers and magazines such as the Congressional Record, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Jewish Light, Frost Illustrated of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and others. In addition, Hedy’s autobiography was published in May 1999 by Unrast-Verlag, a German company. The book, titled Erinnern ist nicht genug: Autobiographie von Hedy Epstein (”Remembering Is Not Enough: The Autobiography of Hedy Epstein”), is available in German. The book, written by Hedy, covers her entire life and her experiences. It’s ISBN is 3-928300-86-5.

From the Introduction of A New Consciousness Born:

The human race appears to be hurtling towards disaster. If you are troubled by our situation, you may find it worthwhile to investigate the message of Edward Jones. A warning is in order, though. Some readers may be offended by Edward’s plain, hard-hitting language, striking where people are most sensitive—in the ego. However, without putting a crack in the ego, Edward contends that we cannot hear anything that is at odds with the ego’s images and beliefs.

From the failure of his life, Edward learned to speak from outside his ego. That was the single most important factor that led to his transformation, but little could have prepared him for what he was to encounter on that eventful day in 1979. On November 19, 1979, leaving a life of failures behind him, Edward Jones experienced a transformation which completely revolutionized the way he perceived reality. When the event manifested itself, it was unlike anything he had ever heard of. Nothing could have led him to expect the form it would take.

To an outside observer, the episode might have resembled temporary madness, yet it led Edward towards clarity as he broke free from humanity’s twisted path. For hours he lay on his bed, screaming and convulsing as every belief he cherished was torn asunder. He had the sensation of inconceivable powers clashing, as if repeatedly struck from within by lightning. When the cataclysmic upheaval finally subsided, something absolutely new had emerged.

He was permanently and irrevocably altered, utterly different from what he had been before. The change was so complete, so profound, that afterward Edward could only say that he had died. Out of that death, a new consciousness was born.

Edward’s former life of misery was now one of exquisite vibrancy. Pain lost its sting; fear no longer ruled his life. Death itself was robbed of its fascination. Every moment unfolded its potential as a wellspring of delight. It seemed that mere words could not possibly convey what had happened, yet in the ensuing decades he has tirelessly attempted to describe that which cannot be described and explain that which cannot be explained.

However, within these conversations, Edward tells the reader what he did to bring forth a new consciousness, thereby setting in motion what he says is the first evolution ever of consciousness. He insists what he did is not a process, but that it can be started as a process, resulting in a manner of living which can remove the virus of violence from our old, conditioned brain. If self-transformation could manifest, reaching a critical mass, an event that would shake the world from its self-destructive path would result.

In a world amply stocked with slick gurus and pundits, Edward’s earthy style does not mark him as a likely candidate for a wise man. He shrugs off suggestions that he might be called a teacher. By his own admission, he is neither highly educated nor particularly knowledgeable. He can and does make mistakes, although, unlike many of us, it causes him no grief to admit error and then move in a different direction.

Some have compared Edward’s pronouncements with Zen Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, and the entire catalog of mystical teachings. He does not encourage this. Instead, he insists that people need to see the truth themselves in order for the transformation to be authentic.

Edward Jones is in no way connected with the investment company that shares his name. He made (and lost) his fortune selling a well-known brand of fried chicken. In the previous years, he had amassed a fortune well in excess of a million dollars, which had all collapsed along with his marriage. Looking back on it now, though, he regards his failure at everything as nothing other than a greater form of success.