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The North American B-25 Mitchell was an American twin-engined medium bomber manufactured by North American Aviation. It was used by many Allied air forces, in every theater of World War II, as well as many other air forces after the war ended, and saw service across four decades.
The B-25 was named in honor of General Billy Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation. By the end of its production, nearly 10,000 B-25s in numerous models had been built. These included a few limited variations, such as the United States Navy’s and Marine Corps’ PBJ-1 patrol bomber and the United States Army Air Forces’ F-10 photo reconnaissance aircraft.
B-25 first gained fame as the bomber used in the 18 April 1942 Doolittle Raid, in which 16 B-25Bs led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle attacked mainland Japan, four months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The mission gave a much-needed lift in spirits to the Americans, and alarmed the Japanese who had believed their home islands were inviolable by enemy forces. Although the amount of actual damage done was relatively minor, it forced the Japanese to divert troops for the home defense for the remainder of the war.
The raiders took off from the carrier USS Hornet and successfully bombed Tokyo and four other Japanese cities without loss. Fifteen of the bombers subsequently crash-landed en route to recovery fields in Eastern China. These losses were the result of the task force being spotted by a Japanese vessel forcing the bombers to take off 170 mi (270 km) early, fuel exhaustion, stormy nighttime conditions with zero visibility, and lack of electronic homing aids at the recovery bases. Only one B-25 bomber landed intact, in Siberia where its five-man crew was interned and the aircraft confiscated. Of the 80 aircrew, 69 survived their historic mission and eventually made it back to American lines.
The majority of B-25s in American service were used in the Pacific. They fought on Papua New Guinea, in Burma and in the island hopping campaign in the central Pacific. There, the aircraft’s potential as a ground-attack aircraft was discovered and developed. The jungle environment reduced the usefulness of standard-level bombing, and made low-level attack the best tactic. The ever-increasing number of forward firing guns was a response to this operational environment, making the B-25 a formidable strafing aircraft.
Strictly speaking doctrinal knowledge is independent of the individual. But its actualization is not independent of the human capacity to act as a vehicle for it. He who possesses truth must none the less merit it although it is a free gift. Truth is immutable in itself, but in us it lives, because we live.
If we want truth to live in us we must live in it.
Knowledge only saves us on condition that it enlists all that we are, only when it is a way and when it works and transforms and wounds our nature even as the plough wounds the soil.
To say this is to say that intelligence and metaphysical certainty alone do not save; of themselves they do not prevent titans from falling. This is what explains the psychological and other precautions with which every tradition surrounds the gift of the doctrine.
When metaphysical knowledge is effective it produces love and destroys presumption. It produces love, that is to say the spontaneous directing of the will towards God and the perception of "myself" - and of God - in one's neighbour. It destroys presumption, for knowledge does not allow a man to overestimate himself or to underestimate others. By reducing to ashes all that is not God it orders all things.
All St. Paul says of charity concerns effective knowledge, for the latter is love, and he opposes it to theory inasmuch as theory is human concept. The Apostle desires that truth should be contemplated with our whole being and he calls this totality of contemplation "love".
Metaphysical knowledge is sacred. It is the right of sacred things to require of man all that he is.
Intelligence, since it distinguishes, perceives, as one might put
it, proportions. The spiritual man integrates these proportions into his will, into his soul and into his life.
All defects are defects of proportion; they are errors that are lived. To be spiritual means not denying at any point with one's "being" what one affirms with one's knowledge, that is, what one accepts with the intelligence.
Truth lived: incorruptibility and generosity. Since ignorance is all that we are and not merely our thinking, knowledge will also be all that we are to the extent to which our existential modalities are by their nature able to participate in truth.
Human nature contains dark elements which no intellectual
certainty could, ipso facto, eliminate...
Pure intellectuality is as serene as a summer sky - serene with a serenity that is at once infinitely incorruptible and infinitely generous.
Intellectualism which "dries up the heart" has no connection
with intellectuality.
The incorruptibility - or inviolability - of truth is bound up neither with contempt nor with avarice.
What is man's certainty? On the level of ideas it may be perfect, but on the level of life it but rarely pierces through illusion.
Everything is ephemeral and every man must die. No man is
ignorant of this and no one knows it.
Man may have an interest that is quite illusory in accepting the
most transcendent ideas and will readily believe himself to be superior to some other who, not having this interest - perhaps because he is too intelligent or too noble to have it - is sincere enough not to accept them, though he may all the same be more able to understand them than the other who accepts them.
Man does not always accept truth because he understands it; often he believes he understands it because he is anxious to accept it.
People often discuss truths whereas they should limit themselves to discussing tastes and tendencies ...
Acuteness of intelligence is only a blessing when it is compensated by greatness and sweetness of the soul. It should not appear as a rupture of the equilibrium or as an excess which splits man in two. A gift of nature requires complementary qualities which allow of its harmonious manifestation; otherwise there is a risk of the lights becoming mingled with darkness.
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Frithjof Schuon
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Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
“Not fooling around, not bothering nobody, just sitting here mending the Primus," said the cat with a hostile frown, "and, moreover, I consider it my duty to warn you that the cat is an ancient, inviolable animal.”
On behalf of a some model, at the request of the IMG model agency, AFD groups immediately cease and refrain from any unauthorized use and sale of the name, image and likeness of the model, which is an intrusion into inviolability, discredit, humiliation, embarrassment and possibly irreparable harm to the commercial interests of the model.
A view looking west from the summit of Carn Galva on a fine June day.
Carn Galva is 230 metres above sea level and the second highest hill on the Land's End peninsula - it looms over the coastal plain from Zennor to Morvah. In the middle distance (partly in shadow), can be seen the flanks of Watch Croft - which is the highest point by a few metres.
The name of the hill comes from the old cornish "carn guillea" - meaning 'rock pile in a high look-out'.
Early communities may have believed that these granite outcrops had been fashioned by the gods - and that the spirits of the gods dwelt in them.
From the summit of the hill you are greeted with a sweeping vista across wild heathland, described by D.H. Lawrence as "a bareness ancient and inviolable".
The twin ruined engine houses of Carn Galver mine can be seen to the right in the middle distance with Bosigran Castle further to the right. It is also possible to spot Pendeen Lighthouse just left of centre in the far distance.
++++ From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ++++
Cattle in religion and mythology
Due to the multiple benefits from cattle, there are varying beliefs about cattle in societies and religions. In some regions, especially most states of India, the slaughter of cattle is prohibited and their meat may be taboo.
Cattle are considered sacred in world religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and others. Cattle played other major roles in many religions, including those of ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Israel, ancient Rome, and ancient Germany.
In Indian religions
Legislation against cattle slaughter is in place throughout most states of India except Kerala, West Bengal and parts of the North-East.[1]
Hinduism
If anybody said that I should die if I did not take beef tea or mutton, even on medical advice, I would prefer death. That is the basis of my vegetarianism.
— Mahatma Gandhi, to the London Vegetarian Society on 20 November 1931.[2]
A bull bas relief, Mamallapuram
Hinduism specifically considers the zebu (Bos indicus) to be sacred.[3][4][5] Respect for the lives of animals including cattle, diet in Hinduism and vegetarianism in India are based on the Hindu ethics. The Hindu ethics are driven by the core concept of Ahimsa, i.e. non-violence towards all beings, as mentioned in the Chandogya Upanishad (~ 800 BCE)..[6][7] By mid 1st millennium BCE, all three major religions – Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism were championing non-violence as an ethical value, and something that impacted one's rebirth. According to Harris, by about 200 CE, food and feasting on animal slaughter were widely considered as a form of violence against life forms, and became a religious and social taboo.[8][9] India, which has 79.80% Hindu population as of (2011 census),[10] had the lowest rate of meat consumption in the world according to the 2007 UN FAO statistics,[11] and India has more vegetarians than the rest of the world put together.[12]
Vegetarianism in ancient India
India is a strange country. People do not kill
any living creatures, do not keep pigs and fowl,
and do not sell live cattle.
—Faxian, 4th/5th century CE
Chinese pilgrim to India[13]
According to Ludwig Alsdorf, "Indian vegetarianism is unequivocally based on ahimsa (non-violence)" as evidenced by ancient smritis and other ancient texts of Hinduism." He adds that the endearment and respect for cattle in Hinduism is more than a commitment to vegetarianism and has become integral to its theology.[14] The respect for cattle is widespread but not universal. According to Christopher Fuller, animal sacrifices have been rare among the Hindus outside a few eastern states.[14][15] To the majority of modern Indians, states Alsdorf, respect for cattle and disrespect for slaughter is a part of their ethos and there is "no ahimsa without renunciation of meat consumption".[14]
Several scholars explain the veneration for cows among Hindus in economic terms, including the importance of dairy in the diet, the use of cow dung as fuel and fertilizer, and the importance that cattle have historically played in agriculture.[16] Ancient texts such as Rig Veda, Puranas highlight the importance of cattle.[16] The scope, extent and status of cows throughout ancient India is a subject of debate. According to D. N. Jha, cattle, including cows, were neither inviolable nor as revered in ancient times as they were later.[17] A Gryhasutra recommends that beef be eaten by the mourners after a funeral ceremony as a ritual rite of passage.[18] In contrast, according to Marvin Harris, the Vedic literature is contradictory, with some suggesting ritual slaughter and meat consumption, while others suggesting a taboo on meat eating.[8]
Sacred status of cow
The Hindu god Krishna is often shown with cows listening to his music.
The calf is compared with the dawn, in Hinduism. Here, with a sadhu.
Many ancient and medieval Hindu texts debate the rationale for a voluntary stop to cow slaughter and the pursuit of vegetarianism as a part of a general abstention from violence against others and all killing of animals.[19][20]
The interdiction of the meat of the bounteous cow as food was regarded as the first step to total vegetarianism.[21] Dairy cows are called aghnya "that which may not be slaughtered" in Rigveda. Yaska, the early commentator of the Rigveda, gives nine names for cow, the first being "aghnya".[22] According to Harris, the literature relating to cow veneration became common in 1st millennium CE, and by about 1000 CE vegetarianism, along with a taboo against beef, became a well accepted mainstream Hindu tradition.[8] This practice was inspired by the beliefs in Hinduism that a soul is present in all living beings, life in all its forms is interconnected, and non-violence towards all creatures is the highest ethical value.[8][9] Vegetarianism is a part of the Hindu culture. The god Krishna and his Yadav kinsmen are associated with cows, adding to its endearment.[8][9]
According to Nanditha Krishna the cow veneration in ancient India during the Vedic era, the religious texts written during this period called for non-violence towards all bipeds and quadrupeds, and often equated killing of a cow with the killing of a human being specifically a Brahmin.[23] Nanditha Krishna stated that the hymn 8.3.25 of the Hindu scripture Atharvaveda (~1200–1500 BCE) condemns all killings of men, cattle, and horses, and prays to god Agni to punish those who kill.[24][25]
Prithu chasing Prithvi, who is in the form of a cow. Prithu milked the cow to generate crops for humans.
In Puranas, which are part of the Hindu texts, the earth-goddess Prithvi was in the form of a cow, successively milked of beneficent substances for the benefit of humans, by deities starting with the first sovereign: Prithu milked the cow to generate crops for humans to end a famine.[26] Kamadhenu, the miraculous "cow of plenty" and the "mother of cows" in certain versions of the Hindu mythology, is believed to represent the generic sacred cow, regarded as the source of all prosperity.[27] In the 19th century, a form of Kamadhenu was depicted in poster-art that depicted all major gods and goddesses in it.[28][29] Govatsa Dwadashi which marks the first day of Diwali celebrations, is the main festival connected to the veneration and worship of cows as chief source of livelihood and religious sanctity in India, wherein the symbolism of motherhood is most apparent with the sacred cows Kamadhenu and her daughter Nandini.[30]
Historical significance
Main articles: Cattle slaughter in India and Cow protection movement
A pamphlet protesting cow slaughter, first created in 1893. A meat eater (mansahari) is shown as a demon with sword, with a man telling him "don't kill, cow is life-source for all". It was interpreted by Muslims in British Raj to be representing them.[31] Redrawn the Raja Ravi Varma (c. 1897).
The reverence for the cow played a role in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the British East India Company. Hindu and Muslim sepoys in the army of the East India Company came to believe that their paper cartridges, which held a measured amount of gunpowder, were greased with cow and pig fat. The consumption of swine is forbidden in Islam and Judaism. Because loading the gun required biting off the end of the paper cartridge, they concluded that the British were forcing them to break edicts of their religion.[32]
A historical survey of major communal riots in India between 1717 and 1977 revealed that 22 out of 167 incidents of rioting between Hindus and Muslims were attributable directly to cow slaughter.[33][34]
In Gandhi's teachings
The cow protection was a symbol of animal rights and of non-violence against all life forms for Gandhi. He venerated cows, and suggested ending cow slaughter to be the first step to stopping violence against all animals.[35] He said: "I worship it and I shall defend its worship against the whole world", and stated that "The central fact of Hinduism is cow protection."[35]
Jainism
See also: Ahimsa in Jainism
Jainism is against violence to all living beings, including cattle. According to the Jaina sutras, humans must avoid all killing and slaughter because all living beings are fond of life, they suffer, they feel pain, they like to live, and long to live. All beings should help each other live and prosper, according to Jainism, not kill and slaughter each other.[36][37]
In the Jain religious tradition, neither monks nor laypersons should cause others or allow others to work in a slaughterhouse.[38] Jains believe that vegetarian sources can provide adequate nutrition, without creating suffering for animals such as cattle.[38] According to some Jain scholars, slaughtering cattle increases ecological burden from human food demands since the production of meat entails intensified grain demands, and reducing cattle slaughter by 50 percent would free up enough land and ecological resources to solve all malnutrition and hunger worldwide. The Jain community leaders, states Christopher Chapple, has actively campaigned to stop all forms of animal slaughter including cattle.[39]
Cattle at a temple, in Ooty India
Cattle making themselves at home on a city street in Jaipur, Rajasthan
Buddhism
The texts of Buddhism state ahimsa to be one of five ethical precepts, which requires a practicing Buddhist to "refrain from killing living beings".[40] Slaughtering cow has been a taboo, with some texts suggest taking care of a cow is a means of taking care of "all living beings". Cattle are seen in some Buddhist sects as a form of reborn human beings in the endless rebirth cycles in samsara, protecting animal life and being kind to cattle and other animals is good karma.[40][41] Not only do some, mainly Mahayana, Buddhist texts state that killing or eating meat is wrong, it urges Buddhist laypersons to not operate slaughterhouses, nor trade in meat.[42][43][44] Indian Buddhist texts encourage a plant-based diet.[9][8]
According to Saddhatissa, in the Brahmanadhammika Sutta, the Buddha "describes the ideal mode of life of Brahmins in the Golden Age" before him as follows:[45]
Like mother (they thought), father, brother or any other kind of kin,
cows are our kin most excellent from whom come many remedies.
Givers of good and strength, of good complexion and the happiness of health,
having seen the truth of this cattle they never killed.
Those brahmins then by Dharma did what should be done, not what should not,
and so aware they graceful were, well-built, fair-skinned, of high renown.
While in the world this lore was found these people happily prospered.
— Buddha, Brahmanadhammika Sutta 13.24, Sutta Nipāta[46][45][47]
Saving animals from slaughter for meat, is believed in Buddhism to be a way to acquire merit for better rebirth.[41] According to Richard Gombrich, there has been a gap between Buddhist precepts and practice. Vegetarianism is admired, states Gombrich, but often it is not practiced. Nevertheless, adds Gombrich, there is a general belief among Theravada Buddhists that eating beef is worse than other meat and the ownership of cattle slaughterhouses by Buddhists is relatively rare.[48][note 1]
Meat eating remains controversial within Buddhism, with most Theravada sects allowing it, reflecting early Buddhist practice, and most Mahayana sects forbidding it. Early suttas indicate that the Buddha himself ate meat and was clear that no rule should be introduced to forbid meat eating to monks. The consumption, however, appears to have been limited to pork, chicken and fish and may well have excluded cattle.[50]
Bhubaneswar (/ˌbʊbəˈneɪʃwər/; Odia: [ˈbʱubɔneswɔɾɔ] (About this soundlisten)) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Odisha. The region, especially the old town, was historically often depicted as Ekamra Kshetra (area (kshetra) adorned with mango trees (ekamra)).[9] Bhubaneswar is dubbed the "Temple City"[10][11]—a nickname earned because of the 700 temples which once stood there. In contemporary times, it has emerged as an education hub[12][13] and an attractive business destination.[14][15][16]
Although the modern city of Bhubaneswar was formally established in 1948, the history of the areas in and around the present-day city can be traced to the 7th century BCE and earlier. It is a confluence of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain heritage and includes several Kalingan temples, many of them from 6th-13th century CE. With Puri and Konark it forms the 'Swarna Tribhuja' ("Golden Triangle"), one of eastern India's most visited destinations.[17][18]
Bhubaneswar replaced Cuttack as the capital on 19 August 1949, 2 years after India gained its independence from Britain. The modern city was designed by the German architect Otto Königsberger in 1946. Along with Jamshedpur and Chandigarh, it was one of modern India's first planned cities.[19] Bhubaneswar and Cuttack are often referred to as the 'twin cities of Odisha'. The metropolitan area formed by the two cities had a population of 1.7 million in 2011.[20] Recent data from the United Nations released in 2016 states that Bhubaneswar's metro area has a population of around a million people.[6] Bhubaneswar is categorised as a Tier-2 city. Bhubaneswar and Rourkela are the only cities in smart city mission from Odisha.
Etymology
Bhubaneswar is the anglicisation of the Odia name "Bhubaneswara"(ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱର), derived from the word Tribhubaneswara (ତ୍ରିଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱର), which literally means the Lord (Eeswara) of the Three Worlds (Tribhubana), which refers to Shiva.[21]
History
Remains of the ancient city of Sisupalagada, on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, dated to 7th century BCE
Inscription on rock in Brahmi language
Hathigumpha inscriptions at the Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves near Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar stands near the ruins of Sisupalgarh, the ancient capital of the erstwhile province of Kalinga. Dhauli, near Bhubaneswar was the site of the Kalinga War (c. 262-261 BCE), in which the Mauryan emperor Ashoka invaded and annexed Kalinga.[22] One of the most complete edicts of the Mauryan Emperor, Ashoka, dating from between 272 and 236 BCE, remains carved in rock, 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) to the southwest of the modern city.[23] After the decline of the Mauryan empire, the area came under the rule of Mahameghavahana dynasty, whose most well-known rule is Kharavela. His Hathigumpha inscription is located at the Udayagiri and Khandagiri Caves near Bhubaneswar. The area was subsequently ruled by several dynasties, including Satavahanas, Guptas, Matharas, and Shailodbhavas.[22]
In the 7th century, Somavamshi or Keshari dynasty established their kingdom in the area, and constructed a number of temples. After the Kesharis, the Eastern Gangas ruled Kalinga area until the 14th century CE. Their capital Kalinganagara was located in present-day Bhubaneswar City. After them, Mukunda Deva of the Bhoi dynasty – the last Hindu ruler of the area until the Marathas – developed several religious buildings in the area.[22] Most of the older temples in Bhubaneswar were built between 8th and 12th centuries, under Shaiva influence. The Ananta Vasudeva Temple is the only old temple of Vishnu in the city.[24] In 1568, the Karrani dynasty of Afghan origin gained control of the area. During their reign, most of the temples and other structures were destroyed or disfigured.[22]
In the 16th century, the area came under pachamani Mughal control. The Marathas, who succeeded the Mughals in the mid-18th century, encouraged pilgrimage in the region. In 1803, the area came under British colonial rule, and was part of the Bengal Presidency (until 1912), Bihar and Orissa Province (1912-1936) and Orissa Province (1936-1947).[22] The capital of the British-ruled Orissa Province was Cuttack, which was vulnerabile to floods and suffered from space constraints. Because of this, on 30 September 1946, a proposal to move the capital to a new capital was introduced in the Legislative Assembly of the Odisha Province. After independence of India, the foundation of the new capital was laid by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on 13 April 1948.[22]
The name of the new capital came from "Tribhubaneswara" or "Bhubaneswara" (literally "Lord of the Earth"), a name of Shiva, the deity of the Lingaraja temple.[21] The Legislative Assembly of Odisha was shifted from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar in 1949.[22] Bhubaneswar was built as a modern city, designed by German architect Otto Königsberger with wide roads, gardens and parks.[25] Though part of the city followed the plan, it grew rapidly over the next few decades, outstripping the planning process.[26] According to the first census of independent India, taken in 1951, the city's population was just 16,512. From 1952 to 1979, it was administered by a Notified Area Council or a nagar panchayat; a municipality was established only on 12 March 1979. By the 1991 census, the population of Bhubaneswar had increased to 411,542. Accordingly, on 14 August 1994, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation was established.[22]
Geography
Daya River at the foothills of Dhauli
Bhubaneswar is in Khordha district of Odisha.[27] It is in the eastern coastal plains, along the axis of the Eastern Ghats mountains.[28] The city has an average altitude of 45 m (148 ft) above sea level.[28] It lies southwest of the Mahanadi River that forms the northern boundary of Bhubaneswar metropolitan area, within its delta.
City of Bhubaneswar from Khandagiri hill
The city is bounded by the Daya River to the south and the Kuakhai River to the east;[28] the Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary and Nandankanan Zoo lie in the western and northern parts of Bhubaneswar, respectively.[25]
Bhubaneswar is topographically divided into western uplands and eastern lowlands, with hillocks in the western and northern parts.[28] Kanjia lake on the northern outskirts, affords rich biodiversity and is a wetland of national importance.[29] Bhubaneswar's soils are 65 per cent laterite, 25 per cent alluvial and 10 per cent sandstone.[30] The Bureau of Indian Standards places the city inside seismic zone III on a scale ranging from I to V in order of increasing susceptibility to earthquakes.[31] The United Nations Development Programme reports that there is "very high damage risk" from winds and cyclones.[31] The 1999 Odisha cyclone caused major damage to buildings, the city's infrastructure and cost many human lives.[32] Floods and waterlogging in the low-lying areas have become common due to unplanned growth.[30][33]
Bhubaneswar Schematic Map
Bhubaneswar schematic tourist map
Urban structure
See also: List of neighbourhoods in Bhubaneswar
Rajpath, Bhubaneswar
Pathani Samanta Planetarium Bhubaneswar
The Bhubaneswar urban development area consists of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation area, 173 revenue villages and two other municipalities spread over 1,110 km2 (430 sq mi).[3][34] The area under the jurisdiction of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation covers 186 square kilometres (72 sq mi).[2] The city is somewhat dumbbell-shaped with most of the growth taking place to the north, northeast and southwest.[35] The north–south axis of the city is widest, at roughly 22.5 kilometres (14.0 mi). Growth in the east is restricted due to the presence of Kuakhai River and by the wildlife sanctuary in the northwestern part.[35] The city can be broadly divided into the old town, planned city (or state capital), added areas and outer peripheral areas. It is subdivided into Units and Colonies.
The old town or "Temple Town", the oldest part of the city, is characterised by many temples, including the Lingaraja, Rajarani and Muktesvara temples, standing alongside residential areas. This area is congested, with narrow roads and poor infrastructure.[35] Among neighbourhoods in the old town are Rajarani Colony, Pandaba Nagar, Brahmeswara Bagh, Lingaraja Nagar, Gouri Nagar, Bhimatangi and Kapileswara. The planned city was designed in 1948 to house the capital. It is subdivided into units, each with a high school, shopping centres, dispensaries and play areas. While most of the units house government employees, Unit V houses the administrative buildings, including the State Secretariat, State Assembly, and the Raj Bhavan. Private residential areas were later built in other areas of the planned city, including Saheed Nagar and Satya Nagar. Unit I, popularly known as the Market Building, was formed to cater to the shopping needs of the new capital's residents. Later, markets and commercial establishments developed along the Janpath and Cuttack-Puri Road at Saheed Nagar, Satya Nagar, Bapuji Nagar and Ashok Nagar. A dedicated institutional area houses educational and research institutes, including Utkal University, the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology and Sainik School. Indira Gandhi Park, Gandhi Park and the Biju Patnaik Park are located in the unit.[35]
The added areas are mostly areas lying north of National Highway 5, including Nayapalli, Jayadev Vihar, Chandrasekharpur and Sailashree Vihar, #Niladri vihar which were developed by Bhubaneswar Development Authority to house the growing population.[35] With the development of the new areas such as Chandrasekharpur the city is now divided roughly into North(newer areas) and South Bhubaneswar (older areas) by the NH-5 highway.
The peripheral areas are outside the municipal boundary or have subsequently been included within the extended boundary, including Tomando, Patia and Raghunathpur. Most of these areas were developed in a haphazard manner, without proper planning.[36] The Master Planning Branch of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority developed the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) in 2010.[37] According to the Odisha Development Authorities Act, 1982, the Development Authority has control over the planning for municipal areas.[38] Apart from the CDP, BDA has also created Zonal Development Plans for some of the areas under the CDP.[37] Bhubaneswar secured the top rank in the Smart city list in India.[39][40]
Deras Dam
Climate
A one storied building with decorative plants and landscaping around it
Meteorological Centre, Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar has a tropical savanna climate, designated Aw under the Köppen climate classification. The annual mean temperature is 27.4 °C (81.3 °F); monthly mean temperatures are 22–32 °C (72–90 °F).[41] Summers (March to June) are hot and humid, with temperatures in the low 30s C; during dry spells, maximum temperatures often exceed 40 °C (104 °F) in May and June.[41] Winter lasts for only about ten weeks, with seasonal lows dipping to 15–18 °C (59–64 °F) in December and January. May is the hottest month, when daily temperatures range from 32–42 °C (90–108 °F). January, the coldest month, has temperatures varying from 15–28 °C (59–82 °F). The highest recorded temperature is 46.7 °C (116.1 °F), and the lowest is 8.2 °C (47 °F).[42]
Rains brought by the Bay of Bengal branch of the south west summer monsoon[43] lash Bhubaneswar between June and September, supplying it with most of its annual rainfall of 1,638 mm (64 in). The highest monthly rainfall total, 404 mm (16 in), occurs in August.[44]
Economy
East Coast Railway Headquarters in Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar is an administrative, information technology, education and tourism city.[28] Bhubaneswar was ranked as the best place to do business in India by the World Bank in 2014.[46] Bhubaneswar has emerged as one of the fast-growing, important trading and commercial hub in the state and eastern India.[14] Tourism is a major industry, attracting about 1.5 million tourists in 2011.[28][47] Bhubaneswar was designed to be a largely residential city with outlying industrial areas. The economy had few major players until the 1990s and was dominated by retail and small-scale manufacturing. With the economic liberalisation policy adopted by the Government of India in the 1990s, Bhubaneswar received investment in telecommunications, information technology (IT) and higher education.[28]
As of 2001, around 2.15% of the city's workforce was employed in the primary sector (agriculture, forestry, mining, etc.); 2.18% worked in the secondary sector (industrial and manufacturing); and 95.67% worked in the tertiary sector (service industries).[28]
In 2011, according to a study by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, Bhubaneswar had the highest rate of employment growth among 17 Tier-2 cities in India.[48] It has been listed among the top ten emerging cities in India by Cushman and Wakefield, taking into consideration factors like demographics, physical, social and real estate infrastructure, current level and scope of economic activities and government support.[15] In 2012, Bhubaneswar was ranked third among Indian cities, in starting and operating a business by the World Bank.[16] Bhubaneswar has been traditionally home to handicrafts industry, including silver filigree work, appliqué work, stone and wood carvings and patta painting, which significantly contributes to the city's economy.[28] The late 2000s saw a surge of investments in the real estate, infrastructure, retail and hospitality sectors; several shopping malls and organised retails opened outlets in Bhubaneswar.[49][50][51][52]
The Department of Industries established four industrial areas in and around Bhubaneswar, in the Rasulgarh, Mancheswar, Chandaka, and Bhagabanpur areas.[28] In the informal sector, 22,000 vendors operate in regulated or unregulated vending zones.[53][54]
In 2009, Odisha was ranked ninth among Indian states in terms of software export by NASSCOM, with most IT/ITES companies established in Bhubaneswar. In 2011–12, Odisha had a growth rate of 17% for software exports.[55] According to a 2012 survey, among the tier-2 cities in India, Bhubaneswar has been chosen as the best for conducting IT/ITES business.[56] The government fostered growth by developing of IT parks such as Infocity-1, Infovalley, STPI-Bhubaneswar and JSS STP.[57][58] Infocity was conceived as a five-star park, under the Export Promotion Industrial Parks (EPIP) Scheme to create infrastructure facilities for setting up information technology related industries. Infosys and Tech Mahindra have been present in Bhubaneswar since 1996. Other software companies include TCS, Wipro, IBM, Genpact, Firstsource, Mindtree, MphasiS, Ericsson, Semtech and Reliance Communications, AnantaTek and SA Intellect. Apart from the big multinationals, some 300 small and mid-size IT companies and business startups have offices in Bhubaneswar.[58]
Demographics
Population
Bhubaneswar population
CensusPopulation%±
195116,512
As per the 2011 census of India, Bhubaneswar had a population of 837,737, while the metropolitan area had a population of 881,988.[62] As per the estimate of IIT Kharagpur, which made a development plan, the Bhubaneswar–Cuttack Urban complex, consisting of 721.9 square kilometres (278.7 sq mi), has a population of 1.9 million (as of 2008).[63] As of 2011, the number of males was 445,233, while the number of females were 392,504. The decadal growth rate was 45.90 per cent.[citation needed]
Literacy
Effective male literacy was 95.69 per cent, while female literacy was 90.26 per cent. About 75,237 were under six. Bhubaneswar's literacy rate is 93.15 per cent[62]—significantly higher than the national average of 74.04 per cent.[64]
Language
The main language spoken in the city is Odia. However, English and Hindi are understood by most residents. Although Odias comprise the vast majority, migrants from other states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand also dwell in the city. Growth in the information technology industry and education sector in Bhubaneswar changed the city's demographic profile; likely infrastructure strains and haphazard growth from demographic changes have been a cause of concern.
Religion
Panoramic view of Mukteshvara Temple, Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar is a very religiously diverse city. Hindus form the majority in it. It also has large minorities of Christians and Muslim.
Governance and Politics
Krushi Bhavan building in Bhubaneswar
Civic Administration
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) oversees and manages civic infrastructure for the city's 67 wards.[65] It started as a Notified Area Committee in 1946 and was upgraded to a municipal corporation in 1994.[66] Orissa Municipal Corporation Act, 2003 is the governing act.[67] Residents of each ward elect a corporator to the BMC for a five-year term. Standing committees handle urban planning and maintain roads, government-aided schools, hospitals and municipal markets.[68]
As Bhubaneswar's apex body, the corporation discharges its functions through the mayor-in-council, which comprises a mayor, a deputy mayor and other elected members. The executive wing is headed by a Commissioner. There are 13 administrative departments under BMC: PR & Communication, Disaster Management, Finance, Health & Sanitation, Engineering, Revenue & Tax, Electrical, Environment, Social Welfare, IT and Social Projects, Establishment, Land & Assets, Enforcement & Recovery.[69] The responsibilities of the municipal body include drainage and sewerage, sanitation, solid waste management and street lighting.[28]
The tenure of the last elected body ended in January 2019 and new elections have not taken place yet, because the High Court struck down the delimitation process that was carried out for exceeding 50% reservations of seats.[70][71] Ward committees have been formed in Bhubaneswar and are very active.[72] The Committees are responsible for issues such as public health, sanitation, street lighting and conservancy in their respective wards. There is no fixed number of members in the committees.
The processes for the municipal budget 2020-21 was initiated in February 2020, but it is unclear if they have continued after the lockdown was accounced.[73] The budget for 2020-21 was supposed to be aroound Rs. 700, an increase of 51.8% from the 2019-20 budget. The increase was suppsoedly to fund the various socio-economic welfare schemes in the city. The key revenue sources for BMC are: Holding Taxes, tax from advertisements, rent from municipal properties such as markets, shopping complexes, and kalyan mandaps (marriage halls), fees and user charges, and grants from state and central governments.[74]
Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha Constituencies
Citizens of Bhubaneswar elect one representative to India's lower house, the Lok Sabha, and three representatives to the state legislative assembly, through the constituencies of Bhubaneswar North, Ekamra-Bhubaneswar, and Bhubaneswar Central.[75][76] The last Lok Sabha election was in 2019, when Aparajita Sarangi from Bharatiya Janata Party won the seat.[77] The last state assembly election took place in 2019 as well, when all three Vidhan Sabha seats in Bhubaneswar were won by Biju Janata Dal: Susant Kumar Rout from North, Ashok Chandra Panda from Ekamra, and Ananta Narayan Jena from Central.[78][79][80]
Judicial and Police Institutions
As the seat of the Government of Odisha, Bhubaneswar is home to the Odisha Legislative Assembly and the state secretariat. Bhubaneswar has lower courts: the Court of Small Causes and the District Civil Court decide civil matters; the Sessions Court rules in criminal cases.[81] The Bhubaneswar–Cuttack Police Commissionerate, established in 2008, is a city police force with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation in the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack area.[82][83] Shri S.K. Priyadarshi, IPS is the police commissioner.[84]
A wide four storied building with landscaped lawn and garden in the foreground
Odisha State Secretariat building
Public utilities
Electricity is supplied by the state-operated Central Electricity Supply Utility of Odisha, or CESU.[30] TATA Power as a private entity started Power distribution in the city by the end of 2020.[85] Fire services are handled by the state agency Odisha Fire Service. Drinking water is sourced from the Mahanadi, Kuakhai and Daya rivers. Water supply and sewerage are handled by the Public Health Engineering Organisation.[28] As of 2015, 35% of the city was covered by piped water connections, 1.4% of the households had metered water connection, and the extent of non-revenue water in the city ran to 62.5%.[86] The Engineering Department of BMC creates and maintains roads.[87]
26.7% of the city is covered by sewage network, while more than 50% of the households are dependent on onsite containment systems, such as septic tanks.[88] There is no sewage treatment plant in Bhubaneswar right now,[when?] but one is being built using JNNURM funds.[86][89] The waste from the limited sewage network flows untreated into the Daya river. There is one septage treatment plant for fecal sludge with a capacity of 75 KLD.[90]
The municipal corporation is responsible for the solid waste management in the city. The average municipal waste generated in the city is 480 kg/m3 for wet waste and 600 kg/m3 for wet waste.[91] Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation BMC has introduced door to door collection through battery operated garbage collection vehicle.[92] It is trying to introduce segregation at source by providing two waste bins to every household, one each for dry and wet waste.[93] Landfilling is the most common method of waste disposal in Bhubaneswar.[91] State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, or BSNL, as well as private enterprises, among them Reliance Jio, Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Tata DoCoMo, are the leading telephone, cell phone and internet service providers in the city.[94][95]
Education
See also: List of institutions of higher education in Odisha
Academic Block of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar
Institute of Physics Bhubaneswar library
NISER, Bhubaneshwar
Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar
All India Institute of Medical Sciences Bhubaneswar
Utkal University Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar is a centre for higher education in the Eastern Region and is considered the education hub of Eastern India with several government and privately funded Universities and colleges.[12][13] IIT Bhubaneswar, NISER Bhubaneswar, AIIMS Bhubaneswar and NIFT Bhubaneswar are some of the elite institutions of country which are located in the city. Utkal University Bhubaneswar is the oldest university in Odisha and the 17th oldest university in India.
Primary and secondary education
Odia and English are the primary languages of instruction. Schools in Bhubaneswar follow the "10+2+3" plan for Regular Graduates and "10+2+4" plan for Technical studies. Schools in Bhubaneswar are either run by the state government or private organisations. Students typically enroll in schools that are affiliated with any of the following mediums of education.
BSE, Odisha
CHSE, Odisha
CBSE
Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations
SCTE&VT, Odisha
Notable union government schools in the city include
Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1, Bhubaneswar,
Kendriya Vidyalaya No 2 CRPF,
Kendriya Vidyalaya, Mancheswar,
Kendriya Vidyalaya, Niladrivihar,
Kendriya Vidyalaya, Pokhriput,
Sainik School,
Notable state government schools in the city include
Badagada Government High School, Bhubaneswar
Capital High School, Bhubaneswar
Government High School, Saheed Nagar
Notable private schools in the city include
Aditya Birla School, Bhubaneswar,
BJEM School, Bhubaneswar,
DAV Public School, Unit-8, Bhubaneswar,
D.A.V. Public School, Chandrasekharpur,
D.A.V. Public School, Pokhariput
Delhi Public School, Bhubaneswar,
D M School, Bhubaneswar
KIIT International School, Bhubaneswar,
Loyola School, Bhubaneswar,
O D M School, Bhubaneswar
Prabhujee English Medium School, Bhubaneswar,
Sai International School, Bhubaneswar,
St. Joseph's High School, Bhubaneswar,
St. Xavier's High School, Bhubaneswar
Higher education
Several colleges are affiliated with universities or institution based in Bhubaneswar or elsewhere in India. Most offer a wide range of programs in STEM and applied research and are rated highly by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, India.
Engineering and applied sciences institutions
C. V. Raman Global University
Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture
College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar
Eastern Academy of Science and Technology
Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar
Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai (off campus in collaboration with IndianOil and IIT Kharagpur)
Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT, erstwhile RRL)
Institute of Physics
International Institute of Information Technology, Bhubaneswar (IIIT-BH)
Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology
National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT)
National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER)
Orissa Engineering College
Regional Institute of Education
Medical institutions
All India Institute of Medical Sciences Bhubaneswar
Hi-Tech Medical College & Hospital, Bhubaneswar
Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital
Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences
Regional Medical Research Center
Universities
Birla Global University, Bhubaneswar
Centurion University of Technology and Management, Bhubaneswar
College of Engineering and Technology[96]
Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology
Odisha State Open University[97]
Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology
Rama Devi Women's University
Regional College of Management[98]
Siksha 'O' Anusandhan
Utkal University of Culture
Utkal University
Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar(XIM) university
Tourism education is another field of study emerging. The Eastern Regional Centre of Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (IITTM), the second in the country after Gwalior, was established in 1996. One IATA Authorised Training Centre (ATC) is also located in the city premises. Several regional management educational institutions also have travel and tourism related courses in their curriculum.[citation needed]
Transport
Mo Cycle
Bicycle
A public bicycle sharing project named Mo Cycle has been started by the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) and the Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT). The scheme aims to reduce traffic congestion, promote non-motorized transport in the city and ensure better last mile connectivity. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik in November 2011 inaugurated Mo Cycle. Around 400 cycle stands have been set up across the city. Around 2,000 bicycles have been ordered from three companies - Hexi, Yaana and Yulu. Hexi (from Hero Cycles) will provide 1,000 bicycles and Yaana and Yulu will provide 500 each. The availability of rentals Bicycles are accessed by the Dedicated mobile app - "mo app".[99]
Bus
Mo Bus
Internal public transport is maintained by "Mo Bus (My Bus)" service administrated by CRUT(Capital Region Urban Transport) along with connecting nearest cities like Cuttack and Puri. The headquarters of the Odisha State Road Transport Corporation (OSRTC) is in Bhubaneswar. The main Bhubaneswar inter-state bus terminus is at Barmunda, 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from the city centre, from where OSRTC and private operators run buses connecting Bhubaneswar to cities in Odisha and with the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh.[100] Bhubaneswar is connected to the rest of Odisha and India by National Highway-NH 16, which is a part of the Kolkata-Chennai prong of the Golden Quadrilateral, NH 203, State Highway 13 (Odisha) and State Highway 27 (Odisha). Asian Highway- AH 45 passes through the city.[34]
Road
One of the many fly-overs in the city.
Bhubaneswar has roads in grid form in the central city. Bhubaneswar has approximately 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) of roads, with average road density of 11.82 square kilometres (4.56 sq mi).[28] Baramunda Inter State Bus Terminus (ISBT) is the major bus terminus in the city from where buses ply to all the districts in Odisha as well as to neighbouring state's cities like Hyderabad, Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Raipur and Ranchi. City bus service (Mo Bus) runs across Bhubaneswar by Capital Region Urban Transport Authority run by Bhubaneswar Development Authority .[101] A fleet of 300+ buses cover all major destinations including Cuttack, Puri and Khordha.[101] Auto rickshaws are available for hire and on a share basis throughout the city. In parts of the city, cycle rickshaws offer short trips.[102] To ease traffic jams, over-bridges at major road junctions and expansion of roads are under construction.[103][104] In a study of six cities in India, Bhubaneswar was ranked third concerning pedestrian infrastructure. The city scored 50 points out of a maximum of 100.
Rail
Bhubaneswar railway station
Bhubaneswar has the following stations:
Station name Station code Railway zone Number of platforms
Bhubaneswar BBS East Coast Railway 6
Mancheswar MCS East Coast Railway 4
Lingaraj Temple Road LGTR East Coast Railway 3
Vani Vihar BNBH East Coast Railway 2
Patia PTAB East Coast Railway 2
New Bhubaneswar BBSN East Coast Railway 7
The East Coast Railway has its headquarters in Bhubaneswar. Bhubaneswar railway station is one of the main stations of the Indian railway network. It is connected to major cities by daily express and passenger trains and daily service to all metro cities is available from here. However, the station is overloaded by existing traffic. Currently, the station has six platforms. There are plans to add two more platforms.[105]
A satellite station New Bhubaneswar railway station is opened near Barang in July 2018 to decongest the existing installation.[106]
Air
Biju Patnaik International Airport
Biju Patnaik International Airport (IATA: BBI, ICAO: VEBS) also known as Bhubaneswar Airport, 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of the city centre, is the major and sole international airport in Odisha. There are daily domestic flights from Bhubaneswar to Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Vishakhapatnam, Chennai and Bangalore. There are international flights from Bhubaneswar to Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur thrice a week. The major carriers from Bhubaneswar are Indigo, Vistara, GoAir, AirAsia Berhad, AirAsia India and Air India. In March 2013, a new domestic terminal with a capacity of handling 30 million passengers per year was inaugurated to handle increased air traffic.[107] On 10 July 2015, the first international flight took off from terminal 2 of Biju Patnaik International Airport.
Culture
Muktesvara deula, covered with erotic ancient carvings, known for its quality of sculptures
Bindusagara water tank on a winter morning
Ravindra Mandapa, an auditorium in Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar is supposed to have had over one thousand temples, earning the tag of the 'Temple City of India'. Temples are made in the Kalinga architectural style with a pine spire that curves up to a point over the sanctum housing the presiding deity and a pyramid-covered hall where people sit and pray.
Famous temples include Lingaraja Temple, Muktesvara Temple, Rajarani Temple, Ananta Vasudeva Temple.[108]
The twin hills of Khandagiri and Udayagiri, served as the site of an ancient Jaina monastery which was carved into cave-like chambers in the face of the hill. These caves, with artistic carvings, date back to the 2nd century BCE. Dhauli hills has major edicts of Ashoka engraved on a mass of rock and a white Peace Pagoda was built by the Japan Buddha Sangha and the Kalinga Nippon Buddha Sangha in the 1970s. Apart from the ancient temples, other important temples were built in recent times include Ram Mandir and ISKCON.
Bhubaneswar along with Cuttack is the home of the Odia cinema industry, dubbed "Ollywood", where most of the state's film studios are situated.
Odia culture survives in the form of Classical Odissi dance, handicrafts, sand artistry and sculpturing as well as theatre and music. Boundary walls and gardens are increasingly being redone to depict the folk art of the state.[109][110] Odissi, the oldest of the eight surviving classical dance forms of India can be traced from archaeological evidence from the temples in Bhubaneswar.[111][112][113]
Odissi dance
Odissi dance is generally accompanied by Odissi music. Srjan, the Odissi dance academy founded by Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, the legendary Odissi dancer is found here.[114][115] The Rabindra Mandapa in central Bhubaneswar plays host to cultural engagements, theatre and private functions.[116]
Odissi dance
Dress and attire
Though Odia women traditionally wear the sari, shalwar kameez and of late, Western attire is gaining acceptance among younger women.[117] Western-style dress has greater acceptance among men, although the traditional dhoti and kurta are seen during festivals.[118]
The Odisha State Museum offers archaeological artefacts, weapons, local arts and crafts as well as insights into Odisha's natural and indigenous history.[119] The Tribal Research Institute Museum hosts authentic tribal dwellings created by tribal craftsmen.[120] Nandankanan Zoological Park, located on the northern outskirt of the city, is India's first zoo to join World Association of Zoos and Aquariums.[121][122] The State Botanical Garden (Odisha) and Regional Plant Resource Center, popularly known as Ekamra Kanan, a park and botanical garden, has a large collection of exotic and regional fauna. The Ekamra Haat is a hand-loom and handicrafts market. Nicco Park and Ocean World are amusement parks. Other museums include Pathani Samanta Planetarium, Regional Museum of Natural History, Regional Science Center and State Handicrafts Museum.
Festivals
On the day of Ashokashtami in the month of March or April, the image of Lingaraja (Shiva) and other deities are taken in a procession from Lingaraja Temple to the Mausima Temple, where the deities remain for four days.[123] Hundreds of devotees participate in pulling the temple car that carries the deities, known as Rukuna Ratha.[124] Ratha-Yatra, "Temple Car Festival," is the most important festival in Odisha and Bhubaneswar.[125] The festival commemorates Jagannatha, who is said to have been the incarnation of India's revered deities, Vishnu and Krishna. Durga Puja, held in September–October, is an occasion for glamorous celebrations.[126][127]
As a part of the Ekamra Festival, many cultural sub-festivals take place in January in Bhubaneswar which include Kalinga Mahotsaba (for traditional martial arts), Dhauli-Kalinga Mahotsaba (for classical dance forms), Rajarani Music Festival (for classical music) and Mukteswara Dance Festival (for Odishi dance).[128] Residents engage in khattis, or leisurely chats, that often take the form of freestyle intellectual conversation.[129]
Other festivals celebrated include Shivaratri, Diwali, Ganesha Chaturthi, Nuakhai and Saraswati Puja. Eid and Christmas are celebrated by the religious minorities in the city.[130][131][132]
The Adivasi Mela, held in January, is a fair that displays the art, artefacts, tradition, culture, and music of the tribal inhabitants of Odisha.[133] The Toshali National Crafts Mela, held in December, showcases handicrafts from all over India and from foreign countries.[134] Other important fairs in the city include the Rajdhani Book Fair, Dot Fest[135] and Khandagiri Utsav.[136][137] Two international literary festivals are held in the city, Kalinga Literary Festival[138][139] and Mystic Kalinga Festival.[140][141] In modern times Bhubaneswar hosts a literary festival, the Odisha Literary Fest.[142]
Cuisine
Pahala rasagola, a famous sweet which originated in Odisha
Chhena Gaja, another famous sweet of Odisha
Key elements of the city's cuisine include rice and a fish curry known as Machha Jhola, which can be accompanied by desserts such as Rasagola, Rasabali, Chhena Gaja, Chhena Jhilli and Chhena Poda.[143] Odisha's large repertoire of seafood dishes includes various preparations of lobsters and crabs brought in from Chilika Lake.[144]
Street foods such as gupchup (a deep-fried crêpe, stuffed with a mix of mashed potatoes and boiled yellow peas, and dipped in tamarind-infused water), cuttack-chaat, dahi bara-aloo dum (a deep-fried doughnut-shaped lentil dumpling marinated in yogurt-infused water and served alongside potato curry) and bara-ghuguni are sold all over the city.[145] Traditional Oriya food such as dahi-pakhala (rice soaked in water with yogurt and seasonings) which is considered as a body coolant, accompanied by badi chura or saga are consumed during the months of April–June.[146]
The abadha of Lingaraja Temple and Ananta Vasudeva Temple served for devotees is considered a vegetarian culinary delight. Other vegetarian dishes are Dalma (made of lentils and vegetables boiled together and then fried with other spices) and Santula (lightly spiced steamed vegetables).[144]
Sports
Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar Golf Club
Bhubaneswar's major sporting arena is the Kalinga Stadium, having facilities for athletics, football, hockey, basketball, tennis, table tennis and swimming.[147][148][149] It is known for hosting the Odisha Hockey World Cup in November–December 2018. Kalinga Lancers, the sixth franchise of Hockey India League and Odisha FC, a Club of Indian Super League, are based in Bhubaneswar with Kalinga Stadium as their home ground. East Coast Railway Stadium, a prominent cricket stadium hosts Ranji Trophy and other matches.[150]
The construction of a gallery and stadium renovation is under way. An air-conditioned indoor stadium, with a capacity of 2000 spectators for badminton, volleyball, basketball and table tennis games is also being constructed.[147] Barabati Stadium in Cuttack, Odisha's only venue for international cricket matches, is located around 25 kilometres (16 mi) away.[151] Bhubaneswar has a franchise of Odisha Premier League, Bhubaneswar Jaguars, which started in 2010. Bhubaneswar Golf Club, a nine-hole golf course is situated in Infocity.[152]
The Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology Stadium commonly KIIT Stadium is a new multipurpose stadium located as a part of Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology University Campus or KIIT University in Bhubaneswar with a capacity of 40,000 currently.
The 2017 Asian Athletics Championships was the 22nd edition of the Asian Athletics Championships. It was held from 6-9 July 2017 at the Kalinga Stadium. Bhubaneswar is the third Indian city to host the Asian Athletics Championships, with Delhi being the first, in 1989, and Pune, the second, in 2013.[153]
Bhubaneswar is emerging as the new sports capital of India, as the FIH and the IOA president, Narindar Batra, recently stated in a ceremony, while unveiling the new logo for the Indian hockey team jersey, which is sponsored by the government of Odisha. The state, Batra mentioned, provides equal importance and opportunity for all sports such as cricket, football, field hockey, tennis, badminton, chess and many more.[154]
Media
The city's widely circulated Odia-language newspapers are Sambad, Dharitri, Pragatibadi, Samaja, Khabara, Orissa Bhaskara, Prameya and Samaya.[155] Orissa Post and Odia Age are the English-language newspaper that is produced and published from Bhubaneswar. Other popular English-language newspapers published and sold in Bhubaneswar include The Times of India, The Statesman, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, The Indian Express and the Asian Age.[155] Bhubaneswar has substantial circulation of financial dailies, including The Economic Times, The Financial Express, Business Line and Business Standard.[155] Vernacular newspapers, such as those in the Hindi, Bengali and Telugu languages are read by minorities.[155] Major periodicals based in Bhubaneswar include Saptahika Samaya, Saptahika Samaja and Kadambini.
All India Radio, the national state-owned radio broadcaster, airs several AM channels from the radio station located in Cuttack.[156] Bhubaneswar has five local radio stations broadcasting on FM, including two from AIR.[156][157] India's state-owned television broadcaster Doordarshan Odia provides two free-to-air terrestrial channels,[158] while a mix of Odia, Hindi, English and other regional channels are accessible via cable subscription and direct-broadcast satellite services. Some of the Odia language television channels are Colors Odia, Sarthak TV and Tarang TV. Odia-language 24-hour television news channels include News 7, Odisha TV, Kanak TV, ETV News Odia, MBC TV and Naxatra News.[159]
Notable people
The following are some of the notable people associated with Bhubaneswar:[clarification needed]
Subroto Bagchi
Ranjib Biswal
Dutee Chand
Nabakrushna Choudhuri
Bidhu Bhusan Das
Prabhat Nalini Das
Pankaj Charan Das
Baidyanath Misra
B. K. Misra
Bhubaneswar Mishra
Aparajita Mohanty
Bijay Mohanty
Debashish Mohanty
Gopinath Mohanty
Saraju Mohanty
Uttam Mohanty
Bibhu Mohapatra
Kelucharan Mohapatra
Mira Nair
Oopali Operajita
Sanjukta Panigrahi
Ramesh Chandra Parida
Prasanna Kumar Patasani
Biju Patnaik
Janaki Ballabh Patnaik
Naveen Patnaik
Sudarsan Pattnaik
Rakesh Pradhan
Trilochan Pradhan
Biswa Kalyan Rath
Mahasweta Ray
Tandra Ray
Archita Sahu
Salabega
Achyuta Samanta
Pathani Samanta
Mayadhar Swain
Strictly speaking doctrinal knowledge is independent of the individual. But its actualization is not independent of the human capacity to act as a vehicle for it. He who possesses truth must none the less merit it although it is a free gift. Truth is immutable in itself, but in us it lives, because we live.
If we want truth to live in us we must live in it.
Knowledge only saves us on condition that it enlists all that we are, only when it is a way and when it works and transforms and wounds our nature even as the plough wounds the soil.
To say this is to say that intelligence and metaphysical certainty alone do not save; of themselves they do not prevent titans from falling. This is what explains the psychological and other precautions with which every tradition surrounds the gift of the doctrine.
When metaphysical knowledge is effective it produces love and destroys presumption. It produces love, that is to say the spontaneous directing of the will towards God and the perception of "myself" - and of God - in one's neighbour. It destroys presumption, for knowledge does not allow a man to overestimate himself or to underestimate others. By reducing to ashes all that is not God it orders all things.
All St. Paul says of charity concerns effective knowledge, for the latter is love, and he opposes it to theory inasmuch as theory is human concept. The Apostle desires that truth should be contemplated with our whole being and he calls this totality of contemplation "love".
Metaphysical knowledge is sacred. It is the right of sacred things to require of man all that he is.
Intelligence, since it distinguishes, perceives, as one might put
it, proportions. The spiritual man integrates these proportions into his will, into his soul and into his life.
All defects are defects of proportion; they are errors that are lived. To be spiritual means not denying at any point with one's "being" what one affirms with one's knowledge, that is, what one accepts with the intelligence.
Truth lived: incorruptibility and generosity. Since ignorance is all that we are and not merely our thinking, knowledge will also be all that we are to the extent to which our existential modalities are by their nature able to participate in truth.
Human nature contains dark elements which no intellectual
certainty could, ipso facto, eliminate...
Pure intellectuality is as serene as a summer sky - serene with a serenity that is at once infinitely incorruptible and infinitely generous.
Intellectualism which "dries up the heart" has no connection
with intellectuality.
The incorruptibility - or inviolability - of truth is bound up neither with contempt nor with avarice.
What is man's certainty? On the level of ideas it may be perfect, but on the level of life it but rarely pierces through illusion.
Everything is ephemeral and every man must die. No man is
ignorant of this and no one knows it.
Man may have an interest that is quite illusory in accepting the
most transcendent ideas and will readily believe himself to be superior to some other who, not having this interest - perhaps because he is too intelligent or too noble to have it - is sincere enough not to accept them, though he may all the same be more able to understand them than the other who accepts them.
Man does not always accept truth because he understands it; often he believes he understands it because he is anxious to accept it.
People often discuss truths whereas they should limit themselves to discussing tastes and tendencies ...
Acuteness of intelligence is only a blessing when it is compensated by greatness and sweetness of the soul. It should not appear as a rupture of the equilibrium or as an excess which splits man in two. A gift of nature requires complementary qualities which allow of its harmonious manifestation; otherwise there is a risk of the lights becoming mingled with darkness.
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"Ella le mira y, por primera vez, descubre que un otro lugar siempre ha estado entre ella y él. Desde su primera mirada. Un otro lugar protector, de pura inmensidad, inviolable él. Una especie de China lejana, de infancia, ¿por qué no? que los protegiera de todo conocimiento ajeno a ella. Y descubre así que ella, sí, ella le protege a él al igual que él a ella, contra acontecimientos como la edad adulta, la muerte, la tristeza de la noche, la soledad de la fortuna, la soledad de la miseria, tanto la del amor como la del deseo."
El amante de la china del Norte
Marguerite Duras
Play music >> In a Sentimental Mood >> Duke ellington & John coltrane
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COPYRIGHT:
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission.
© Justo Morales Serrano 2011 All rights reserved.
Please no comments awards with big icons, big or graphic invite multiply related posts, they will be deleted, thanks.
Twice a day while at Camp, the Troop had Flag raising and lowering.
These inviolable ceremonies, brought back memories of when I was a Scout and made me reflect on how fortunate I am to not only have my boys be a part of Scouting here in the US, but for me now to have come full-circle from once being a Scout to now being an Adult Leader. I now get to pass on the knowledge I learned from attaining Eagle Scout, in hopes that many in the Troop will attain Eagle Scout as well.
3xp internal HDR shot of the Troop lowering the flag after another outstanding day of activities and instruction.
Coloma, California.
**btw, the Scouts built the flag pole. I've also blurred out the faces out of respect for the privacy of the others.
British postcard by Odeon. Photo: Momentum Pictures. Audrey Tautou in Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001).
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) is a French romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. The film, written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, is a romanticised portrayal of life in Montmartre, Paris. Amelie became an international box-office hit and was awarded four Césars (including for best film and best director) and received five Academy Award nominations. The music was composed by Yann Tiersen.
The film describes the fairy-tale-like and romantic story of the young woman Amélie Poulain who decides one day that she can make other people happy with little things. Amélie grows up isolated from other children because she is thought to suffer from a heart condition. Her father, a doctor, never touches her, so that her heartbeat rises with enthusiasm when he does during the examination. Amélie's mother, who is very neurotic, dies when Amélie is still a child because a Canadian woman who jumps off Notre Dame falls on top of her. Amélie's father shuts himself off even more from the world and starts building a mausoleum for his dead wife. Because she is always on her own, Amélie develops a very rich imagination. When Amélie is older, she becomes a waitress in the Café des 2 Moulins, a small café in the Montmartre district of Paris. The owner is Suzanne, a former circus performer, and the guests are colourful. Amélie, who is 23 at the time, leads a simple life. She takes pleasure in simple things like breaking the sugar coating on crème brûlée, throwing pebbles on the Canal Saint-Martin, and fantasising about how many couples in Paris are having an orgasm at that moment. Her life changes on the day of Princess Diana's death. Through a series of events that follow her shock at the news, she discovers a small metal box behind a skirting board in her bathroom. Inside this box are memories of a boy who lived in the flat decades before Amélie. Fascinated by this, she goes in search of this now grown-up person to give him back the box. She makes an agreement with herself that if she succeeds and the person is happy, she will dedicate her life to the good things in life and helping others.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet began jotting down ideas and memories in 1974, which form the basis of Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001). The profits from Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) enabled him to make a film without making commercial concessions. In Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), Jeunet reintroduces elements from the short film Foutaises (1990), especially the "il aime/il n'aime pas" (he likes/he doesn't like) fragments in the presentation of the characters. The almost constant presence of the colour combination of strong red and strong green that could already be seen in La cité des enfants perdus/The City of the Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1995) returns in this film. Jeunet says in the DVD's commentary track that the idea of the album of discarded pictures came from the French writer Michel Folco, who owns such an album. Because of intellectual property rights, Jeunet could not use this album, so he had to work with extras. The film uses computer graphics and digital post-production (digital intermediate). Jeunet had actually written the role of Amélie for Emily Watson. In the original script, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Emily Watson's French was not good enough and there was a time conflict due to the filming of Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001). Jeunet, therefore, rewrote the script for French actress Audrey Tautou. Filming took place at the Café des 2 Moulins in Paris, at the Gare du Nord station, outside at the Gare de l'Est and at the Sacré-Cœur church. Since the film was financially supported by the Filmstiftung NRW, the interior shots of the film were shot at the MMC Studio Coloneum in Cologne. The German painter Michael Sowa contributed some bizarre interior details. He created the pig lamp as well as some of the paintings in Amélie's room, which can be seen in the background. For the TV sequence that suddenly refers to Amélie's life in the subtitles ("Raymond Dufayel's attempt to interfere is unacceptable. If Amélie prefers to live in her dream world and remain an introverted young woman, that is her right. Because the right to a failed life is inviolable!"), a sequence from the second part of the four-part Soviet film epic Blockade (1974) about the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War was used. A recurring theme of Georges Delerue's film music for François Truffaut's film Jules te Jim/Jules and Jim (1962) is varied several times by Yann Tiersen in his soundtrack for Amelie as the main theme.
At the 2002 Césars, Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain won Best Film, Best Director, Best Score and Best Production Design. It was also nominated in nine other categories, including Best Original Screenplay and Audrey Tautou for Best Actress in a Leading Role. At the 2001 European Film Awards, the film won in four categories: Best European Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and the Jameson Audience Award for Best Director. Audrey Tautou was also nominated for Best Actress. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2002 in the five categories Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound, but did not prevail in any of the categories. The film received good reviews both in France and internationally. The film did not enter the official competition at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival, as Gilles Jacob, who was responsible for the film selection, said he found it "uninteresting". This caused a major public debate, as the rejection was interpreted in many places as a contradiction to the great media interest in the film and as a decision "against the audience". Jean-Pierre Jeunet reacted to the rejection by bringing forward the film's theatrical release. Amélie now ran parallel to the ongoing festival. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) grossed 140 million US dollars worldwide, 33 million of which in the USA.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Notes: Tā moko is the permanent body and face marking by Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. Traditionally it is distinct from tattoo and tatau, in that the skin was carved by uhi (chisels) rather than punctured. This left the skin with grooves, rather than a smooth surface.
Captain James Cook wrote in 1769:
The marks in general are spirals drawn with great nicety and even elegance. One side corresponds with the other. The marks on the body resemble foliage in old chased ornaments, convolutions of filigree work, but in these they have such a luxury of forms that of a hundred which at first appeared exactly the same no two were formed alike on close examination.
The Tohunga tā moko (or tattooists) were considered tapu, or exceptionally inviolable and sacred.
Format: albumen photoprint, 125 mm x 200 mm
Date Range: 1880s
Location: somewhere in New Zealand
Licensing: Attribution, share alike, creative commons.
Repository: Blue Mountains City Library - library.bmcc.nsw.gov.au
Part of: Local Studies Collection
Provenance: the McBroom album
Links: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C4%81_moko
australianmuseum.net.au/the-meaning-of-ta-moko-maori-tatt...
Short Meaning:
Be aware of beauty in the world around you.
Not So Short Meaning:
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"
And If You Have 5 Minutes To Kill:
Transcription of the 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address By David Foster Wallace
- May 21, 2005
(If anybody feels like perspiring [cough], I'd advise you to go ahead, because I'm sure going to. In fact I'm gonna [mumbles while pulling up his gown and taking out a handkerchief from his pocket].) Greetings ["parents"?] and congratulations to Kenyon's graduating class of 2005. There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"
This is a standard requirement of US commencement speeches, the deployment of didactic little parable-ish stories. The story ["thing"] turns out to be one of the better, less bullshitty conventions of the genre, but if you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, older fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.
Of course the main requirement of speeches like this is that I'm supposed to talk about your liberal arts education's meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff. So let's talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about quote teaching you how to think. If you're like me as a student, you've never liked hearing this, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you needed anybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already know how to think. But I'm going to posit to you that the liberal arts cliché turns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant education in thinking that we're supposed to get in a place like this isn't really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about. If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing, I'd ask you to think about fish and water, and to bracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about the value of the totally obvious.
Here's another didactic little story. There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp."
It's easy to run this story through kind of a standard liberal arts analysis: the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people, given those people's two different belief templates and two different ways of constructing meaning from experience. Because we prize tolerance and diversity of belief, nowhere in our liberal arts analysis do we want to claim that one guy's interpretation is true and the other guy's is false or bad. Which is fine, except we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice. Plus, there's the whole matter of arrogance. The nonreligious guy is so totally certain in his dismissal of the possibility that the passing Eskimos had anything to do with his prayer for help. True, there are plenty of religious people who seem arrogant and certain of their own interpretations, too. They're probably even more repulsive than atheists, at least to most of us. But religious dogmatists' problem is exactly the same as the story's unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up.
The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.
Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.
Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted", which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.
Given the triumphant academic setting here, an obvious question is how much of this work of adjusting our default setting involves actual knowledge or intellect. This question gets very tricky. Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education -- least in my own case -- is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.
As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.
By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home. You haven't had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it's pretty much the last place you want to be but you can't just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough check-out lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can't take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.
But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.
Everyone here has done this, of course. But it hasn't yet been part of you graduates' actual life routine, day after week after month after year.
But it will be. And many more dreary, annoying, seemingly meaningless routines besides. But that is not the point. The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.
Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest [responding here to loud applause] (this is an example of how NOT to think, though) most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.
You get the idea.
If I choose to think this way in a store and on the freeway, fine. Lots of us do. Except thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic that it doesn't have to be a choice. It is my natural default setting. It's the automatic way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world, and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities.
The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.
Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.
Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you are supposed to think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it. Because it's hard. It takes will and effort, and if you are like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat out won't want to.
But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible. It just depends what you what to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it.
This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.
Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and [unintelligible -- sounds like "displayal"]. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don't just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.
The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.
It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
"This is water."
"This is water."
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.
I wish you way more than luck.
- David Foster Wallace
The Small Bridge.
Sculpture antiquitas bleating συναισθήματα thrown,
aanwezigheid of réconfortant symbolist landscape alone,
angespannt cramped brilliance непојамно flares,
plunging constamment placid borders hold,
paradigms falcate beneath perfectio mirror,
ripening impulsy creating poems bark,
tremendo existence étrangeté of persistence depths,
expandentisque tenderly folds of entangled tendrils,
underlying foreign επιτακτικός self contained paths,
syvällinen morning urging patient lyrics imminent,
eloquent carpet soft impresiones show,
inviolable existentia unlimited history tells,
frammentaria features drums ceremoniously rolls,
sensuelle praising meadows distant desires form,
fleeting breeze exeamus snatched,
interualla of on rushing αφύπνιση blossoms,
αριθμητός calculos stretched dissolving eyelids,
smiled eingereicht sheltering exspectationem alas,
la flambée saints lovingly udholder fruitful times,
dawn λαμπυρίζει spaciousness responding 愛 .
Steve.D.Hammond.
NON MI RIFERISCO AL PONTE DEL PRIMO PIANO MA QUELLO SULLO SFONDO....
E’ un ponte in pietra d’Istria realizzato nel 1600 per collegare il Palazzo Ducale al Palazzo delle Prigioni Nuove, dove si trovano anche le antiche stanze delle torture e i vecchi uffici dei Tribunali veneziani.
All’origine del suo romantico nome ci sarebbe una leggenda secondo la quale i prigionieri che attraversavano il ponte prima di venire rinchiusi per sempre nelle prigioni, sospiravano gettando un ultimo sguardo alla città e alla sua laguna attraverso le piccole finestrelle del ponte, rimpiangendo la libertà perduta e magari l’amore che avevano lasciato fuori.
Il più famoso dei prigionieri che attraversò il ponte dei Sospiri fu il nobile Giacomo Casanova, la cui fuga dalle famigerate e inviolabili prigioni dei Piombi rimane la più celebre tra le sue innumerevoli avventure di dongiovanni veneziano!
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I AM NOT REFERRING TO THE BRIDGE ON THE FIRST FLOOR BUT THE ONE IN THE BACKGROUND....
It is a bridge made of Istrian stone built in 1600 to connect the Doge's Palace to the Palazzo delle Prigioni Nuove, where the ancient torture rooms and the old offices of the Venetian Courts are also located.
At the origin of its romantic name there is a legend according to which the prisoners who crossed the bridge before being locked up forever in the prisons, sighed while casting a last glance at the city and its lagoon through the small windows of the bridge, regretting the lost freedom and perhaps the love they had left outside.
The most famous of the prisoners who crossed the Bridge of Sighs was the noble Giacomo Casanova, whose escape from the infamous and inviolable Piombi prisons remains the most famous of his countless adventures as a Venetian Don Juan!
CANON EOS 600D con ob. SIGMA 10-20 f.4-5,6 EX DC HSM.
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A horrible cataclysm breaks the tearful ground and the river rushes through the new bed; Through the walls of luminous granite itarare, fearful and violent.
Suddenly he stops to take a breath, here in the dark cave, in the shady silence; But soon he jumps on, rude and noisy, to disappear beyond, elusive and silent.
In the afternoon, the swallows, in wild revolts, threw themselves at the grottoes, the arrows of which were fired, seeking the solitude of spontaneous exile.
And the mystery of the river remains inviolable ...
Nothing escapes from within the unfathomable abyss.
Only the swallows know ... but keep it a secret.
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Australian postcard by AvantCard, no. 6148, Postcard 2 in a series of 6. Photo: Dendy. Audrey Tatou in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain/Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001). Caption: Amelie lives in Paris and in a world of her own. She cultivates a taste for small pleasures. Like skimming stones on St. Martin's Canal. And cracking crème brulée with a teaspoon.
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) is a French romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. The film, written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, is a romanticised portrayal of life in Montmartre, Paris. The film became an international box-office hit and was awarded four Césars internationally (including for best film and best director) and received five Academy Award nominations. The music was composed by Yann Tiersen.
The film describes the fairy-tale-like and romantic story of the young woman Amélie Poulain who decides one day that she can make other people happy with little things. Amélie grows up isolated from other children because she is thought to suffer from a heart condition. Her father, a doctor, never touches her, so that her heartbeat rises with enthusiasm when he does during the examination. Amélie's mother, who is very neurotic, dies when Amélie is still a child because a Canadian woman who jumps off Notre Dame falls on top of her. Amélie's father shuts himself off even more from the world and starts building a mausoleum for his dead wife. Because she is always on her own, Amélie develops a very rich imagination. When Amélie is older, she becomes a waitress in the Café des 2 Moulins, a small café in the Montmartre district of Paris. The owner is Suzanne, a former circus performer, and the guests are colourful. Amélie, who is 23 at the time, leads a simple life. She takes pleasure in simple things like breaking the sugar coating on crème brûlée, throwing pebbles on the Canal Saint-Martin and fantasising about how many couples in Paris are having an orgasm at that moment. Her life changes on the day of Princess Diana's death. Through a series of events that follow her shock at the news, she discovers a small metal box behind a skirting board in her bathroom. Inside this box are memories of a boy who lived in the flat decades before Amélie. Fascinated by this, she goes in search of this now grown-up person to give him back the box. She makes an agreement with herself that if she succeeds and the person is happy, she will dedicate her life to the good things in life and helping others.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet began jotting down ideas and memories in 1974, which form the basis of Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001). The profits from Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) enabled him to make a film without making commercial concessions. In Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), Jeunet reintroduces elements from the short film Foutaises (1990), especially the "il aime/il n'aime pas" (he likes/he doesn't like) fragments in the presentation of the characters. The almost constant presence of the colour combination of strong red and strong green that could already be seen in La cité des enfants perdus/The City of the Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1995) returns in this film. Jeunet says in the DVD's commentary track that the idea of the album of discarded pictures came from the French writer Michel Folco, who owns such an album. Because of intellectual property rights, Jeunet could not use this album, so he had to work with extras. The film uses computer graphics and digital post-production (digital intermediate). Jeunet had actually written the role of Amélie for Emily Watson. In the original script, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Emily Watson's French was not good enough and there was a time conflict due to the filming of Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001). Jeunet, therefore, rewrote the script for French actress Audrey Tautou. Filming took place at the Café des 2 Moulins in Paris, at the Gare du Nord station, outside at the Gare de l'Est and at the Sacré-Cœur church. Since the film was financially supported by the Filmstiftung NRW, the interior shots of the film were shot at the MMC Studio Coloneum in Cologne. The German painter Michael Sowa contributed some bizarre interior details. He created the pig lamp as well as some of the paintings in Amélie's room, which can be seen in the background. For the TV sequence that suddenly refers to Amélie's life in the subtitles ("Raymond Dufayel's attempt to interfere is unacceptable. If Amélie prefers to live in her dream world and remain an introverted young woman, that is her right. Because the right to a failed life is inviolable!"), a sequence from the second part of the four-part Soviet film epic Blockade (1974) about the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War was used. A recurring theme of Georges Delerue's film music for François Truffaut's film Jules te Jim/Jules and Jim (1962) is varied several times by Yann Tiersen in his soundtrack for Amelie as the main theme.
At the 2002 Césars, Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain won Best Film, Best Director, Best Score and Best Production Design. It was also nominated in nine other categories, including Best Original Screenplay and Audrey Tautou for Best Actress in a Leading Role. At the 2001 European Film Awards, the film won in four categories: Best European Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and the Jameson Audience Award for Best Director. Audrey Tautou was also nominated for Best Actress. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2002 in the five categories Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound, but did not prevail in any of the categories. The film received good reviews both in France and internationally. The film did not enter the official competition at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival, as Gilles Jacob, who was responsible for the film selection, said he found it "uninteresting". This caused a major public debate, as the rejection was interpreted in many places as a contradiction to the great media interest in the film and as a decision "against the audience". Jean-Pierre Jeunet reacted to the rejection by bringing forward the film's theatrical release; "Amélie" now ran parallel to the ongoing festival. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) grossed 140 million US dollars worldwide, 33 million of which in the USA.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Strictly speaking doctrinal knowledge is independent of the individual. But its actualization is not independent of the human capacity to act as a vehicle for it. He who possesses truth must none the less merit it although it is a free gift. Truth is immutable in itself, but in us it lives, because we live.
If we want truth to live in us we must live in it.
Knowledge only saves us on condition that it enlists all that we are, only when it is a way and when it works and transforms and wounds our nature even as the plough wounds the soil.
To say this is to say that intelligence and metaphysical certainty alone do not save; of themselves they do not prevent titans from falling. This is what explains the psychological and other precautions with which every tradition surrounds the gift of the doctrine.
When metaphysical knowledge is effective it produces love and destroys presumption. It produces love, that is to say the spontaneous directing of the will towards God and the perception of "myself" - and of God - in one's neighbour. It destroys presumption, for knowledge does not allow a man to overestimate himself or to underestimate others. By reducing to ashes all that is not God it orders all things.
All St. Paul says of charity concerns effective knowledge, for the latter is love, and he opposes it to theory inasmuch as theory is human concept. The Apostle desires that truth should be contemplated with our whole being and he calls this totality of contemplation "love".
Metaphysical knowledge is sacred. It is the right of sacred things to require of man all that he is.
Intelligence, since it distinguishes, perceives, as one might put it, proportions. The spiritual man integrates these proportions into his will, into his soul and into his life.
All defects are defects of proportion; they are errors that are lived. To be spiritual means not denying at any point with one's "being" what one affirms with one's knowledge, that is, what one accepts with the intelligence.
Truth lived: incorruptibility and generosity.
Since ignorance is all that we are and not merely our thinking, knowledge will also be all that we are to the extent to which our existential modalities are by their nature able to participate in truth.
Human nature contains dark elements which no intellectual certainty could, ipso facto, eliminate...
Pure intellectuality is as serene as a summer sky - serene with a serenity that is at once infinitely incorruptible and infinitely generous.
Intellectualism which "dries up the heart" has no connection with intellectuality.
The incorruptibility- or inviolability- of truth is bound up neither with contempt nor with avarice.
What is man's certainty? On the level of ideas it may be perfect, but on the level of life it but rarely pierces through illusion.
Everything is ephemeral and every man must die. No man is ignorant of this and no one knows it.
Man may have an interest that is quite illusory in accepting the most transcendent ideas and will readily believe himself to be superior to some other who, not having this interest (perhaps because he is too intelligent or too noble to have it) is sincere enough not to accept them, though he may all the same be more able to understand them than the other who accepts them. Man does not always accept truth because he understands it; often he believes he understands it because he is anxious to accept it.
People often discuss truths whereas they should limit themselves to discussing tastes and tendencies ...
Acuteness of intelligence is only a blessing when it is compensated by greatness and sweetness of the soul. It should not appear as a rupture of the equilibrium or as an excess which splits man in two. A gift of nature requires complementary qualities which allow of its harmonious manifestation; otherwise there is a risk of the lights becoming mingled with darkness.
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Frithjof Schuon
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Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
In this white marble sculpture depicting a mother and her child, Paul Lancz's vision of the artist is unique because it depicts two equally important entities expressing total devotion to each other.
The child kisses the hand of the mother, the mother the child's forehead. In a world where nothing is sacred or inviolable, especially human beings, Tenderness appears as an infallible symbol of permanence and invulnerability.
PAUL LANCZ
Born in Hungary in 1919, Canadian sculptor Paul Lancz studied at the Budapest School of Fine Arts and worked for three years with the internationally renowned Hungarian sculptor Szigmond Kisfaludy Strobl. Lancz moved to Canada in 1956. Much of his production consisted of busts of well-known politicians and artists.
In 1967, he presented a bust of Israeli prime minister David Ben Gurion to the Israel Pavilion for the Montréal World Fair. Among the other busts that he produced were those of eminent Montréal figures, including Abraham Bronfman, Armand Frappier, Alexis Nihon, and René Lépine. He died in Montréal in 2005.
Australian postcard by AvantCard, no. 6149, Postcard 3 in a series of 6. Photo: Dendy. Audrey Tatou in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain/Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001). Caption: Amelie lives in Paris and in a world of her own. Some Fridays, Amelie goes to the movies. She likes looking back at people's faces in the dark. Amelie notices the shy people always laugh the loudest.
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) is a French romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. The film, written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, is a romanticised portrayal of life in Montmartre, Paris. The film became an international box-office hit and was awarded four Césars internationally (including for best film and best director) and received five Academy Award nominations. The music was composed by Yann Tiersen.
The film describes the fairy-tale-like and romantic story of the young woman Amélie Poulain who decides one day that she can make other people happy with little things. Amélie grows up isolated from other children because she is thought to suffer from a heart condition. Her father, a doctor, never touches her, so that her heartbeat rises with enthusiasm when he does during the examination. Amélie's mother, who is very neurotic, dies when Amélie is still a child because a Canadian woman who jumps off Notre Dame falls on top of her. Amélie's father shuts himself off even more from the world and starts building a mausoleum for his dead wife. Because she is always on her own, Amélie develops a very rich imagination. When Amélie is older, she becomes a waitress in the Café des 2 Moulins, a small café in the Montmartre district of Paris. The owner is Suzanne, a former circus performer, and the guests are colourful. Amélie, who is 23 at the time, leads a simple life. She takes pleasure in simple things like breaking the sugar coating on crème brûlée, throwing pebbles on the Canal Saint-Martin and fantasising about how many couples in Paris are having an orgasm at that moment. Her life changes on the day of Princess Diana's death. Through a series of events that follow her shock at the news, she discovers a small metal box behind a skirting board in her bathroom. Inside this box are memories of a boy who lived in the flat decades before Amélie. Fascinated by this, she goes in search of this now grown-up person to give him back the box. She makes an agreement with herself that if she succeeds and the person is happy, she will dedicate her life to the good things in life and helping others.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet began jotting down ideas and memories in 1974, which form the basis of Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001). The profits from Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) enabled him to make a film without making commercial concessions. In Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), Jeunet reintroduces elements from the short film Foutaises (1990), especially the "il aime/il n'aime pas" (he likes/he doesn't like) fragments in the presentation of the characters. The almost constant presence of the colour combination of strong red and strong green that could already be seen in La cité des enfants perdus/The City of the Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1995) returns in this film. Jeunet says in the DVD's commentary track that the idea of the album of discarded pictures came from the French writer Michel Folco, who owns such an album. Because of intellectual property rights, Jeunet could not use this album, so he had to work with extras. The film uses computer graphics and digital post-production (digital intermediate). Jeunet had actually written the role of Amélie for Emily Watson. In the original script, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Emily Watson's French was not good enough and there was a time conflict due to the filming of Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001). Jeunet, therefore, rewrote the script for French actress Audrey Tautou. Filming took place at the Café des 2 Moulins in Paris, at the Gare du Nord station, outside at the Gare de l'Est and at the Sacré-Cœur church. Since the film was financially supported by the Filmstiftung NRW, the interior shots of the film were shot at the MMC Studio Coloneum in Cologne. The German painter Michael Sowa contributed some bizarre interior details. He created the pig lamp as well as some of the paintings in Amélie's room, which can be seen in the background. For the TV sequence that suddenly refers to Amélie's life in the subtitles ("Raymond Dufayel's attempt to interfere is unacceptable. If Amélie prefers to live in her dream world and remain an introverted young woman, that is her right. Because the right to a failed life is inviolable!"), a sequence from the second part of the four-part Soviet film epic Blockade (1974) about the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War was used. A recurring theme of Georges Delerue's film music for François Truffaut's film Jules te Jim/Jules and Jim (1962) is varied several times by Yann Tiersen in his soundtrack for Amelie as the main theme.
At the 2002 Césars, Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain won Best Film, Best Director, Best Score and Best Production Design. It was also nominated in nine other categories, including Best Original Screenplay and Audrey Tautou for Best Actress in a Leading Role. At the 2001 European Film Awards, the film won in four categories: Best European Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and the Jameson Audience Award for Best Director. Audrey Tautou was also nominated for Best Actress. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2002 in the five categories Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound, but did not prevail in any of the categories. The film received good reviews both in France and internationally. The film did not enter the official competition at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival, as Gilles Jacob, who was responsible for the film selection, said he found it "uninteresting". This caused a major public debate, as the rejection was interpreted in many places as a contradiction to the great media interest in the film and as a decision "against the audience". Jean-Pierre Jeunet reacted to the rejection by bringing forward the film's theatrical release; "Amélie" now ran parallel to the ongoing festival. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) grossed 140 million US dollars worldwide, 33 million of which in the USA.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
"May Nazareth teach us what family life is, its communion of love, its austere and simple beauty, and its sacred and inviolable character. Let us learn from Nazareth that the formation received at home is gentle and irreplaceable. Let us learn the prime importance of the role of the family in the social order."
– Pope Paul VI.
Stained glass from St Mary's Basilica in Phoenix, AZ.
The banner on Theaterplatz reads:
"The dignity of the People is inviolable" - Article 1 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The splendid building is the restored Semper Gallery which houses the Old Masters Picture Gallery part of of the Zwinger in Dresden Altstadt.
Bagni di Stoia is a public beach on the Pula Stoja peninsula.
The beach facility, built in 1936, is the work of architect Enrico Trolis and represents the culmination of modern architectural creation in the 1930s in the Pula area.
When erecting the building, the inviolability of the environment and the principles of functional construction were respected. Unlike most projects of the time, a relatively small beach was created on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by a Mediterranean landscape. The construction of the bathing facility was made possible by the municipal authorities with their own funds, while the young student E. Trolis managed to preserve its functionality and low budget. The grand opening was on July 19, 1936. The construction of the building brought freshness to the hitherto suggestive bathing environment, and the new building attracted attention with its measured volume and simple architecture. The swimming pool was built on the edge of a pine forest, which provided users with fragrant air and pleasant shade, and the cabins, painted in basic colors, gave a special atmosphere. The building is constructed as an abstract composition based on an asymmetrical floor plan composition, minimalist construction and elemental shapes. The essential expression of the design is inspired by the ship's aesthetics of decks, round windows and masts. The sun deck determines the central axis of the building as the absolutely dominant spatial element. The semicircular terrace on the building is set as an elongated floating surface on two pillars. The surfaces of the wall surfaces are rhythmic with the geometry of circular window openings, vertical surfaces of the cabin doors and a simple grid of horizontal lines of metal railings. Behind the beach facility there is a circular podium for the orchestra built within the complex.
It is protected as a cultural asset by the decision of the Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of 20.XII.2005. and entered in the Register of Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Croatia. The City of Pula has launched a project for the rehabilitation and renovation of the beach in 2016. The pier, the area behind the cabins and the upper terrace have been renovated, and the central building was renovated in 2019. The entire project for the renovation of the beach. playgrounds for children, two rows of cabins, toilets, storage rooms, terrace for the restaurant under the concrete canopy, cafe-bar with terrace, large restaurant, sun deck and dance floor.
What is your personal identity and how is it affected by your values?Values are central; they go to the very core of us, to our personal identity. Our principles are perhaps the most important thing as, whether or not we live out our dream or achieve our mission, they are most likely to remain intact. Values are a foundation and a plumb line as well as a moral compass.“We are not in control, principles control. We control our actions, but the consequences that flow from these actions are controlled by Principles.” Stephen R. CoveyOur decisions and actions flow from our principles and in this way our values help to define us; they are part of our identity. Our exploration and discovery of our principles is therefore a discovery of self. As one anonymous observer noted: “Every one of us has in him a continent of undiscovered character. Blessed is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul.”So what do we know about our own identity? What do we value in ourselves and others?Think about the first two questions you are generally asked when you meet someone. If you are from the UK or a large part of the Western world it is likely to be “what is your name?” (usually meaning your first name) quickly followed by “what do you do?”What are people really asking when they enquire about what you do? They are asking about your job, profession or vocation for sure. But the fact that this comes out so quickly when we meet people indicates how highly we rate work in our culture and how closely we identify ourselves with what we do. When people ask what you do they are actually asking who you are. They are hoping for an answer that will help them quickly categorise you.
What do you do?
I went along with this for many years because for many years it was easy. I started out as an army officer working as a bomb disposal expert. This was an easy title, and one I enjoyed using, as it sounded impressive. I enjoyed seeing the raised eyebrows and the endearing look of respect (that I so little deserved as they would have found out if they got to know me better). Next I was a Project Manager, working in the construction industry. Again an easy label, although I must admit it sounded less impressive at parties than something with ‘Bomb’ in the title. But hey, I was married by then so whom was I trying to impress anyway? Well everyone actually!The real challenge came with my next job, working for a rapidly growing church. My job description was constantly evolving and therefore it was hard to describe exactly what I did, especially as I was not ordained. I found I not only had to introduce myself as slightly different things but even then it generally required a long explanation. The process of outlining what I did was just long enough to watch people’s eyes glaze over, stare down their drinks or look furtively towards the exit...Working as a consultant was not really any easier as the title ‘consultant’ has become akin to a dirty word to some people. You may be motivated by helping individuals and equipping organisations but one has a lot of justification to do when people look at you with an expression that seems to imply ‘consultant’ is synonymous with ‘parasite’!And then, at one networking event I had a moment of clarity and started introducing myself in this way: “Hi, I’m Simon, I train dolphins to be government assassins.” Once again I had attained the level of eyebrow movement that I have attained as a bomb disposal officer. Life was easy once again but it did make me think, “Why do people, including me, care so much about titles? What does it say about me?”.
Are we just what we do?
who are we? why what we value defines our identity and character
Are we just a suit? (Son of man by Rene Magritte)
If asked about your identity, like me, you may not initially answer beyond your name and job but of course there is much more to us than that. One way we can discover something more about our identity is by what we think when we look at other people. As we walk down a street, enter a room or sit staring out of a café window we are constantly assessing those around us. We compare looks, wealth, car, house, job, children, happiness, clothes, phone. In conversation this process continues through things like accent, vocabulary, demeanour, politics, religion, aspirations and education.Of course much of what we first think is not real; we try to make a value judgement in a fleeting moment, judging the book by its cover. Not surprisingly this process actually tells us more about us than about the other person, because how we classify the others speaks volumes about how we perceive ourselves. If we are putting someone else in a certain box or on a certain level what does that say about our position? I for one did not think I had a pride problem until I thought about this! Even this internal classification can be somewhat misleading. We all have roles that we play and we often wear masks that represent an aspirational self, the person we want to show to the world, rather than the real us. But even if this ideal self is not the true self we can learn more of ourselves. This is because even if we are aspiring to be something or someone else it once again reveals what we value.What is your worldview? What are your beliefs?
Work, position, pension, benefits package and job title can be important to us. Our perception of our perfect partner, spouse and family can be the more presentable faces of simple base motivators. Money, sex and power have always been identified as strong drivers, even if they are hidden under more subtle layers of respectability. Our identity can also be wrapped up in more ethereal things. Our worldview, philosophy, faith or politics can define us because they affect the way we live.None of these things need to be necessarily good or bad in themselves, but for everything we prioritise we need to ask ‘why’ we care about it so that we can understand it further and get under the skin of our thinking. We need to be aware of the things around which we construct our lives. We need to be certain of the foundation we are building upon.
Worth-ship
If we value something very highly we give it worth above other things or even ultimate worth. We build our lives around it. This prioritising, giving position, reverence or regard was called ‘worschipe’ in Middle English. Today its name is ‘worship’. In other words, even if you do not consider yourself religious we all give something religious value.Here is what David Foster Wallace said on the subject:“Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it JC or Allah, bet it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.”Values, character, worship, identity David Foster Wallace – Wikicommons
We may not believe in God but we all choose to give something ultimate worth and choose to build our lives around it. It is important that we know what that thing is and ask ourselves why we value it so highly.Digging down to our principles. Self-exploration can be a scary journey but it is an essential one. We need to know about our principles because what happens when these things are challenged or even taken away? What are we left with? Are our values vulnerable? If they come under attack could everything else come tumbling down? We face long-term insecurity if our values are unreliable or temporal things, even if they are good things such as people or useful things such as possessions.
So what are your values? How do they affect your identity?
therightquestions.org/why-what-we-value-defines-our-perso...
The statue represents Diomedes with a statuette of the Palladium, a representation of the goddess Athena, in his hands. The Palladium kept in Troy were a divine pledge of the city inviolability; Diomedes and Odysseus penetrated the city and returned in the Greek camp with the stolen Palladium, thus propitiating the capture of the city.
After the fall of Troy, Diomedes was a mythical traveler in the lands of the West. Many cities in Italy claimed noble origins connected with the "Trojan Myth" because of the possession of the Palladium that Diomedes had brought with him to the Italian peninsula.
The Cumaean copy, found in the crypt under the Acropolis, bears a Greek inscription under the base mentioning a Gaius Claudius Pollio Frugianus, to whom, perhaps, the statue was the dedicate.
The creation of the original sculpture (around 430 BC) is generally attributed to the sculptor Kresilas.
Marble Roman statue
Height 1.77 m
I Cent. AD
From prov. Cumae
Naples, National Archaeological Museum – Inv. no. 144978.
Gupteshwar Cave is regarded as sacred and inviolable by the local people. The cave is divided into two absolutely different parts. One carries the great Lord Shiva temple where a shivlinga, phallic symbol of Lord Shiva is preserved and it is believed that the linga is preserved the way it was originally discovered. The second part is comprised of the snaky caves that widen and narrow down to amuse the tourists. This cave is 3 Km long.
Australian postcard by AvantCard, no. 6151, Postcard 5 in a series of 6. Photo: Dendy. Mathieu Kassovitz as Nino in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain/Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001). Caption: Amelie lives in Paris and in a world of her own. Then she meets Nino. Nino collects cement footprints. Whenever he hears a funny laugh, he tapes it.
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) is a French romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. The film, written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, is a romanticised portrayal of life in Montmartre, Paris. The film became an international box-office hit and was awarded four Césars internationally (including for best film and best director) and received five Academy Award nominations. The music was composed by Yann Tiersen.
The film describes the fairy-tale-like and romantic story of the young woman Amélie Poulain who decides one day that she can make other people happy with little things. Amélie grows up isolated from other children because she is thought to suffer from a heart condition. Her father, a doctor, never touches her, so that her heartbeat rises with enthusiasm when he does during the examination. Amélie's mother, who is very neurotic, dies when Amélie is still a child because a Canadian woman who jumps off Notre Dame falls on top of her. Amélie's father shuts himself off even more from the world and starts building a mausoleum for his dead wife. Because she is always on her own, Amélie develops a very rich imagination. When Amélie is older, she becomes a waitress in the Café des 2 Moulins, a small café in the Montmartre district of Paris. The owner is Suzanne, a former circus performer, and the guests are colourful. Amélie, who is 23 at the time, leads a simple life. She takes pleasure in simple things like breaking the sugar coating on crème brûlée, throwing pebbles on the Canal Saint-Martin and fantasising about how many couples in Paris are having an orgasm at that moment. Her life changes on the day of Princess Diana's death. Through a series of events that follow her shock at the news, she discovers a small metal box behind a skirting board in her bathroom. Inside this box are memories of a boy who lived in the flat decades before Amélie. Fascinated by this, she goes in search of this now grown-up person to give him back the box. She makes an agreement with herself that if she succeeds and the person is happy, she will dedicate her life to the good things in life and helping others.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet began jotting down ideas and memories in 1974, which form the basis of Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001). The profits from Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) enabled him to make a film without making commercial concessions. In Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), Jeunet reintroduces elements from the short film Foutaises (1990), especially the "il aime/il n'aime pas" (he likes/he doesn't like) fragments in the presentation of the characters. The almost constant presence of the colour combination of strong red and strong green that could already be seen in La cité des enfants perdus/The City of the Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1995) returns in this film. Jeunet says in the DVD's commentary track that the idea of the album of discarded pictures came from the French writer Michel Folco, who owns such an album. Because of intellectual property rights, Jeunet could not use this album, so he had to work with extras. The film uses computer graphics and digital post-production (digital intermediate). Jeunet had actually written the role of Amélie for Emily Watson. In the original script, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Emily Watson's French was not good enough and there was a time conflict due to the filming of Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001). Jeunet, therefore, rewrote the script for French actress Audrey Tautou. Filming took place at the Café des 2 Moulins in Paris, at the Gare du Nord station, outside at the Gare de l'Est and at the Sacré-Cœur church. Since the film was financially supported by the Filmstiftung NRW, the interior shots of the film were shot at the MMC Studio Coloneum in Cologne. The German painter Michael Sowa contributed some bizarre interior details. He created the pig lamp as well as some of the paintings in Amélie's room, which can be seen in the background. For the TV sequence that suddenly refers to Amélie's life in the subtitles ("Raymond Dufayel's attempt to interfere is unacceptable. If Amélie prefers to live in her dream world and remain an introverted young woman, that is her right. Because the right to a failed life is inviolable!"), a sequence from the second part of the four-part Soviet film epic Blockade (1974) about the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War was used. A recurring theme of Georges Delerue's film music for François Truffaut's film Jules te Jim/Jules and Jim (1962) is varied several times by Yann Tiersen in his soundtrack for Amelie as the main theme.
At the 2002 Césars, Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain won Best Film, Best Director, Best Score and Best Production Design. It was also nominated in nine other categories, including Best Original Screenplay and Audrey Tautou for Best Actress in a Leading Role. At the 2001 European Film Awards, the film won in four categories: Best European Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and the Jameson Audience Award for Best Director. Audrey Tautou was also nominated for Best Actress. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2002 in the five categories Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound, but did not prevail in any of the categories. The film received good reviews both in France and internationally. The film did not enter the official competition at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival, as Gilles Jacob, who was responsible for the film selection, said he found it "uninteresting". This caused a major public debate, as the rejection was interpreted in many places as a contradiction to the great media interest in the film and as a decision "against the audience". Jean-Pierre Jeunet reacted to the rejection by bringing forward the film's theatrical release; "Amélie" now ran parallel to the ongoing festival. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) grossed 140 million US dollars worldwide, 33 million of which in the USA.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
On the backside was written: ”In a Turkish Harem. Üsküb”
Üsküb/Üsküp was the Ottoman Turkish name of the city Skopje in todays Macedonia.
The “Harem” was the inviolable place for the female members of the family which was forbidden for men, so I am in doubt whether this photograph really shows the interior of a harem.
Once was home.......
A home or domicile is a dwelling-place used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for an individual, family, household or several families in a tribe. It is often a house, apartment, or other building, or alternatively a mobile home, houseboat, yurt or any other portable shelter. A principle of constitutional law in many countries, related to the right to privacy enshrined in article 12 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights is the inviolability of the home as an individual's place of shelter and refuge.
Australian postcard by AvantCard, no. 6152, Postcard 6 in a series of 6. Photo: Dendy. Audrey Tatou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Jamel Debbouze , and Urbain Cancelier in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain/Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001). Caption: Amelie lives in Paris and in a world of her own. But maybe her thoughts are with someone else. Someone she's known since always. Could Amelie be falling in love?
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) is a French romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. The film, written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, is a romanticised portrayal of life in Montmartre, Paris. The film became an international box-office hit and was awarded four Césars internationally (including for best film and best director) and received five Academy Award nominations. The music was composed by Yann Tiersen.
The film describes the fairy-tale-like and romantic story of the young woman Amélie Poulain who decides one day that she can make other people happy with little things. Amélie grows up isolated from other children because she is thought to suffer from a heart condition. Her father, a doctor, never touches her, so that her heartbeat rises with enthusiasm when he does during the examination. Amélie's mother, who is very neurotic, dies when Amélie is still a child because a Canadian woman who jumps off Notre Dame falls on top of her. Amélie's father shuts himself off even more from the world and starts building a mausoleum for his dead wife. Because she is always on her own, Amélie develops a very rich imagination. When Amélie is older, she becomes a waitress in the Café des 2 Moulins, a small café in the Montmartre district of Paris. The owner is Suzanne, a former circus performer, and the guests are colourful. Amélie, who is 23 at the time, leads a simple life. She takes pleasure in simple things like breaking the sugar coating on crème brûlée, throwing pebbles on the Canal Saint-Martin and fantasising about how many couples in Paris are having an orgasm at that moment. Her life changes on the day of Princess Diana's death. Through a series of events that follow her shock at the news, she discovers a small metal box behind a skirting board in her bathroom. Inside this box are memories of a boy who lived in the flat decades before Amélie. Fascinated by this, she goes in search of this now grown-up person to give him back the box. She makes an agreement with herself that if she succeeds and the person is happy, she will dedicate her life to the good things in life and helping others.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet began jotting down ideas and memories in 1974, which form the basis of Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001). The profits from Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) enabled him to make a film without making commercial concessions. In Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), Jeunet reintroduces elements from the short film Foutaises (1990), especially the "il aime/il n'aime pas" (he likes/he doesn't like) fragments in the presentation of the characters. The almost constant presence of the colour combination of strong red and strong green that could already be seen in La cité des enfants perdus/The City of the Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1995) returns in this film. Jeunet says in the DVD's commentary track that the idea of the album of discarded pictures came from the French writer Michel Folco, who owns such an album. Because of intellectual property rights, Jeunet could not use this album, so he had to work with extras. The film uses computer graphics and digital post-production (digital intermediate). Jeunet had actually written the role of Amélie for Emily Watson. In the original script, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Emily Watson's French was not good enough and there was a time conflict due to the filming of Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001). Jeunet, therefore, rewrote the script for French actress Audrey Tautou. Filming took place at the Café des 2 Moulins in Paris, at the Gare du Nord station, outside at the Gare de l'Est and at the Sacré-Cœur church. Since the film was financially supported by the Filmstiftung NRW, the interior shots of the film were shot at the MMC Studio Coloneum in Cologne. The German painter Michael Sowa contributed some bizarre interior details. He created the pig lamp as well as some of the paintings in Amélie's room, which can be seen in the background. For the TV sequence that suddenly refers to Amélie's life in the subtitles ("Raymond Dufayel's attempt to interfere is unacceptable. If Amélie prefers to live in her dream world and remain an introverted young woman, that is her right. Because the right to a failed life is inviolable!"), a sequence from the second part of the four-part Soviet film epic Blockade (1974) about the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War was used. A recurring theme of Georges Delerue's film music for François Truffaut's film Jules te Jim/Jules and Jim (1962) is varied several times by Yann Tiersen in his soundtrack for Amelie as the main theme.
At the 2002 Césars, Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain won Best Film, Best Director, Best Score and Best Production Design. It was also nominated in nine other categories, including Best Original Screenplay and Audrey Tautou for Best Actress in a Leading Role. At the 2001 European Film Awards, the film won in four categories: Best European Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and the Jameson Audience Award for Best Director. Audrey Tautou was also nominated for Best Actress. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2002 in the five categories Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound, but did not prevail in any of the categories. The film received good reviews both in France and internationally. The film did not enter the official competition at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival, as Gilles Jacob, who was responsible for the film selection, said he found it "uninteresting". This caused a major public debate, as the rejection was interpreted in many places as a contradiction to the great media interest in the film and as a decision "against the audience". Jean-Pierre Jeunet reacted to the rejection by bringing forward the film's theatrical release; "Amélie" now ran parallel to the ongoing festival. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) grossed 140 million US dollars worldwide, 33 million of which in the USA.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
THE CHURCH of St Bride's is justly world famous. To enter its doors is to step into 2,000 years of history, which had begun with the Romans some six centuries before the name of St Bride, daughter of an Irish prince, even emerged from legend to become associated forever with the site.
The story of St Bride's is inextricably woven into the history of the City of London. By the time the Great Fire of 1666 left the church in ruins, a succession of churches had existed on the site for about a millennium, and the area had already assumed its unique role in the emergence of English printing. It took nine years for St Bride's to re-appear from the ashes under the inspired direction of Christopher Wren, but for the next two-and-a-half centuries it was in the shadow of the church's unmistakeable wedding-cake spire that the rise of the British newspaper industry into the immensely-powerful Fourth Estate took place.
Then, in 1940, St Bride's fell victim once again to flames as German incendiary bombs reduced Wren's architectural jewel to a roofless shell. This time 17 years elapsed before rebuilding was completed, although a series of important excavations in 1953 amid the skeletal ruins, led by the medieval archaeologist Professor W. F. Grimes, came up with extraordinary results, uncovering the foundations of all six previous churches on the site.
Not only the nation, but the Christian world as a whole, was fascinated by the discovery.
Historians and religious scholars had always accepted that there had been a site of Christian worship alongside the Fleet River and close to the Lud Gate, now known as Ludgate Circus, in the heart of the ancient City of London, for about 1,000 years.
When the Romans established Londinium following the invasion under the emperor Claudius in 43 AD, they dug a mysterious extra-mural ditch on the site of the future church and built a house, which seems likely to have been one of the earliest sites of worship. A Roman pavement can be seen to this day on display in the much-restored crypts of the church.
More than four centuries were to pass before the name of St Bride became associated with the site. But that association was to last throughout subsequent recorded history.
Born in 453 AD, shortly after St Patrick, Bride (or St Brigid) was the daughter of a prince and a druidic slave. As a teenager with an overwhelming desire to do good to others, she gave away so many of her father's possessions - daily necessities such as milk and flour, but also jewellery and swords - that he eventually let her follow her calling and enter the religious life. In 470, she and seven other nuns founded a convent in Kildare which developed into a centre of learning and spirituality, famed for its illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kildare.
According to legend, when Bride received her blessing as abbess it was inadvertently read to her as the rite of consecration as a bishop, which could not then be rescinded. Thus Bride and her successor abbesses had authority equal to that of a bishop for the following seven centuries.
She was renowned throughout Christian Europe for her holiness and common sense, and was regarded as a saint during her lifetime. Ironically, in view of the part that flames were later to play in the story of the church, she shared her name with the pagan goddess of fire, who had been noted for her music, her craftsmanship and her poetry - all qualities that have been manifested in and around St Bride's over numerous generations.
A line from a poem attributed to her - "I long for a great lake of ale" - was also an ironic harbinger of one of the Fleet Street's preoccupations in later years.
She died on 1st February 525 and was buried with the remains of Ireland's two other patron saints - Patrick and Columba. This date continues to be celebrated as the Feast of St Bride.
In the early sixth century the first stone-walled church was built here, founded either by St Bride in person or by Celtic monks who had formed a community in London. It was rebuilt many times over the following centuries, with notable structures including those of the Middle Saxons and the Normans.
This period in history was characterised by the urbanisation of Europe, military expansion, and intellectual revival, aided by the conversion of the raiding Scandinavians to Christianity. The 11th, 12th and 13th centuries saw a large increase in London's population - from less than 15,000 to over 80,000.
By the year 1200 Britain's effective capital city was Westminster, then a small town up-river from the City of London, where the royal treasury and financial records were stored.
St Bride's was the first church encountered between London and Westminster. This accident of geography gave it considerable importance; in 1205, the Curia Regis, a council of landowners and ecclesiastics charged with providing legislative advice to King John, and a predecessor to today's parliament, was held in the church. St Bride's influence and its numbers of parishioners grew substantially during the medieval period. From the 13th century onwards London developed through two different seats of power and influence: Westminster became the royal capital and centre of government, while the City of London became the centre of commerce and trade - a distinction evident to this day.
The area between them eventually became entirely urbanised by the end of the 16th century, and it was at the beginning of that century that St Bride's developed its first links with one of the future cornerstones of British society which were to constitute its most enduring claim to fame.
In the year 1500 the church had impressive neighbours - the many members of the clergy who were unable to afford the high cost of living in the very centre of the medieval city, where there was greater protection from thieves. However, they possessed their own powerful insurance against burglars - the fear of excommunication, which freed them to live outside.
So while rich merchants huddled together in the centre for safety, the area around St. Bride's became a haven for the eminent divines who were involved in national life. Salisbury Square, Peterborough Court and Ely Place are among names which have come down through history to remind us of great houses in the vicinity.
Since the clergy possessed almost a monopoly of literacy in those days, they were the printers' best customers. Thus Fleet Street became the cradle of the transformation of the medieval art and mystery of printing into the most influential industry man had yet known.
In the early 1470s, William Caxton had learnt the recently-invented technique of printing in Cologne. He returned to London in 1476 and set up a press by Westminster Abbey. In all, he printed about 100 books, some 20 of which were translated from French or Dutch, on subjects that included history and geography, the lives of saints, fables, and instructional books (for example, on good manners and learning French). His output also included most of the works of Chaucer.
As a well-to-do cloth merchant, Caxton had no need to make his press commercially viable. But after he died in 1491, his apprentice Wynkyn de Worde, who acquired that press, was in different circumstances. Having no other income, printing was his livelihood. So he followed commercial principles and took his goods to the buyer, setting up England's first printing press with moveable type in the churchyard of St Bride's in 1501.
It was a period in history when churchyards were hives of activity, boasting inns, taverns and commercial premises, and Fleet Street proved the perfect place for de Worde's new enterprise.
The publishers of playwrights and poets soon set up competing presses in other local churchyards, and the connection between St Bride's and world of printing and journalism was cemented. Wynkyn de Worde was buried in the church in 1535.
By the 17th century Fleet Street had become an irresistible attraction for the great writers and diarists of the day. A trio of Johns - Milton, Dryden and Evelyn - lived in the vicinity; Samuel Pepys was baptised at St Bride's, and Richard Lovelace buried there.
But then, in the space of 16 terrible months, it all changed.
St Bride's long connections with the colonies in America began when the parents of Virginia Dare, the first child born to English emigrants to North Carolina in August 1585, were married at the church. The event is commemorated in a touching bust of a little girl which can be found by the font in the south-west corner of the church.
One of the most striking features of today's St. Bride's also owes its inspiration to the church's American links. The great canopied oak reredos which enshrines the church altar is a memorial to the Pilgrim Fathers. This connection was made 35 years after Virginia Dare's birth when Edward Winslow (1595-1655) became one of the leaders of the Mayflower expedition in 1620. Winslow, who was three times elected governor of Plymouth, Massachusetts, had served as a boy apprentice in Fleet Street and would have known St Bride's well. His parents were also married there.
At the same time, St. Bride's parish was busily helping to populate yet another English colony. One hundred girls and boys from the Bridewell Hospital orphanage were sent to Virginia in 1619. The project was so successful that the governor requested 100 more. All the youngsters received grants of land on coming of age.
The Great Plague is believed to have first struck the docklands of London in April 1665, and by 6th June the parish of St Bride's was officially notified of an outbreak within its boundaries. It was also known as "the Poore's Plague," and the parish suffered terribly because of the large number of manual workers.
The court of Charles II, together with lawyers, merchants and doctors, fled the city, but the poor could not. St Bride's vicar, the Revd Richard Peirson, remained to witness the devastation to his parish community, including the deaths of his churchwardens.
Searchers of the Dead, usually old women, were paid to go out and inspect a corpse to determine cause of death. They were often bribed not to diagnose bubonic plague, as the entire household of a victim had to be locked in for 40 days, which normally resulted in all their deaths. Terrified residents sniffed nosegays to ward off malodorous airs which were thought to carry the infection. Funeral bells tolled constantly.
The parish distributed relief to stricken families. Watchmen were paid to guard locked houses and attend to the wants of those within. Nurses were dispatched to attend the sick. Two "bearers" were paid to carry corpses to the plague pits. The cost of all of this was partly reclaimed by the "brokers of the dead" who seized the property left in infected houses. So much was gathered that St Bride's had to rent a storehouse.
Many thousands of dogs and cats were culled, as they were believed to spread the pestilence. Flea-infested rats (the real culprits) were thus freed of predators, and proliferated.
In all the plague cost the parish of St Bride's some £581. The human cost was far worse: 2,111 people died in the parish in that fateful year. London lost 100,000, or 20% of its inhabitants.
Plague victims continued to die in smaller numbers until autumn the following year - which proved to be the very moment the City was consumed, literally, by a second dreadful tribulation on the heels of the first.
After a summer of drought, the Great Fire of London began on Sunday 2nd September 1666, and very soon the worried residents of the parish were watching in growing alarm before being put to flight two days later as the advancing flames leapt the narrow alleyways to ignite wooden houses and the often-illegal businesses many of them contained.
St Bride's was equipped with its own fire engine, but had failed to keep the machine "scoured, oyled and trimmed." Soldiers destroyed houses about Fleet Bridge in the vain hope that the Fleet River might stay the advance of the flames. But the relentless east wind drove the fire on: one onlooker described how it "rushed like a torrent down Ludgate Hill."
On Friday, Samuel Pepys made this entry in his diary:
September 7. - Up by five o'clock; and blessed be God!, find all well; and by water to Paul's Wharfe. Walked thence, and saw all the towne burned; and a miserable sight of Paul's church, with all the roof fallen, and the body of the quire fallen into St Fayth's; Paul's School also, Ludgate and Fleete-street, my father's house (in Salisbury Court) and the church (St Bride's), and a good part of the Temple the like.
Two weeks before the conflagration, a new vicar had been inducted at St Bride's. The hapless Paul Boston was to possess a church for no longer than those two weeks of his tenure, though in his will he left it £50; the silver gilt vessels bought with that bequest remain prized possessions today.
The destruction of the medieval St Bride's was so complete that no attempt was made to use the ruins for service, as was done at St Paul's and elsewhere. So, the big question was: would St Bride's be rebuilt?
In 1671 the churchwardens of St Bride's took Mr Christopher Wren (Surveyor General and Principal Architect for rebuilding the City) to dinner at the Globe Tavern. It would take another year before they could convince him of their cause, but their persistence meant that St Bride's was one of the first post-fire churches to be opened.
The blaze had destroyed 87 City churches. Despite Wren's belief that only 39 were necessary in such a small area, St Bride's was among the 51 to be rebuilt. The £500 required as a deposit by Guildhall to get things under way was raised in a month - a remarkable effort, given that most of the parishioners had lost homes and businesses in the disaster. Nor was this the end to the financial demands, as money remained tight. But a combination of Coal Dues, donations and loans eventually met the building's cost of £11,430 5s. 11d.
Joshua Marshall was the main contractor for the works. A parishioner and master mason to the king, like his father before him, Marshall was a wise choice. He also worked with Wren on Temple Bar and the Monument, while one of his assistants was the young Nicholas Hawksmoor, who was to become a renowned architect himself.
As today, the main material for the church was Portland stone. By September 1672, within a year of starting, the walls had reached the upper part of the cornice. The speed of progress was partly ascribed to the fact that the workmen had a hostel by the church, the Old Bell Tavern, built for them by Wren. By 1674 the main structural work was complete, and a year later the church finally reopened for worship on Sunday 19th December 1675.
Though it was open, it was not completed; most notably, the tower remained unfinished. In 1682 the churchwardens again approached Wren, this time about building the steeple. Work did not begin until 1701, and took two years to complete. At 234ft it was Wren's highest steeple, although after it was damaged by lightning in 1764 it was reduced to 226ft during more rebuilding.
Much has been written about the steeple, the most romantic tale of which is surely that of William Rich, apprenticed to a baker near Ludgate Circus. He fell in love with his master's daughter and, when he set up his own business at the end of his apprenticeship, won her father's approval for her hand in marriage.
Rich wished to create a spectacular cake for the wedding feast, but was unsure how, until one day he looked up at the steeple of the church in which the marriage was to be held, and inspiration hit him: a cake in layers, tiered, and diminishing as it rose. Thus began the tradition of the tiered wedding cake.
The year before the steeple was finished, the Daily Courant became the first regular daily newspaper to be printed in the United Kingdom, published on 11th March 1702 by Elizabeth Mallet from rooms above the White Hart pub in Fleet Street. A brass plaque to mark the 300th anniversary of this first edition was unveiled by the Prince of Wales at a special service in St Bride's on 11th March 2002.
Publishers and newspapers now began to spring up with some urgency; of the national papers that are still in existence, the Daily Universal Register (now The Times) was first published in 1785, and The Observer became the world's first Sunday newspaper in 1791.
Many renowned writers tried their hand - Daniel Defoe, for instance, founded the Daily Post.
As numerous regional and provincial titles were founded, they set up London offices in and around St Bride's, as did the first news agencies.
The vast expansion of the printing industry in Fleet Street also drew interest from intellectuals, actors and artists. Anyone who was anyone - Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, David Garrick, Samuel Richardson, Joshua Reynolds, William Hogarth, William Wordsworth and John Keats - would want to be seen in the coffee houses and inns around St Bride's.
Guardian (1821)
Daily Mail (1896)
Sunday Times (1822)
Daily Express (1900)
News of the World (1843)
Daily Mirror (1903)
Daily Telegraph (1855)
Sunday Mirror (1915)
The People (1881)
Sunday Express (1918)
Financial Times (1888)
Morning Star (1930)
With the coming of the 20th century their combined circulations were immense, and the power of press barons such as Northcliffe, Kemsley, Beaverbrook, Astor and Rothermere propelled Fleet Street into the very heart of the British power structure, often shaping news as well as reporting it.
Then came World War II and, in 1940, Fleet Street watched helplessly as the news exploded right at its doorstep. For St Bride's, by now enshrined as the parish church of journalism, it once again brought catastrophe.
The Blitz began in the early autumn as the Germans, their plan for a summer invasion thwarted, sought instead to bomb Britain's cities into submission. Guildsman John Colley, now in his 80s, recalls what it was like to be in a Grub Street at war:
"The nightly bombing to which London was being subjected for those last four months of 1940 made little apparent difference to the way Fleet Street went about its business. The business of producing tomorrow's newspapers was so all-consuming that there was little time to think about what was going on above; and that was true not only of those working in the great buildings housing the Nationals, but also in the basements of the scores of London offices of the big provincial papers.
"That isn't to say there weren't moments of sheer terror when the ominous whistle of a bomb you knew was going to land close by could be heard, but once the immediate danger was over you just got on with the job that had to be done. It was such a familiar situation that one became hardened to it.
"Outside, Fleet Street appeared to be its usual nightly hive of activity and got on with its job as much as circumstances would allow. News vans still dashed off to the London termini; couriers brought Government hand-outs from the Ministry of Information; messengers from picture and news agencies dodged the shrapnel and bombs as they darted from office to office; even the odd tramp made his nightly call to cadge a cuppa.
"With most of the newspapers gathered together in an area all around Fleet Street, the agencies - PA, Reuters, Ex Tel and the rest - sent the majority of their news through cables strung across the Street to tape machines in subscribing offices, all liable to disruption by bomb and blast - which brought more messengers delivering a hand service.
"Night life in the Street at that time centred around the all-night cafes - and there were many of them, all doing good business serving sustaining tea and snacks. Pubs, of course, had to keep to licensing hours, but Fleet Street's two Black and White all-night milk bars did a roaring trade serving hot soup and a great variety of milk shakes.
"Occasionally a fire-fighting party of three dodged from building to building, one carrying a bucket of water, one a stirrup pump and the third a hose on their way to put out an incendiary fire. Air Raid Precaution wardens made their nightly calls and public service vehicles on their way to or from an incident were up and down the Street throughout the night. All in all, there was hardly a quiet moment, either on the ground or up above."
Two days before this grim year ended, St Bride's luck ran out. On the night of Sunday 29th December the Luftwaffe targeted the City of London in a concentrated incendiary raid. Some 1400 fires were started; eight of Wren's churches were destroyed. St Bride's was one of them.
The church, locked after Evensong, suffered incendiary hits which pierced the roof, and the seasoned timbers proved perfect tinder. Some treasures were rescued from the flames, including the medieval gospel lectern which had survived the Great Fire of 1666. But most was destroyed. The famous bells melted and fell, but the steeple, despite having flames pouring from it, prevailed - testament to Wren's design.
Up Ludgate Hill, the Times reported, "the dome of St Paul's seemed to ride the sea of fire like a great ship lifting above the smoke and flames the inviolable ensign of the golden cross."
But all that lay ahead for St Bride's were years of ruined desolation until the war ended and the church's administrators were able to address the question that had faced their predecessors in 1666: How do we rebuild both the church and its congregation?
By the time the austere 1950s came round, services were being held on the site, some in the open air and others in the crypt chapel.
Rebuilding work was scheduled for 1954, thanks to the restoration fund which was a tribute to the dedication of the Rector, Revd Cyril Armitage. The chosen architect, Godfrey Allen, an authority on Wren, studied the master's original plans and produced a faithful recreation. He kept the clear glass Wren loved, but did not rebuild the galleries, instead laying out the stalls in collegiate style.
With rebuilding came excavation as well as restoration. In addition to the astonishing discovery of Roman remains on the site in 1953, the crypts were found to contain thousands of human remains, many of them victims of the Great Plague of 1665 and the cholera epidemic of 1854. The latter claimed 10,000 lives in the City of London, and, as a result, Parliament decreed that there should be no more burials in the City. The crypts were sealed and forgotten about.
One hundred years later the excavations of Professor F.W. Grimes resulted in St. Bride's possessing two almost unique series of human remains. One includes well over 200 skeletons identified by their sex and age at the time of death, thus forming a very important source of research into forensic and other forms of medicine.
The other series, which is estimated by some to include nearly 7,000 human remains, is in a medieval charnel house where all the bones were found in categories - thigh bone with thigh bone and so on - and laid in chequer-board pattern. This is probably evidence of a land shortage in London even that many centuries ago.
On 19th December 1957, on the anniversary of Wren's church being opened for worship 282 years previously, St Bride's was rededicated in the presence of the Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
In 1962, Dewi Morgan inherited the Rector's mantle from Cyril Armitage, and throughout the 1960s and 1970s St Bride's continued its ministry to the newspaper world, hosting baptisms, weddings and memorial services as well as offering regular weekday worship for those working in the area.
In 1967 the church was packed for a service to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Press Association, whose offices were next door. The glass doors at the West End were a gift to mark the occasion. Through the generosity of Sir Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook's heir, a permanent exhibition was mounted in the crypt chronicling the history of the site and of Fleet Street, and was renewed with the help of Reuters and the Museum of London 25 years later.
By the early 1980s, however, all was not well in the newspaper business. For years Fleet Street had been living with chaotic industrial relations. Proprietors found the so-called Spanish practices of the print unions intolerable, while the workers rejected management attempts to introduce flexible working, no-strike clauses, new technology, and an end to the closed shop.
National newspapers continued to be produced by the labour-intensive linotype hot-metal method, rather than being composed electronically. Eddie Shah's regional Messenger Group had, however, benefited from the Conservative government's trade union legislation which allowed employers to de-recognise unions, enabling Shah to use an alternative workforce and new technology. Journalists could input copy directly, sweeping away arcane craft-union manning levels and cutting costs dramatically.
On 24th January 1986, some 6,000 newspaper workers went on strike after the breakdown of negotiations with Rupert Murdoch's News International, parent of Times Newspapers and News Group Newspapers. They were unaware that Murdoch had built and clandestinely equipped a new-technology printing plant in Wapping. When they struck, he moved his operation overnight.
Within months the printing dinosaur that was Fleet Street was dead. By 1989 all the national newspapers had decamped as other proprietors followed Murdoch's lead. Computers had consigned Wynkyn de Worde's revolution to history.
Many people at that time feared that the diaspora of the Fourth Estate might result in St Bride's losing its title of the cathedral of Fleet Street. Some even considered that the great church would lose its parishioners. Might Rupert Murdoch's vision bring about what pestilence, fire and the Luftwaffe had failed to achieve?
Fortunately for St Bride's, the national newspapers scattered in every direction rather than congregating in one locality, so that "Fleet Street" remains to this day a generic term for the nation's press, and the church retains its pre-eminent position in the journalistic and media constituency.
During the Middle East hostage crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s, it hosted all-night vigils for John McCarthy and others, and on their release in 1991 a grand service of celebration was held.
We have commemorated John Schofield, BBC reporter killed in Croatia in 1995; Reuters' Kerem Lawton, killed in Kosovo; Channel 4's Gaby Rado and ITN's Terry Lloyd (Iraq); BBC cameraman Simon Cumbers, murdered by Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia; and the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl, murdered by Al Qaeda in Pakistan in 2002.
In 2003 we unveiled a memorial to all journalists who died in Iraq, and in 2006 commemorated James Brolan and Paul Douglas, CBS journalists killed in Baghdad, demonstrating St Bride's unique position in journalism throughout the world. When, earlier this year, The Times' driver in Iraq, Yasser, was killed in a bomb blast in Baghdad, it was to St Bride's that senior News International staff came to light a candle.
The Journalists' Altar in the North East corner also carries prayers for reporters who are missing or who have lost their lives in current conflicts.
Newspaper proprietors such as Lord Burnham, Lord Rothermere and Lord Hartwell have been remembered in memorial services. So have editors like Sir Edward Pickering, David Astor, Stewart Steven and Louis Kirby; the Guardian's famed woman's editor Mary Stott; the D-Day war reporter Doon Campbell; BBC figures such as Godfrey Talbot, Louis MacMillan and Leonard Miall; and Fiona MacPherson of Good Housekeeping magazine.
Strong and successful efforts were made by the former Rector, Canon John Oates, to bring into the church's embrace the new occupants of the now-silent newspaper offices - chiefly lawyers, accountants and investment bankers. Twenty years after the last newspaper left, the large number of memorials and carol services we hold every year are evenly split between the "old" and the "new" Fleet Street.
The church today has a light, open feel of symmetry; the floor is paved with black marble from Belgium and white from Italy. This is very much a living church in a modern world.
As a result of a successful funding appeal, new side aisles constructed of English and European oak were installed in 2004, offering significantly better views for large congregations while preserving the beautiful character of the church.
Out of the inferno of that hellish night in December 1940 has emerged something beautiful, which remains the spiritual heart both of the parish of St Bride's and of the journalistic community in Britain and throughout the world.
The church retains strong City links, has built up an enviable musical reputation, and is home to thriving Sunday congregations, as well as being a major tourist landmark. Set back from Fleet Street, only yards from the tremendous bustle of Ludgate Circus, yet seemingly existing in its own peaceful space, St Bride's is one of the most historic, vibrant and beautiful churches to be found anywhere in London.
Approaching Mortality!
William Nicholson, 1862
"Only a few years will pass, before I go on the journey of no return." Job 16:22
The sun rises daily, and we think little of it.
Just so, the frequency and commonness of death, causes it to be little thought of. Every day, men go to their long home, and the mourners go about the street; that is an occurrence little thought of.
Yet it is a matter of great concern to every human being. And though the solemn subject may not be pleasant — yet it is the highest wisdom to be prepared for the event, by that method which is prescribed by the Gospel of Christ. While death is gloomy and melancholy to the man of pleasure, to the man overwhelmed with business, and to the devotee of mammon — it is nevertheless sometimes regarded as a welcome messenger by the afflicted, and those who possess a good hope through grace, Job 19:25.
I. The Important Truth Asserted by Job.
He refers to his own death, which, by a figure, he represents as a journey; "Only a few years will pass, before I go on the journey of no return." The body must journey to the grave — the spirit to God the Judge of all. "The dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." Ecclesiastes 12:7
Job expected that his death would be immediate, therefore the words translated "a few years," are improper; and that by Mr. Good is preferable, "But the years numbered to me have come, and I must go the way whence I shall not return."
According to the context, Job was expecting death every hour; and the text should be read in connection with verse 1 of the following chapter, "My spirit is crushed, and my life is nearly snuffed out. The grave is ready to receive me!" Job 17:1. He felt himself in the arms of death; he saw the grave already made for him; he believed the time of his departure was at hand.
Observe:
1. Death is full of solemn import. What is death? It is forever leaving the present scene of existence — it is the cessation of existence here on earth.
The lungs no longer heave;
the heart stops beating;
the blood ceases to flow and congeals;
the tongue is silent;
the hand forgets its skill;
the whole body becomes motionless, pale, and ghastly.
OBSERVE:
(1.) Death is the separation of body and soul.
(2.) Death is the dissolution of every relative and social tie, however tender and endeared.
(3.) Death is the cessation of all human pursuits and the relinquishment of all human possessions.
(4.) Death is a journey that must be performed alone.
2. Death is a journey that must be taken by all. "Death has passed upon all men, for all have sinned." Romans 5:12. It is in the grave, where the rich and the poor meet together; kings as well as subjects, philosophers as well as fools. A century removes all the inhabitants of the globe to the silent grave. All who now live, in one hundred years to come, will be no more.
Death is unavoidable!
3. Death is an established fact.
(1.) By God's inviolable decree, "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return!" "It is appointed unto men once to die — and after that the judgment!"
(2.) From the rapid advance of life.
(3.) By symptoms of human frailty and tendency to decay, already apparent.
(4.) By the apparent ease with which the course of human existence may be ceased.
Great God! Amid what a mass of perils do we live! A grain may suffocate — a crumb may stop the springs of life! A breath, a cough, a sigh — may prostrate all our vital powers, and fit us for the worms! So various, too, the texture of our bodies, so fine the mechanism, so complex the structure — that every motion has its risk! And all our hours — our very moments, are beset with hazards, perils, fears, and ambushed ills!
What then is life? A bubble that is blown for death to burst!!!
4. Death is a fact characterized by the greatest uncertainty. "Man knows not his time when his hour may come" etc., Ecclesiastes 9:12. "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes!" James 4:14.
Death may invade us . . .
at a period apparently the most unlikely,
when our thoughts are least turned towards it,
when our circumstances may render it most inconvenient,
when we are not at all prepared for it.
It may come in the spring of life — and mar its strength and vigor and beauty, etc. "One man dies in full vigor, completely secure and at ease, his body well nourished, his bones rich with marrow. Another man dies in bitterness of soul, never having enjoyed anything good. Side by side they lie in the dust, and worms cover them both!" Job 21:23-26
Death may come . . .
to the place of business,
to the hall of pleasure,
to the couch of sensual indulgence, etc., etc.
It may come suddenly, in a moment — or it may come by protracted disease.
"And I'll say to myself: 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry!'
But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'" Luke 12:19-20
"Be ready!"
5. Death is an event followed by vastly solemn results. To the individual himself, death . . .
ends his probation,
is the departure of his soul into eternity,
is the apprehension of it either by demons or angels,
is the transmission of it to Heaven or to perdition.
See the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hell, where he was in torment . . ." Luke 16:22-23
Death ends all the conflicts and trials and sorrows of the righteous.
Death is the commencement of all the woes of the wicked.
6. Lastly, Death is a journey from which there will be no return. "But now he is dead; can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." 2 Samuel 12:23. In vain we linger by the corpse — the countenance will no more smile upon us. In vain we go to the grave — it is deaf to our cries, it will not give back its trust.
"At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.
But man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more. As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed becomes parched and dry — so man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens are no more, men will not awake or be roused from their sleep!" Job 14:7-12
II. The Influence Which this Subject Should Produce.
1. It should awaken the soul to reflection. In the midst of danger, we have been sleeping. While the darts of mortality are flying around us, we are calculating on future pleasures, pursuits, plans, life, etc. "It is high time to awake out of sleep!"
2. It should rouse us to action. It is a great journey — it is the last journey we ever shall take! Naturally we are not prepared for it. We need a fitting disposition for it, a passport, suitable attire and provision. In fact, we need a saving interest in the atoning blood of Christ, to make us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
3. It should induce habitual watchfulness. Death may come as a thief in the night! Do not be taken by surprise when the bridegroom comes. When the chariots of God come down, and Christ says, by death, "Come up hither!" — be ready!
4. It should produce humility, and check vanity and pride. What has a frail dying man to boast of?
5. It should alarm the unrepentant sinner.
6. It should animate the saint. "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." He shall soon be free from sin and suffering — soon see God and Heaven, and realize the glorious raptures of eternity!
7. Lastly. It teaches the value of the Gospel, which is the sovereign remedy for death, "Our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel!" 2 Timothy 1:10
II. A Game of Chess
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”
I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
“What is that noise?”
The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
Nothing again nothing.
“Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
“Nothing?”
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
“What shall we ever do?”
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.
When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
Before I made the acquaintance of George Anastaplo I saw him walking down the street in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.
There was something about him that caught my eye... something about the way that he walked and the way that he smiled... there was something about his spirit... there was something that I wanted to capture.
George has what I like to call 'The Magic Mojo.'
I wanted to pop him right there on the street but I was late in getting to a very special dinner with some great friends.
I had to let the urge go.
I regretted my artistic inaction the moment I passed him on the street there.
Fortunately the regret would be short lived.
In one of those funny little twists of fate that life seems to lay on me... when we got to the dinner George ended up being seated right next to me.
He's a fascinating guy.
A great storyteller, I really enjoyed the conversation that we shared as we sat there at the table.
'While most lawyers go through an entire career without getting the opportunity to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, George Anastaplo did so without entering the legal profession—and then, he likes to say, he retired.' ~ Maria Kantzavelos, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, April 25, 2011, page 1
George completed his undergraduate degree in only one year at the University of Chicago.
It took me longer than that to pay my overdue library fines from freshman year.
In 1951 he graduated at the top of his law school class.
I would have liked to have sat next to him.
In 1964 George completed his doctorate at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought.
Since then he's written more than 20 books on a multitude of subjects.
"A longtime Loyola University Chicago School of Law professor who today teaches courses in constitutional law and jurisprudence, Anastaplo became an eclectic scholar and teacher" ~ Maria Kantzavelos
'Fifty years ago Sunday, on April 24, 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision that affirmed the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court to deny Anastaplo admission to the Illinois bar because he refused to answer questions asked by the bar’s character committee about political associations.' ~ Maria Kantzavelos
When George graduated from law school and he interviewed for admission into the Illinois Bar Association he had to be questioned in front of the 'character committee' they asked 'do you think a communist should be admitted into the bar of this state?'
George's answer?
‘Well, why not?’
Then they asked George if he was now or was ever a member of the Communist Party.
George didn't feel that he should answer that question and because of that conviction they wouldn't give him admission into the Illinois Bar and he couldn't practice law even though the dude graduated at the top of his class. Hmmmmph.
'Had he gone along with the process, things could have turned out differently for Anastaplo, who was being considered for a position at one of the big law firms in town.' ~ Maria Kantzavelos
But that didn't stop the fiesty twenty five year old.
He fought over the next ten years, ultimately laying out his case in front of the United States Supreme Court.
He argued there as a lawyer without a license!
'In 1954 petitioner, George Anastaplo, an instructor and research assistant at the University of Chicago, having previously passed his Illinois bar examinations, was denied admission to the bar of that State by the Illinois Supreme Court. The denial was based upon his refusal to answer questions of the Committee on Character and Fitness as to whether he was a member of the Communist Party.' ~ 366 U.S. 82 IN RE ANASTAPLO
'The ensuing lengthy proceedings before the Committee, at which Anastaplo was the only witness, are perhaps best described as a wide-ranging exchange between the Committee and Anastaplo in which the Committee sought to explore Anastaplo's ability conscientiously to swear support of the Federal and State Constitutions, as required by the Illinois attorneys' oath, and Anastaplo undertook to expound and defend, on historical and ideological premises, his abstract belief in the 'right of revolution,' and to resist, on grounds of asserted constitutional right and scruple, Committee questions which he deemed improper. The Committee already had before it uncontroverted evidence as to Anastaplo's 'good moral character,' in the form of written statements or affidavits furnished by persons of standing acquainted with him, and the record on rehearing contains nothing which could properly be considered as reflecting adversely upon his character or reputation or on the sincerity of the beliefs he espoused before the Committee. Anastaplo persisted, however, in refusing to answer, among other inquiries, the Committee's questions as to his possible membership in the Communist Party or in other allegedly related organizations. ~ 366 U.S. 82 IN RE ANASTAPLO
Thereafter the Committee, by a vote of 11 to 6, again declined to certify Anastaplo because of his refusal to answer such questions, the majority stating in its report to the Illinois Supreme Court:
'his (Anastaplo's) failure to reply, in our view, obstructs the lawful processes of the Committee, prevents inquiry into subjects which bear intimately upon the issue of character and fitness, such as loyalty to our basic institutions, belief in representative government and bona fides of the attorney's oath and results in his failure to meet the burden of establishing that he possesses the good moral character and fitness to practice law, which are conditions to the granting of a license to practice law.
'We draw no inference of disloyalty or subversion from applicant's continued refusal to answer questions concerning Communist or other subversive affiliations. We do, however, hold that there is a strong public interest in our being free to question applicants for admission to the bar on their adherence to our basic institutions and form of government and that such public interest in the character of its attorneys overrides an applicant's private interest in keeping such views to himself. By failing to respond to this higher public interest we hold that the applicant has obstructed the proper functions of the Committee. We cannot certify the applicant as worthy of the trust and confidence of the public when we do not know that he is so worthy and when he has prevented us from finding out.'
At the same time the full Committee acknowledged that Anastaplo 'is well regarded by his academic associates, by professors who had taught him in school and by members of the Bar who know him personally'; that it had 'not been supplied with any information by any third party which is derogatory to Anastaplo's character or general reputation. ~ ~ 366 U.S. 82 IN RE ANASTAPLO
THE DISSENTING OPINION
'United States Supreme Court
366 U.S. 82
IN RE ANASTAPLO
No. 58. Argued: December 14, 1960. --- Decided: April 24, 1961.
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS.
Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice BRENNAN concur, dissenting.
The petitioner George Anastaplo has been denied the right to practice law in the State of Illinois for refusing to answer questions about his views and associations. I think this action by the State violated rights guaranteed to him by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The reasons which lead me to this conclusion are largely the same as those expressed in my dissenting opinion in Konigsberg v. State Bar of California, 366 U.S. at page 56, 81 S.Ct. at page 1010. But this case provides such a striking illustration of the destruction that can be inflicted upon individual liberty when this Court fails to enforce the First Amendment to the full extent of its express and unequivocal terms that I think it deserves separate treatment.
The controversy began in November 1950, when Anastaplo, a student at the University of Chicago Law School, having two months previously successfully passed the Illinos Bar examination, appeared before the State's Committee on Character and Fitness for the usual interview preliminary to admission to the Bar. The personal history form required by state law had been filled out and filed with the Committee prior to his appearance and showed that Anastaplo was an unusually worthy applicant for admission. His early life had been spent in a small town in southern Illinois where his parents, who had immigrated to this country from Greece before his birth, still resided. After having received his precollege education in the public schools of his home town, he had discontinued his education, at the age of eighteen, and joined the Air Force during the middle of World War II-flying as a navigator in every major theater of the military operations of that war. Upon receiving an honorable discharge in 1947, he had come to Chicago and resumed his education, obtaining his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago and entering immediately into the study of law at the University of Chicago Law School. His record throughout his life, both as a student and as a citizen, was unblemished.
The personal history form thus did not contain so much as one statement of fact about Anastaplo's past life or conduct that could have, in any way, cast doubt upon his fitness for admission to the Bar. It did, however, contain a statement of opinion which, in the minds of some of the members of the Committee at least, did cast such doubt and in that way served to touch off this controversy. This was a statement made by Anastaplo in response to the command of the personal history form: 'State what you consider to be the principles underlying the Constitution of the United States.' Anastaplo's response to that command was as follows:
'One principle consists of the doctrine of the separation of powers; thus, among the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary are distributed various functions and powers in a manner designed to provide for a balance of power, thereby intending to prevent totally unrestrained action by any one branch of government. Another basic principle (and the most important) is that such government is constituted so as to secure certain inalienable rights, those rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (and elements of these rights are explicitly set forth in such parts of the Constitution as the Bill of Rights.). And, of course, whenever the particular government in power becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and thereupon to establish a new government. This is how I view the Constitution.'
When Anastaplo appeared before a two-man Subcommittee of the Committee on Character and Fitness, one of its members almost immediately engaged him in a discussion relating to the meaning of these italicized words which were substantially taken from that part of the Declaration of Independence set out below. This discussion soon developed into an argument as Anastaplo stood by his statement and insisted that if a government gets bad enough, the people have a 'right of revolution.' It was at this juncture in the proceedings that the other member of the Subcommittee interrupted with the question: 'Are you a member of any organization that is listed on the Attorney General's list, to your knowledge?' And this question was followed up a few moments later with the question: 'Are you a member of the Communist Party?' A colloquy then ensued between Anastaplo and the two members of the Subcommittee as to the legitimacy of the questions being asked, Anastaplo insisting that these questions were not reasonably related to the Committee's functions and that they violated his rights under the Constitution, and the members of the Subcommittee insisting that the questions were entirely legitimate.
The Subcommittee then refused to certify Anastaplo for admission to the Bar but, instead, set a further hearing on the matter before the full Committee. That next hearing, as well as all of the hearings that followed, have been little more than repetitions of the first. The rift between Anastaplo and the Committee has grown ever wider with each successive hearing. Anastaplo has stead-fastly refused to answer any questions put by the Committee which inquired into his political associations or religious beliefs. A majority of the members of the Committee, faced with this refusal, has grown more and more insistent that it has the right to force him to answer any question it sees fit to ask. The result has been a series of hearings in which questions have been put to Anastaplo with regard to his 'possible' association with scores of organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Silver Shirts (an allegedly Fascist organization), every organization on the so-called Attorney General's list, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Communist Party. At one point in the proceedings, at least two of the members of the Committee insisted that he tell the Committee whether he believes in a Supreme Being and one of these members stated that, as far as his vote was concerned, a man's 'belief in the Deity * * * has a substantial bearing upon his fitness to practice law.'
It is true, as the majority points out, that the Committee did not expressly rest its refusal to certify Anastaplo for admission to the Bar either upon his views on the 'right of revolution,' as that 'right' is defined in the Declaration of Independence, or upon his refusal to disclose his beliefs with regard to the existence of God, [4] or upon his refusals to disclose any of his political associations other than his 'possible' association with the Communist Party. But it certainly cannot be denied that the other questions were asked and, since we should not presume that these members of the Committee did not want answers to their questions, it seems certain that Anastaplo's refusal to answer them must have had some influence upon the final outcome of the hearings. In any case, when the Committee did vote, 11-6, not to certify Anastaplo for admission, not one member who asked any question Anastaplo had refused to answer voted in his favor.
The reasons for Anastaplo's position have been stated by him time and again-first, to the Committee and, later, in the briefs and oral arguments he presented in his own behalf, both before this Court and before the Supreme Court of Illinois. From a legal standpoint, his position throughout has been that the First Amendment gave him a right not to disclose his political associations or his religious beliefs to the Committee. But his decision to refuse to disclose these associations and beliefs went much deeper than a bare reliance upon what he considered to be his legal rights. The record shows that his refusal to answer the Committee's question stemmed primarily from his belief that he had a duty, both to society and to the legal profession, not to submit to the demands of the Committee because he believed that the questions had been asked solely for the purpose of harassing him because he had expressed agreement with the assertion of the right of revolution against an evil government set out in the Declaration of Independence. His position was perhaps best stated before the Committee in his closing remarks at the final session:
'It is time now to close. Differences between us remain. I leave to others the sometimes necessary but relatively easy task of praising Athens to Athenians. Besides, you should want no higher praise than what I have said about the contribution the bar can make to republican government. The bar deserves no higher praise until it makes that contribution. You should be grateful that I have not made a complete submission to you, even though I have cooperated as fully as good conscience permits. To the extent I have not submitted, to that extent have I contributed to the solution of one of the most pressing problems that you, as men devoted to character and fitness, must face. This is the problem of selecting the standards and methods the bar must employ if it is to help preserve and nourish that idealism, that vital interest in the problem of justice, that so often lies at the heart of the intelligent and sensitive law student's choice of career. This is an idealism which so many things about the bar, and even about bar admission practices, discourage and make unfashionable to defend or retain. The worthiest men live where the rewards of virtue are greatest.
'I leave with you men of Illinois the suggestion that you do yourselves and the bar the honor, as well as the service, of anticipating what I trust will be the judgment of our most thoughtful judges. I move therefore that you recommend to the Supreme Court of Illinois that I be admitted to the bar of this State. And I suggest that this recommendation be made retroactive to November 10, 1950 when a young Air Force veteran first was so foolish as to continue to serve his country by daring to defend against a committee on character and fitness the teaching of the Declaration of Independence on the right of revolution.'
The reasons for the Committee's position are also clear. Its job, throughout these proceedings, has been to determine whether Anastaplo is possessed of the necessary good moral character to justify his admission to the Bar of Illinois. In that regard, the Committee has been given the benefit of voluminous affidavits from men of standing in their professions and in the community that Anastaplo is possessed of an unusually fine character. Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at the University of Wisconsin, for example, described Anastaplo as 'intellectually able, a hard, thorough student and moved by high devotion to the principles of freedom and justice.' Professor Malcolm P. Sharp of the University of Chicago Law School stated: 'No question has ever been raised about his honesty or his integrity, and his general conduct, characterized by friendliness, quiet independence, industry and courage, is reflected in his reputation.' Professor Roscoe T. Steffen of the University of Chicago Law School said: 'I know of no one who doubts his honesty and integrity.' Yves R. Simon, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, said: 'I consider Anastaplo as a young man of the most distinguished and lofty moral character. Everybody respects him and likes him.' Angelo G. Geocaris, a practicing attorney in the City of Chicago, said of Anastaplo: 'His personal code of ethics is unexcelled by any practicing attorney I have met in the state of Illinois.' Robert J. Coughlan, Division Director of a research project at the University of Chicago, said: 'His honesty and integrity are, in my opinion, beyond question. I would highly recommend him without the slightest reservation for any position involving the highest or most sacred trust. The applicant is a rare man among us today: he has an inviolable sense of Honor in the great traditions of Greek culture and thought. If admitted to the American Bar, he could do nothing that would not reflect glory on that institution.'
These affidavits and many more like them were presented to the Committee. Most of the statements came from men who knew Anastaplo intimately on the University of Chicago campus where Anastaplo has remained throughout the proceedings here involved, working as a research assistant and as a lecturer in Liberal Arts and studying for an advanced degree in History and Social Sciences. Even at the present time, he is still there preparing his doctoral dissertation which, understandably enough, is tentatively entitled 'The Historical and Philosophical Background of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.'
The record also shows that the Committee supplemented the information it had obtained about Anastaplo from these affidavits by conducting informal independent investigations into his character and reputation. It sent agents to Anastaplo's home town in southern Illinois and they questioned the people who knew him there. Similar inquiries were made among those who knew him in Chicago. But these intensive investigations apparently failed to produce so much as one man in Chicago or in the whole State of Illinois who could say or would say, directly, indirectly or even by hearsay, one thing derogatory to the character, loyalty or reputation of George Anastaplo, and not one man could be found who would in any way link him with the Communist Party. This fact is particularly significant in view of the evidence in the record that the Committee had become acquainted with a person who apparently had been a member of a Communist Party cell on the University of Chicago campus and that this person was asked to and did identify for the Committee every member of the Party whom he knew.
In addition to the information it had obtained from the affidavits and from its independent investigations, the Committee had one more important source of information about Anastaplo's character. It had the opportunity to observe the manner in which he conducted himself during the many hours of hearings before it. That manner, as revealed by the record before us and undenied by any findings of the Committee to the contrary, left absolutely nothing to be desired. Faced with a barrage of sometimes highly provocative and totally irrelevant questions from men openly hostile to his position, Anastaplo invariably responded with all the dignity and restraint attributed to him in the affidavits of his friends. Moreover, it is not amiss to say that he conducted himself in precisely the same manner during the oral argument he presented before this Court.
Thus, it is against the background of a mountain of evidence so favorable to Anastaplo that the word 'overwhelming' seems inadequate to describe it that the action of the Committee in refusing to certify Anastaplo as fit for admission to the Bar must be considered. The majority of the Committee rationalized its position on the ground that without answers to some of the questions it had asked, it could not conscientiously perform its duty of determining Anastaplo's character and fitness to be a lawyer. A minority of the Committee described this explanation as 'pure sophistry.' And it is simply impossible to read this record without agreeing with the minority. For, it is difficult to see what possible relevancy answers to the questions could have had in the minds of these members of the Committee after they had received such completely overwhelming proof beyond a reasonable doubt of Anastaplo's good character and staunch patriotism. I can think of no sound reason for further insistence upon these answers other than the very questionable, but very human, feeling that this young man should not be permitted to resist the Committee's demands without being compelled to suffer for it in some way.
It is intimated that the Committee's feeling of resentment might be assuaged and that Anastaplo might even be admitted to the Bar if he would only give in to the demands of the Committee and add the requested test oath to the already overwhelming proof he has submitted to establish his good character and patriotism. In this connection, the Court says: 'We find nothing to suggest that he would not be admitted now if he decides to answer, assuming of course that no grounds justifying his exclusion from practice resulted. In short, petitioner holds the key to admission in his own hands.' However well this familiar phrase may fit other cases, it does not fit this one. For the attitude of the Committee, as revealed by the transcript of its hearings, does not support a belief that Anastaplo can gain admission to the Illinois Bar merely by answering the Committee's questions, whatever answers he should give. Indeed, the Committee's own majority report discloses that Anastaplo's belief in the 'right of revolution' was regarded as raising 'a serious question' in the minds of a majority of the Committee with regard to his fitness to practice law and that 'certain' members of that majority (how many, we cannot know) have already stated categorically that they will not vote to admit an applicant who expresses such views. Nor does the opinion of the Illinois Supreme Court indicate that Anastaplo 'holds the key to admission in his own hands.' Quite the contrary, that court's opinion evidences an almost insuperable reluctance to upset the findings of the Committee. Certainly, that opinion contains nothing that even vaguely resembles the sort of implicit promise that would justify the belief asserted by the majority here. And, finally, I see nothing in the majority opinion of this Court, nor in the majority opinions in the companion cases decided today, that would justify a belief that this Court would unlock the door that blocks his admission to the Illinois Bar if Anastaplo produced the 'key' and the state authorities refused to use it.
The opinion of the majority already recognizes that there is not one scrap of evidence in the record before us 'which could properly be considered as reflecting adversely upon his (Anastaplo's) character or reputation or on the sincerity of the beliefs he espoused before the Committee,' and that the Committee had not received any "information from any outside source which would cast any doubt on applicant's loyalty or which would tend to connect him in any manner with any subversive group." The majority opinion even concedes that Anastaplo was correct in urging that the questions asked by the Committee impinged upon the freedoms of speech and association guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. But, the opinion then goes on to hold that Anastaplo can nonetheless be excluded from the Bar pursuant to 'the State's interest in having lawyers who are devoted to the law in its broadest sense .' I cannot regard that holding, as applied to a man like Anastaplo, as in any way justified. Consider it, for example, in the context of the following remarks of Anastaplo to the Committee-remarks the sincerity of which the majority does not deny:
'I speak of a need to remind the bar of its traditions and to keep alive the spirit of dignified but determined advocacy and opposition. This is not only for the good of the bar, of course, but also because of what the bar means to American republican government. The bar when it exercises self-control is in a peculiar position to mediate between popular passions and informed and principled men, thereby upholding republican government. Unless there is this mediation, intelligent and responsible government is unlikely. The bar, furthermore, is in a peculiar position to apply to our daily lives the constitutional principles which nourish for this country its inner life. Unless there is this nourishment, a just and humane people is impossible. The bar is, in short, in a position to train and lead by precept and example the American people.'
These are not the words of a man who lacks devotion to 'the law in its broadest sense.'
The majority, apparently considering this fact irrelevant because the State might possibly have an interest in learning more about its Bar applicants, decides that Anastaplo can properly be denied admission to the Bar by purporting to 'balance' the interest of the State of Illinois in 'having lawyers who are devoted to the law in its broadest sense' against the interest of Anastaplo and the public in protecting the freedoms of the First Amendment, concluding, as it usually does when it engages in this process, that 'on balance' the interest of Illinois must prevail. If I had ever doubted that the 'balancing test' comes close to being a doctrine of governmental absolutism-that to 'balance' an interest in individual liberty means almost inevitably to destroy that liberty-those doubts would have been dissipated by this case. For this so-called 'balancing test'-which, as applied to the First Amendment, means that the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion and petition can be repressed whenever there is a sufficient governmental interest in doing so-here proves pitifully and pathetically inadequate to cope with an invasion of individual liberty so plainly unjustified that even the majority apparently feels compelled expressly to disclaim 'any view upon the wisdom of the State's action.'
I, of course, wholeheartedly agree with the statement of the majority that this Court should not, merely on the ground that such action is unwise, interfere with governmental action that is within the constitutional powers of that government. But I am no less certain that this Court should not permit governmental action that plainly abridges constitutionally protected rights of the People merely because a majority believes that on 'balance' it is better, or 'wiser,' to abridge those rights than to leave them free. The inherent vice of the 'balancing test' is that it purports to do just that. In the context of its reliance upon the 'balancing test,' the Court's disclaimer of 'any view upon the wisdom of the State's action' here thus seems to me to be wholly inconsistent with the only ground upon which it has decided this case.
Nor can the majority escape from this inconsistency on the ground that the 'balancing test' deals only with the question of the importance of the existence of governmental power as a general matter without regard to the importance of its exercise in a particular case. For in Barenblatt v. United States the same majority made it clear that the 'balancing test' is to be applied to the facts of each particular case (360 U.S. 109, 79 S.Ct. 1093): 'Where First Amendment rights are asserted to bar governmental interrogation resolution of the issue always involves a balancing by the courts of the competing private and public interests at stake in the particular circumstances shown.' Thus the Court not only 'balances' the respective values of two competing policies as a general matter, but also 'balances' the wisdom of those policies in 'the particular circumstances shown.' Thus, the Court has reserved to itself the power to permit or deny abridgement of First Amendment freedoms according to its own view of whether repression or freedom is the wiser governmental policy under the circumstances of each case.
The effect of the Court's 'balancing' here is that any State may now reject an applicant for admission to the Bar if he believes in the Declaration of Independence as strongly as Anastaplo and if he is willing to sacrifice his career and his means of livelihood in defense of the freedoms of the First Amendment. But the men who founded this country and wrote our Bill of Rights were strangers neither to a belief in the 'right of revolution' nor to the urgency of the need to be free from the control of government with regard to political beliefs and associations. Thomas Jefferson was not disclaiming a belief in the 'right of revolution' when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. And Patrick Henry was certainly not disclaiming such a belief when he declared in impassioned words that have come on down through the years: 'Give me liberty or give me death.' This country's freedom was won by men who, whether they believed in it or not, certainly practiced revolution in the Revolutionary War.
Since the beginning of history there have been governments that have engaged in practices against the people so bad, so cruel, so unjust and so destructive of the individual dignity of men and women that the 'right of revolution' was all the people had left to free themselves. As simple illustrations, one government almost 2,000 years ago burned Christians upon fiery crosses and another government, during this very century, burned Jews in crematories. I venture the suggestion that there are countless multitudes in this country, and all over the world, who would join Anastaplo's belief in the right of the people to resist by force tyrranical governments like those.
In saying what I have, it is to be borne in mind that Anastaplo has not indicated, even remotely, a belief that this country is an oppressive one in which the 'right of revolution' should be exercised. Quite the contrary, the entire course of his life, as disclosed by the record, has been one of devotion and service to his country-first, in his willingness to defend its security at the risk of his own life in time of war and, later, in his willingness to defend its freedoms at the risk of his professional career in time of peace. The one and only time in which he has come into conflict with the Government is when he refused to answer the questions put to him by the Committee about his beliefs and associations. And I think the record clearly shows that conflict resulted, not from any fear on Anastaplo's part to divulge his own political activities, but from a sincere, and in my judgment correct, conviction that the preservation of this country's freedom depends upon adherence to our Bill of Rights. The very most that can fairly be said against Anastaplo's position in this entire matter is that he took too much of the responsibility of preserving that freedom upon himself.
This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that Anastaplo has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows, not only that Anastaplo has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost. It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law-men like Malsherbes, who, at the cost of his own life and the lives of his family, sprang unafraid to the defense of Louis XVI against the fanatical leaders of the Revolutionary government of France -men like Charles Evans Hughes, Sr., later Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, who stood up for the constitutional rights of socialists to be socialists and public officials despite the threats and clamorous protests of self-proclaimed superpatriots -men like Charles Evans Hughes, Jr., and John W. Davis, who, while against everything for which the Communists stood, strongly advised the Congress in 1948 that it would be unconstitutional to pass the law then proposed to outlaw the Communist Party -men like Lord Erskine, James Otis, Clarence Darrow, and the multitude of others who have dared to speak in defense of causes and clients without regard to personal danger to themselves. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.
But that is the present trend, not only in the legal profession but in almost every walk of life. Too many men are being driven to become government-fearing and time-serving because the Government is being permitted to strike out at those who are fearless enough to think as they please and say what they think. This trend must be halted if we are to keep faith with the Founders of our Nation and pass on to future generations of Americans the great heritage of freedom which they sacrificed so much to leave to us. The choice is clear to me. If we are to pass on that great heritage of freedom, we must return to the original language of the Bill of Rights. We must not be afraid to be free'
' if a government gets bad enough, the people have a 'right of revolution.' ~ George Anastaplo
That's why I like you George... what you just said right up there... you're a principled man and a patriot... you're a fiesty guy indeed as the following exchange points out...
This is from the transcript of the committee questioning George...
'Commissioner Mitchell: When you say 'believe in revolution,' you don't limit that revolution to an overthrow of a particular political party or a political government by means of an election process or other political means?
'Mr. Anastaplo: I mean actual use of force.
'Commissioner Mitchell: You mean to go as far as necessary?
'Mr. Anastaplo: As far as Washington did, for instance.
'Commissioner Mitchell: So that would it be fair to say that you believe the end result would justify any means that were used?
'Mr. Anastaplo: No, the means proportionate to the particular end in sight.
'Commissioner Mitchell: Well, is there any difference from your answer and my question?
'Mr. Anastaplo: Did you ask-
'Commissioner Mitchell: I asked you whether you thought that you believe that if a change, or overthrow of the government were justified, that any means could be used to accomplish that end.
'Mr. Anastaplo: Now, let's say in this positive concrete situation-I am not quite sure what it means in abstract.
'Commissioner Mitchell: I will ask you in detail. You believe that assuming the government should be overthrown, in your opinion, that you and others of like mind would be justified in raising a company of men with military equipment and proceed to take over the government of the United States, of the State of Illinois?
'By shaking your head do you mean yes?
'Mr. Anastaplo: If you get to the point where overthrow is necessary, then overthrow is justified. It just means that you overthrow the government by force.
'Commissioner Mitchell: And would that also include in your mind justification for putting a spy into the administrative department, one or another of the administrative departments of the United States or the government of the State of Illinois?
'Mr. Anastaplo: If you got to the point you think the government should be overthrown, I think that would be a legitimate means.
'Commissioner Mitchell: There isn't any difference in your mind in the propriety of using a gun or using a spy?
'Mr. Anastaplo: I think spies have been used in quite honorable causes.
'Commissioner Mitchell: Your answer is, you do think so?
'Mr. Anastaplo: Yes.
'Commissioner Baker: Let me ask you a question. Are you aware of the fact that the Department of Justice has a list of what are described as subversive organizations?
'Mr. Anastaplo: Yes.
'Commissioner Baker: Have you ever seen that list?
'Mr. Anastaplo: Yes.
'Commissioner Baker: Are you a member of any organization that is listed on the Attorney General's list, to your knowledge? (No answer.) Just to keep you from having to work so hard mentally on it, what organizations-give me all the organizations you are affiliated with or are a member of. (No answer.) That oughtn't to be too hard.
'Mr. Anastaplo: Do you believe that is a legitimate question?
'Commissioner Baker: Yes, I do. We are inquiring into not only your character, but your fitness, under Rule 58. We don't compel you to answer it. Are you a member of the Communist Party?'
George lost the case at the US Supreme Court but it was his principled approach to not answering the question in the first place and his ten year battle to overcome the ramifications of that refusal that earned him the respect of many who respect a person who lives a principle centered life.
He never would practice law, but he would become a passionate and inspiring teacher according to many.
He's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twelve times.
And they sat him down for dinner next to 'Viewminder' a street photographer... who was only nominated for the Peace Prize once... by himself.
Crowned 'The Socrates of Chicago' George has written more books than some of the people I know have read...
"He has written books and articles analyzing the influence of Greek literature on American politics, on the Thinker as Artist, and the Artist as Thinker, on the O. J. Simpson trial, on lights at Wrigley Field, on McCarthyism, on hate speech, on lawyers, on judges, on the Bible, on ethics, on Abraham Lincoln, on the remodeling of Soldier field, and I have only touched the surface of his eclecticism. ~ 'George Anastaplo' by Abner Mikva
George Anastaplo I admire you.
You saw something that was wrong and you refused to be a part of it...
Even if that meant it would create difficulty in your life and in your pursuit of the career that you studied so long and hard for.
You stood true to your convictions.
You stood up for what you believe in.
You never backed down.
You're an inspiring man and a patriot George Anastaplo.
They outta give out a prize for that.
Faces on the street
Chicago 7.9.11
35mm 1.8 SOOC with a ping of contrast
7.20.11
Here Be Magic: The Source’s Apprentice>
FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real
HOPE = Higher Order Potential Explored
LOVE = Living One Vibrant Energy
Who are you, what is the world, how did you get here, where are we going and why? Every child asks these questions, as do the mortally ill and those suddenly faced with unexpected change.
Young children (and venerable ancients) are most intimately connected to the deepest mysteries of being. All existence is a glorious mystery that inspires open minds and passionate hearts. Life begins in a rush of extraordinary emotion with an intimate embrace of the actual, immediate, visceral present and leaves deep imprints that last through the next rebirth and beyond.
Many newborn babes know answers to the deepest conundrums, yet quickly forget – distracted by the ongoing process of learning to wear a new body in a strangely demanding culture of drowsy domesticated primates. Most ‘modern’ people are quickly weaned from a sense of wonder to suckle on toxic waste and moribund notions in notional nations at war with themselves. What use are masters and mistresses of universal truths to soulless machines of industrious wastage – to self-styled half blind so-called ‘leaders’ who only require mindless cogs and obedient dogs that will work on their pet projects without question?
Eternal questions lead to cascades of answers and torrents of more questions. At some point in life all beings wonder and ponder the primal questions of life, the universe and everything. Every child knows they’re on a magical mystery tour, exploring and creating a gloriously intricate realm of intriguing riddles and sumptuous sensualities. Every freshly incarnate soul knows answers to eternal conundrums and recognises that truth must be really simple, clear and meaningful – unlike the plethora of corporate, ‘religious’ and ‘spiritual’ lies they’re fed to keep them in place in the usual fowl-brained pecking ordure.
People are rapidly weaned from infinite fonts of unending wisdom, fed on senseless half truths and superstitions by blithering wastrels until we’re self-caged in boxes and propped before blinding screens devoid of imagination, filled up with loony marching tunes, violent comical characters, warrior ‘ethics’, impersonal personalities and mobsters from the Id.
Yet every being who finds themselves living in the bosom of Gaia has the ability to flourish in a garden of freedom, art, truth and beauty – unless the divine rapture of happy revelry is beaten and brainwashed out of them by damaged control freaks. The adulteration of adulthood customarily twists each bright new spark into a carelessly forgetful servile dolt wearing uniform uniforms that suit self-styled bosses and no-one else. Yet the bright living world continues to glow and beckon with magnetic inner light, awakening inner sight and inner sense in every insightful innocent soul.
Even while selling, selling out or selling one’s soul, answers and questions lurk within, biding their time til the moment of wonder emerges anew – flowers that bud from slimy mud to bloom in the light of an unbranded bright new day.
Children know what magic is. Magic is obviously the ability to alter the fabric of ‘material reality’ at will. Adolescents and adults who quest after magical reality or ultimate truths usually encounter the teaching that magic is the ability to alter one’s level and state of consciousness at will. It transpires that these two views of magical reality are one and the same, for the world is made of mindstuff – the very same stuff you’ve made of your self.
We’re all the creator of the world we inhabit. We make and remake the cosmos we perceive from instant to instant in a seamless flow far quicker than any word or thought a monkey mind can shape or utter. We mould malleable mindstruff to fit about our hopes, dreams, desires and fears. The strongest, most emotively driven visions predominate, setting the course of our self-chosen destiny from moment to moment. At every instant new doors are opened and closed by decisive thoughts which come and go so swiftly they barely seem to register, ignored by minds entrained to self destruction through perpetual distraction.
Who won last weekend’s game? Who’ll win next week’s? Who really cares or remembers the identikit features of identical born-to-die gladiators or the meaningless trivia of daily scores? Every broadcast from the blaring, pumping, chest-thumping media is thoroughly massaged premasticated pap made to sell, sell, sell the messy message that life is hell without labels and boxes and plastic bags. The ‘news’ is a neverchanging regurgitated weather report overflowing with the meaningless mummery of falsified finance, shaggy cat stories and fishy tales about the none that got away from The System.
People aren’t encouraged to examine their minds – to investigate the source and route of each thought that passes through the easily distracted awareness of industrious sociable beings. In the kingdom of the blind, endless mindless busyness is promoted to a virtue and self-examination is regarded as ‘useless navel gazing’.
The boss will tell you that there’s plenty of time for self examination when you’re fading and tired and retired from the rat race. There’s plenty of time to be free when you’re old, weak, moribund and no longer a potential threat to the busy, dizzy status quo. Meanwhile, follow the leaders and only read parking meters – and pay through the nose for the right to exist, eat, drink and inhabit space. Do what’s expected of you and reap your reward; Work. Consume. Obey. Marry and reproduce. Die – and then begin all over again, with that alluring ‘clean slate’ – that fresh start each adult craves when they realise they’re botching Life and selling their heritage for a bowl of cold potage.
Turn on. Tune in. Opt out! The real world and real you awaits; waiting for you to discover your self.
You always get what you wish for – often when you’ve forgotten you ever wished for it – so be careful what you wish for, for wishing is magic. Each idle thought is a wilful wish when fuelled by hope or fear, love or anger or any potent emotion in the unformed ocean of eternal becoming.
Magic in a Holographic Fractal Multiverse
The cosmos is infinite, and we don’t even live in a single universe. We live in – and contain – an infinite multiverse of limitless potential.
Fractals and fractal imagery demonstrate the truth of an infinite cosmos shaping and shaped by each whole fragment of ultimate reality. Every part, particle, participle and person reflects and refracts the infinite whole – a fluid hologram altered by individual perspectives in a freewheeling free willed phantasmagoria of endless possibility and infinite variety in continuous communion with itself.
As free will is real and events are not locked into predetermined courses, there can’t be any such thing as accurate prediction – just hypnotic programs that attempt to create self-fulfilling prophecies – for all is in flux and the Book of Life is always being inscribed and rewritten as the Book of Changes. There was no single Big Bang or Creation event, for creation continues at all times in all places, everywhere and anywhen. The illusion of creation is simply the result of premillennial brainwashed minds; a dopey falsehood imagined by ‘scientists’ entrained to believe in a fantasy parental archetype – a creator god (or goddess) – by superannuated superstitions strangely exalted as ‘faiths’ or ‘religions’.
There is no god and no master, but truth, beauty, freedom and love are royally real. You are the creator. You are totally free – and ultimately responsible for everything! No guilt, honour, opprobrium or any other imaginary construct applies to you as a result of your creation. Mistakes are impossible in an infinite multiverse; all is research and all is Art. Yet some artistic creations are more pleasing to the senses than others and some acts far more compassionate and conscious. The holographic nature of reality assures that everyone IS everyone and that one simple ‘rule’ actually does apply to all human behaviour and discourse – the eternal Golden Rule; do as you’d be done by.
You create (your own) reality. How are you doing it? Self-styled creators tend to develop an exalted opinion of themselves, in the false belief they’re in charge of everyone and everything else – yet everyone is in charge of and charged by their own ongoing freeform destiny, ultimately beholden to no other yet intricately interlinked with all. Everyone is divine, a whole fractal facet of everyone and everything.
You magnetise reality, shaping and guiding the transitory ‘material world’ to follow the pattern of your dreaming. How are you doing it? Are you actually moulding the infinite potential of possibility itself, or are you selecting the best of all possible worlds from the myriad pre-existing choices available – or both, or neither? Are you a corpse that died at an earlier time, dreaming the ongoing world as you decompose into soil? Are you a Neo(tonous being) imagining a preprogrammed life in an artificial matrix?
How can you truly know the truth?
By examining each thought and image that enters your mind, and seeing from whence it arises. By meditating, and truly SEEING the sea of mentality through which you’re swimming until you find the still, pure centre where the true you abides, becoming the source of all creation at the centre of the cyclone, wreathed in the swirling spin of everchanging thoughtforms and myriad potential.
Kaleidoscopic Cosmos
There is another way of viewing the kaleidoscopic cosmos. Matter doesn’t exist. It’s an illusion created by apparent ‘particles’ which also don’t exist in ‘real’ terms, but are actually eddies formed by intricately interlocking standing waves. We live in a fluid fractal hologram. All patterns echo the primal form from which all other fractal versions and visions are derived; the vortex at the core of all things, the shape of the cosmos itself.
Every ‘electron’ and every other vortexial fragment of wholistic unity holds a holographic image of everything within its spinning skein. Every grain of a holographic image contains an image of the whole picture, and every vortex is implicately linked to all others at all levels of resolution.
In quantum theory an ‘electron’ is said to rotate around its axis more than once during each rotation, circling through infinite plena of potentials (other universes) before returning to the phase – the place – from which it’s observed. Thus every part of all possible universes is in potential and actual contact with every other part, at all levels of resolution – and so are you.
Every cloud is a fractal representation of every other cloud. All clouds are different yet similar forms, all exhibiting tendencies we recognise as ‘cloudness’. All trees are fractal representations of every other tree. Every person is a fractal representation of every other person. Every ‘universe’ is a fractal representation of every other universe, and all are intimately linked in the most fundamental ways. All forms are representation of the primordial vortex, the wellspring from which all arises.
Everything we perceive/conceive/receive is produced by standing waves, and standing waves are formed between complementary poles. Every thing vibrates between its core and extremities – the poles of creation – yet the extremities and core of every single thing extend forever and are linked to literally everything.
We live in a far greater reality than a simple single universe. The universe we perceive is a tendency that tends to maintain its apparent form and substance almost wherever we look, but if you step back from the brink of egocentric personality and really see you’ll notice differences and changes all around and within you, all the time. We are part and parcel of everything, and everything changes all the time in ways too varied to mention. Everyone is surfing through spacetimes and everyone gets exactly what they wish for with their most wilful impassioned desires.
Hopes and dreams – affirmations – predominate over fears and insecurities when you invest them with awareness, focus and consideration. Hopes manifest most easily when they dovetail with the dreams of other beings in a mutually reinforcing matrix. Hope for the best! Dare to dream of Paradise – for all.
Psychic abilities are real and available; you enact their reality all the time. Telepathy is an ongoing eternal reality; not something to be achieved, but recognised. The same applies to all psi abilities or ‘psychic powers’. Learning magic begins with the simple recognition –reknowing – that it exists, and you are already ‘doing’ it. That’s how you got here. That’s why you’re reading this.
.You are implicately and inextricably interwoven with the entire potential cosmos. To activate a broader awareness of all this potential you have to explore the core of your being and the limitless bounds of self. The whole whirled world is whorled from mindstuff and thou art god.
And myriad other beings already know this. We soar from the shoulders of giants.
Way Out, Far In
To begin any magical operation draw a circle around yourself, starting in the East. Do it now. In the southern hemisphere of this spinning Earth sphere the circle of protection is drawn clockwise (looking down from above). The opposite pertains in the northern hemisphere.
The circle is an inviolable horizon and you are its centre. All possibilities exist between the horizon and the core. Arrange your body so your spine is erect and your breathing is full and clear – this can take a single moment or many years to achieve, depending on where you’re at and how you came to be here now.
See where you’re seeing the world from. Move that point of awareness – the place where you live – into the centre of your head. Do it now. View the world from the centre of centres and watch your peripheral vision expand – you’re already aware of far more than you think.
Listen to the thoughts you think you’re thinking… see them circling round the inviolate centre where you reside… the centre where nothing exists… in the Heavenly Pool at the core of creation.
You are not the thoughts, but the still silent witness within. Become the nothing that sees and is everything. When you’re here the void is clear, not dark at all but filled with the light of eternal awareness. Be here now. Be free…
You are already immortal You don’t have to die to change or be free. You just have to recognise yourself in every thing and every one… and set it all free to be in victorious sweet surrender…
When you’re located at the still centre of the cycle, place this centre directly above the equally still and central point at the centre of the bowl of your hips – your water-centre of ‘gravity’, the hara or navel chakra, below and behind your physical navel. You can view the world from here as well, with a differing perspective that creates a different style of consciousness. Breathe deeply from and into this core and fill it with chi, prana, the Holy Spirit.
When your spine is straight and the waters above are directly above the waters below, a current begins that sparks the fusion, creating the pure flame of an opening, flowering heart.
Breathe…
If you do this and seek the truth all teachings will follow and flow through you, manifesting from the limitless potential of our massive multiplayer online cocreation. Be the immortal that witnesses all from the core of breath and being. Remove the screen from your eyes and BE HERE NOW. We create the best of all possible worlds… together.
It’s a beautiful, wonderful world.
All things in all times in all places are one thing, and that thing is love
- R. Ayana
Thanks to those who passed and pass this to and through…
Image – author’s: The Great Work
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From the Her(m)etic Hermit @ hermetic.blog.com/2012/01/04/here-be-magic/
Australian postcard by AvantCard, no. 6150, Postcard 4 in a series of 6. Photo: Dendy. Audrey Tatou in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain/Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001). Caption: Amelie lives in Paris and in a world of her own. She tries hard to fix other people's messy lives. But what about her own life? Who'll fix that?
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) is a French romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. The film, written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, is a romanticised portrayal of life in Montmartre, Paris. The film became an international box-office hit and was awarded four Césars internationally (including for best film and best director) and received five Academy Award nominations. The music was composed by Yann Tiersen.
The film describes the fairy-tale-like and romantic story of the young woman Amélie Poulain who decides one day that she can make other people happy with little things. Amélie grows up isolated from other children because she is thought to suffer from a heart condition. Her father, a doctor, never touches her, so that her heartbeat rises with enthusiasm when he does during the examination. Amélie's mother, who is very neurotic, dies when Amélie is still a child because a Canadian woman who jumps off Notre Dame falls on top of her. Amélie's father shuts himself off even more from the world and starts building a mausoleum for his dead wife. Because she is always on her own, Amélie develops a very rich imagination. When Amélie is older, she becomes a waitress in the Café des 2 Moulins, a small café in the Montmartre district of Paris. The owner is Suzanne, a former circus performer, and the guests are colourful. Amélie, who is 23 at the time, leads a simple life. She takes pleasure in simple things like breaking the sugar coating on crème brûlée, throwing pebbles on the Canal Saint-Martin and fantasising about how many couples in Paris are having an orgasm at that moment. Her life changes on the day of Princess Diana's death. Through a series of events that follow her shock at the news, she discovers a small metal box behind a skirting board in her bathroom. Inside this box are memories of a boy who lived in the flat decades before Amélie. Fascinated by this, she goes in search of this now grown-up person to give him back the box. She makes an agreement with herself that if she succeeds and the person is happy, she will dedicate her life to the good things in life and helping others.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet began jotting down ideas and memories in 1974, which form the basis of Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001). The profits from Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) enabled him to make a film without making commercial concessions. In Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), Jeunet reintroduces elements from the short film Foutaises (1990), especially the "il aime/il n'aime pas" (he likes/he doesn't like) fragments in the presentation of the characters. The almost constant presence of the colour combination of strong red and strong green that could already be seen in La cité des enfants perdus/The City of the Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1995) returns in this film. Jeunet says in the DVD's commentary track that the idea of the album of discarded pictures came from the French writer Michel Folco, who owns such an album. Because of intellectual property rights, Jeunet could not use this album, so he had to work with extras. The film uses computer graphics and digital post-production (digital intermediate). Jeunet had actually written the role of Amélie for Emily Watson. In the original script, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Emily Watson's French was not good enough and there was a time conflict due to the filming of Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001). Jeunet, therefore, rewrote the script for French actress Audrey Tautou. Filming took place at the Café des 2 Moulins in Paris, at the Gare du Nord station, outside at the Gare de l'Est and at the Sacré-Cœur church. Since the film was financially supported by the Filmstiftung NRW, the interior shots of the film were shot at the MMC Studio Coloneum in Cologne. The German painter Michael Sowa contributed some bizarre interior details. He created the pig lamp as well as some of the paintings in Amélie's room, which can be seen in the background. For the TV sequence that suddenly refers to Amélie's life in the subtitles ("Raymond Dufayel's attempt to interfere is unacceptable. If Amélie prefers to live in her dream world and remain an introverted young woman, that is her right. Because the right to a failed life is inviolable!"), a sequence from the second part of the four-part Soviet film epic Blockade (1974) about the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War was used. A recurring theme of Georges Delerue's film music for François Truffaut's film Jules te Jim/Jules and Jim (1962) is varied several times by Yann Tiersen in his soundtrack for Amelie as the main theme.
At the 2002 Césars, Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain won Best Film, Best Director, Best Score and Best Production Design. It was also nominated in nine other categories, including Best Original Screenplay and Audrey Tautou for Best Actress in a Leading Role. At the 2001 European Film Awards, the film won in four categories: Best European Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography, and the Jameson Audience Award for Best Director. Audrey Tautou was also nominated for Best Actress. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2002 in the five categories Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound, but did not prevail in any of the categories. The film received good reviews both in France and internationally. The film did not enter the official competition at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival, as Gilles Jacob, who was responsible for the film selection, said he found it "uninteresting". This caused a major public debate, as the rejection was interpreted in many places as a contradiction to the great media interest in the film and as a decision "against the audience". Jean-Pierre Jeunet reacted to the rejection by bringing forward the film's theatrical release; "Amélie" now ran parallel to the ongoing festival. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) grossed 140 million US dollars worldwide, 33 million of which in the USA.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Australian postcard by AvantCard, no. 6147, Postcard 1 in a series of 6. Photo: Dendy. Flora Guiet in Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain/Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001). Caption: Amelie lives in Paris and in a world of her own. When she is six, she retreats into her imagination. In this world, LP records are made like pancakes.
Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) is a French romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. The film, written by Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, is a romanticised portrayal of life in Montmartre, Paris. The film became an international box-office hit and was awarded four Césars internationally (including for best film and best director) and received five Academy Award nominations. The music was composed by Yann Tiersen.
The film describes the fairy-tale like and romantic story of the young woman Amélie Poulain who decides one day that she can make other people happy with little things. Amélie grows up isolated from other children because she is thought to suffer from a heart condition. Her father, a doctor, never touches her, so that her heartbeat rises with enthusiasm when he does during the examination. Amélie's mother, who is very neurotic, dies when Amélie is still a child because a Canadian woman who jumps off Notre Dame falls on top of her. Amélie's father shuts himself off even more from the world and starts building a mausoleum for his dead wife. Because she is always on her own, Amélie develops a very rich imagination. When Amélie is older, she becomes a waitress in the Café des 2 Moulins, a small café in the Montmartre district of Paris. The owner is Suzanne, a former circus performer, and the guests are colourful. Amélie, who is 23 at the time, leads a simple life. She takes pleasure in simple things like breaking the sugar coating on crème brûlée, throwing pebbles on the Canal Saint-Martin and fantasising about how many couples in Paris are having an orgasm at that moment. Her life changes on the day of Princess Diana's death. Through a series of events that follow her shock at the news, she discovers a small metal box behind a skirting board in her bathroom. Inside this box are memories of a boy who lived in the flat decades before Amélie. Fascinated by this, she goes in search of this now grown-up person to give him back the box. She makes an agreement with herself that if she succeeds and the person is happy, she will dedicate her life to the good things in life and helping others.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet began jotting down ideas and memories in 1974, which form the basis of Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001). The profits from Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) enabled him to make a film without making commercial concessions. In Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001), Jeunet reintroduces elements from the short film Foutaises (1990), especially the "il aime/il n'aime pas" (he likes/he doesn't like) fragments in the presentation of the characters. The almost constant presence of the colour combination of strong red and strong green that could already be seen in La cité des enfants perdus/The City of the Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1995) returns in this film. Jeunet says in the DVD's commentary track that the idea of the album of discarded pictures came from the French writer Michel Folco, who owns such an album. Because of intellectual property rights, Jeunet could not use this album, so he had to work with extras. The film uses computer graphics and digital post-production (digital intermediate). Jeunet had actually written the role of Amélie for Emily Watson. In the original script, Amélie's father was an Englishman living in London. However, Emily Watson's French was not good enough and there was a time conflict due to the filming of Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001). Jeunet, therefore, rewrote the script for French actress Audrey Tautou. Filming took place at the Café des 2 Moulins in Paris, at the Gare du Nord station, outside at the Gare de l'Est and at the Sacré-Cœur church. Since the film was financially supported by the Filmstiftung NRW, the interior shots of the film were shot at the MMC Studio Coloneum in Cologne. The German painter Michael Sowa contributed some bizarre interior details. He created the pig lamp as well as some of the paintings in Amélie's room, which can be seen in the background. For the TV sequence that suddenly refers to Amélie's life in the subtitles ("Raymond Dufayel's attempt to interfere is unacceptable. If Amélie prefers to live in her dream world and remain an introverted young woman, that is her right. Because the right to a failed life is inviolable!"), a sequence from the second part of the four-part Soviet film epic Blockade (1974) about the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War was used. A recurring theme of Georges Delerue's film music for François Truffaut's film Jules te Jim/Jules and Jim (1962) is varied several times by Yann Tiersen in his soundtrack for Amelie as the main theme.
At the 2002 Césars, Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain won Best Film, Best Director, Best Score and Best Production Design. It was also nominated in nine other categories, including Best Original Screenplay and Audrey Tautou for Best Actress in a Leading Role. At the 2001 European Film Awards, the film won in four categories: Best European Film, Best Director, Best Cinematography and the Jameson Audience Award for Best Director. Audrey Tautou was also nominated for Best Actress. The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2002 in the five categories Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay and Best Sound, but did not prevail in any of the categories. The film received good reviews both in France and internationally. The film did not enter the official competition at the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival, as Gilles Jacob, who was responsible for the film selection, said he found it "uninteresting". This caused a major public debate, as the rejection was interpreted in many places as a contradiction to the great media interest in the film and as a decision "against the audience". Jean-Pierre Jeunet reacted to the rejection by bringing forward the film's theatrical release; "Amélie" now ran parallel to the ongoing festival. Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001) grossed 140 million US dollars worldwide, 33 million of which in the USA.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
The work of Antony Gormley
"The fabrication of Antony Gormley's newest work, Domain Field, has been taking place in public at Baltic in Gateshead since February. Locals of all ages came to be cast: to undress and giggle or feel apprehensive at being wrapped in clingfilm, slathered in Vaseline, wound in hessian scrim and caked in wet plaster. The opened casts piled up, then welders worked in the brittle cavities, wedging and welding slender steel bars into the space where a body once was. The public has been able to watch the lengthy proceedings from an upper-level mezzanine overlooking the gallery. Several times I stood on the balcony in one crowd, looking down on the making of another.
It is apt that Baltic, at the end of its first year, should give Gormley a show. He has already given Gateshead, and the north-east, an enduring symbol in Angel of the North; and Field for the British Isles, a vast crowd of clay homunculi, has been shown in an industrial building close by. The new exhibition, now opened, occupies most of Baltic. We work our way up: from the big, bulbous, testicular iron form that blocks the entrance, to Expansion Pieces, two hollow iron works that dangle from steel hawsers, inches from the floor, in the double-height, second-level gallery (both are based on casts of the artist's own body, and are now a decade old); further up past Allotment, the city of rectilinear concrete forms that fill the third floor; to the top, where Domain Field, a mass of wiry, stainless-steel figures occupy the entire floor
But Domain Field doesn't work: even the title grates. As a lengthy public experiment, it may have had all sorts of positive effects for those who took part: the social bonding, the memorable and sometimes daunting experience of being cast, the first-hand familiarity with an artist's process. But as sculpture, the 290 figures don't come off, individually or as a group. Why not?
The big test comes when we compare Domain Field with Gormley's other works. Allotment (1997) is another collective work with its origins in the measurements of real people - in this case, 300 people in Malmo. Each body was measured at various intervals, including head height, shoulder height, the length of the ears, the distance from the tip of the nose to the tip of the toes, the width of the mouth, the height of the anus from the floor, and so on - a list which is, itself, quite extraordinary. Gormley used these measurements to build concrete "body cases": rectilinear sculptures with apertures for mouth, ears, anus and genitals, cut at the appropriate points through the flat planes of the box for the head, the box for the body.
Being among these sculptures is like walking through a dead city. We are aware of human presence, but also its absence. The plain, shuttered concrete forms are buildings and coffins for the living. Each is unique, and one becomes very aware not just of the larger differences in the height and depth of the forms, but of smaller differences: a little ledge here, a shallow slot beneath the mouth, subtle differences in proportion, all of which become magnified in the formal distinctions between one element and another, one figure and another. The heads sit on the plinth-like bodies like those concrete structures one finds on rooftops: the place where the water tank or lift mecha nism is housed. It reminds me of a city skyline; but the washing lines and satellite dishes are missing.
While Allotment was in storage in Sweden, the roof above the work collapsed. Now, some of Gormley's casts have water stains, accidental drools of tar and bird shit accumulated on the little ledge under the mouth. This takes away nothing from Allotment; it even adds something, albeit accidental, to the works. They feel melancholy, like containers of loss. You can feel the air passing through the apertures, a cold convected breath. This, too, was doubtless unforeseen. You are aware of the hollowness of the forms, the sense of your own inviolability slipping away.
It is not that I prefer Gormley's earlier works, more that the experience of them is so much more captivating. Their appeal to the imagination, and their relation to one's own body is a fulfilling, unsettling experience. Allotment and Field for the British Isles feel real. The Expansion Pieces have a kind of weighty, somnolent presence. The two dangling forms make us think of gravity, the turn of the earth, a body buried somewhere. These works have a disturbing sense of confrontation that Domain Field lacks.
Maybe we should be looking for something else in Domain Field: a sense of liveliness or energy, the kind of buzz a living person seems to generate, their force field. But I can't find that, either. Somehow these works fail to interact with one another or with us. What they lack is partly what Gormley has taken away from them: the actual mass of the human body, their sense of otherness and human presence. Somehow, they fail to impinge on our sense of our own personal space, our own territory. They are, literally, insubstantial. Wherever you stand in relation to them, they look two-dimensional.
The construction of the work doesn't help. The "drawing" of the figures was conducted by welders, who were instructed to work in a random fashion in the empty space left in the casts' cavities, using pre-cut steel bars. The poses are repetitive, too: all the models were asked to stand, feet apart, their arms held away from their sides. This made for an efficient casting process, but makes them look as if they are playing at being gunslingers, hands hovering at their hips.
Gormley, it seems to me, is often overpraised. But at the same time his genuine strengths, and the qualities of his works, are often dismissed too readily. I don't much care for Angel of the North as sculpture, but I recognise its direct appeal as a kind of homeless symbol; homeless in the sense that it has no single or clear iconic meaning. The days of commemorative statuary are over. What, after all, are we supposed to share?
Yet Gormley's work attempts to deal with what is shared: the body, a sense of expectation and uncertainty about our being, our endurance in the world. He sees the body as a place, a locus, and wonders where the self is. This question is sometimes taken for pretentiousness, or seen as embarrassing or, worse, theological.
What is incontestable is Gormley's almost innocent drive and enthusiasm. He is driven by an unquenchable curiosity about the world and our place in it. His art is full of ideas; sometimes they seem like bad ideas, or ideas taken to questionable conclusions, but this is fair enough. Good ideas and compelling, totalising theories don't always lead to better art than work borne out of the simplest thoughts, bad ideas and wrong-headed theories. That is one of the things about art.
Most stuff around nowadays operates either as an adjunct to an over-intellectual, smug academicism, or its flip-side, media posturing. Well, how about the meant, just for a change? Let's hear it for the doomed project, the flawed plan, the failed experiment - as well as for the things that turned out better than anyone could have expected. The right to fail needs no defence" Adrian Searle, The Guardian, May 20, 2003
Article 4
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
I. Basic Rights
Article 4 [Freedom of faith and conscience]
(1) Freedom of faith and of conscience, and freedom to profess a religious or philosophical creed, shall be inviolable.
(2) The undisturbed practice of religion shall be guaranteed.
(3) No person shall be compelled against his conscience to render military service involving the use of arms. Details shall be regulated by a federal law.
(Source: www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p...)
Aus dem Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland
I. Die Grundrechte
Tools: Aperture, Color Efex Pro 4.
The "Cause" of the First Cause
by Ravi Zacharias, from Has Christianity Failed You?
A story circulated some years ago about Sherlock Holmes and his loyal friend and student Watson, who were together on a camping trip. After a good meal, they lay down for the night and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend awake.
“Watson,” he said, “look up at the sky and tell me what you see.” “I see millions and millions of stars,” Watson replied.
Watson pondered the question and then said, “Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all-powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?”
Holmes was silent for a minute before speaking. “Watson, you idiot!” he said with a measure of restraint. “Someone has stolen our tent!”
Antony Flew, In his book There Is a God, Flew reflects on an argument regarding the probability of human origin that he had to deal with in his younger days.
The argument runs like this: How long would it take for an infinite number of monkeys pounding on an infinite number of typewriters to compose a sonnet by Shakespeare? (Believe it or not, this argument was based on an experiment conducted by the British National Council of the Arts.) A computer was placed in a cage with six monkeys, and after one month of hammering away at the keys and using the computer as a bathroom, the monkeys produced fifty typed pages — but not one single word.
This is amazing, considering that the shortest word in English could be a one-letter word such as the letter a or I. But a one-letter word is only a word if there is space on either side of it. Flew points out that if one considers that there are thirty keys on a keyboard, the possibility of getting a one-letter word is one in 30 x 30 x 30, which is one in 27,000. If these attempts could not even result in one one-letter word, what is the possibility of getting just the first line of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, let alone a whole sonnet? Flew quotes scientist and author Gerry Schroeder on the sheer improbability of the random existence of the universe:
If you took the entire universe and converted it to computer chips — forget the monkeys — each one weighing a millionth of a gram, and had each computer chip able to spin out 488 trials at, say, a million times a second; if you turn the entire universe into these microcomputer chips and these chips were spinning a million times a second [producing] random letters, the number of trials you would get since the beginning of time would be 10 to the 90th trials. It would be off again by a factor of 10 to the 600th. You will never get a sonnet by chance — let alone the complete works of Shakespeare. The Universe would have to be 10 to the 600th times larger. Yet the world just thinks the monkeys can do it every time.
For Flew, the sheer improbability that such an intricate design as we have in this universe is the product of mindless evolution is insurmountable; the universe must have purpose and design behind it.
As powerful an argument as statistical improbability is, a simple point I want to make here is that although the specifics may be different, this is not a new argument for the improbability of chance. Antony Flew knows this to be so. But I must add that no dyed-in-the-wool naturalist is likely to suggest that our universe could not have beaten such odds. They will say that just because it is improbable, it doesn’t mean that the universe didn’t happen this way — a view that vehemently resists both human limitation and the humility required to follow reason where it leads. Instead, they will wax eloquent, like Watson, on endless categories of convoluted descriptions of what “might” or “could” have happened, all the while ignoring the most obvious deduction or conclusion before them as to the origin of the universe — that it was a deliberate act of creation by an intelligent being. Stubbornly and deliberately ignoring that “the tent has disappeared,” there is no way for naturalists to account for human relational hungers, so they refuse to recognize that these hungers are validated by the real fact that people relate to other people through a relationship.
To even think we could get a Shakespearean sonnet by accident assumes, first, that we have other sonnets to which we can compare the “accidental” one in order to know that it is indeed a Shakespearean sonnet and, second, that whenever we see intelligibility we assume intelligence. Even if the monkeys could have produced a sonnet by accident, we would still wonder at the intelligence behind the technology of the keys and the development of the alphabet, the aesthetics of this sonnet in comparison with other sonnets, and, to boot, whether the monkeys knew what they were doing.
The numerical impossibility actually defies even the “chance” analogy. And in the origin of the universe, as naturalism tells the story, there are no monkeys to begin with. The monkeys evolved from chemistry and energy after the universe already existed. There are no alphabets to be explained. There is no idea of a sonnet except as nonexistent monkeys pounding on nonexistent keys. All these assumptions are circular.
Let me illustrate this point a little differently through the fascinating story of George Frideric Handel’s composition of Messiah. His career as a composer was on the verge of collapse, and he was naturally discouraged, feeling that he was a failure. The words for Messiah were given to him as a possible oratorio, and he decided to try one last time to compose a great piece of music. When he reached the text for the “Hallelujah Chorus” and began to reflect on the words, he said later that he saw the heavens opened and the great God himself. And as the great chorus reached its climax at the first public presentation of Messiah before the king of England, the king rose to his feet in recognition of the awesome power of the words and music combining to give honor to the One to whom honor is due. The convergence of intelligence, aesthetics, and the inspirational power of a transcending reality in the person of God has the power to bring even kings either to their feet or to their knees.
All of this is dismissed as mere nonsense by the skeptic. Not only does he take that which appears statistically impossible and try to make it actual; he takes the emotion and spiritual expression that is common to the human experience, and is therefore actual, and tries to make it farcical. Is it really possible to deny such a reality as that described by Handel’s experience in writing the music for Messiah without even a twinge of doubt that perhaps there is more to life than science alone?
This intertwining of the disciplines with relationship that is both “intrapersonal” and “interpersonal,” within and without, reveals a distinctiveness that we must recognize as sacred and inviolable. But this is denied repeatedly in naturalism, which insists that we just happen to be here, that we’re all just “dancing to our DNA,” as Richard Dawkins puts it. For the Christian, the awesome nature of the world we are part of does not point to brute science in isolation but to the Creator, a personal God who can and does relate to human beings.
Excerpted from Has Christianity Failed You? by Ravi Zacharias, copyright Ravi Zacharias. Published by Zondervan
“Habit is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment, or between the individual and his own organic eccentricities, the guarantee of a dull inviolability, the lightning-conductor of his existence. Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit. Breathing is habit. Life is habit.”
― Samuel Beckett, Proust
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Here is my virtual tour through the city - portfotolio.net/jup3nep/album/72157631887823501
The Topkapı Palace (Turkish: Topkapı Sarayı or in Ottoman Turkish: طوپقپو سرايى) is a large palace in Istanbul, Turkey, that was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years (1465-1856) of their 624-year reign.
As well as a royal residence, the palace was a setting for state occasions and royal entertainments. It is now a major tourist attraction and contains important holy relics of the Muslim world, including Muhammed's cloak and sword. The Topkapı Palace is among the monuments contained within the "Historic Areas of Istanbul", which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, and is described in Criterion iv as "the best example[s] of ensembles of palaces [...] of the Ottoman period."
Construction began in 1459, ordered by Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Byzantine Constantinople. The palace complex consists of four main courtyards and many smaller buildings. At its peak, the palace was home to as many as 4,000 people, and covered a large area with a long shoreline. The complex was expanded over the centuries, with major renovations after the 1509 earthquake and the 1665 fire. The palace contained mosques, a hospital, bakeries, and a mint. The name translates as "Cannon gate Palace" from a nearby gate which has since been destroyed.
From the end of the 17th century the Topkapı Palace gradually lost its importance as the Sultans preferred to spend more time in their new palaces along the Bosporus. In 1856, Sultan Abdül Mecid I decided to move the court to the newly built Dolmabahçe Palace, the first European-style palace in the city. Some functions, such as the imperial treasury, the library, and the mint were retained in the Topkapı Palace.
Following the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, the Topkapı Palace was transformed by a government decree dated April 3, 1924 into a museum of the imperial era. The Topkapı Palace Museum is administered by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The palace complex has hundreds of rooms and chambers, but only the most important are accessible to the public today. The complex is guarded by officials of the ministry as well as armed guards of the Turkish military. The palace includes many fine examples of Ottoman architecture. It contains large collections of porcelain, robes, weapons, shields, armor, Ottoman miniatures, Islamic calligraphic manuscripts and murals, as well as a display of Ottoman treasures and jewelry.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkap%C4%B1_Palace
Harem (pronounced [haˈɾem], Turkish, from Arabic: حرم ḥaram "forbidden place; sacrosanct, sanctum", related to حريم ḥarīm, "a sacred inviolable place; female members of the family" and حرام ḥarām, "forbidden; sacred") refers to the sphere of women in what is usually a polygynous household and their enclosed quarters which are forbidden to men. It originated in the Near East and is typically associated in the Western world with the Ottoman Empire. For the South Asian equivalent, see purdah and zenana.
The word harem is strictly applicable to Muslim households only, but the system was common, more or less, to most ancient Oriental communities, especially where polygamy was permitted.
The Imperial Harem of the Ottoman sultan, which was also called seraglio in the West, typically housed several dozen women, including wives. It also housed the Sultan's mother, daughters and other female relatives, as well as eunuchs and slave servant girls to serve the aforementioned women. During the later periods, the sons of the Sultan also lived in the Harem until they were 16 years old, when it was considered appropriate for them to appear in the public and administrative areas of the palace. The Topkapı Harem was, in some senses, merely the private living quarters of the Sultan and his family, within the palace complex. Some women of Ottoman harem, especially wives, mothers and sisters of sultans played very important political roles in Ottoman history, and in times it was said that the empire was ruled from harem. Hürrem Sultan (wife of Süleyman The Magnificent, mother of Selim II) and Kösem Sultan (mother of Murad IV) were the two most powerful women in Ottoman history.
Moulay Ismail, Alaouite sultan of Morocco from 1672 to 1727, is said to have fathered a total of 525 sons and 342 daughters by 1703 and achieved a 700th son in 1721. He had over 500 concubines.
Shetou, Taiwan. Model: Wei-ch'iao W. She asked how she should pose. I replied, she should look sacred and inviolable, like the Arab woman.
Here is my virtual tour through the city - portfotolio.net/jup3nep/album/72157631887823501
The Topkapı Palace (Turkish: Topkapı Sarayı or in Ottoman Turkish: طوپقپو سرايى) is a large palace in Istanbul, Turkey, that was the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years (1465-1856) of their 624-year reign.
As well as a royal residence, the palace was a setting for state occasions and royal entertainments. It is now a major tourist attraction and contains important holy relics of the Muslim world, including Muhammed's cloak and sword. The Topkapı Palace is among the monuments contained within the "Historic Areas of Istanbul", which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, and is described in Criterion iv as "the best example[s] of ensembles of palaces [...] of the Ottoman period."
Construction began in 1459, ordered by Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Byzantine Constantinople. The palace complex consists of four main courtyards and many smaller buildings. At its peak, the palace was home to as many as 4,000 people, and covered a large area with a long shoreline. The complex was expanded over the centuries, with major renovations after the 1509 earthquake and the 1665 fire. The palace contained mosques, a hospital, bakeries, and a mint. The name translates as "Cannon gate Palace" from a nearby gate which has since been destroyed.
From the end of the 17th century the Topkapı Palace gradually lost its importance as the Sultans preferred to spend more time in their new palaces along the Bosporus. In 1856, Sultan Abdül Mecid I decided to move the court to the newly built Dolmabahçe Palace, the first European-style palace in the city. Some functions, such as the imperial treasury, the library, and the mint were retained in the Topkapı Palace.
Following the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, the Topkapı Palace was transformed by a government decree dated April 3, 1924 into a museum of the imperial era. The Topkapı Palace Museum is administered by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The palace complex has hundreds of rooms and chambers, but only the most important are accessible to the public today. The complex is guarded by officials of the ministry as well as armed guards of the Turkish military. The palace includes many fine examples of Ottoman architecture. It contains large collections of porcelain, robes, weapons, shields, armor, Ottoman miniatures, Islamic calligraphic manuscripts and murals, as well as a display of Ottoman treasures and jewelry.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkap%C4%B1_Palace
Harem (pronounced [haˈɾem], Turkish, from Arabic: حرم ḥaram "forbidden place; sacrosanct, sanctum", related to حريم ḥarīm, "a sacred inviolable place; female members of the family" and حرام ḥarām, "forbidden; sacred") refers to the sphere of women in what is usually a polygynous household and their enclosed quarters which are forbidden to men. It originated in the Near East and is typically associated in the Western world with the Ottoman Empire. For the South Asian equivalent, see purdah and zenana.
The word harem is strictly applicable to Muslim households only, but the system was common, more or less, to most ancient Oriental communities, especially where polygamy was permitted.
The Imperial Harem of the Ottoman sultan, which was also called seraglio in the West, typically housed several dozen women, including wives. It also housed the Sultan's mother, daughters and other female relatives, as well as eunuchs and slave servant girls to serve the aforementioned women. During the later periods, the sons of the Sultan also lived in the Harem until they were 16 years old, when it was considered appropriate for them to appear in the public and administrative areas of the palace. The Topkapı Harem was, in some senses, merely the private living quarters of the Sultan and his family, within the palace complex. Some women of Ottoman harem, especially wives, mothers and sisters of sultans played very important political roles in Ottoman history, and in times it was said that the empire was ruled from harem. Hürrem Sultan (wife of Süleyman The Magnificent, mother of Selim II) and Kösem Sultan (mother of Murad IV) were the two most powerful women in Ottoman history.
Moulay Ismail, Alaouite sultan of Morocco from 1672 to 1727, is said to have fathered a total of 525 sons and 342 daughters by 1703 and achieved a 700th son in 1721. He had over 500 concubines.