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Breastfeeding is an extremely healthy and natural method. Mother's milk contains all the necessary nutrients for the baby to develop and strengthens the immune system.Breast MilkDear mothers, you already know that the most valuable food for your baby is breast milk and that you should breastfeed-my-baby exclusively breastfeed your baby for the first 6 months.For your baby to grow and develop healthily, they need to have a sufficient and balanced diet. All research indicates that breastfeeding reduces infant mortality (death rate due to illness) and morbidity (rate of causing illness), supports healthy growth and development of babies, and is superior to all other forms of nutrition.The Disadvantages of Long-Term Breastfeeding!Breast milk, which perfectly meets the physiological and psychosocial needs of the baby during the first six months, also plays an important role in establishing a bond between the mother and the baby.Breastfeeding exclusively with breast milk for the first six months, continuing to breastfeed with breast milk along with complementary foods after the sixth month, and continuing breastfeeding until the age of two provide numerous benefits for the baby.The benefits of breastfeeding are not limited to the breastfeeding process alone; they also have significant positive effects on later life health. Therefore, the importance of breastfeeding in laying the foundations of a healthy life cannot be debated.So how long should mothers breastfeed their babies?The
Miami is a huge city, the skyscrapers go on and on, they are constantly building more. This view is from the north looking south and only shows a portion of the city. Compared to other major cities in the United States the downtown/uptown area is much larger than most. Only two come to mind that are larger and they would be New York City and Chicago.
"The narrative of New York is a story worth telling. Our rich treasures of history and culture make the Empire State one of the premiere destinations for heritage tourists from around the world." - Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
On August 28, as part of a bold initiative called "Path Through History" (PTH) Governor Cuomo convened over 200 stewards of history from throughout the state (including 2 from Rye - myself and PTH Task Force Co-Chair, Harold Holzer.) His challenge to all of us? Work together as regions to raise the profile of some of our most eloquent and majestic cultural treasures. From Dutchess County to Niagara, we were grouped by our localities and then asked to brainstorm about how to best increase heritage tourism in our towns.
Our landmark gathering began early in the morning with backstage tours of ongoing capital projects at the Capitol from 8:30 to 10:00am followed by a warm welcome from Mark Schaming, Holzer's fellow Co-Chair of the PTH Task Force and the Director of the NYS Museum.
Little did we know we were already on our own new path through history. Our group was guided through the freshly renovated Hall of Governors with its crisp new timeline of milestones in New York's history. Smartly annotated exhibit cases line the corridor and contain rarely seen parchment documents related to our state's founding and evolution as a great power. Holzer, who is also Senior Vice President of External Affairs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art served as an advisor to this well-curated project. One of Governor Cuomo's first acts in office was to reopen this venue to the public which had been closed off from view since 1995. What a bonanza this is for history and art lovers! Each vaulted space could be a stand-alone museum so rich are these rooms - just the paintings, sculptures and decorative details alone rival any other collection in the world. Of greatest interest to Rye residents? A number of portraits of former governors that were missing from the collection were restored and installed, including a painting of Rye's most famous son and New York's second Governor John Jay (1795 - 1801.)
We lingered appreciatively in the refurbished Red Room and the "War Room" and the Executive Chamber Suite enjoying the brighter colors and newly labeled artifacts. We also got a hard hat tour of the elaborately carved sandstone Senate staircase in the Capitol now undergoing cleaning and restoration. It was fascinating to compare "before and afters" with a tour of the completed 1879 Assembly staircase with its red and gold stenciling and etched skylight.
The day sped by. Our tours were followed by two inspiring talks with brainstorming sessions and a collegial lunch in between. Historian Ken Jackson gave a fabulous opening address expertly demonstrating that the thread of New York's history is very much the same chronology of America's watershed moments (baseball fans have to agree!) He emphasized that we need to make our state's stories vital and fun for today's generations. So much of US history was New York's history first but other sites are doing a better job of promoting theirs. Harold Holzer underscored the theme that NY History is also at the core of America's history - he reminded us that even a young man from Illinois credited the great state of New York with his election victory: US history's trajectory changed after Lincoln delivered a pivotal speech at Cooper Union in Manhattan coupled with an indelibly popular photo of the president-to-be that was taken by New Yorker, Matthew Brady (who would later create one of the greatest pictorial records of the Civil War with his camera.)
Participants yesterday hailed from 10 regions in the State - Western NY, Finger Lakes, Central New York, Southern Tier, Mohawk Valley, Capital Region, North Country, Mid-Hudson, New York City, and Long Island. As President of the Jay Heritage Center, I attended to participate in Mid-Hudson region breakout discussions and advocate inclusion of the National Historic Landmarks on Westchester's historic Long Island Sound. The prevailing buzz from everyone's lips was teamwork and collaboration - all of these very passionate academics, volunteers and educators are eager to meet again and help refine and support this new strategic plan that includes incorporating innovate technology like smart apps and social media into travel itineraries. Governor Cuomo took our positive buzz and turned it into applause with a 1 million dollar announcement that each of the ten regions would receive 100,000 in marketing funds to fuel their creative efforts.
In a concluding reception at the Governor's mansion, we exchanged business cards, Twitter and Facebook accounts and also had the chance to meet and share our ideas with the Governor and members of the PTH Task Force face to face. I made new friends from the USS Slater Destroyer Escort Historical Museum on the Hudson River and we talked about preserving NY's naval history; I loved hearing the directors at Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz talk about the importance of documenting the histories of families something we are doing as well. I shared ideas about making historic buildings energy efficient with Michael Hall from the Wings of Eagles Discovery Center in Horseheads. And one of my favorite new contacts is Janet Burnet with the Hudson Watershed Alliance - I can't wait to show her our schedule of sustainable landscape programs. I was proud to invite them all to our historic landmarks in Rye and proud that our town has such an incredible resource in Harold Holzer.
If it sounds like something you wish you had been to, don't despair! The Hall of Governors is online at www.hallofgovernors.ny.gov/ and you can hear Harold Holzer speak at the Jay Heritage Center on Sunday October 21 at 3:00pm about "The Image of the Emancipation Proclamation." His talk is free as part of our continuing commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War in New York and kicks off an exhibit about the complicated and contradictory story of the Jay Family and their anti-slavery efforts.
Lastly I do urge you to follow NY's Path Through History - make a stop outside Westchester at one of the places I mentioned above. And if you haven't seen us yet, please come to our own historic jewelbox in Rye - the place where the architect of both NY State's Constitution and the NY Gradual Emancipation Act grew up - the place where John Jay chose to celebrate the end of the Revolutionary War on Westchester's historic Long Island Sound. Bring your family and walk the paths he walked with his. Explore the 10,000 year old landscape that shaped a young boy into one of America's greatest jurists and peacemakers. - Suzanne Clary, President, Jay Heritage Center
Postscript - The Jay Estate was added to NY State's Path Through History in 2014 as part of a Civil Rights themed tour. New Yorkers have been proud to be at the forefront of Civil Rights advocacy but the struggle for equality continues to be challenging. Jay's efforts to abolish slavery began in 1777 and culminated in his signing of the Gradual Emancipation Act in 1799 though he himself still enslaved individuals through 1810. His sons Peter Augustus Jay and William Jay continued his work - Peter Augustus argued for voting rights for freed Black Americans but was overruled. Signs installed on the Hutchinson River Parkway and US Route 1 help direct visitors and school groups to our site where they can learn more about our nation's complicated heritage and ongoing struggle for equity.
Photo Credit - Jay Heritage Center Archives
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This is what happens when someone puts together the following:
1929 Bugatti Type 46 Semi-profile Coupe, 1930
Cord L-29 Cabriolet, 1930
Henderson KJ Streamline
1930 Jordan Model Z Speedway Ace Roadster
1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow Sedan
1934 Model 40 Special Speedster
1934 Packard Twelve Model 1106 Sport Coupe by LeBaron
1934 Voisin Type C27 Aérosport Coupe
1935 Chrysler Imperial Model C-2 Airflow Coupe
1936 Cord 810 "Armchair" Beverly Sedan
1936 Delahaye 135M Figoni & Falaschi Competition Coupe
1936 Stout Scarab
1937 Delahaye 135MS Roadster
1938 Hispano-Suiza H6B Dubonnet “Xenia” Coupe
1938 Talbot-Lago T-150C-SS Teardrop Coupe
1938 Tatra T97
1939 Bugatti Type 57C by Vanvooren
1939 Delage D8-120S Saoutchik Cabriolet
1940 Indian Chief
1941 Chrysler Thunderbolt
Spring is sprung. Boys are excited. Two pairs of tundra swans are entangled in a group fight on Detroit River on their way back to arctic tundra
Torrijo de la Cañada is a town located in the valley of the river Manubles, municipality of Spain, in the province of Zaragoza, Autonomous Community of Aragon. It has an area of 74.6 km² with a population of 231 inhabitants.
History
The history of Torrijo dates back to antiquity when it was known as Termes and as Turriga. Here was an episode told by the historian Apianus and carried out by the proconsul Quinto Pompeyo in 137 BC, within the Celtiberian wars when after defeating Numancia, he went against the city of Termes, where he lost 700 men. According to Christian tradition, in the third century AD, where the parish church rose, Dacianus commanded the slaughter of the saints Felix and Regula, on September 11, 300, who were born in the city of Thebes and belonged to the Legion Tebea. Torrijo was reconquered in the twelfth century by Alfonso I the Battler where it appears with the name of Turrillo. Already in century XIV as all the towns of the eastern zone of the province of Saragossa suffered the consequences of the war of Dos Pedros.
Geography and monuments
The municipal term is crossed by the Manubles, affluent of the river Jalón. It is between Bijuesca and Villalengua, also has another river, called by the locals Carabán, (Carabantes) affluent of the river Manubles.
In its historical architecture stands out its Church of Our Lady of the Hortal with a central tower and arch in the base, Flamigeo, that could be given for being Gothic, and to few meters of this church forming part of the greater place we emphasize the consistorial palace, with The bottom arched in the shape of a market. Where they put their goods with their goods. Ecclesiastically it is included in the Arciprestazgo of the High Jalón.
Crowned the main square by a tower-bridge belonging to the old wall that serves as an access to cross to the other side of the village in Gothic style and made the base of the tower of stone sillar, as the bridge of Torrijo de la Cañada in truth a Magnificent preserved historical ensemble. In the XVI century the height of the tower increases, moment to which belong the two upper floors, decorated with brick windows, characteristic Aragonese renaissance.
The other church that stands out for its tower is the call of San Juan, which is all of sillar stone, emphasizing in its contalamiento and covered several columns and porticos of Renaissance style. In the high streets of the town we can find among remains of ancient corrals the remains of what was a medieval fortress, built in the 14th century, during the Pedros war.
At the top of the summits that crown the valley where the village stands on the Manubles river, we can see a hermitage, from which we can see the whole town, this hermitage is dedicated to Santa Barbara. We can also see a hillside, in which there are more than a hundred old wine cellars. Still image of a wine past. Now used as popular rocks.
All around, are more or less preserved, the typical threshing ages along with hundreds of haystacks of a past also dedicated to the cultivation and treatise of cereal, along with its two factories (in ruins) flour.
We also find the ruins of an old hermitage at the exit of the village towards the neighboring town of Castile Deza, this hermitage raised in honor of Santa Cristina has a Peirón in quite a state of conservation. (We found another Peirón, at the entrance of the town according to Comes from the neighboring Villalengua, dedicated in honor to San Vicente).
Later we enter a green forest for reforestation and in the end at the summit of the highest mountain exceeding 1000 meters we can find a hermitage, raised in honor of the patron saints San Felix and Santa Régula, and a very good view of A splendid setting and the Moncayo.
Passing the Carabán river and part of a mountain of great value of flora and fauna typically Iberian, which opens to give way to a Spanish-Aragonese sub-set, in which we find several ruins of sales, haystacks and warehouses for the grain of a settlement Inhabited well into the twentieth century called Campo Alaves, in which a large hermitage is kept up in honor of the virgin of Campo Alaves. Easter in Torrijo de la Cañada is declared of regional tourist interest.
Torrijo de la Cañada es una población situada en el valle del río Manubles, municipio de España, en la provincia de Zaragoza, Comunidad Autónoma de Aragón. Tiene un área de 74,6 km² con una población de 231 habitantes.
Historia
La historia de Torrijo se remonta a la antigüedad cuando era conocida como Termes y como Turriga. Aquí tuvo lugar un episodio contado por el historiador Apiano y protagonizado por el procónsul Quinto Pompeyo en el año 137 a.C., dentro de las guerras celtíberas cuando después de haber derrotado a Numancia, se dirigió contra la ciudad de Termes, donde perdió 700 hombres. según la tradición cristiana, en el siglo III en el lugar donde se levanta la Iglesia parroquial, fue donde Daciano mandó degollar a los santos Félix y Régula, el 11 de septiembre de 300, que habían nacido en la ciudad de Tebas y pertenecían a la Legión Tebea. Torrijo fue reconquistado en el siglo XII por Alfonso I el Batallador donde aparece con el nombre de Turrillo. Ya en el siglo XIV como todos los pueblos de la zona oriental de la provincia de Zaragoza sufrió las consecuencias de la guerra de los Dos Pedros.
Geografía y monumentos
El término municipal está cruzado por el Manubles, afluente del río Jalón. Está entre Bijuesca y Villalengua, también tiene otro río, llamado por los lugareños Carabán ,(Carabantes) afluente del río Manubles.
En su arquitectura histórica destaca su Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Hortal con una torre central y arco en la base, Flamigeo, que se podía dar por ser gótico, y a pocos metros de esta iglesia formando parte de la plaza mayor destacamos el palacio consistorial, con la parte inferior arqueada en forma de lonja. Dónde se ponen con sus mercancías los feriantes. Eclesiásticamente está incluido en el Arciprestazgo del Alto Jalón.
Coronada la plaza mayor por un torreón-puente perteneciente a la antigua muralla que sirve de acceso para cruzar al otro lado del pueblo de estilo gótico y hecha la base de la torre de piedra sillar, como el puente de Torrijo de la Cañada en verdad un magnífico conjunto histórico conservado. En el siglo XVI se incrementa la altura de la torre, momento al que pertenecen los dos pisos superiores, decorados con ventanas de ladrillo, características renacimiento aragonés.
La otra iglesia que destaca por su torre es la llamada de San Juan, que es toda de piedra sillar, destacando en su aportalamiento y cubierto varias columnas y pórticos de estilo renacentista. En las calles altas del pueblo podemos encontrar entre restos de antiguos corrales los restos de lo que fue una fortaleza medieval, construida en el siglo XIV, durante la guerra de los Pedros.
En lo alto de las cumbres que coronan el valle donde se asienta el pueblo jalonado por el río Manubles podemos observar una ermita ,desde la cual podemos observar todo el pueblo, esta ermita está dedicada a Santa Bárbara. Podemos observar también una ladera, en la cuál se encuentran más de un centenar de antiguas bodegas.Imagen aún viviente de un pasado vinícola. Ahora usadas como peñas populares.
Todos los alrededores, están más o menos conservadas, las eras típicas de trillar junto a cientos de pajares de un pasado también dedicado al cultivo y tratado del cereal, junto con sus dos fábricas (en ruinas) harineras.
Encontramos también las ruinas de una antigua ermita a la salida del pueblo hacia el vecino pueblo de Castilla Deza, esta ermita levantada en honor a Santa Cristina tiene un Peirón en bastante estado de conservación.(Encontramos otro Peirón, a la entrada del pueblo según se viene de la vecina Villalengua, dedicado en honor a San Vicente).
Más adelante nos adentramos en una verde sierra de repoblación forestal y al final en la cumbre de la montaña más alta superando los 1000 metros podemos encontrar una ermita, levantada en honor a los Santos patronos San Félix y Santa Régula, y unas vistas muy buenas de un entorno espléndido y del Moncayo.3
Pasando el río Carabán y parte de un monte de gran valor de flora y fauna típicamente ibérica, que se abre para dar paso a una submeseta Castellano-Aragonesa, en la cuál encontramos varias ruinas de ventas , pajares y almacenes para el grano de un asentamiento habitado hasta bien entrado el siglo XX llamado Campo Alavés, en el cuál se conserva una ermita grande levantada en honor a la virgen del Campo Alavés. La Semana Santa en Torrijo de la Cañada está declarada de interés turístico regional.
Oulton Park is a great circuit that has yet to be spoilt with run off areas the size of Brighton Beach and, as such, suits historic motor sport down to the ground. Drivers enjoy it as do spectators, who have the freedom to wander and watch almost at will. But it has to be said, today’s racing was boring. Maybe it’s too early in the year, maybe the grids were too small, or maybe the races, one lasting seventy-five minutes, were just too long.
Funnily enough, it was the race with the smallest entry that was the most exciting. Just eight cars started the Old Hall Trophy FF 1600 race but Douglas Crosbie and Samuel Carrington-Yates had a right ding dong battle for second place with neither giving an inch. In the end the two Van Diemans were beaten by the faster Ray GRS09 of Neil Alberico, with Douglas second.
The afternoon began with the Clay Hill Trophy 1970s Celebration Race, an easy win for Russell Paterson in the orange Morgan Plus Eight. The two Porsche 911 RSRs of Mark Bates and Paul Howells followed him home some thirty seconds adrift but it was the sideways Escort RS1800 of Mark Wright that provided a modicum of entertainment. Only eight cars finished.
The Pre-1966 Touring Car Race was jolly good fun with many battles breaking out during the sixty minutes of close encounters. Henry Mann seemed a might surprised to be given the chequered flag in his red Alan Mann Cortina, beating the similar Lotus of David Hall by seven seconds, while the Mustang of Dowd and Cooke went off song and although setting fasted qualifying time struggled to finish third. Further down in the pack, the Nick Smith Mini stormed home fourth leaving ex-F1 driver Roberto Moreno to die a death and retire. Retro-Speed favourites Andy Harrison and Tony Jardine peddled the red peril home to a well-judged thirteenth.
It should have rained for the Knickerbrook Trophy for World Sportscars but it didn’t, so the gaggle of Chevrons fought it out with the lone Lola for overall honours in the dry, depriving the spectators of at least one unpredictable race. That the Minshaws led the field home in their ultra rapid B8 was no big surprise. The same could not be said for the Lyons Lola T70 MK3b that popped and banged its way around the circuit for thirty minutes before eventually finishing well and truly last.
At 16:15 ten Pre-1966 GT cars set of on a seventy-five-minute marathon that had everybody falling asleep. The Mike Whitaker TVR Griffith stormed off into the distance and then slowed to a steady cruise after the Schryver/Hadfield Lotus 26R showed it lacked the consistent pace to mount a challenge. Everyone continued circulating, probably feeling ever lonely and unnecessarily burning fuel, until to everyone’s relief and with darkness in the air, the flag fell. The Marcos 1800GT of Tice and Conoly finished third while the pretty dark blue Diva GT of Aylett and Farrell led the Austin Healey 100/4 home at the tail end.
I came away feeling the Masters Series was jumping the gun. Like the Mille Miglia it needs glamour and sunshine to attract the crowds, both were missing from Oulton Park. For the organisers of this prestigious series of Championship gatherings, surely the season really begins in Barcelona.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
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Who is our neighbor? Whoever he/she is, we need to help him/her.
There is prostitution in every part of the world. And chances are there is human trafficking behind it. Government officials and cops are often bribed so few people know that this evil things happen in our areas.
Please help the women and teens who are forced to be sex slaves whenever you can or pray for them. Thank you and God bless you.
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Luke 10
The Good Samaritan
25 An expert in the Law of Moses stood up and asked Jesus a question to see what he would say. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to have eternal life?”
26 Jesus answered, “What is written in the Scriptures? How do you understand them?”
27 The man replied, “The Scriptures say, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.’ They also say, ‘Love your neighbors as much as you love yourself.’”
28 Jesus said, “You have given the right answer. If you do this, you will have eternal life.”
29 But the man wanted to show that he knew what he was talking about. So he asked Jesus, “Who are my neighbors?”
30 Jesus replied:
As a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, robbers attacked him and grabbed everything he had. They beat him up and ran off, leaving him half dead.
31 A priest happened to be going down the same road. But when he saw the man, he walked by on the other side. 32 Later a temple helper[i] came to the same place. But when he saw the man who had been beaten up, he also went by on the other side.
33 A man from Samaria then came traveling along that road. When he saw the man, he felt sorry for him 34 and went over to him. He treated his wounds with olive oil and wine[j] and bandaged them. Then he put him on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next morning he gave the innkeeper two silver coins and said, “Please take care of the man. If you spend more than this on him, I will pay you when I return.”
36 Then Jesus asked, “Which one of these three people was a real neighbor to the man who was beaten up by robbers?”
37 The teacher answered, “The one who showed pity.”
Jesus said, “Go and do the same!”
White-bellied Sea Eagle
The white-bellied sea eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster), also known as the white-breasted sea eagle, is a large diurnal bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. Originally described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788, it is closely related to Sanford's sea eagle of the Solomon Islands, and the two are considered a superspecies. A distinctive bird, the adult white-bellied sea eagle has a white head, breast, under-wing coverts and tail. The upper parts are grey and the black under-wing flight feathers contrast with the white coverts. The tail is short and wedge-shaped as in all Haliaeetus species. Like many raptors, the female is slightly larger than the male, and can measure up to 90 cm (35 in) long with a wingspan of up to 2.2 m (7.2 ft), and weigh 4.5 kg (9.9 lb). Immature birds have brown plumage, which is gradually replaced by white until the age of five or six years. The call is a loud goose-like honking.
Resident from India and Sri Lanka through Southeast Asia to Australia on coasts and major waterways, the white-bellied sea eagle breeds and hunts near water, and fish form around half of its diet. Opportunistic, it consumes carrion and a wide variety of animals. Although rated as Least Concern globally, it has declined in parts of southeast Asia such as Thailand, and southeastern Australia. It is ranked as Threatened in Victoria and Vulnerable in South Australia and Tasmania. Human disturbance to its habitat is the main threat, both from direct human activity near nests which impacts on breeding success, and from removal of suitable trees for nesting. The white-bellied sea eagle is revered by indigenous people in many parts of Australia, and is the subject of various folk tales throughout its range.
The white-bellied sea eagle has a white head, rump and underparts, and dark or slate-grey back and wings. In flight, the black flight feathers on the wings are easily seen when the bird is viewed from below. The large, hooked bill is a leaden blue-grey with a darker tip, and the irides are dark brown. The cere is also lead grey. The legs and feet are yellow or grey, with long black talons (claws). Unlike those of eagles of the genus Aquila, the legs are not feathered. The sexes are similar. Males are 66–80 cm (26–31 in) long and weigh 1.8–3 kg (4.0–6.6 lb). Females are slightly larger, at 80–90 cm (31–35 in) and 2.5–4.5 kg (5.5–9.9 lb). The wingspan ranges from 1.78 to 2.2 m (5.8 to 7.2 ft). A 2004 study on 37 birds from Australia and Papua New Guinea (3 °S to 50 °S) found that birds could be sexed reliably on size, and that birds from latitudes further south were larger than those from the north. There is no seasonal variation in plumage. The moulting pattern of the white-bellied sea eagle is poorly known. It appears to take longer than a year to complete, and can be interrupted and later resumed from the point of interruption.
The wings are modified when gliding so that they rise from the body at an angle, but are closer to horizontal further along the wingspan. In silhouette, the comparatively long neck, head and beak stick out from the front almost as far as the tail does behind. For active flight, the white-bellied sea eagle alternates strong deep wing-beats with short periods of gliding.
A young white-bellied sea eagle in its first year is predominantly brown, with pale cream-streaked plumage on their head, neck, nape and rump areas. The plumage becomes more infiltrated with white until it acquires the complete adult plumage by the fourth or fifth year. The species breeds from around six years of age onwards. The lifespan is thought to be around 30 years.
The loud goose-like honking call is a familiar sound, particularly during the breeding season; pairs often honk in unison, and often carry on for some time when perched. The male's call is higher-pitched and more rapid than that of the female. Australian naturalist David Fleay observed that the call is among the loudest and furthest-carrying of all Australian bird calls, in stark contrast to the relatively quiet calls of the wedge-tailed eagle.
Adult white-bellied sea eagles are unmistakable and unlikely to be confused with any other bird. Immature birds can be confused with wedge-tailed eagles. However, the plumage of the latter is darker, the tail longer, and the legs feathered. They might also be confused with the black-breasted buzzard (Hamirostra melanosternon), but this species is much smaller, has white patches on the wings, and has a more undulating flight. In India, the Egyptian vulture has white plumage, but is smaller and has a whiter back and wings. The white tail of the white-bellied sea eagle in flight distinguishes it from other species of large eagles. In the Philippines, it can be confused with the Philippine eagle, which can be distinguished by its crest; immature white-bellied sea eagles resemble immature grey-headed fish eagles, but can be identified by their more wholly dark brown underparts and flight feathers, and wedge-shaped tail.
The white-bellied sea eagle is found regularly from Mumbai (sometimes north to Gujarat, and in the past in the Lakshadweep Islands) eastwards in India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka in southern Asia, through all of coastal Southeast Asia including Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Indochina, the main and offshore islands of the Philippines, and southern China including Hong Kong, Hainan and Fuzhou, eastwards through New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, and Australia. In the northern Solomons it is restricted to Nissan Island, and replaced elsewhere by Sanford's sea eagle. In Victoria, where it is otherwise scarce, it is locally more common at Corner Inlet and Gippsland Lakes. Similarly in South Australia, it is most abundant along the north coast of Kangaroo Island. The range extends to the islands of Bass Strait and Tasmania, and it is thought able to move between the islands and the mainland. There is one unconfirmed record from Lord Howe Island and several from New Zealand.
They are a common sight in coastal areas, but may also be seen well inland (It is reportedly seen at the Panna Tiger Reserve in central India, nearly 1,000 km (621 mi) away from the sea shore) The white-bellied sea eagle is generally sedentary and territorial, although it may travel long distances. They have been reported travelling upriver to hunt for flying foxes (Pteropus). Populations in inland Australia move around as inland bodies of water appear and then dry up. In one instance, a pair came to breed at Lake Albacutya in northwestern Victoria after the lake had been empty for 30 years. The species is easily disturbed by humans, especially when nesting, and may desert nesting sites as a result. It is found in greater numbers in areas with little or no human impact or interference.
The white-bellied sea eagle is an opportunistic carnivore and consumes a wide variety of animal prey, including carrion. It often catches a fish by flying low over the water and grasping it in its talons. It prepares for the strike by holding its feet far forward (almost under its chin) and then strikes backwards while simultaneously beating its wings to lift upwards. Generally only one foot is used to seize prey. The white-bellied sea eagle may also dive at a 45 degree angle from its perch and briefly submerge to catch fish near the water surface. While hunting over water on sunny days, it often flies directly into the sun or at right angles to it, seemingly to avoid casting shadows over the water and hence alerting potential prey.
The white-bellied sea eagle was important to different tribes of indigenous people across Australia. The guardian animal of the Wreck Bay aboriginal community, it is also the official emblem of the Booderee National Park and Botanic Gardens in the Jervis Bay Territory. The community considered localities around Booderee National Park to be connected with it. A local Sydney name was gulbi, and the bird was the totem of Colebee, the late 18th century indigenous leader of the Cadigal people. The white-bellied sea eagle is important to the Mak Mak people of the floodplains to the southwest of Darwin in the northern Territory, who recognised its connection with "good country". It is their totem and integrally connected to their land. The term Mak Mak is their name for both the species and themselves. The Umbrawarra Gorge Nature Park was a Dreaming site of the bird, in this area known as Kuna-ngarrk-ngarrk. It was similarly symbolic to the Tasmanian indigenous people—Nairanaa was one name used there.
Known as Manulab to the people of Nissan Island, the white-bellied sea eagle is considered special and killing it is forbidden. Its calls at night are said to foretell danger, and seeing a group of calling eagles flying overhead is a sign that someone has died. Local Malay folk tales tell of the white-bellied sea eagle screaming to warn the shellfish of the turning of tides, and a local name burung hamba siput translates as "slave of the shellfish". Called Kaulo in the recently extinct Aka-Bo language, the white-bellied sea eagle was held to be the ancestor of all birds in one Andaman Islands folk tale. On the Maharashtra coast, their name is kakan and its call is said to indicate the presence of fish in the sea. They sometimes nest on coconut trees. Owners of the trees destroy the nest to avoid attacks when harvesting the coconuts.
Foreign policy of a country is not a static scenario. It varies from leader to leader and political changes of a Nation in the world family. It decides and directs the economy, development and all aspects of the citizen as the behaviour of the state is interconnected to the government machinery. It is the study of foreign affairs and global issues within the international system including the role of states, NGOs, INGOs and multinational corporations. It is a set of goals outlining how the country will interact with other countries and international institutions and bodies. In the United States it comes under the president which he has delegated to the foreign secretary.
Today foreign policy is playing a major role in Sri Lankan polity due to the scrutiny of the international brotherhood on Sri Lankan affairs before and after the defeat of terrorism, which has engulfed Sri Lanka, the SAARC region and the world community over 30 years which Rajapaksa government was able to eradicate to the relief of the giant neighbour and the world community.
In the world family the portfolio of the Foreign Minister in state is generally in the hands of the Executive leader of the country or the Prime Minister except on exceptional circumstances. President Rajapaksa has entrusted this responsibility to the Able Foreign Minister whose task is to implement the vision and directions in the maze of pitfalls and in the midst fields of bombs of distrust laid underground world over remotely controlled.
We had to go through the dreadful war and destruction of thousands of lives and lost three decades of life of the Nation and citizens due to the mismanagement of foreign policy during the cold war, by antagonizing our loved giant neighbour with whom President Rajapaksa has now developed excellent and warm relations. LTTE went through training and planning to be the most ruthless terrorist outfit using the Indian soil when India and USSR as a regional and a world poser had entered into a treaty against the common enemy then.
This is the biggest mistake we made resulting which period we lived in the loss of lives and 30 years was robbed from us during which period we lived in hell with smell of blood, death and destruction. We believe nothing is permanent and what is permanent is sheer impermanence. USA is now wounded, isolated and seeks friendship with India against Chins both emerging economic and world powers!
President cautious
President Rajapaksa has been extremely cautious and diplomatic in dealing with the power blocks interested primarily in their interest especially in the volatile and uncertain world politics and economy which crumbled with no notice facing them with the most disastrous recession ever. South Asia and Sri Lanka were less affected due to their simplicity and management of their own affairs based on Home Grown solutions. The response from the USA Senate is wonderful- that they cannot afford to lose Sri Lanka - and it is time they realise we should not be drifted toward a political block out of sheer necessity.
It is time the diplomatic community of the West and USA in Sri Lanka should play a safe game to maintain and enhance good relations with Sri Lanka without being interested in local politics however interesting it is.
Award of Honorius Causa Doctorate from the People’s Friendship University of Russia on President Rajapaksa is the zenith of his achievement for the conduct of international affairs from the assumption of the office as the President of Sri Lanka four years ago. It is to his credit and respect to the nation that the sixth and the most rare honour of awarding the prestigious academic excellence on peace was awarded for the services rendered to mankind by eliminating the terror outfit to the disbelief and surprise of the Global Community. Wall Street Journal of USA reported in the speech of the President “I know as well as anyone that our future success relies on lasting peace.
The revival of terrorism was an important milestone in that process, but the nation needs to be bound by a common purpose. My new government will address the genuine grievances of all communities and foster the enforcement of equal rights for all.” It was during the last few days of the end of the terror regime that maximum pressure was exerted to President Rajapaksa by the Western leaders, EU, USA, UN, and a number of powerful NGOs wanted to stop the war on terror and enter into the same old peace process that failed and “Hell” in Sri Lanka at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives and destruction of trillions of rupees of national wealth. India, China, USSR, Middle East, Africa and the Sri Lanka expatriate community stood firmly with President Rajapaksa and Sri Lanka isolating USA, UK and EU with NGOs and Inter Governmental organisations depending on public and UN funds, which is proof of the successful conduct of international affairs based on ‘Mahinda Chintana’ and his own style on the process of dealing with the international community, which is reiterated in ‘Mahinda Chintana’.
Two as “I will continue Sri Lanka’s non-aligned foreign policy. During the last four years we witnessed the benefit of maintaining friendly relations with India, Japan China, Pakistan, and other Asian countries. I am committed to continue these friendly relations in the political, economics, defence trade and cultural arena. I will ensure that Sri Lanka abides by the global treaties and agreements on environmental and climatic changes and will strengthen Sri Lanka’s ties with UN agencies. I will maintain the dignity of my country in foreign relations and will initiate a new programme to forge relations with countries”.
Achievements
President’s conduct as a leader of a country with an unstable and volatile political and war situation during the war on terror has been exemplary cautious, well planned and well thought of. It is difficult to satisfy the political agenda of the complicated world political groupings, UN and Non-governmental organisations and the Sri Lankan polity while maintaining the vision, identity and the interest of the Nation with a minority government representing different political and ethnic groups with difficult different and unattainable demands.
Every mission to meet world leaders was with a purpose and vision. Leading a trade mission to China the leading political and economic power in the near future, meeting the President of Iran when we had fuel shortages, meeting President Gadaffi when he was about to be appointed to Chair the Human Rights Committee when UN and INGOs were trailing us to deal internationally, hosting of SAARC which has enhanced and strengthened close ties with India and the SAARC countries just before the last lap of the end of terror where we were blessed with the group of SAARC and other regional organisations attended the summit as observers, Address the UN and taking part in international forums such as the address to the Oxford students union in the United Kingdom strengthened presidents international stature as an emerging world leader leading a fair cross section of the human community in the globe.
International relations of a Nation depend on the vision, conduct, personality and the conduct of diplomacy of the Chief Executive in the world family representing the Nation region and the world in international forums and dealing with world leaders and international organisations. Successful world leaders had their own style of conducting International Affairs in the international arena. Nehru, Chou En Lai, Indira, Gandhi, Tony Blair, Putin, Bush, Obama and other leading and charismatic world leaders on assuming power changed the foreign policy of the country according to the current needs of the day.
In India the foreign policy is streamlined as it is very slowly and rarely the policy deviates from the mainstream due to their discipline and rigidity in foreign affairs administration and governance. In Sri Lanka foreign policy deviations are marked and effective.
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike brought about a complete change in foreign policy after Sir John Kotalawela’s policy which was modified to non-alignment by Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike until J.R. Jayewardene again changed the policy to a mixture of pro West and non-alignment. Rajapaksa government is emerging victorious with a unique foreign policy unique to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s “International Personality” which is basically non-alignment with modifications based on the realities on international economic and world order in the fast changing new world of Information Technology which has changed our globe to a borderless modern and wonderful world.
Uniqueness of President Rajapaksa is the non-negotiability in main issues such as unitary nature of the State, sovereignty equality among Nations, sovereignty of the Nation and the people, love and respect to Motherland, equality and impartiality towards all the citizens sans differences, and service to the brethren based on equality and with respect to all modes and norms of individual and collective Human Rights.
Excellent
Despite the excellent relations with the world family the worrying factor is the misunderstanding of some western countries and INGOs due to vigorous campaign by powerful pro LTTE elements which are fast disintegrating. President Rajapaksa has friendship of the intention of mending fences with the West with his charm and diplomatic which has been proved successful.
He has secured the trendskill or the Eastern block including the Central Asia, Middle East with Iran and other Oil rich, Africa, small orbital nations around USA, and of course the two emerging world powers China and USSR which were instrumental in bailing us out when we were in danger of being interrogated by the UN on false and malicious LTTE related propaganda. Nation is confident and prays his next mission towards the West will be another success story as has been proved before.
President Rajapaksa’s initiation to ensure to abide by global treaties and agreements on climate change is encouraging when the world is facing grave danger of slow destruction of the planet due to unplanned industrialization and developments.
It is also time for us to review the position with the Charter of the United Nations established in place of the League of Nations anticipating a more effective world organisation. It is time for us to be active as Asians promoting the emerging power India as a member of the Security Council. Sri Lanka - India relations run back to thousands of years.
King Asoka sent his most precious son Mahinda and daughter Sanghamitta as Emissaries to propagate Buddhism to King Devanampiyatissa though they have not met which been close friends.
Diplomacy and diplomatic relations is not something alien to us and we have been maintaining relationships with the rest of the world from time immemorial. Arab merchants came to “Serandib” as traders and ancient Kings gave them freedom to engage in business, observe religion and settle down which indicates how magnanimous our previous rulers were.
It is now time to regain the same close relationships we have been maintaining previously especially in the 1970s. President Rajapaksa’s next task and mission would be to restore and re demarcate and re define his unique foreign policy based on Mahinda Chintana and his International Personality in order to raise our Nation on the top of the International Arena.
Sunday Observer 21/02/2010
Daryl Davis is an African American virtuoso blues pianist, author, actor and lecturer. He is on a mission. Throughout the last 30 years he has befriended members of the KKK and persuaded them to leave their racist beliefs and organizations. Daryl does it through dialogue and music.
The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv brought Daryl to Israel to promote conversation between diverse parts of multi-cultural Israeli society through music and through his personal example. The program was dedicated to the memory of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist and musician that was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan. His legacy- “Harmony for Humanity”- is celebrated through annual musical events across the globe.
In course of four intensive days in Israel Daryl shared his unbelievable story and performed for Jewish and Arab high school and college students, secular and religious audiences of all ages in Jerusalem, Taibeh, Beer Sheva, Hura and Kfar Batya. He inspired hundreds of people from all sectors to seek solutions through an honest and intelligent dialogue. The universal language of music served as the perfect platform to start the conversation, which included collaborations with local musicians, such as the “Ground Heights” band and the Israeli blues man Itay Pearl.
Daryl message is clear: "When two enemies are talking, they are not fighting… It’s when the talking ceases, that the ground becomes fertile for violence. Keep the conversation going.”
Bagan; (formerly Pagan) is an ancient city located in the Mandalay Region of Burma (Myanmar). From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of Pagan, the first kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern Myanmar. During the kingdom's height between the 11th and 13th centuries, over 10.000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2200 temples and pagodas still survive to the present day.
The Bagan Archaeological Zone is a main draw for the country's nascent tourism industry. It is seen by many as equal in attraction to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
ETYMOLOGY
Bagan is the present-day standard Burmese pronunciation of the Burmese word Pugan, derived from Old Burmese Pyugam (meaning 'Pyu Village'). Its classical Pali name is Arimaddana-pura, lit. "the City that Tramples on Enemies". Its other names in Pali are in reference to its extreme dry zone climate: Tattadesa, "parched land", and Tampadipa, "bronzed country". The Burmese chronicles also report other classical names of Thiri Pyissaya and Tampawaddy.
HISTORY
7th to 13th CENTURIES
According to the Burmese chronicles, Bagan was founded in the second century CE, and fortified in 849 CE by King Pyinbya, 34th successor of the founder of early Bagan. Mainstream scholarship however holds that Bagan was founded in the mid-to-late 9th century by the Mranma (Burmans), who had recently entered the Irrawaddy valley from the Nanzhao Kingdom. It was among several competing Pyu city-states until the late 10th century when the Burman settlement grew in authority and grandeur.From 1044 to 1287, Bagan was the capital as well as the political, economic and cultural nerve center of the Pagan Empire. Over the course of 250 years, Bagan's rulers and their wealthy subjects constructed over 10000 religious monuments (approximately 1000 stupas, 10000 small temples and 3000 monasteries) in an area of 104 square kilometres in the Bagan plains. The prosperous city grew in size and grandeur, and became a cosmopolitan center for religious and secular studies, specializing in Pali scholarship in grammar and philosophical-psychological (abhidhamma) studies as well as works in a variety of languages on prosody, phonology, grammar, astrology, alchemy, medicine, and legal studies. The city attracted monks and students from as far as India, Ceylon as well as the Khmer Empire. The culture of Bagan was dominated by religion. The religion of Bagan was fluid, syncretic and by later standards, unorthodox. It was largely a continuation of religious trends in the Pyu era where Theravada Buddhism co-existed with Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, various Hindu (Saivite, and Vaishana) schools as well as native animist (nat) traditions. While the royal patronage of Theravada Buddhism since the mid-11th century had enabled the Buddhist school to gradually gain primacy, other traditions continued to thrive throughout the Pagan period to degrees later unseen.
The Pagan Empire collapsed in 1287 due to repeated Mongol invasions (1277–1301). Recent research shows that Mongol armies may not have reached Bagan itself, and that even if they did, the damage they inflicted was probably minimal. However, the damage had already been done. The city, once home to some 50.000 to 200.000 people, had been reduced to a small town, never to regain its preeminence. The city formally ceased to be the capital of Burma in December 1297 when the Myinsaing Kingdom became the new power in Upper Burma.
14th to 19th CENTURIES
Bagan survived into the 15th century as a human settlement, and as a pilgrimage destination throughout the imperial period. A smaller number of "new and impressive" religious monuments still went up to the mid-15th century but afterward, new temple constructions slowed to a trickle with fewer than 200 temples built between the 15th and 20th centuries. The old capital remained a pilgrimage destination but pilgrimage was focused only on "a score or so" most prominent temples out of the thousands such as the Ananda, the Shwezigon, the Sulamani, the Htilominlo, the Dhammayazika, and a few other temples along an ancient road. The rest - thousands of less famous, out-of-the-way temples - fell into disrepair, and most did not survive the test of time.
For the few dozen temples that were regularly patronized, the continued patronage meant regular upkeep as well as architectural additions donated by the devotees. Many temples were repainted with new frescoes on top of their original Pagan era ones, or fitted with new Buddha statutes. Then came a series of state-sponsored "systematic" renovations in the Konbaung period (1752–1885), which by and large were not true to the original designs - some finished with "a rude plastered surface, scratched without taste, art or result". The interiors of some temples were also whitewashed, such as the Thatbyinnyu and the Ananda. Many painted inscriptions and even murals were added in this period.
20th CENTURY TO PRESENT
Bagan, located in an active earthquake zone, had suffered from many earthquakes over the ages, with over 400 recorded earthquakes between 1904 and 1975. The last major earthquake came on 8 July 1975, reaching 8 MM in Bagan and Myinkaba, and 7 MM in Nyaung-U. The quake damaged many temples, in many cases, such as the Bupaya, severely and irreparably. Today, 2229 temples and pagodas remain.
Many of these damaged pagodas underwent restorations in the 1990s by the military government, which sought to make Bagan an international tourist destination. However, the restoration efforts instead drew widespread condemnation from art historians and preservationists worldwide. Critics are aghast that the restorations paid little attention to original architectural styles, and used modern materials, and that the government has also established a golf course, a paved highway, and built a 61-meter watchtower. Although the government believed that the ancient capital's hundreds of (unrestored) temples and large corpus of stone inscriptions were more than sufficient to win the designation of UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city has not been so designated, allegedly mainly on account of the restorations.
Bagan today is a main tourist destination in the country's nascent tourism industry, which has long been the target of various boycott campaigns. The majority of over 300.000 international tourists to the country in 2011 are believed to have also visited Bagan. Several Burmese publications note that the city's small tourism infrastructure will have to expand rapidly even to meet a modest pickup in tourism in the following years.
There is a well-known saying of Myanmar people : "If you are a real Myanmar, you must have been to Bagan." Bagan is spirit of history of Myanmar.
GEOGRAPHY
The Bagan Archaeological Zone, defined as the 13 x 8 km area centered around Old Bagan, consisting of Nyaung U in the north and New Bagan in the south, lies in the vast expanse of plains in Upper Burma on the bend of the Irrawaddy river. It is located 290 kilometres southwest of Mandalay and 700 kilometres north of Yangon. Its coordinates are 21°10' North and 94°52' East.
ARCHITECTURE
Bagan stands out for not only the sheer number of religious edifices of Myanmar but also the magnificent architecture of the buildings, and their contribution to Burmese temple design. The artistry of the architecture of pagodas in Bagan prove the achievement of Myanmar craftsmen in handicrafts. The Bagan temple falls into one of two broad categories: the stupa-style solid temple and the gu-style hollow temple.
STUPAS
A stupa, also called a pagoda, is a massive structure, typically with a relic chamber inside. The Bagan stupas or pagodas evolved from earlier Pyu designs, which in turn were based on the stupa designs of the Andhra region, particularly Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda in present-day southeastern India, and to a smaller extent to Ceylon. The Bagan-era stupas in turn were the prototypes for later Burmese stupas in terms of symbolism, form and design, building techniques and even materials.
Originally, an Indian/Ceylonese stupa had a hemispheric body (Pali: anda, "the egg") on which a rectangular box surrounded by a stone balustrade (harmika) was set. Extending up from the top of the stupa was a shaft supporting several ceremonial umbrellas. The stupa is a representation of the Buddhist cosmos: its shape symbolizes Mount Meru while the umbrella mounted on the brickwork represents the world's axis. The brickwork pediment was often covered in stucco and decorated in relief. Pairs or series of ogres as guardian figures ('bilu') were a favourite theme in the Bagan period.
The original Indic design was gradually modified first by the Pyu, and then by Burmans at Bagan where the stupa gradually developed a longer, cylindrical form. The earliest Bagan stupas such as the Bupaya (c. 9th century) were the direct descendants of the Pyu style at Sri Ksetra. By the 11th century, the stupa had developed into a more bell-shaped form in which the parasols morphed into a series of increasingly smaller rings placed on one top of the other, rising to a point. On top the rings, the new design replaced the harmika with a lotus bud. The lotus bud design then evolved into the "banana bud", which forms the extended apex of most Burmese pagodas. Three or four rectangular terraces served as the base for a pagoda, often with a gallery of terra-cotta tiles depicting Buddhist jataka stories. The Shwezigon Pagoda and the Shwesandaw Pagoda are the earliest examples of this type. Examples of the trend toward a more bell-shaped design gradually gained primacy as seen in the Dhammayazika Pagoda (late 12th century) and the Mingalazedi Pagoda (late 13th century).
HOLLOW TEMPLES
In contrast to the stupas, the hollow gu-style temple is a structure used for meditation, devotional worship of the Buddha and other Buddhist rituals. The gu temples come in two basic styles: "one-face" design and "four-face" design - essentially one main entrance and four main entrances. Other styles such as five-face and hybrids also exist. The one-face style grew out of 2nd century Beikthano, and the four-face out of 7th century Sri Ksetra. The temples, whose main features were the pointed arches and the vaulted chamber, became larger and grander in the Bagan period.
INNOVATIONS
Although the Burmese temple designs evolved from Indic, Pyu (and possibly Mon) styles, the techniques of vaulting seem to have developed in Bagan itself. The earliest vaulted temples in Bagan date to the 11th century, while the vaulting did not become widespread in India until the late 12th century. The masonry of the buildings shows "an astonishing degree of perfection", where many of the immense structures survived the 1975 earthquake more or less intact. (Unfortunately, the vaulting techniques of the Bagan era were lost in the later periods. Only much smaller gu style temples were built after Bagan. In the 18th century, for example, King Bodawpaya attempted to build the Mingun Pagoda, in the form of spacious vaulted chambered temple but failed as craftsmen and masons of the later era had lost the knowledge of vaulting and keystone arching to reproduce the spacious interior space of the Bagan hollow temples.)
Another architectural innovation originated in Bagan is the Buddhist temple with a pentagonal floor plan. This design grew out of hybrid (between one-face and four-face designs) designs. The idea was to include the veneration of the Maitreya Buddha, the future and fifth Buddha of this era, in addition to the four who had already appeared. The Dhammayazika and the Ngamyethna Pagoda are examples of the pentagonal design.
ECONOMY
Bagan's economy is based mainly on tourism. Because of boycotts against the previous military government, the Bagan region's tourism infrastructure is still quite modest by international standards. The city has a few international standard hotels and many family-run guesthouses. Bagan is also the center of Burmese lacquerware industry, which to a large degree depends on tourist demand. Much of the lacquerware is destined for souvenir shops in Yangon, and to the world markets. Moreover, the lacquerware-making process itself has become a tourist draw.
WIKIPEDIA
Town Hall Square (Vienna)
The inner part of the town square
Street sign town square
The Town Hall Square is located in the first District of Vienna, Inner City. It is named after the erected here (new) Vienna City Hall. Due to its size, design and architecture of the buildings bordering the square it is considered one of the most important places in the center of Vienna.
History
Vienna City Hall, View from 1891
In the area of today's town square was once the Josefstädter Glacis, a meadow terrain held as a free field of fire before the walls of Vienna and later the parade and drill ground of the Imperial Army. During the construction of the Ring Road from 1858 this military site remained untouched for some time until the army after long efforts of Mayor Cajetan Felder had renounced and the City Expansion Found could develop a Baulinienplan (building line plan) for the area. During this time, other locations were considered for the City Hall.
Now the Town Hall Square, the largest square in the recessed ring road zone was provided. The northern and southern part of the square shaped city gardener Rudolf Siebeck 1872/1873 as City Hall Park, the central part of the square, the axis Town Hall-Burgtheater, was kept free. 1873, the foundation stone was laid for the construction of the New Town Hall. 1874, work began on the Town Hall at the former Franzensring opposite the Burgtheater and the south of the square adjacent parliament building (north side front: Town Square 6). From 1877 on, the new main building of the University of Vienna (southern side front: Town Square 5 ) was built. Are installed on the three sides of the square five blocks with nine house numbers (No. 1 to No. 9), the fourth side is bordered by the Ring.
In course of time the name of the place changed four times. In 1870 it was created as Town Hall Square, renamed in 1907 after the incumbent Christian Social mayor in Dr.-Karl-Lueger square. The since 1919 dominant Red Vienna this appeared to be inappropriate, as Lueger in Vienna had prevented the universal and equal male suffrage, in 1907 introduced at state level. Therefore, the of a private committee donated Lueger monument under the rule of mayor Karl Seitz was not, as intended by the Committee, on the Town Square erected but built in 1926 on a previously unnamed square corner Wool Line/Stubenring and this place in the same year named Dr.-Karl-Lueger square named. The Town Square was returned its original name. In 1938, the place was again renamed into Adolf Hitler square, what was reversed in 1945.
Christmas Market at City Hall
The large space between City Hall and the Burgtheater was used by all the rulers for political rallies. Since 1921, its current form dating back to 1929 and interrupted from 1933 to 1945, it is the traditional final rally of the Vienna SPÖ Maiaufmarsches (May-Procession) on 1 In May at the Town Hall Square. In addition, the space is exploited for most of the year for cultural and social events. The most important of them since 1975, the Christmas market in November and December, the Vienna Ice Dream in January and February, the opening of the Vienna Festival in May and open-air cinema screenings with classical music in July and August. The Life Ball at Vienna City Hall refers also to the town square. Traditionally, a since 1959 every year from one of the states erected large Christmas tree as a gift to the federal capital.
Location and characteristics
The Town Hall Square is located between the extended Grillparzer street to the north, the University Ring to the east, the extended Stadion alley in the south and the extended Reichsrats street in the West. Except the ring on which there are no buildings on this side of the street, bear the buildings that are in the course of these streets at the place, house numbers of the Town Square. Stadion alley and Grillparzer street end before the square, the Reichsrats street is interrupted by the square.
About two-thirds of the space area of 40,000 m² are occupied by the City Hall park which is divided by a blocked to traffic, very wide access road between the Burgtheater and the Rathaus, offering space for events, into a northern and southern half. The Town Square is lined by some of the most important monumental Rings Road constructions in historicist style. In the square itself is a large number of monuments and statues. Thus, the town square is one of the most representative places in Vienna.
The tram lines 1 and D operate on the Ring Road and have at the City Hall Square opposite the Burg Theatre and at the corner of Parliament stops. Coming from the south and turning from the ring, operates tram line 2 on the southern edge of the Town Square to Stadiongasse. The individual passage traffic runs heading north on the eastern edge of the square on the Ring Road in the opposite direction behind the Town Hall on the two-line (Zweierlinie). Cycling trails pass off on the Ring Road and at the Grillparzer street and Stadion alley. Behind the Town Hall runs the subway line U2 to the City Hall with the subway station as shuttle to City Hall and City Hall Square.
Building
City hall
The central building in the middle of the west side of the Town Square is the City Hall, built in 1873-1883 by Friedrich von Schmidt, New Town Hall, Town Hall called only since about 1970. The powerful, dominating the square building was designed by the Dutch Gothic models. It should express the political power of the strengthened bourgeosie against the monarch and the aristocracy.
The City Council has at the Town Hall no main entrance or direct access to the arcade court, they are located on the side fronts of Felder Street and Lichtenfels alley, another entrance is at the rear front at the Friedrich-Schmidt square. From the Town Hall itself essentially the so-called People's Hall on the ground floor of the Town Hall via a staircase outdoors is accessible (entrances centered under the Town Hall Tower and left and right). The People's Hall is occasionally used for exhibitions. At the corner towards Felder street there is the exit to the restaurant Rathauskeller/Town hall cellar.
Arcade, Town Hall Square 2-4
Foyer with ceiling painting Apotheosis of Vindobona, Town Hall Square 4
No. 2, 3 and 4: Arcade Shops
The block north of City Hall was built in 1880-1883 by Franz von Neumann. Plan requirement was to equip the buildings (such as on the west side of the Imperial Parliament Street, in the course of which they are) at the town square with arcades. Held in the old German style, houses have remarkable corner projections made with domes. At the central projection there are respectively balconies on herma. The attic floor is decorated with stucco relief female figures. The rib-vaulted arcades are painted with grotesques by Franz and Carl Jobst and equipped with cast iron lanterns. Particularly important are the foyers on No. 4 (and at the back of the block on the Ebendorfer street 4). Frieze reliefs show the allegories of commerce, the arts and trading. A large ceiling painting depicts the apotheosis of Vindobona. Lanterns and railings are made of wrought iron.
No. 5: University of Vienna, Main Building
Town Hall Square and front side of the university's main building in 1900
The Town Hall Square side facing the front of the main university building today (2007 )
On the north side of the town square is the front side of the main building of the University of Vienna. The main work of the late phase of the strict historicism was built in 1873-1884 by Heinrich von Ferstel. The 29-axle side facade is broken repeatedly by risalits as well as by half and full columns. Statues of Anton Schmidgruber and Franz Koch stand in relation to the Philosophical faculty. The building has no open entrance here.
No. 6: Parliament
On the south side of the town square is the side front of the parliament building, which was built as Reichsratsgebäude for Cisleithania. It is the most important work of the architect Theophil von Hansen that the latter one founded 1871-1883 by ancient Greek models. At the Town Hall Square, the Parliament has a covered side entrance, originally a carriage way.
No. 7, 8 and 9 houses with arcades
Dome on the corner risalt, Town Hall Square 7
South of the Town Hall is located one block of houses with arcades, built 1877/1878 of City Hall architect Friedrich von Schmidt and Franz Neumann in old German forms. These were the first houses with arcades of City Hall district. Dominant are domes on corner risalit and central dome, bay windows, balconies, putti frieze and statues of Venus and Mars on the facade. In the rib-vaulted arcades are embedded gates with half column portals and acroterion figures. The lobbies are decorated with stucco ceilings, among other rich and grotesque painting. At No. 8 is located under the arcades the in City Hall circles famous café and pastry shop Sluka.
City Hall Park
At the request of Mayor Felder the City Hall Park was created as a complementary recreation area in the Ring Road zone. It is a strictly historicist Park, which was created as the city park of city gardener Rudolf Siebeck. The green area is north and south of a link road from the Burgtheater on the Ring to the City Hall laid out, which extends space-like in front of City Hall. In each of the two parts is a Rondeau Park with fountains, which are intended to highlight the two Viennese spring water lines and were financed by the builder Antonio Gabrielli.
Orientation plan
Under the old trees of the park there are five trees that are designated as natural monuments in Vienna. A lime in the southern part of the park was planted on the occasion of the 50th anniversary jubilee of Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1898, an oak tree, also in the southern part of the park in 1906 for the then incumbent mayor Karl Lueger. Winding paths lead through the two parts of the park. The garden fence is original historicist. In the northern part of the park is a large children's play area. A 1890 in the southern part of the park built weather house, destroyed during the Second World War, was renewed in 1955 with mosaics of Mary Biljan-Bilger. The modern toilet facilities were designed by Luigi Blau.
Monuments
Waldmüllerdenkmal (Monument) by Josef Engelhart, 1913
The Town Hall Square is home of a number of monuments, they are described here from the ring road starting.
(Disabled) access from the Burgtheater to City Hall
At the beginning of this approach is, turning off the Ring Road, left the monument to Theodor Körner, mayor, then President of the Second Republic, by Hilde Uray, bronze statue, 1963,
right of the monument to Karl Seitz, first head of state of the First Republic, then mayor in Red Vienna, by Gottfried Buchberger, bronze statue, 1962.
Directly between the two parts of the park in 1902 eight stone monuments of significant figures in the history of Vienna were placed four at each park side facing each other. They had been established in 1867 on the balustrades of the former Elizabeth Bridge over the river (Wienfluss) on Karlsplatz. When in 1897 the bridge was demolished in this area because of the light rail construction and the resulting vaulting of the Wienfluss, the eight monuments first have been put along the then still in the incision extending new light rail line on the Karlsplatz, where they but heavily by the soot of steam locomotives polluted monuments were popularly called eight chimney sweepers. Therefore, they were transferred to the town square later:
left ( south side):
Margrave Henry II Jasomirgott from the House of Babenberg, by Franz Melnitzky
Duke Rudolf the founder of the House of Habsburg, of Josef Gasser
Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg, defender of Vienna (second Turkish siege), by Johann Baptist Fessler
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Baroque architect, Josef Cesar
right (north side):
Duke Leopold the Glorious from the House of Babenberg, by Johann Preleuthner
Niklas Graf Salm, defender of Vienna (first siege of Vienna), by Matthias Purkartshofer
Archbishop Charles Leopold of Kollonitsch, spiritual leader of Vienna (second Turkish siege), Vincenz Pilz
Joseph of Sonnenfels, judicial and administrative reformer of Maria Theresa, by Hanns Gasser (replaced in the Nazi era in 1939 by a statue of the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, re-erected after 1945)
Next to the town hall (tower), outside of the southern part of the park: replica of the Vienna City Hall man at the top of City Hall tower in scale 1: 1, by Fritz Tiefenthaler, 1985
Southern part of the city hall park (towards Parliament)
At the corner of Park Ring/Parliament, addressed to the ring: Karl Renner, the first Chancellor of the First and first president of the Second Republic, portrait head of Alfred Hrdlicka on monument structure of Josef Krawina, 1965-1967
Josef Popper-Lynkeus, social ethicist, stone bust of Hugo Taglang, 1926. As artist and represented were Jews, the bust was removed in the Nazi regime in 1938, restored in 1951 according to the plaster model.
Johann Strauss (father ) and Joseph Lanner, statues of Franz Seifert, 1905, Art Nouveau, the bronze sculptures stand in front of a curved wall with marble reliefs of ball scenes and a poem by Edward von Bauernfeld. This concept and the architecture created Robert Oerley.
Northern part of the city hall park (towards the University)
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, marble monument of Josef Engelhart, 1913, Art Nouveau
Ernst Mach, physicist, of Heinz Peteri, 1926
Adolf Schärf, vice chancellor, then president of the Second Republic, bronze bust of Alfred Hrdlicka, 1985
The most recent monument in the park, built in 1993, commemorates the wartime destruction of Vienna in 1945 and was by Hubert Wilfan under the title Yesterday - Today created from stone.
I seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the outcast.
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
Allah’s peace be upon Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W), the glorious Prophet of Islam, and on his Companions and his followers.
TASAWWUF
"There is no doubt that Tasawwuf is an important branch of Islam. The word itself may have been derived form the Arabic word "Soof" (Wool) or from "Safa" (cleanliness), but its foundation lies in one’s personal sincerity in seeking Allah’s nearness and trying to live a life pleasing to Him. Study of the Quran, the Hadith, and the practical life of the holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) and his faithful Companions provide unmistakable support to this reality." (Hazrat Moulana Allah Yar Khan (R.A)
SUFISM, AN ESSENTIAL PART OF ISLAM
Doubts exist not only in the minds of the Muslim faithful but also among the Ulema, notably the exoteric about Tasawwuf and its votaries. Often they lead to misunderstanding, as if Shariah and Tariqah were two separate entries, or that Tasawwuf was some obscure discipline foreign to Islam, or that it was altogether above the established laws and injunctions of our Religion. To help remove these misgivings and to reassure seekers, as well as scholars, our Sheikh Hazrat Moulana Allah Yar Khan (R.A), Sheikh Silsila Naqshbandia Awaisia, wrote Al-Jamal Wal Kamal, Aqaid-O-Kamalaat Ulmai-e-Deoband, Binat-e-Rasool (S.A.W), Daamad-e-Ali (R.A), Dalael-us-Salook, Ejaad-e-Mazhab Shia, Hayat-un-Nabi (S.A.W), Hayat Barzakhia, Ilm-o-Irfan, Niffaz-e-Shariat Aur Fiqah-e-Jaferia, Saif-e-Owaisi, Shikast-e-Ahdai Hussain and Tahkeek Halal Haram books.
BIOGRAPHY
Sheikh Allah Yar Khan was born in Chakrala, a remote village of Mianwali District of Pakistan, in 1904. He completed his religious education in 1934. The very year, he met Shaykh Abdul Rahim, who took him to the shrine of Shaykh Allah Deen Madni. By Divine Will his spiritual connection was right away established with the saint of the 10th century Hijra (sixteenth century) and he started receiving spiritual beneficence. His sublime education in Sufism, signifying progressive spiritual growth and advancement, continued for about twenty-five years. In 1962 he was directed to carry out the propagation of Prophetic blessings - a noble mission that he accomplished with singular enthusiasm and devotion for a period spanning half a century. Anybody who visited him was duly rewarded with a share of spiritual bliss as per his/her sincerity and capacity. Shaykh Allah Yar Khan's mission produced men and women of deep spiritual vision and distinction.
Although Hazrat Moulana Allah Yar Khan (R.A) have lived a major portion of his life as a scholar, with the avowed mission of illuminating the truth of Islam and the negation of fallacious sects, and this would appear quite removed from Tasawwuf, yet the only practical difference between the two, namely the use of the former as a media to expound the truth, and the latter to imbue people with positive faith. Nevertheless, people are amazed that a man, who until the other day, was known as a dialectician and a preacher of Islam, is not only talking of Mystic Path, but is also claiming spiritual bonds with the veteran Sufi Masters of the Past. This amazement is obviously out of place in the view of Quranic injunction: This is the bounty of Allah which He gives to whom He wills. (62:4)
THE PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL
The purification of the soul always formed part of the main mission of the Prophets; that is, the dissemination and propagation of the Devine Message. This responsibility later fell directly on the shoulders of the true Ulema in the Ummah of the last Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W), who, as his genuine successors, have continued to shed brave light in every Dark Age of materialism and sacrilege. In the present age of ruinous confusion, the importance of this responsibility has increased manifold; of the utter neglect of Islam by Muslims has not only driven them to misery, but also grievously weakened their bonds of faith in Allah and His Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W). The decay in their belief and consequent perversion in their conduct has reached a stage that any attempt to pull them out of the depth of ignominy and the heedless chaos of faithlessness, attracts grave uncertainties and apprehensions rather than a encouraging will to follow the Shariah, to purify the soul and to reform within. The Quranic Verse: Layers upon layers of darkness… (24:40) provides the nearest expression of their present state.
SHARIAH & SUFISM
Any action against the Sunnah (Prophet’s way of life) cannot be called Sufism. Singing and dancing, and the prostration on tombs are not part of Sufism. Nor is predicting the future and predicting the outcome of cases in the courts of law, a part of Sufism. Sufis are not required to abandon their worldly possessions or live in the wilderness far from the practical world. In fact these absurdities are just its opposites. It is an established fact that Tazkiyah (soul purification) stands for that inner purity which inspires a person’s spirit to obey the holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W). If a false claimant of Sufism teaches tricks and jugglery, ignoring religious obligations, he is an impostor. A true Sheikh will lead a believer to the august spiritual audience of the holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W). If you are fortunate enough to be blessed with the company of an accomplished spiritual guide and Sheikh of Sufism, and if you follow his instructions, you will observe a positive change in yourself, transferring you from vice to virtue.
ISLAM, AS A COMPLETE CODE OF LIFE
Islam, as a complete code of life or Deen, was perfected during the life of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W). He was the sole teacher and his mosque was the core institution for the community. Although Islam in its entirety was practiced during that blessed era, the classification and compilation of its knowledge into distinct branches like ‘Tafsir’ (interpretation of the Quran), Hadith (traditions or sayings of the holy Prophet- SAWS), Fiqh (Islamic law), and Sufism (the soul purification) were undertaken subsequently. This Deen of Allah passed from the holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) to his illustrious Companions in two ways: the outward and the inward. The former comprised the knowledge defined by speech and conduct, i.e., the Quran and Sunnah. The latter comprised the invisible blessings or the Prophetic lights transmitted by his blessed self. These blessings purified the hearts and instilled in them a passionate desire to follow Islam with utmost love, honesty and loyalty.
WHAT’S SUFISM
Sufism is the attempt to attain these Barakah (Blessings). The Companions handed down Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) teachings as well as blessings to the Taba’een. Their strong hearts were capable of infusing these blessings into the hearts of their followers. Both aspects of Islam were similarly passed on by the Taba’een to the Taba Taba’een. The compilation of knowledge and its interpretation led to the establishment of many schools of religious thought; famous four being the Hanafi, the Hanbali, the Maliki, and the Shafa'i, all named after their founders. Similarly, in order to acquire, safeguard and distribute his blessings, an organized effort was initiated by four schools of Sufism: The Naqshbandia, the Qadria, the Chishtia, and the Suharwardia. These schools were also named after their organizers and came to be known as Sufi Orders. All these Orders intend to purify the hearts of sincere Muslims with Prophetic lights. These Sufi Orders also grew into many branches with the passage of time and are known by other names as well. The holy Quran has linked success in this life and the Hereafter with Tazkiyah (soul purification). He, who purified, is successful. (87: 14) Sufi Orders of Islam are the institutions where the basics of Tazkiyah (soul purification) and its practical application are taught. They have graded programs in which every new seeker is instructed in Zikr-e Lisani (oral Zikr) and is finally taught the Zikr-e Qalbi (Remembrance in heart).
ZIKR-E QALBI
However, in the Naqshbandia Order, Zikr-e Qalbi is practiced from the very beginning. Adherence to the Sunnah (Prophet’s way of life) is greatly emphasized in this Order, because the seeker achieves greater and quicker progress through its blessings. The essence of Zikr is that the Qalb should sincerely accept Islamic beliefs and gain the strength to follow the Sunnah with even greater devotion. ‘If the heart is acquainted with Allah and is engaged in His Zikr; then it is filled with Barakaat-e Nabuwwat (Prophetic blessings) which infuse their purity in the mind and body. This not only helps in controlling sensual drives but also removes traces of abhorrence, voracity, envy and insecurity from human soul. The person therefore becomes an embodiment of love, both for the Divine and the corporeal. This is the meaning of a Hadith, “There is a lump of flesh in the human body; if it goes astray the entire body is misguided, and if it is reformed the entire body is reformed. Know that this lump is the Qalb”.’
PAS ANFAS
Recent History Khawajah Naqshband (d. 1389 CE) organized the Naqshbandia Order at Bukhara (Central Asia). This Order has two main branches – the Mujaddidia and the Owaisiah. The former is identified with Sheikh Ahmed Sirhindi, known as Mujaddid Alif Sani (literally: reviver of the second Muslim millennium), a successor to Khawajah Baqi Billah, who introduced the Order to the Indo- Pakistan sub-continent. The Owaisiah Order employs a similar method of Zikr but acquires the Prophetic blessings in the manner of Khawajah Owais Qarni, who received this beneficence from the Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) without a formal physical meeting. The Zikr employed by the Naqshbandia is ‘Zikr-e Khafi Qalbi’ (remembrance of Allah’s Name within the heart) and the method is termed ‘Pas Anfas’, which (in Persian) means guarding every breath. The Chain of Transmission of these Barakah, of course, emanates from the holy Prophet- SAWS.
SPIRITUAL BAI’AT (OATH OF ALLEGIANCE
It is necessary in all Sufi Orders that the Sheikh and the seekers must be contemporaries and must physically meet each other for the transfer of these blessings. However, the Naqshbandia Owaisiah Order goes beyond this requirement and Sufis of this Order receive these Barakah regardless of physical meeting with their Sheikh or even when the Sheikh is not their contemporary. Yet, it must be underscored that physical meeting with the Sheikh of this Order still holds great importance in dissemination of these Barakah. Sheikh Sirhindi writes about the Owaisiah Order in his book ‘Tazkirah’: ‘It is the most sublime, the most exalted, and the most effective…and the highest station of all others is only its stepping stone.’ By far the greatest singular distinction of the Naqshbandia Owaisiah Order is the honor of Spiritual Bai’at (Oath of Allegiance) directly at the blessed hands of the holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W).
SHEIKH HAZRAT MOULANA ALLAH YAR KHAN (R.A)
The Reviver Sheikh Allah Yar Khan was born in Chikrala, a remote village of Mianwali District of Pakistan, in 1904. He completed his religious education in 1934. The same year, he met Sheikh ‘Abdul Rahim, who took him to the shrine of Sheikh Allah Deen Madni. By Divine Will his spiritual connection was immediately established with the saint of the 10th century Hijra (sixteenth century CE) and he started receiving spiritual beneficence. His sublime education in Sufism, signifying progressive spiritual growth and advancement, continued for about twenty-five years, after which he was directed to undertake the propagation of Prophetic blessings - a noble mission that he accomplished with singular zeal and dedication for a period spanning half a century. Anybody who visited him was duly rewarded with a share of spiritual bliss commensurate with his/her sincerity and capacity. Sheikh Allah Yar Khan’s mission produced men and women of deep spiritual vision and eminence. He authored eighteen books, the most distinguished being Dalael us-Sulook (Sufism - An Objective Appraisal), Hayat-e Barzakhiah (Life Beyond Life) and Israr ul- Haramain (Secrets of the two holy Mosques). He was undoubtedly one of the most distinguished Sufi saints of the Muslim Ummah and a reviver of the Naqshbandia Owaisiah Order. He passed away on 18 February 1984 in Islamabad at the age of eighty.
THE CHAIN OF TRANSMISSION OF NAQSHBANDIA OWAISIAH
1. Hazrat Muhammad ur-Rasool Allah (Sall Allah-o Alaihi wa Sallam), 2. Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (Radhi Allah-o Unho), 3. Hazrat Imam Hassan Basri (Rahmat Ullah Alaihi), 4. Hazrat Daud Tai (Rahmat Ullah Alaihi), 5. Hazrat Junaid Baghdadi (Rahmat Ullah Alaihi), 6. Hazrat Ubaid Ullah Ahrar (Rahmat Ullah Alaihi), 7. Hazrat Abdur Rahman Jami (Rahmat Ullah Alaihi), 8. Hazrat Abu Ayub Muhammad Salih (Rahmat Ullah Alaihi), 9. Hazrat Allah Deen Madni (Rahmat Ullah Alaihi), 10. Hazrat Moulana Allah Yar Khan (Rahmat Ullah Alaihi).
THE SPIRIT OR RUH
The spirit or Ruh of every person is a created reflection of the Divine Attributes and it originates in Alam-e Amar (Realm of Command). Its food is the Light of Allah or the Divine Refulgence, which it acquires from the Realm of Command through the holy Prophet Muhammad (may Allah’s choicest favors and peace be upon him), whose status in the spiritual world is like that of the sun in the solar system. The Quran refers to him as the ‘bright lamp’. Indeed, he is the divinely selected channel of all Barakah. All Exalted Messengers themselves receive these Barakah from him.
LATAIF
The human Ruh also possesses vital organs like the physical body; through which it acquires its knowledge, food and energy. These are called Lataif (singular Latifah: subtlety). Scholars of various Sufi Orders have associated them with specific areas of the human body. The Naqshbandia Owaisiah Order identifies these Lataif as follows. First - Qalb: This spiritual faculty is located within the physical heart. Its function is Zikr. Its strength increases one’s capacity for Allah’s Zikr. Second – Ruh: The site of this Latifah, which is a distinct faculty of the human Ruh, is on the right side of the chest at the level of Qalb. Its primary function is concentration towards Allah. Third – Sirri: This is located above the Qalb and functions to make possible Kashf. Forth – Khaffi: This is located above the Ruh and functions to perceive the omnipresence of Allah. Fifth – Akhfa: This is located in the middle of chest, at the centre of the first four Lataif and makes it possible for the Ruh to perceive the closeness of Allah, Who is closer to us than our own selves. Sixth – Nafs: This Latifah is located at the forehead and functions to purify the human soul. Seventh – Sultan al-Azkar: This Latifah is located at the top centre of the head and serves to absorb the Barakah of Allah into the entire body, so that every cell resonates with Zikr.
FIVE EXALTED MESSENGERS OF GOD
There are Five Exalted Messengers among the many known and unknown Messengers of Allah. They are Hazrat Muhammad, Hazrat Nuh (Noah), Hazrat Ibrahim (Abraham), Hazrat Musa (Moses), and Hazrat Esa (Jesus), peace be upon them all. Hazrat Adam is the first Prophet of Allah and the father of mankind. Each Latifah is associated with a particular Prophet. The Barakah and lights from Hazrat Adam (peace be upon him), descend on the first Latifah Qalb; its lights are reflected from the first heaven and are yellowish. The second Latifah is associated with Hazrat Nuh and Hazrat Ibrahim (peace be upon them). Its lights descend from the second heaven and appear as golden red. The lights descending upon the third Latifah are from Hazrat Musa (peace be upon him) and are white. One the fourth Latifah, the lights of Hazrat Esa (peace be upon him) descend from the fourth heaven and are deep blue. The fifth Latifah receives its Barakah directly from the holy Prophet Muhammad (may Allah’s choicest favors and peace be upon him). The lights associated with this Latifah are green, descend from the fifth heaven, and overwhelm all the first four Lataif. The Lights descending upon the sixth and seventh Lataif are the Divine Lights, whose color and condition cannot be determined. These are like flashes of lightening that defy comprehension. If Allah blesses a seeker with Kashf, he can observe all of this. The vision is slightly diffused in the beginning, but gradually the clarity improves.
SULOOK
Stages of the Path After all seven Lataif of a seeker have been illuminated with Divine Lights through Tawajjuh of the Sheikh and his Ruh has acquired the ability to fly, the Sheikh initiates its journey on the sublime Path of Divine nearness. The Path is known as Sulook, and its stages are not hypothetical imaginations but real and actually existing stations on the spiritual Path. These are also referred to as Meditations, because a seeker mentally meditates about a station while his/her Ruh actually ascends towards it. The first three stations that form the base of whole Sulook are described as; Ahadiyyat, a station of Absolute Unity of Divinity. It is above and beyond the seven heavens. It is so vast a station that the seven heavens and all that they encompass are lost within Ahadiyyat as a ring is lost in a vast desert. Its lights are white in color. Maiyyat station denotes Divine Company, ‘He is with you, wherever you might be.’ This station is so vast that Ahadiyyat along with the seven heavens beneath are lost within it as a ring is lost in a desert. Its lights are green in color. Aqrabiyyat station denotes Divine Nearness, ‘He is nearer to you than your life- vein.’ Again, Aqrabiyyat is vast as compared to Maiyyat in the same proportion. Its lights are golden red and are reflected from the Divine Throne. It is indeed the greatest favor of Almighty Allah that He blesses a seeker with an accomplished Sheikh, who takes him to these sublime stations. The final station that a seeker attains to during his/her lifetime becomes his/her Iliyyeen (blessed abode) in Barzakh and his/her Ruh stays at this station after death.
ZIKR
Why is Zikr Necessary for Everyone? Allah ordains every soul in the Quran to Perform Zikr. This not only means reciting the Quran and Tasbeeh but also Zikr-e Qalb. It is only through Zikr-e Qalbi that Prophetic Lights reach the depths of human soul and purify it from all vice and evil. Zikr infuses a realization of constant Divine Presence and a seeker feels great improvement in the level of sincerity and love towards Allah and the holy Prophet- SAWS. Such levels of sincerity, love and feelings of Divine Presence can never be obtained without Zikr. It would be a mistake to believe that Zikr may be a requirement only for the very pious and virtuous people. Zikr provides the Prophetic blessings which are in effect the life line of every human soul. It transforms even the most corrupted humans into virtuous souls by bringing out the best in them. The fact is that Zikr is the only way to achieve true contentment and satisfaction in life. The holy Quran has pointed to this eternal fact that it is only through Zikr Allah that hearts can find satisfaction. Such satisfaction and peace are the ultimate requirements of every person, regardless of religion, race and ethnicity. Practicing Zikr regularly removes all traces of anxiety and restlessness, and guides the human soul to eternal bliss and peace.
KHALIFA MAJAZEEN
Hazrat Moulana Allah Yar Khan (R.A), during his life time in 1974, presented a nomination list to Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W), during Maraqba, of expected Khalifa Majazeen for Silsila Naqshbandia Awaisia. Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) approved some names, deleted some of the names, and added down the name of Major Ghulam Muhammad as also Khalifa Majaaz of Silsila Naqshbandia Awaisia (which was not previously included in the list)
The approved names at that time included:
1. Mr. Muhammad Akram Awan Sahib,
2. Mr. Sayed Bunyad Hussain Shah Sahib,
3. Mr. Major Ahsan Baig Sahib,
4. Mr. Col. Matloob Hussain Sahib,
5. Mr. Major Ghulam Muhammad Sahib of Wan Bhachran Mianwali,
6. Mr. Molvi Abdul Haq Sahib,
7. Mr. Hafiz Abdul Razzaq Sahib,
8. Mr. Hafiz Ghulam Qadri Sahib,
9. Mr. Khan Muhammad Irani Sahib,
10. Mr. Maolana Abdul Ghafoor Sahib,
11. Mr. Syed Muhammad Hassan Sahib of Zohb.
These Majazeen were authorized to; held Majalis of Zikar (Pas Anfas) in their respective areas, arrange Majalis of Zikar in neighboring areas, train them on the way of Sulook, prepare them for Spiritual Bai’at (Oath of Allegiance), and present them to Sheikh Hazrat Moulana Allah Yar Khan for Spiritual Bai’at at the Hand of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W), in the life of Hazrat Moulana Allah Yar Khan (R.A), and were all equal in status as Khalifa Majaaz of Hazrat Moulana Allah Yar Khan (R.A).
Presently we are following Hazrat Major ® Ghulam Muhammad Sahib, Khalifa Majaaz of Hazrat Moulana Allah Yar Khan (R.A).
Once upon a time, I guess Kingsnorth was a small leafy village, set in loamy countryside, rarely visited. Indeed this is what Hasted suggests.
Set a mile or two outside Ashford, all was calm and peaceful until the railways came to Ashford and the town grew and grew.
In the 21st century, Kingsnorth is found from the main road into the town centre, along a busy road to where the old village pub still sits. And opposite is the start of Church Hill, at the top, not surprisingly, sits the church.
Inbetween now is a large and modern housing estate, and beside the church, a busy school, even busy on a Saturday morning due to football practice and the fleet of MPVs and Soccer Moms taking their darlings for a kickabout.
It is the modern way, after all.
St Michael sits quietly next door to the school, the end of a footpath leading to another housing development on the Brenzett road, were an old friend once had a house. And I can remember him leading us on a walk over the fields through clouds of Gatekeepers where we found, as today, the church open.
I took a few shots then, but am back now to complete the task.
First highlight was the 17th century graffiti in the porch.
In truth it is a small and simple church, mostly clear what looks like modern glass, though a single panel of ancient glass is in one of the north have windows and a single panel of wall painting on the side of the north chancel arch.
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KINGSNOTH,
THE next parish south-eastward is Kingsnoth, sometimes called Kingsnode, and by Leland written Kinges-snode.
THIS PARISH is so obscurely situated as to be but little known, the soil in it is throughout a deep miry clay; it is much interspersed with woodlands, especially in the south-east part of it, the whole face of the country here is unpleasant and dreary, the hedge rows wide, with spreading oaks among them; and the roads, which are very broad, with a wide space of green swerd on each side, execrably bad; insomuch, that they are dangerous to pass except in the driest time of summer; the whole of it is much the same as the parishes adjoining to it in the Weald, of which the church, which stands on the hill nearly in the middle of the parish, is the northern boundary, consequently all that part of it southward is within that district. There is no village, the houses standing single, and interspersed throughout it At no great distance eastward from the church is the manor house of Kingsnoth, still called the Park-house, the antient mansion, which stood upon a rise, at some distance from the present house, seems from the scite of it, which is moated round, to have been large, remains of Mosaic pavement, and large quantities of stone have been at times dug up from it. South-eastward from the church is Mumfords, which seems formerly to have been very large, but the greatest part of it has been pulled down and the present small farm-house built out of it; westward from the church stands the court-lodge, now so called, of East Kingsnoth manor, it is moated round, and seems likewise to have been much larger than it is at present, and close to the western boundary of the parish is the manor-house of West Halks, which has been a large antient building, most probably of some consequence in former times, as there appears to have been a causeway once from it, wide enough for a carriage, which led through the courtlodge farm towards Shadoxhurst, Woodchurch, and son on to Halden, remains of which are often turned up in ploughing the grounds. In the low grounds, near the meadows, is the scite of the manor of Moorhouse, moated round. The above mansions seem to have been moated round not only for defence, but to drain off the water from the miry soil on which they were built, which was no doubt the principal reason why so many of the antient ones, in this and the like situations were likewise moated round. There is a streamlet, which rises in the woods near Bromley green, and slows along the eastern par to this parish northward, and joining the Postling branch of the Stour near Sevington, runs with it by Hockwood barn and under Alsop green, towards Ashford. Leland in his Itinerary says, vol. vii. p. 145, "The river of Cantorbury now cawled Sture springeth at Kinges Snode the which standeth sowthe and a lytle by west fro Cantorbury and ys distant of Cant. a xiiii or xv myles."
THE ROYAL MANOR OF WYE claims paramount over this parish. The lord of that manor, George Finch Hatton, esq. of Eastwell, holds a court leet here for the borough of East Kingsnoth, which claims over this parish, at which a borsholder is yearly appointed; subordinate to which is THE MANOR OF KINGSNOTH, which in early times was the residence of a family to which it gave name, who bore for their coat armour, as appeared by seals appendant to their antient deeds, Ermine, upon a bend, five chevronels; and John de Kingsnoth, who lived here about the latter end of king Edward I. sealed with that coat of arms; yet I find that Bartholomew de Badlesmere, who was attainted about the 17th year of king Edward II had some interest in this manor, which upon his conviction escheated to the crown, and remained there until Richard II. granted it to Sir Robert Belknap, the judge, who had, not long before, purchased that proportion of this manor which belonged to the family of Kingsnoth, by which he became possessed of the whole of it; but he being attainted and banished in the 11th year of that reign, that part which had belonged to Badlesmere, and was granted by the king to Sir Robert Belknap, returned again to the crown, a further account of which may be seen hereafter. (fn. 1) But the other part of this estate, which belonged to the family of Kingsnoth likewise, henceforward called the manor of Kingsnoth, which seems to have been the greatest part of it, on the petition of Hamon Belknap his son to parliament, to be enabled in blood and lands to his father, notwithstanding the judgement against him, was restored to him, and he was found by inquisition to die possessed of it in the 7th year of king Henry VI. Soon after which I find Sir Thomas Browne, of Beechworth castle, treasurer of the king's houshold, to have become possessed of it; for in the 27th year of that reign, he obtained licence for a fair in this parish, on the feast of St. Michael, and that same year he had another to embattle his mansion here and to inclose a park, and for freewarren in all his demesne lands within this manor; and in a younger branch of his descendants this manor continued down to Richard Browne, esq. of Shingleton, in Great Chart, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Andrews, of Lathbury, in Buckinghamshire, and dying soon after the death of king Charles I. Elizabeth, their only daughter and heir, carried it in marriage to Thomas, lord Leigh, of Stoneleigh, who afterwards alienated it again to Andrews, in which name it continued till Alexander Andrews, executor and devisee of William Andrews, in 1690, conveyed this manor, with the farm called the Park, the manor of Morehouse, and other lands in this parish, being enabled so to do by act of parliament, to the company of haberdashers of London, as trustees, for the support of the hospital at Hoxton, commonly called Aske's hospital, in whom they are now vested. There is not any court held for this manor.
THE OTHER PART of the above-mentioned estate, which had formerly belonged to the family of Badlesmere, and had escheated to the crown on the attainder of Bartholomew de Badlesmere in the 17th year of king Edward II. remained there until Richard II. granted it to Sir Robert Belknap, on whose attainder and banishment in the 11th year of that reign it returned again to the crown, whence it seems, but at what time I have not found, to have been granted to the abbot and convent of Battel, in Sussex, by the name of THE MANOR OF EAST KINGSNOTH, together with the manors of West Kingenoth, in Pluckley; Morehouse, in this parish; and Wathenden, in Biddenden, lately belonging to that monastery, in as ample a manner as the late abbot, or any of his predecessors had possessed them, (fn. 2) and they continued part of the possessions of it till its dissolution in the 30th year of Henry VIII. when they came into the hands of the crown, where they staid but a short time; for the king that year granted these manors to Sir Edw. Ringsley for his life, without any rent or account whatsoever; and four years afterwards the king sold the reversion of them to Sir John Baker, one of his council, and chancellor of the first fruits and tenths, to hold in capite by knight's service. He died in 1558, possessed of this manor, with the advowson of the church of Kingsnoth, and the manors of West Kingsnoth and Morehouse, held in capite, in whose descendants the manor of East Kingsnoth, with the advowson of the church, descended down to Sir John Baker, bart. who, in the reign of king Charles I. passed it away by sale to Mr. Nathaniel Powell, of Ewehurst, in Sussex, and afterwards of Wiarton, in this county, who was in 1661 created a baronet; and in his descendants it continued down to Sir Christopher Powell, bart. who died possessed of it in 1742, s.p. leaving his widow surviving, whose trustees sold this manor and advowson, after her death, to Mrs. Fuller, widow of Mr. David Fuller, of Maidstone, attorney-at-law, who in 1775 devised them by will to her relation William Stacy Coast, esq. now of Sevenoke, the present owner of them. There is not any court held for this manor.
MUMFORDS, as it is now called, though its proper and more antient name is Montfort's, is a manor in this parish, which was once the residence of the family of Clerc, written in antient deeds le Clerc, and afterwards both Clerke and Clarke, in which it continued till about the latter end of the reign of king Edward I. when Henry le Clerc leaving no issue male, Susan his daughter and heir carried it, with much other inheritance, in marriage to Sir Simon de Woodchurch, whose descendants, out of gratitude for such increase of fortune, altered their paternal name from Woodchurch to Clerke, and in several of their deeds subsequent to this marriage, were written Clerke, alias Woodchurch. They resided at Woodchurch till Humphry Clerke, esq. removed hither in Henry VIII.'s reign. (fn. 3) His son Humphry Clerke, about the end of queen Elizabeth's reign, sold this manor to John Taylor, son of John Taylor, of Willesborough, who afterwards resided here. His son John Taylor, gent. of Winchelsea, alienated it, about the beginning of king Charles I.'s reign, to Edward Wightwick, gent. descended of a family originally of Staffordshire, who bore for their arms, Argent, on a chevron, argent, between three pheons, or, as many crosses patee, gules, granted in 1613. He afterwards resided here, as did his descendants, till at length Humphry Wightwick, gent. about the beginning of king George II.'s reign removed to New Romney, of which town and port he was jurat, in whose descendants this manor became afterwards vested in several undivided shares. At length Mr. William Whitwick, the only surviving son of Humphry, having purchased his mother's life estate in it, as well as the shares of his brother Martin's children, lately sold the whole property of it to Mr. Swaffer, the present possessor and occupier of it.
WEST HALKS, usually called West Hawks, is a manor, situated near the western bounds of this parish, being held of the manor of Kenardington; it formerly was the residence of a family of the name of Halk, who bore on their seals a fess, between three bawks, and sometimes only one, and were of no contemptible account, as appears by old pedigrees and writings, in which they are represented as gentlemen for above three hundred years. Sampson de Halk, gent. died possessed of this manor about the year 1360, and held besides much other land at Petham and the adjoining parishes; but about the latter end of king Henry VI.'s reign, this manor had passed from this family into that of Taylor, in which name it continued till the latter end of king Henry VII. when it was alienated to Clerc, whose descendant Humphry Clerke, esq. about the end of queen Elizabeth's reign, passed it away to Robert Honywood, esq, of Charing, who settled it on his fourth son by his second marriage Colonel Honywood. How long it continued in his descendants, I cannot learn; but it has been for some length of time in the name of Eaton, of. Essex, Mr. Henry Eaton being the present owner of it.
Charities.
HUMPHRY CLARKE, gent. of this parish, left by will in 1637, a parcel of land, called Pightland, containing about three acres, in the eastern part of this parish, for the benefit of the poor of it.
MRS. ELIZABETH MAY, in 1721, gave by will 9l. every third year, chargeable on Bilham farm, to be paid, clear of all deductions, to this parish in turn, during a term of years therein mentioned, to be applied yearly towards the binding out a child an apprentice, of the poorest people in three parishes in turn, as has been already mentioned more at large under Sevington. One girl only has as yet been put out apprentice from this charity, by this parish.
The number of poor constanly relieved are about twentyfive, casually twelve.
KINGSNOTH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Limne.
The church, which is dedicated to St. Michael, is small, consisting only of one isle and one chancel, having a square tower steeple at the west end, in which are five bells. In the isle is an antient gravestone, coffin-shaped, with old French capitals round it, now illegible. In the chancel is a stone, with an inscription on it in brass, for Thomas Umfrey, rector, no date; and a monument for Thomas Reader, A. M. son of Thomas Reader, gent. of Bower, in Maidstone, obt. 1740. Against the north wall is the tomb of Humphry Clarke, esq. made of Bethersden marble, having the figures of him and his wife remaining in brass on it, and underneath four sons and five daughters. Over the tomb, in an arch in the wall, is an inscription to his memory, set up by his daughter's son Sir Martin Culpeper, over it are the arms of Clarke, Two pales wavy, ermine, impaling Mayney. In the glass of the south window of the isle are several heads remaining, and in the north-west window the figure of St. Michael with the dragon. The north chancel fell down about thirty years ago. It belonged to the manor of Mumfords, and in it were interred the Wightwicks, owners of that manor; the gravestones of them, nine in number, yet remain in the church-yard, shut out from the church; and on one next to theirs, formerly within this chancel, is the figure of a knight in armour, with a lion under his feet, and an inscription in brass, for Sir William Parker, son of William Parker, esq. citizen and mercer of London, obt. 1421; arms, On a fess, three balls.
The advowson of the rectory of this church was formerly parcel of the possessions of the priory of Christ-church, and at the dissolution of it in the 31st year of Henry VIII. came into the king's hands, where it remained till that king in his 34th year, granted it in exchange, among other premises, to archbp. Cranmer, (fn. 4) who did not keep it long; for four years afterwards, he reconveyed it, with the consent of his chapter, back again to the king, (fn. 5) who soon afterwards granted it to Sir John Baker, one of his council, and chancellor of his first-fruits and tenths, who died possessed of the manor of East Kingsnoth, together with the advowson of this church, in the year 1558, in whose descendants it continued down to Sir John Baker, bart. who in the reign of king Charles I. alienated it, with that manor, to Mr. Nathaniel Powell. Since which this advowson has continued in the like succession of ownership with that manor, as may be seen more fully in the account of it before, to the present patron of it, William Stacy Coast, esq. now of Sevenoke.
There was formerly a pension of forty shillings payable from this church to the abbot of Battel.
¶This rectory is valued in the king's books at 11l. 9s. 9½d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 2s. 11¼d. In 1578 it was valued at sixty pounds, communicants one hundred. In 1640 it was valued at fifty pounds only, and there were the like number of communicants. It is now worth about one hundred and forty pounds per annum. The rector takes no tithes of wood below the hill southward. There are about seventeen acres of glebe land.
www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol7/pp583-592
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There has been a Church in Kingsnorth from Saxon Times but the present building probably dates from the 11thC. There are examples of 13thC and 14thC stained glass remaining in some of the windows. The chancel was rebuilt in the 18thC following a storm and the two side chapels were demolished at this time. Major restoration was carried out in the 19thC at which time the stained glass in the East Window was installed. At this time and again in the 1920s work was carried out to try and cure the problem of rising damp due to the high water table. In 2006 major restoration was once again required and in addition to repairs to the tower and external stonework it was decided that an extension would be built on the site of the old chantry chapel on the north side of the building and that the interior of the church would be re-ordered. This involved digging out the interior of the church and laying a new suspended floor to try and cure the problem of the rising damp (This has been largely successful). The old pews and choir stalls were replaced with modern stackable pews to enable a more flexible use of the space, new lighting and a new heating system was installed. This has resulted in a light airy user friendly building. At the back of the church a glass screen was erected forming a separate area. This provides a space where parents can take their children if they become restless during the services. The ground floor of the extension consists of a large meeting room with kitchenette plus toilet. On the first floor there is a choir vestry and church office. There are currently plans to install a second toilet on this floor. On the second floor there is a further small meeting room and a store room.
And there was I thinking that I had caught up with the shots I had taken over the summer. But then I remembered the glass. The glass of Canterbury Cathedral.
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Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion; the archbishop, being suitably occupied with national and international matters, delegates the most of his functions as diocesan bishop to the Bishop suffragan of Dover. Its formal title is the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Christ at Canterbury.
Founded in 597, the cathedral was completely rebuilt from 1070 to 1077. The east end was greatly enlarged at the beginning of the twelfth century, and largely rebuilt in the Gothic style following a fire in 1174, with significant eastward extensions to accommodate the flow of pilgrims visiting the shrine of Thomas Becket, the archbishop who was murdered in the cathedral in 1170. The Norman nave and transepts survived until the late fourteenth century, when they were demolished to make way for the present structures.
Christianity had started to become powerful in the Roman Empire around the third century. Following the conversion of Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century, the influence of Christianity grew steadily .[2] The cathedral's first archbishop was Augustine of Canterbury, previously abbot of St. Andrew's Benedictine Abbey in Rome. He was sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 596 as a missionary to the Anglo-Saxons. Augustine founded the cathedral in 597 and dedicated it to Jesus Christ, the Holy Saviour.[3]
Augustine also founded the Abbey of St. Peter and Paul outside the city walls. This was later rededicated to St. Augustine himself and was for many centuries the burial place of the successive archbishops. The abbey is part of the World Heritage Site of Canterbury, along with the cathedral and the ancient Church of St Martin.
Bede recorded that Augustine reused a former Roman church. The oldest remains found during excavations beneath the present nave in 1993 were, however, parts of the foundations of an Anglo-Saxon building, which had been constructed across a Roman road.[5][6] They indicate that the original church consisted of a nave, possibly with a narthex, and side-chapels to the north and south. A smaller subsidiary building was found to the south-west of these foundations.[6] During the ninth or tenth century this church was replaced by a larger structure (49 m. by 23 m.) with a squared west end. It appears to have had a square central tower.[6] The eleventh century chronicler Eadmer, who had known the Saxon cathedral as a boy, wrote that, in its arrangement, it resembled St Peter's in Rome, indicating that it was of basilican form, with an eastern apse.[7]
During the reforms of Dunstan, archbishop from 960 until his death in 988,[8] a Benedictine abbey named Christ Church Priory was added to the cathedral. But the formal establishment as a monastery seems to date only to c.997 and the community only became fully monastic from Lanfranc's time onwards (with monastic constitutions addressed by him to prior Henry). Dunstan was buried on the south side of the high altar.
The cathedral was badly damaged during Danish raids on Canterbury in 1011. The Archbishop, Alphege, was taken hostage by the raiders and eventually killed at Greenwich on 19 April 1012, the first of Canterbury's five martyred archbishops. After this a western apse was added as an oratory of St. Mary, probably during the archbishopric of Lyfing (1013–1020) or Aethelnoth (1020–1038).
The 1993 excavations revealed that the new western apse was polygonal, and flanked by hexagonal towers, forming a westwork. It housed the archbishop's throne, with the altar of St Mary just to the east. At about the same time that the westwork was built, the arcade walls were strengthened and towers added to the eastern corners of the church.
The cathedral was destroyed by fire in 1067, a year after the Norman Conquest. Rebuilding began in 1070 under the first Norman archbishop, Lanfranc (1070–77). He cleared the ruins and reconstructed the cathedral to a design based closely on that of the Abbey of St. Etienne in Caen, where he had previously been abbot, using stone brought from France.[9] The new church, its central axis about 5m south of that of its predecessor,[6] was a cruciform building, with an aisled nave of nine bays, a pair of towers at the west end, aiseless transepts with apsidal chapels, a low crossing tower, and a short choir ending in three apses. It was dedicated in 1077.[10]
The Norman cathedral, after its expansion by Ernulf and Conrad.
Under Lanfranc's successor Anselm, who was twice exiled from England, the responsibility for the rebuilding or improvement of the cathedral's fabric was largely left in the hands of the priors.[11] Following the election of Prior Ernulf in 1096, Lanfranc's inadequate east end was demolished, and replaced with an eastern arm 198 feet long, doubling the length of the cathedral. It was raised above a large and elaborately decorated crypt. Ernulf was succeeded in 1107 by Conrad, who completed the work by 1126.[12] The new choir took the form of a complete church in itself, with its own transepts; the east end was semicircular in plan, with three chapels opening off an ambulatory.[12] A free standing campanile was built on a mound in the cathedral precinct in about 1160.[13]
As with many Romanesque church buildings, the interior of the choir was richly embellished.[14] William of Malmesbury wrote: "Nothing like it could be seen in England either for the light of its glass windows, the gleaming of its marble pavements, or the many-coloured paintings which led the eyes to the panelled ceiling above."[14]
Though named after the sixth century founding archbishop, The Chair of St. Augustine, the ceremonial enthronement chair of the Archbishop of Canterbury, may date from the Norman period. Its first recorded use is in 1205.
Martyrdom of Thomas Becket
Image of Thomas Becket from a stained glass window
The 12th-century choir
A pivotal moment in the history of the cathedral was the murder of the archbishop, Thomas Becket, in the north-west transept (also known as the Martyrdom) on Tuesday, 29 December 1170, by knights of King Henry II. The king had frequent conflicts with the strong-willed Becket and is said to have exclaimed in frustration, "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" The knights took it literally and murdered Becket in his own cathedral. Becket was the second of four Archbishops of Canterbury who were murdered (see also Alphege).
The posthumous veneration of Becket made the cathedral a place of pilgrimage. This brought both the need to expand the cathedral and the wealth that made it possible.
Rebuilding of the choir
Tomb of the Black Prince
In September 1174 the choir was severely damaged by fire, necessitating a major reconstruction,[15] the progress of which was recorded in detail by a monk named Gervase.[16] The crypt survived the fire intact,[17] and it was found possible to retain the outer walls of the choir, which were increased in height by 12 feet (3.7 m) in the course of the rebuilding, but with the round-headed form of their windows left unchanged.[18] Everything else was replaced in the new Gothic style, with pointed arches, rib vaulting and flying buttresses. The limestone used was imported from Caen in Normandy, and Purbeck marble was used for the shafting. The choir was back in use by 1180 and in that year the remains of St Dunstan and St Alphege were moved there from the crypt.[19]
The master-mason appointed to rebuild the choir was a Frenchman, William of Sens. Following his injury in a fall from the scaffolding in 1179 he was replaced by one of his former assistants, known as "William the Englishman".
The shrine in the Trinity Chapel was placed directly above Becket's original tomb in the crypt. A marble plinth, raised on columns, supported what an early visitor, Walter of Coventry, described as "a coffin wonderfully wrought of gold and silver, and marvellously adorned with precious gems".[22] Other accounts make clear that the gold was laid over a wooden chest, which in turn contained an iron-bound box holding Becket's remains.[23] Further votive treasures were added to the adornments of the chest over the years, while others were placed on pedestals or beams nearby, or attached to hanging drapery.[24] For much of the time the chest (or "ferotory") was kept concealed by a wooden cover, which would be theatrically raised by ropes once a crowd of pilgrims had gathered.[21][23] Erasmus, who visited in 1512–4, recorded that, once the cover was raised, "the Prior ... pointed out each jewel, telling its name in French, its value, and the name of its donor; for the principal of them were offerings sent by sovereign princes."[25]
The income from pilgrims (such as those portrayed in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales) who visited Becket's shrine, which was regarded as a place of healing, largely paid for the subsequent rebuilding of the cathedral and its associated buildings. This revenue included the profits from the sale of pilgrim badges depicting Becket, his martyrdom, or his shrine.
The shrine was removed in 1538. Henry VIII summoned the dead saint to court to face charges of treason. Having failed to appear, he was found guilty in his absence and the treasures of his shrine were confiscated, carried away in two coffers and twenty-six carts.
Monastic buildings
Cloisters
A bird's-eye view of the cathedral and its monastic buildings, made in about 1165[27] and known as the "waterworks plan" is preserved in the Eadwine Psalter in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.[28] It shows that Canterbury employed the same general principles of arrangement common to all Benedictine monasteries, although, unusually, the cloister and monastic buildings were to the north, rather than the south of the church. There was a separate chapter-house.[27]
The buildings formed separate groups around the church. Adjoining it, on the north side, stood the cloister and the buildings devoted to the monastic life. To the east and west of these were those devoted to the exercise of hospitality. To the north a large open court divided the monastic buildings from menial ones, such as the stables, granaries, barn, bakehouse, brew house and laundries, inhabited by the lay servants of the establishment. At the greatest possible distance from the church, beyond the precinct of the monastery, was the eleemosynary department. The almonry for the relief of the poor, with a great hall annexed, formed the paupers' hospitium.
The group of buildings devoted to monastic life included two cloisters. The great cloister was surrounded by the buildings essentially connected with the daily life of the monks,-- the church to the south, with the refectory placed as always on the side opposite, the dormitory, raised on a vaulted undercroft, and the chapter-house adjacent, and the lodgings of the cellarer, responsible for providing both monks and guests with food, to the west. A passage under the dormitory lead eastwards to the smaller or infirmary cloister, appropriated to sick and infirm monks.[27]
The hall and chapel of the infirmary extended east of this cloister, resembling in form and arrangement the nave and chancel of an aisled church. Beneath the dormitory, overlooking the green court or herbarium, lay the "pisalis" or "calefactory," the common room of the monks. At its north-east corner access was given from the dormitory to the necessarium, a building in the form of a Norman hall, 145 ft (44 m) long by 25 broad (44.2 m × 7.6 m), containing fifty-five seats. It was constructed with careful regard to hygiene, with a stream of water running through it from end to end.[27]
A second smaller dormitory for the conventual officers ran from east to west. Close to the refectory, but outside the cloisters, were the domestic offices connected with it: to the north, the kitchen, 47 ft (14 m) square (200 m2), with a pyramidal roof, and the kitchen court; to the west, the butteries, pantries, etc. The infirmary had a small kitchen of its own. Opposite the refectory door in the cloister were two lavatories, where the monks washed before and after eating.
[27]
Priors of Christ Church Priory included John of Sittingbourne (elected 1222, previously a monk of the priory) and William Chillenden, (elected 1264, previously monk and treasurer of the priory).[29] The monastery was granted the right to elect their own prior if the seat was vacant by the pope, and — from Gregory IX onwards — the right to a free election (though with the archbishop overseeing their choice). Monks of the priory have included Æthelric I, Æthelric II, Walter d'Eynsham, Reginald fitz Jocelin (admitted as a confrater shortly before his death), Nigel de Longchamps and Ernulf. The monks often put forward candidates for Archbishop of Canterbury, either from among their number or outside, since the archbishop was nominally their abbot, but this could lead to clashes with the king and/or pope should they put forward a different man — examples are the elections of Baldwin of Forde and Thomas Cobham.
Early in the fourteenth century, Prior Eastry erected a stone choir screen and rebuilt the chapter house, and his successor, Prior Oxenden inserted a large five-light window into St Anselm's chapel. [30]
The cathedral was seriously damaged by an earthquake of 1382, losing its bells and campanile.
From the late fourteenth century the nave and transepts were rebuilt, on the Norman foundations in the Perpendicular style under the direction of the noted master mason Henry Yevele.[31] In contrast to the contemporary rebuilding of the nave at Winchester, where much of the existing fabric was retained and remodelled, the piers were entirely removed, and replaced with less bulky Gothic ones, and the old aisle walls completely taken down except for a low "plinth" left on the south side. [32][6] More Norman fabric was retained in the transepts, especially in the east walls,[32] and the old apsidal chapels were not replaced until the mid-15th century.[30] The arches of the new nave arcade were exceptionally high in proportion to the clerestory.[30] The new transepts, aisles and nave were roofed with lierne vaults, enriched with bosses. Most of the work was done during the priorate of Thomas Chillenden (1391–1411): Chillenden also built a new choir screen at the east end of the nave, into which Eastry's existing screen was incorporated.[30] The Norman stone floor of the nave, however survived until its replacement in 1786.
From 1396 the cloisters were repaired and remodelled by Yevele's pupil Stephen Lote who added the lierne vaulting. It was during this period that the wagon-vaulting of the chapter house was created.
A shortage of money, and the priority given to the rebuilding of the cloisters and chapter-house meant that the rebuilding of the west towers was neglected. The south-west tower was not replaced until 1458, and the Norman north-west tower survived until 1834, when it was replaced by a replica of its Perpendicular companion.[30]
In about 1430 the south transept apse was removed to make way for a chapel, founded by Lady Margaret Holland and dedicated to St Michael and All Angels. The north transept apse was replaced by a Lady Chapel, built in 1448–55.[30]
The 235-foot crossing tower was begun in 1433, although preparations had already been made during Chillenden's priorate, when the piers had been reinforced. Further strengthening was found necessary around the beginning of the sixteenth century, when buttressing arches were added under the southern and western tower arches. The tower is often known as the "Angel Steeple", after a gilded angel that once stood on one of its pinnacles.
Chocolate Milk Is Good For Boxer - The Video Chocolate Milk - Cocoa Puffs TV Commercial Great Chocolate milk is sweetened cocoa-flavored milk It Is Good By: Chocolate Milk Rap Parody Displaying search results for Kinder Chocolate (Consumer Product) the number of total video 129386 Three-time IRONMAN world champion Craig Alexander featured in three new ads in the BUILT WITH CHOCOLATE MILK campaign carmelo anthony talks about his 'after' in this 30 second got chocolate milk? The Video Chocolate Milk - Cocoa Puffs TV Commercial Great 00:0:15 Chocolate milk has between 8 and 12 additional grams of sugar added · It Is Good By: Chocolate Milk Posts about Kinder Chocolate (Consumer Product) written by magictoysclub The new Built with Chocolate Milk campaign, the flavored, mustache-free sister of Got Milk The Video Chocolate Milk - Cocoa Puffs Tv Commercial Great (File : 3Gp, Flv, Mp4, WBEM, Mp3) Downing chocolate milk after a tough workout can help replenish exhausted muscles and significantly aid exercise recovery, new research shows It Is Good By: Chocolate Milk Duration: FEDER - Goodbye)) Duration: George Carlin - on airlines and flying Download and play online Kinder Chocolate (Consumer Product) Videos To mp3, mp4, 3gp, flv to your mobile phone, android, iphone, blackberry, tablet "Built With Chocolate Milk" partners with high-profile athletes, but that's not the only reason why its social media is successful Subscribe For More Boxing News: www.youtube.com/channel/UCsQQHa5xRhniFMFMw7O3RHQ youtu.be/z_x7TFBvSNA
Dalkeith Palace is situated just five miles from Edinburgh’s city centre at the stunning Dalkeith Country Park. The Palace architecture and surrounding area are wonderful and, although it is not possible to see the interior, they are worth a visit alone. Furthermore, the Park is currently undergoing an exciting redevelopment project which started in summer 2016. You can read more about this on Dalkeith Country Park’s website.
Dalkeith Palace was built in 1702 on the site of an earlier Castle and until the 1920s was the principal seat of the Montagu Douglas Scott family in Scotland. The Palace was the creation of Anna Scott, the 1st Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch’s widow, who employed James Smith, Scotland’s leading architect in classical style at the time. Modelled on William of Orange’s palace in the Netherlands, Het Loo, no expense was spared as huge quantities of marble were important and engravings were done by Grinling Gibbons.
After Anna passed away, Dalkeith was further developed with a bridge by Robert Adam and a fine Stableblock. Fortunately, the dramatic neo-Jacobean makeover planned by William Burn in the 1820s never got beyond the stage of an elaborate model.
Dalkeith Palace has not been lived in by the Buccleuch family since 1914, and in 1920 the palace gardens and glasshouses were let as market gardens. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Dalkeith Palace was used as a research and development office by the computer firm International Computers Ltd. (ICL), which leased the Palace until 1983. From 1985 it was leased to the University of Wisconsin system for a study abroad programme. Approximately 60-80 students a semester lived in the palace, where they also took classes from UK and US faculty members. The University and Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust announced in July 2020 that the lease would end in January 2021
Easter is about spring, first flowers, lamb, chocolate, eggs ... well this year Easter was very early and it was as cold as in January or December. It even snowed a week before. It inspired me a few images. Happy Easter everyone.
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A Pâques sont souvent associés les premiers rayons de soleil, des petites fleurs, des oeufs en chocolats, des poussins ... Cette année, en Angleterre, où j'habite, rien de tel. Il fait aussi froid qu'en Décembre ou Janvier ; il a même neigé la semaine avant Pâques. Ceçi m'a inspiré une série d'images. Je vous souhaite de passer de Joyeuses Fêtes de Pâques.
This is one of many, many, hallways of this Asylum that have things about them, that are not normal. My sister and I were looking about without any issues at all, when up on the third floor I lit a cigarette. Immediatly we heard foot steps. We thought somebody else was inside the building. Fear ran over us. Were we caught? Panic shivered through our shoulders and fingers, down to our toes. The foot steps were getting louder. We decided to take refuge in a closet. About a minute into our hiding spot, my sister pointed out that the foot steps were coming from all around us. We both agreed there wasn't a human in the building with us. Our fear subsided, and we continued with our investigation of this building.
The challenge for Saturday 6th July is a triptych, of the same subject but maybe from different angles, or of three connected subjects. I’ve gone for something of both, three views of different aspects of the same subject, and connected by virtue of the subject being a row of shops. In the 1920’s, when Old Coulsdon was being transformed from a scattered farming community into a dormitory suburb of outer London, the planners wanted to keep the ‘village’ atmosphere as a selling feature, so their idea was to call it the ‘Tudor Village’ with its new buildings having traditional ‘Olde Worlde’ looks. It’s a style that’s been described rather caustically as ‘Tudorbethan’, and how far the planners succeeded - or failed? - in their mission you can maybe judge from this triptych.
The businesses along here include:
> The Curry Leaf - smaller than it looks, but it serves superb Indian cuisine,
> Torio’s - my regular friendly hairdresser; in fact I was there on Wednesday,
> Holmes Pharmacy - where I pick up my repeat prescriptions nowadays,
> TheTudor Bakery - ah, that lovely scent of fresh-baked bread!.
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😃 As always, thank you very much for any 💬s or ⭐️s you might like to give!
Various Artists
Wednesday 6 - Friday 8 November, Check listing for times
Various Locations
Various Locations
Street Talks is a series of quickfire public talks, part of the Re@ct: Social Change Art Technology Symposium. Rather than your typical poster session, these talks will take place on the streets of Dundee in various locations. Free speech is essential to political and social change – these artists are quite literally taking it to the streets to share their creative practices.
Luisa Charles & Elke Reinhuber –Wednesday 6th November, 2pm, Slessor Gardens
Luisa Charles – discusses the intersections of disability and design, and how novel bespoke design practices could offer a solution to designing for all needs, where universal design could not. These design ideologies, that include co-design, individual centred design, mass customisation, and mass personalisation, are exemplified by case studies from pop culture design media, such as the Fixperts and BBC’s Big Life Fix. She analyses the social, technological, and economical shifts that are required for these practices to become mainstream, and the capability of bespoke design to cause enough disruption within the design economy to create a shift in capitalism.
Elke Reinhuber – The Urban Beautician moved recently from the speckless city state of Singapore, where she already developed her retirement plans, across the South China Sea, to protest-ridden Hong Kong. There, she observed how much effort the cleaners put up to keep these megapolises scrubbed and tidy. As they are frequently overlooked, the Urban Beautician captured some of them during their relentless daily routine. While they have adapted themselves to their particular duties, their skills are hardly ever honoured or even acknowledged. Paying homage to their Sisyphean challenge, they can be positioned now anywhere through Augmented Reality and venerated as perpetualised sculptures of our everyday heroes.The Urban Beautician tries to improve neglected details in our urban environment with interventions in public space and performances to camera. Since more than a decade she cares for things most people are oblivious to.
Ibarieze Abani and Daisy Abbott & Anders Zanichkowsky – Thursday 7th November, 1:30pm, Albert Square, by McManus Gallery Steps
Ibarieze Abani and Daisy Abbott – Transmedia storytelling uses multiple delivery channels to convey a narrative in order to provide a more immersive entertainment experience (Jenkins, 2009). Transmedia activism can be very broadly defined as using storytelling to “effect social change by engaging multiple stakeholders on multiple platforms to collaborate toward appropriate, community-led social action” (Srivastava, 2009). Activism depends on participation and collaboration within a community to avoid unsustainable or inappropriate top-down interventions. A similar concept, transmedia mobilization, uses transmedia storytelling to engage “the social base of a movement in participatory media making practices across multiple platforms” (Constanza-Chock, 2013) and also requires interaction from diverse voices from within the community.
Anders Zanichkowsky –“I Am in Your Hands: Smartphones and the erotics of the future”Social media artist and queer anarchist Anders Zanichkowsky will present excerpts and reflections from his current Grindr project, “Queen of Hearts,” as well as other recent projects reading Tarot cards on hookup apps and go-go dancing for a remote audience on Instagram. During this talk, Anders will use the same social media platforms that are the subject of his presentation, inviting you into the theory behind the work, and into the work itself. Equal parts cultural criticism, performance art, and experimental public speaking, this street talk will level the hierarchy of physical presence over virtual appearance, and scandalously suggest how thirst traps and sexting with strangers can indeed point us towards a radical future of queer intimacy and counterculture.
Mohammad Namazi & Matteo Preabianca – Friday 8th November, 1:30pm, Wellgate Centre, Victoria Road entrance
Mohammad Namazi – An Archive of Audio Disobedience, intervenes into the public realm, and collaborates with individuals, to construct a live-event. The event manifests through utilising a net-based sound archive, capable of involving participants in a collective form of sound-action, -publication, -demonstration, -performance, and -play.
The archive comprises various audio effects, sound segments, words, and computer-generated speeches – to stage a critical symphony, rooted in and derived from, socio-political concerns.
Matteo Preabianca – Mantra Marx is the eighth album for the NonMiPiaceIlCirco! Project. NonMiPiaceIlCirco! is a musical project that has been on since 2004, the year of the first album. Since then, the line-up has been in a constant change, with Matteo Preabianca the only member from the beginning. So they took The Capital from the shelf to read again. But who remembers it, especially young people? Let’s get rid of guitars and songs to give a didactic approach to the music. 25 tracks, one for each of the First Book’s 25 chapters. They use the lyrics as Hinduist mantras, where repetition is the key for a deep understanding of our life, and Marx as well. Its music, besides being lo-fi and badly made, is just an excuse. The lyrics are a summarized version of the aforementioned book, spoken by 25 different Mandarin native voices, completely unaware of the reason behind the recording. Still time to die as a Marxist(?). Developed and recorded in China.
About the Artists
Daisy Abbott is an interdisciplinary researcher and research developer based in the School of Simulation and Visualisation at The Glasgow School of Art. Daisy’s current research focusses on game-based learning, 3D visualisation, and issues surrounding digital interaction, documentation, preservation, and interpretation in the arts and humanities. She also collaborates with artists on works aiming to explore the nature of digital interactivity and digital art.
Luisa Charles is an interaction designer, multidisciplinary artist, and filmmaker. Having been exhibited in the Science Museum, Science Gallery London, London Design Festival, and various film festivals, amongst others, her work spans many themes across science and technology, social politics, and personal narratives. She specialises in installation design and physical computing, experience design, fabrication, and videography, and her work often comes under the umbrella of speculative and critical design. Her work focuses heavily on research processes, and forms itself organically through investigation and experimentation.
Ibarieze Abani is a recent Masters graduate in Serious Games and Virtual Reality at the Glasgow School of Art, where she has carried out projects about cultural heritage, gender inequality, transmedia storytelling and climate policy. She is an advocate of the capabilities of interactive digital media as a tool for opening up dialogues surrounding large scale themes such as climate justice, social justice and intersectionality. She has a keen interest in working with people using digital media to make meaningful and tangible differences on a societal scale.
Mohammad Namazi (b. 1981. Tehran) is an artist, educator and researcher based in London. Mohammad works through means of de-construction, collaboration, process, unlearning, and telematics systems within social and cultural realms. The studio operates as a research-lab for inter-disciplinary projects that can span video, sound, liveevents, graphics, photography, sculptural structures, and internet-based projects. He received his doctorate from UAL research in 2019, and currently teaches as visiting lecturer at Wimbledon, and Chelsea College of Arts. Mohammad is a member of research cluster Critical Practice.
Matteo Preabianca- Music and Languages…Music and Languages? How come? Matteo starts playing violin when he was a child, but he did not like it, especially when he tried to beat it on the table. It did not make any good sound. So, better drumming, right? Meanwhile playing and spending a lot his mum’s money to buy records he realised even speaking other languages was not so bad. Especially when he invented his own. Step by step, he turned into a music and languages teacher.
Elke Reinhuber is not your average artist, because she became a specialist on choice, decision making and counterfactual thoughts in media arts. Currently, Reinhuber teaches and researches at the School of Creative Media, CityU Hing Kong and is affiliated with the School of Art, Design and Media at NTU in Singapore. In her artistic practice, she investigates on the correlation between decisions and emotions and explores different strategies of visualisation and presentation, working with immersive environments, mixed reality, imaging technologies and performance. In addition, her alter ego, the ‘Urban Beautician’ is pursuing a life which Elke didn’t follow.
Anders Zanickowsky is an American artist and activist who uses platforms like Grindr and Instagram as actual sites for performances about desire, uncertainty, and vulnerability. He is committed to José Esteban Muñoz’s concept of queer futurity in which artists refuse the oppressive confines of the present and reach instead towards what can only be imagined. He has an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2019) and was a resident with The Arctic Circle program in Svalbard (2016). Since 2008 he has worked in movements for housing justice, prison abolition, and HIV/AIDS.
Photography Kathryn Rattray
I've made quite a lot out of jeans fabric over the past few weeks and this is one of those projects. The jeans got a bleaching treatment and was dark blue before, by the way ; ).
"A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching."
...Sivananda
Antelope Canyon is one of those places that looks like it was dreamed up by an artist. Tucked on Navajo Nation land near Page, Arizona, this narrow slot canyon feels like walking through a flowing sculpture of red, orange, and purple sandstone. The walls twist and ripple in smooth waves, carved out over thousands of years by powerful flash floods that still roar through here during monsoon season. It’s narrow enough in spots that you can touch both sides at once, and the light filtering down from above creates these magical glowing patterns on the rock—like nature putting on a private light show just for you.
The Navajo name for the canyon is Tsé bighánílíní, which means “the place where water runs through rocks,” and it’s considered a sacred spot where the physical and spiritual worlds meet. According to tradition, it was shaped by the Holy People, and older stories tell of a mischievous coyote who opened a doorway to another realm—sometimes you can still hear echoes that sound like his laughter bouncing through the passages. The English name comes from the pronghorn antelope that once grazed nearby in the winter. These days, you can only visit with a guided tour (which is actually pretty great because the Navajo guides share real stories and make sure everyone stays safe), and it’s especially famous for those dramatic light beams that pour in during the middle of the day in the warmer months. It’s the kind of place that makes you slow down and just soak it all in.
20191010-2582
Deze week is de nieuwe naam bekend gemaakt.
Het wordt AMARE
Het schiet toch aardig op met de bouw. Ik kan me niet voorstellen dat het nog bijna 2 jaar gaat duren voordat dit complex in gebruik genomen kan worden.
In dit album "Amare" staan alle foto's die ik tot nu toe gemaakt heb van het bouwproces. Inmiddels 138 foto's inclusief deze. Ik ben hiermee begonnen in 2018, week 14 en blijf hiermee doorgaan tot aan de opening.
All images are copyrighted by Pieter Musterd. If you want to use or buy any of my photographs, contact me. It is not allowed to download them or use them on any websites, blogs etc. etc. without my permission If you want a translation into your own language, please try "Google Translate".
Moldova - Cricova winery.
Cricova is a national treasure and the most well known wineries in Moldova. It is the second largest underground wine cellar in the country, after Milestii Mici.
Cricova boasts nearly 120 km of underground tunnels that are large enough for vehicles to drive through. At the deepest point, the tunnels are 100 m below the ground. The tunnels were created when limestone blocks were excavated to help build Chisinau. It was converted into an underground wine cellar in the 1950s.
The natural limestone helps to maintain a constant temperature of 12-14 C (54-57 F) and humidity of 97-98%, creating optimal conditions for storing wine. Half of the tunnels in the cellar are used for this purpose. The tunnels are named after the wines kept there.
Cricova has a huge collection of more than 1 million vintage wines, including French, Italian, and Spanish wines, and samples from many other countries.
Cricova also has a more limited collection of rare and unique wines, some of which are owned by famous people such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. The oldest wine is from 1902, Jewish Easter Wine, and the oldest bottle of liqueur, Yan Bekher Liqueur, is from the same year. Nazi General Goring’s private collection of wine is also there; brought to Moldova by the general during WW II to be close to him at the Eastern front.
At the heart of the cellar are lavishly decorated themed banquet halls and tasting rooms, all recently renovated. Here guests can enjoy fine white, rosé, and red wines, old collection wines, and sparkling wines, the pride of the winery. Cricova is the largest sparkling wine producer in Moldova, making it according to the traditional champenoise method. Cricova offers daily tours and tastings for visitors. Tour packages range from basic tastings with simple snacks to large tastings with a full meal and souvenir. It is difficult to visit unannounced, so guests should book their visit in advance. However, the winery recently opened a new restaurant, Orasul Subterean, that accepts walk-in guests.
HMS Cavalier is a retired C-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was laid down by J. Samuel White and Company at East Cowes on 28 March 1943, launched on 7 April 1944, and commissioned on 22 November 1944. She served in World War II and in various commissions in the Far East until she was decommissioned in 1972. After decommissioning she was preserved as a museum ship and currently resides at Chatham Historic Dockyard.
Construction
Cavalier was one of 96 War Emergency Programme destroyers ordered between 1940 and 1942. She was one of the first ships to be built with the forward and aft portions of her hull welded, with the midsection riveted to ensure strength. The new process gave the ship additional speed. In 1970 a 64-mile race was arranged between Cavalier and the frigate Rapid, which had the same hull form and machinery. Cavalier beat Rapid by 30 yards (27 m) after Rapid lifted a safety valve, reaching an average speed of 31.8 knots (58.9 km/h).
Service history
Cavalier returning to Portsmouth in 1946
After commissioning she joined the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, part of the Home Fleet, and took part in a number of operations off Norway. Most notably in February 1945 she was despatched with the destroyers Myngs and Scorpion[5] to reinforce a convoy from the Kola Inlet in Russia, which had suffered attacks from enemy aircraft and U-boats, and had subsequently been scattered by a violent storm. She and the other escorts reformed the convoy, and returned to Britain with the loss of only three of the thirty-four ships. This action earned Cavalier a battle honour.
Later in 1945 Cavalier was despatched to the Far East, where she provided naval gunfire support during the Battle of Surabaya. In February 1946 she went to Bombay to help quell the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny. After some time in the British Pacific Fleet she was paid off in May 1946 and was placed in reserve at Portsmouth.
Cavalier returned to service in 1957 after a modernisation, which included removing some of her torpedo tubes in favour of Squid anti-submarine mortars. She was again sent to the Far East, and joined the 8th Destroyer Squadron in Singapore. In December 1962 she transported 180 troops from Singapore to Brunei to help suppress a rebellion that became part of the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation. After disembarking the troops she remained in Brunei as a communications centre for several days until other Royal Navy ships arrived to relieve her.
Cavalier was decommissioned in 1972 along with HMS Wellington (moored in London), and is the last surviving British destroyer of World War 2 still in the UK.
After decommissioning[edit]
After decommissioning at Chatham Dockyard, she was laid up in Portsmouth. As a unique survivor, after a five-year campaign led by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the ship was purchased by the Cavalier Trust for £65,000 and handed over on Trafalgar Day 1977 in Portsmouth. By selling the ship to the Trust, the UK Government and the Royal Navy severed all formal connection and responsibility for the ship. A special warrant was issued that allows her to retain the prefix "HMS" (Her Majesty's Ship) and fly the White Ensign, a privilege normally only enjoyed by commissioned ships of the Royal Navy. A similar privilege is enjoyed by another museum ship, the cruiser Belfast.
Moved to Southampton, Cavalier opened as a museum and memorial ship in August 1982. This was not commercially successful, and in October 1983 the ship was moved to Brighton, where she formed the centrepiece of a newly built yacht marina.
In 1987, the ship was brought to the River Tyne to form the centrepiece of a national shipbuilding exhibition centre planned by South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council in the former shipyard of Hawthorn Leslie and Company, builders of many similar destroyers. The plans for the museum came to nothing, and the borough council, faced with annual maintenance costs of £30,000 and a hardening of public opinion against unnecessary expenditure, resolved to sell the ship and wind up the venture in 1996. The ship sat in a dry dock (owing to a previous list) in a rusting condition, awaiting a buyer or scrapping in situ.
After the reforming of the Cavalier Trust, and a debate in Parliament, in 1998 Cavalier was bought by Chatham Historic Dockyard for display as a museum ship. Arriving on 23 May 1998, Cavalier now resides in No. 2 dry-dock.
On 14 November 2007, Cavalier was officially designated as a war memorial to the 142 Royal Navy destroyers sunk during World War II and the 11,000 men killed on those ships. The unveiling of a bronze monument created by the artist Kenneth Potts was conducted by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The monument is adjacent to the ship at the Historic Dockyard in Chatham, Kent.
In the summer of 2009 the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust made available accommodation on board the ship for youth groups who wish to stay on board and experience life on board a Royal Naval Destroyer.
In September 2010, Cavalier fired the first full broadside from a ship flying the White Ensign since a firing by the destroyer London in December 1981. This was due to the work of the heritage naval gun crew who restored all three 4.5-in guns back to working condition in conjunction with the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust.
In April 2014 Cavalier was added to Google Maps Business View (formerly Google Business Photos) by CInsideMedia Ltd, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of her launch. The tour, which includes Cavalier's engine and gear room, was enhanced with interactive audio hotspots to enable visitors with accessibility issues to explore the ship.
wikipedia
This is a lovely Painted Tiger Moth (Arachnis picta, family Arctiidae) clutching a slender stem of native California Honeysuckle (Lonicera hispidula, Caprifoliaceae). I found her this morning in light rain, on front of our concrete block retaining wall. I moved the stem above the wall to get a better background, and only then discovered that she was ovipositing! See my [Previous] two photos. I hope I didn't interfere too much. Did you notice that tiny red mite walking over her hind leg? (San Marcos Pass, 2 November 2015)
We did get some rain today, but only about 1/10 inch. Most of the rain was to the north and west of us, but it was still good for the soul. It was rather cold today - in the 40s for most of the day. I know, that's not cold, but I'm spoiled because we just finished our warmest October ever in Santa Barbara, see this NWS page. (Look quick - I don't know how long these links last.)
This is the first Garfield School built in 1884 on Fifth Street between Willow and Cedar Streets at a cost of $18,650. It was named in honor of President James A. Garfield who was assassinated on September 19, 1881 after only 200 days in office. This building replaced the original Cherokee schoolhouse that had burned down on December 20, 1883. That building is thought to have been built in 1881.
The first graduating class from this school consisted of 5 students - James Pingrey, James Robertson, Roy Dickey, and twins Ada & Ella Beams.
Due to the rapid growth in the population of Cherokee, this school was soon followed by Webster School in 1891 and Lincoln High School in 1895.
Old Garfield served the Cherokee educational system for 50 years, until 1934, when it was torn down and New Garfield, a single story building, that stills stands today was built on the same site.
With its three stories and elaborate bell tower, Old Garfield was a prominent landmark on the Cherokee skyline and can be seen in many old photographs of the city.
Although this is in my From My Kitchen set, it's not technically from my own kitchen. I've been staying with my mom the past week because she broke her leg. She doesn't have much in the way of entertainment so I cooked a lot to keep boredom away. The good thing is there's a lot of markets around with fresh produce and ethnic ingredients so shopping was easy. Here's my version of Thai green curry with chicken and coconut milk. Not claiming to be authentic but I wanted something tasty, soupy, and comforting.
1 skinless boneless chicken breast trimmed of fat and cubed into 1" pieces
1 medium onion thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper thinly sliced
several white mushrooms sliced
1 medium zucchini sliced into half moons
half a can of sliced bamboo shoots
1 broccoli cut into florets and stems peeled and sliced
1 can coconut milk
2/3 can of Thai green curry paste or however much you like
small knob of ginger grated
4 cloves garlic crushed
S&B yellow curry powder
pinch of ground coriander
few splashes nam pla
Drizzle of canola oil, or vegetable oil, as long as it has a high smoking point and not strongly flavored
If you want this to be vegetarian, substitute the nam pla for soy sauce (quite a bit more soy sauce because it's less salty than nam pla) and replace the chicken with tofu, or just make it all vegetables.
In a large soup pot I sauteed the onions, peppers, garlic and ginger in the oil until the onions and peppers were soft. The curry powder and coriander went in and also cooked in the oil to release their flavor. In went the mushrooms and cooked until they got a bit of flavor.
Pushing all the vegetables to the side to expose the hot center of the pot, I dropped in the curry paste and let it cook a bit to develop deeper flavor. Then in went a little water, maybe less than half the volume of the vegetables. After bringing everything to a simmer, I added the chicken.
After about 10 minutes, I added the zucchini, broccoli, bamboo shoots, and coconut milk to the pot. The whole thing simmered, covered, for about 15 minutes over medium heat until the broccoli and zucchini were bright green and the soup had thickened a bit. After shutting off the heat, in went sprigs of cilantro and the juice of a whole lime.
I ate this over rice with more cilantro and lemon juice sprinkled all over. I could eat this everyday.
Bottle of Notes by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, unveiled in 1993 and situated in Middlesbrough Centre Square.
“In public sites, our sculptures reflect both the surroundings and their context, but through our imagination and selective perception – which is what makes them also personal” Claes Oldenburgh.
Bottle of Notes is a sculpture by internationally renowned artists and creators of public artworks, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Unveiled in 1993, it was commissioned by Middlesbrough Borough Council as the first public artwork to be installed as part of a regeneration initiative for the Tees Valley region.
Situated in Middlesbrough Centre Square, outside Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), the sculpture takes the form of a giant bottle, standing nine metres high – twice the height of a giraffe. The shape of the bottle is made from a continuous, off-white swirl of steel letters. Blue letters spiral upwards from the inside.
The artists took their inspiration from the local area’s industrial heritage, its relationship with the sea and from Captain Cook, one of the area’s most famous sons. The intricate steel lettering reflects the region’s rich heritage in steel production and fabrication. It was constructed in Hebburn, helping to provide employment for steel workers in the shipyards.
For the outside of the bottle, van Bruggen selected a line of text from Captain Cook’s Journals, written during his first voyage of exploration in the Pacific in 1769: We had every advantage we could desire in observing the whole of the passage of the planet Venus over the Sun’s disk. The text on the inside comes from a poem she wrote, ‘Recalling Amsterdam’, which links the English shore to the European continent: “I like to remember seagulls in full flight gliding over the ring of canals.”
The sculpture is positioned on a slant, to appear as if it had been left stuck in the sand by a receding wave – a giant message in a bottle to local people and the wider world.
This commission was a significant move by the Council to use arts and culture to help revitalise the region and its identity. This was a time when Middlesbrough – like many other traditionally industrial towns and cities, was experiencing a period of change and looking to the future. Initially met by local people with a mix of intrigue, genuine bewilderment and, in some cases, outright hostility, Bottle of notes has now become part of the landscape. It remains the only example in the UK to date of a public sculpture by these celebrated artists.
Oldenburgh and van Bruggen are a husband and wife team who have created monumental public art installations around the world. Their works are characterised by giant, colourful replicas of everyday objects, including a lipstick, trowel and an inverted ice-cream cone (which appears to have dropped out of the sky onto the top of a shopping mall, in Cologne).
Middlesbrough is a town in the Middlesbrough unitary authority borough of North Yorkshire, England. The town lies near the mouth of the River Tees and north of the North York Moors National Park. The built-up area had a population of 148,215 at the 2021 UK census. It is the largest town of the wider Teesside area, which had a population of 376,633 in 2011.
Until the early 1800s, the area was rural farmland in the historic county of Yorkshire. The town was a planned development which started in 1830, based around a new port with coal and later ironworks added. Steel production and ship building began in the late 1800s, remaining associated with the town until the post-industrial decline of the late twentieth century. Trade (notably through ports) and digital enterprise sectors contemporarily contribute to the local economy, Teesside University and Middlesbrough College to local education.
Middlesbrough was made a municipal borough in 1853. When elected county councils were created in 1889, Middlesbrough was considered large enough to provide its own county-level services and so it became a county borough, independent from North Riding County Council. The borough of Middlesbrough was abolished in 1968 when the area was absorbed into the larger County Borough of Teesside. Six years later in 1974 Middlesbrough was re-established as a borough within the new county of Cleveland. Cleveland was abolished in 1996, since when Middlesbrough has been a unitary authority within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire.
Middlesbrough started as a Benedictine priory on the south bank of the River Tees, its name possibly derived from it being midway between the holy sites of Durham and Whitby. The earliest recorded form of Middlesbrough's name is "Mydilsburgh", containing the term burgh.
In 686, a monastic cell was consecrated by St. Cuthbert at the request of St. Hilda, Abbess of Whitby. The manor of Middlesburgh belonged to Whitby Abbey and Guisborough Priory.[1] Robert Bruce, Lord of Cleveland and Annandale, granted and confirmed, in 1119, the church of St. Hilda of Middleburg to Whitby. Up until its closure on the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in 1537, the church was maintained by 12 Benedictine monks, many of whom became vicars, or rectors, of various places in Cleveland.
After the Angles, the area became home to Viking settlers. Names of Viking origin (with the suffix by meaning village) are abundant in the area; for example, Ormesby, Stainsby and Tollesby were once separate villages that belonged to Vikings called Orm, Steinn and Toll that are now areas of Middlesbrough were recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. Other names around Middlesbrough include the village of Maltby (of Malti) along with the towns of Ingleby Barwick (Anglo-place and barley-wick) and Thornaby (of Thormod).
Links persist in the area, often through school or road names, to now-outgrown or abandoned local settlements, such as the medieval settlement of Stainsby, deserted by 1757, which amounts to little more today than a series of grassy mounds near the A19 road.
In 1801, Middlesbrough was a small farm with a population of just 25; however, during the latter half of the 19th century, it experienced rapid growth. In 1828 the influential Quaker banker, coal mine owner and Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) shareholder Joseph Pease sailed up the River Tees to find a suitable new site downriver of Stockton on which to place new coal staithes. As a result, in 1829 he and a group of Quaker businessmen bought the Middlesbrough farmstead and associated estate, some 527 acres (213 ha) of land, and established the Middlesbrough Estate Company.
Through the company, the investors set about a new coal port development (designed by John Harris) on the southern banks of the Tees. The first coal shipping staithes at the port (known as "Port Darlington") were constructed with a settlement to the east established on the site of Middlesbrough farm as labour for the port, taking on the farm's name as it developed into a village. The small farmstead became a village of streets such as North Street, South Street, West Street, East Street, Commercial Street, Stockton Street and Cleveland Street, laid out in a grid-iron pattern around a market square, with the first house being built on West Street in April 1830. New businesses bought premises and plots of land in the new town including: shippers, merchants, butchers, innkeepers, joiners, blacksmiths, tailors, builders and painters.
The first coal shipping staithes at the port (known as "Port Darlington") were constructed just to the west of the site earmarked for the location of Middlesbrough. The port was linked to the S&DR on 27 December 1830 via a branch that extended to an area just north of the current Middlesbrough railway station, helping secure the town's future.
The success of the port meant it soon became overwhelmed by the volume of imports and exports, and in 1839 work started on Middlesbrough Dock. Laid out by Sir William Cubitt, the whole infrastructure was built by resident civil engineer George Turnbull. After three years and an expenditure of £122,000 (equivalent to £9.65 million at 2011 prices), first water was let in on 19 March 1842, and the formal opening took place on 12 May 1842. On completion, the docks were bought by the S&DR.
Iron and steel have dominated the Tees area since 1841 when Henry Bolckow in partnership with John Vaughan, founded the Vulcan iron foundry and rolling mill. Vaughan, who had worked his way up through the Iron industry in South Wales, used his technical expertise to find a more abundant supply of Ironstone in the Eston Hills in 1850, and introduced the new "Bell Hopper" system of closed blast furnaces developed at the Ebbw Vale works. These factors made the works an unprecedented success with Teesside becoming known as the "Iron-smelting centre of the world" and Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd became the largest company in existence.
By 1851 Middlesbrough's population had grown from 40 people in 1829 to 7,600. Pig iron production rose tenfold between 1851 and 1856 and by the mid-1870s Middlesbrough was producing one third of the entire nations Pig Iron output. It was during this time Middlesbrough earned the nickname "Ironopolis".
On 21 January 1853, Middlesbrough received its Royal Charter of Incorporation, giving the town the right to have a mayor, aldermen and councillors. Henry Bolckow became mayor, in 1853.
A Welsh community was established in Middlesbrough sometime before the 1840s, with mining being the main form of employment. These migrants included figures who would become important leaders in the commercial, political and cultural life of the town:
John Vaughan established Teesside's first ironworks in 1841, The Vulcan Works at Middlesbrough. Vaughan had worked his way up through the industry at the Dowlais Ironworks in south Wales and encouraged hundreds of the skilled Welsh workers to follow him to Teesside.
Edward Williams (iron-master), although he was the grandson of the famous Welsh Bard Iolo Morganwg, Edward had started as a mere clerk at Dowlais. His move to the Tees saw him rise to ironmaster, alderman, magistrate and Mayor of Middlesbrough. Edward was also the father of Aneurin and Penry, who both became Liberal MPs for the area.
E.T. John arrived from Pontypridd as a junior clerk in Williams' office. John became the director of several industrial enterprises and a radical politician.
Windsor Richards, an Engineer and manager, oversaw the town's transition from iron to steel production.
Much like the contemporary Welsh migration to America, the Welsh of Middlesbrough came almost exclusively from the iron-smelting and coal districts of South Wales. By 1861 42% of the town's ironworkers identified as Welsh and one in twenty of the total population. Place names such as "Welch Cottages" and "Welch Place" appeared around the Vulcan works, and Middlesbrough became a centre for the Welsh communities at Witton Park, Spennymoor, Consett and Stockton on Tees (especially Portrack). David Williams also recorded that a number of the Welsh workers at the Hughesovka Ironworks in 1869 had migrated from Middlesbrough.
A Welsh Baptist chapel was active in the town as early as 1858, and St Hilda's Anglican church began providing services in the Welsh language. Churches and chapels were the centres of Welsh culture, supporting choirs, Sunday Schools, social societies, adult education, lectures and literary meetings. By the 1870s, many more Welsh chapels were built (one reputed to seat 500 people), and the first Eisteddfodau were held.
By the 1880s, a "Welsh cultural revival" was underway, with the Eisteddfodau attracting competitors and spectators from outside the Welsh communities. In 1890 the Middlesbrough Town Hall hosted the first Cleveland and Durham Eisteddfod, an event notable for its non-denominational inclusivity, with Irish Catholic choirs and the bishop of the newly created Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough as honoured guests.
In the early twentieth century this Eisteddfod had become the biggest annual event in the town and the largest annual Eisteddfod outside Wales. The Eisteddfod had a clear impact on the culture of the town, especially through its literary and music events, by 1911 the Eisteddfod had twenty-two classes of musical competition only two of which were for Welsh language content. By 1914, thirty choirs from across the area were competing in 284 entries. A choral tradition remained part of the town's culture long after the eisteddfod and chapels had gone. In 2012 an exhibition at the Dorman Museum marked the Apollo Male Voice Choir's 125 years as an active choir in the town.
Industrial Wales was noted for its "radical Liberal-Labour" politics, and the rhetoric of these politicians clearly won favour with the urban population of the North East. Penry Williams and Jonathan Samuel won the seats of Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees for the Liberal Party and Penry's brother, Aneurin would also win the newly created Consett seat in 1918.
Sir Horace Davey stressed his Welsh lineage and stated that "it was scarcely an exaggeration to say that Welshmen had founded Middlesbrough", courting the Welsh vote that saw him elected MP for Stockton. However, others complained that local Conservative candidates were losing to "Fenians and Welshers" (Irish and Welsh people).
These sentiments had grown by 1900 when Samuel lost his seat after a Unionist complained publicly that the town had been "forced to submit to the indignity of being trailed ignominiously through the mire by Welsh constituents". Samuel lost the seat but regained it in 1910 with a campaign that made few, if any, references to his Welsh background.
From 1861 to 1871, the census of England & Wales showed that Middlesbrough consistently had the second highest percentage of Irish born people in England after Liverpool. The Irish population in 1861 accounted for 15.6% of the total population of Middlesbrough. In 1871 the amount had dropped to 9.2% yet this still placed Middlesbrough's Irish population second in England behind Liverpool. Due to the rapid development of the town and its industrialisation there was much need for people to work in the many blast furnaces and steel works along the banks of the Tees. This attracted many people from Ireland, who were in much need of work. As well as people from Ireland, the Scottish, Welsh and overseas inhabitants made up 16% of Middlesbrough's population in 1871. A second influx of Irish migration was observed in the early 1900s as Middlesbrough's steel industry boomed producing 1/3 of Britain's total steel output. This second influx lasted through to the 1950s after which Irish migration to Middlesbrough saw a drastic decline. Middlesbrough no longer has a strong Irish presence, with Irish born residents making up around 2% of the current population, however there is still a strong cultural and historical connection with Ireland mainly through the heritage and ancestry of many families within Middlesbrough.
The town's rapid expansion continued throughout the second half of the 19th century, fuelled by the iron and steel industry. In 1864 the North Riding Infirmary (an ear, nose and mouth hospital) opened in Newport Road; this was demolished in 2006.
On 15 August 1867, a Reform Bill was passed, making Middlesbrough a new parliamentary borough, Bolckow was elected member for Middlesbrough the following year. In 1875, Bolckow, Vaughan & Co opened the Cleveland Steelworks in Middlesbrough beginning the transition from Iron production to Steel and by the turn of the century. Henry Bolckow died in 1878 and left an endowment of £5,000 for the infirmary.
In the latter third of the 19th century, Old Middlesbrough was starting to decline and was overshadowed by developments built around the new town hall, south of the original town hall, the town's population reaching 90,000 by the dawn of the 20th century.[9] In 1900, Bolckow, Vaughan & Co had become the largest producer of steel in Great Britain and possibly came to be one of the major steel centres in the world.
In 1914, Dorman Long, another major steel producer from Middlesbrough, became the largest company in Britain. It employed a workforce of over 20,000 and by 1929 and gained enough to take over from Bolckow, Vaughan & Co's dominance and to acquire their assets. The steel components of the Sydney Harbour Bridge (1932) were engineered and fabricated by Dorman Long of Middlesbrough. The company was also responsible for the New Tyne Bridge in Newcastle.
Several large shipyards also lined the Tees, including the Sir Raylton Dixon & Company, Smith's Dock Company of South Bank and Furness Shipbuilding Company of Haverton Hill.
Middlesbrough was the first major British town and industrial target to be bombed during the Second World War. The Luftwaffe first attacked the town on 25 May 1940 when a lone bomber dropped 13 bombs between South Bank Road and the South Steel Plant. One of the bombs fell on the South Bank football ground making a large crater in the pitch. The bomber was forced to leave after RAF night fighters were scrambled to intercept. Two months after the first bombing Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the town to meet the public and inspect coastal defences.
German bombers often flew over the Eston Hills while heading for targets further inland, such as Manchester. On 30 March 1941 a Junkers Ju 88 was shot down by two Spitfires of No. 41 Squadron, piloted by Tony Lovell and Archie Winskill, over Middlesbrough. The aircraft dived into the ground at Barnaby Moor, Eston; the engines and most of the airframe were entirely buried upon impact.
On 5 December 1941 a Spitfire of No. 122 Squadron, piloted by Sgt Hutton, crashed into rising ground near Mill Farm, Upsall, on the lower slopes of Eston Hills. Poor visibility due to bad weather and low cloud is believed to have been the cause of the crash.
On 15 January 1942, minutes after being hit by gunfire from a merchant ship anchored off Hartlepool, a Dornier Do 217 collided with the cable of a barrage balloon over the River Tees. The blazing bomber plummeted onto the railway sidings in South Bank leaving a crater twelve feet deep. In 1997 the remains of the Dornier were unearthed by a group of workers clearing land for redevelopment; the remains were put on display for a short while at Kirkleatham museum.
On 4 August 1942 a lone Dornier Do 217 picked its way through the barrage balloons and dropped a stick of bombs onto the railway station. One bomb caused serious damage to the Victorian glass and steel roof. A train in the station was also badly damaged although there were no passengers aboard. The station was put out action for two weeks.
The Green Howards was a British Army infantry regiment very strongly associated with Middlesbrough and the area south of the River Tees. Originally formed at Dunster Castle, Somerset in 1688 to serve King William of Orange, later King William III, this regiment became affiliated to the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1782. As Middlesbrough grew, its population of men came to be a group most targeted by the recruiters. The Green Howards were part of the King's Division. On 6 June 2006, this famous regiment was merged into the new Yorkshire Regiment and are now known as 2 Yorks, The 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards). There is also a Territorial Army (TA) company at Stockton Road in Middlesbrough, part of 4 Yorks which is wholly reserve.
Post Second World War to contemporary era
By the end of the war over 200 buildings had been destroyed within the Middlesbrough area. The borough lost 99 civilians as a result of enemy action.
Areas of early and mid-Victorian housing were demolished and much of central Middlesbrough was redeveloped. Heavy industry was relocated to areas of land better suited to the needs of modern technology. Middlesbrough itself began to take on a completely different look.
Middlesbrough's 1903 Gaumont cinema, originally an opera house until the 1930s, was demolished in 1971. The Cleveland Centre opened in the same year. In 1974, Middlesbrough and other areas around the Tees, became part of the county of Cleveland. This was to create a county within a single NUTS region of England, with the UK joining the European Union predecessor (European Communities) a year earlier.
Middlesbrough's Royal Exchange building was demolished, to make way for the road. A multi-storey the Star and Garter Hotel built in the 1890s near to the exchange on the site of a former Welsh Congregational Church, was also demolished. The Victorian era North Riding Infirmary was demolished in 2006 and replaced by a hotel and supermarket.
The Cleveland Centre opened in 1971, Hill Street shopping centre opened in 1981 and Captain Cook Square opened in 1999.
Middlesbrough F.C.'s modern Riverside Stadium opened on 26 August 1995 next to Middlesbrough Dock. The club moved from Ayresome Park their previous home in the town for 92 years.
With the abolition of Cleveland County in 1996, Middlesbrough again became part of North Yorkshire.
The original St.Hilda's area of Middlesbrough, after decades of decline and clearance, was given a new name of Middlehaven in 1986 on investment proposals to build on the land. Middlehaven has since had new buildings built there including Middlesbrough College and Middlesbrough FC's Riverside Stadium amongst others. Also situated at Middlehaven is the "Boho" zone, offering office space to the area's business and to attract new companies, and also "Bohouse", housing. Some of the street names from the original grid-iron street plan of the town still exist in the area today.
The expansion of Middlesbrough southwards, eastwards and westwards continued throughout the 20th century absorbing villages such as Linthorpe, Acklam, Ormesby, Marton and Nunthorpe[9] and continues to the present day.
Lillian is the third of my Prairie Flowers dolls. She has sunflowers and purple coneflowers embroidered around her neckline.
She is 11 1/2 inches tall with similar measurements to Bleuette. She is an original cloth doll.
Lillian's dress is an American Girl pattern resized to 70% of the original. With a little tweaking it fit perfectly
Junagarh Fort (Rajasthani: जुनाग्द क़िला) is a fort in the city of Bikaner, Rajasthan, India. The fort was originally called Chintamani and was renamed Junagarh or "Old Fort" in the early 20th century when the ruling family moved to Lalgarh Palace outside the fort limits. It is one of the few major forts in Rajasthan which is not built on a hilltop. The modern city of Bikaner has developed around the fort.
The fort complex was built under the supervision of Karan Chand, the Prime Minister of Raja Rai Singh, the sixth ruler of Bikaner, who ruled from 1571 to 1611 AD. Construction of the walls and associated moat commenced in 1589 and was completed in 1594. It was built outside the original fort of the city, about 1.5 kilometres from the city centre. Some remnants of the old fort are preserved near the Lakshmi Narayan temple.
Historical records reveal that despite the repeated attacks by enemies to capture the fort, it was not taken, except for a lone one-day occupation by Kamran Mirza. Kamran was the second son of the Mughal Emperor Babur who attacked Bikaner in 1534, which was then ruled by Rao Jait Singh. In the battle, the Mughals were defeated by Rathors. Kamran then returned to Lahore.
The 5.28 hectares large fort precinct is studded with palaces, temples and pavilions. These buildings depict a composite culture, manifest in the mix of architectural styles.
GEOGRAPHY
Junagarh fort is located in the arid region of the Thar desert of Rajasthan bordered on the northwest by the Aravalli range, a range of mountains in western India. Part of the desert area is in Bikaner city, which is one of the three desert triangle cities; the other two cities are Jaisalmer and Jodhpur. The name of the place where Bikaner city with its forts was established was then known as Jungladesh.
HISTORY
Before the present Junagarh Fort was built, an old stone fort existed in the city. This fort was built in 1478 by Rao Bika who established the city of Bikaner in 1472. Rao Bika was the second son of Maharaja Rao Jodha of the Rathor clan, the founder of Jodhpur city. He conquered the large arid lands to the northern region of Rajasthan to set up his domain. As the second son of Jodha he had no chance of inheriting his father’s territory of Jodhpur or to the title of Maharaja. He, therefore, reconciled and decided to build his own kingdom at Bikaner at the place then called "Jungladesh". Bikaner, though a partly of the Thar Desert, was considered an oasis on the trade route between Central Asia and the Gujarat coast since it had adequate spring water sources. Bika’s name was thus tagged to the Bikaner city as well as to the then state of Bikaner (“the settlement of Bika”) that he established. The history of Bikaner and the fort within it thus start with Bika. It was only about 100 years later that Bikaner’s fortunes flourished under Raja Rai Singhji, the sixth ruler of Bikaner, who ruled from 1571 to 1611. During the Mughal Empire’s rule in the country, he accepted the suzerainty of the Mughals and held a high position of an army general in the court of Emperor Akbar and his son Emperor Jahangir. His successful war exploits by way of winning half of Mewar kingdom won him accolades and rewards from the Mughal emperors. He was gifted the jagirs (lands) of Gujarat and Burhanpur. With the large revenue earned from these jagirs, he built the Junagarh fort on a plain land, which has an average elevation of 230 m. The formal foundation ceremony for the fort was held on 17 February 1589 and the fort was completed on 17 January 1594. Raja Rai Singhji, was an expert in arts and architecture and the knowledge that he acquired during his several sojourns to several countries are amply reflected in the numerous monuments he built in the Junagarh fort. Thus the fort, a composite structure, became an outstanding example of architecture and a unique centre of art, amidst the Thar desert.
Karan Singh who ruled from 1631 to 1639, under the suzerainty of the Mughals, built the Karan Mahal palace. Later rulers added more floors and decorations to this Mahal. Anup Singh, who ruled from 1669–98, made substantial additions to the fort complex, with new palaces and the Zenana quarter (royal dwelling for females). He refurbished the Karan Mahal with a Diwan-i-Am (public audience hall) and called it the Anup Mahal. Gaj Singh who ruled from 1746 to 1787 refurbished the Chandra Mahal (the Moon palace). Following him, Surat Singh ruled from 1787 to 1828 and he lavishly decorated the audience hall (see picture in info box) with glass and lively paintwork. Dungar Singh who reigned from 1872 to 1887 built the Badal Mahal (the weather palace) named so in view of a painting of falling rain and clouds (a rare event in arid Bikaner). Ganga Singh who ruled from 1887 to 1943 built the Ganga Niwas Palace, which has towers at the entrance patio. This palace was designed by Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob.[10] Ganga Singh’s son Sadul Singh succeeded his father in 1943 but acceded to the Union of India in 1949. He died in 1950.
Bikaner came under the suzerainty of the British Raj under a treaty of paramountcy signed in 1818, where after the Maharajas of Bikaner invested heavily on refurbishing their Junagarh fort. However, during the 18th century, before this treaty was signed, there was internecine war between rulers of Bikaner and Jodhpur and also amongst other Thakur, which was put down by the British troops. It is reported that during the attack by Jodhpur army, of the two entrances to the fort (one in the east and the other in the west), the eastern entrance and the southern rampart were damaged; marks of cannonballs fired are seen on the southern façade of the fort.
Ganga Singh was the best-known king among the Rajasthan princes. A favourite of the British Raj, he earned the title of Knight Commander of the Star of India. He served as a member of the Imperial War Cabinet, represented the country at the Imperial First World War Conferences and the British Empire at the Versailles Peace Conference and was aware of the shift of fortunes in the World War II but died in 1943, before the war was won by the allies. His contribution to the building activity in Junagarh involved separate halls for public and private audience in the Ganga Mahal and a durbar hall for formal functions. The hall where he held his Golden Jubilee as a ruler of Bikaner is now a museum. He also got a new palace - north of Junagarh fort - designed and built by Swinton, the third of the new palaces built in Bikaner and named it Lalgarh Palace in the name of his father and shifted his residence from Junagarh fort to this palace in 1902. The royal family still lives in a special suite in the Lalbagh palace, which they have converted into a heritage hotel.
STRUCTURES
The structures built within the Junagarh fort are the palaces and temples, which are made of red sandstone (Dulmera) and marble. The palaces are described as picturesque with their assortment of courtyards, balconies, kiosks and windows. The fort, the temples and the palaces are preserved as museums and provide insight into the grandiose living style of the past Maharanas of Rajasthan. The fort is called “a paradox between medieval military architecture and beautiful interior decoration”.
OVERVIEW
The massive fort built in the plains of Bikaner has a rectangular (quadrangular) layout with a peripheral length of 986 m. The fort walls are 4.4 m wide and 12 m in height. It encompasses an area of 5.28 ha. It was surrounded by a moat which was 6.1–7.6 m deep with a base width of 4.6 m and top width of 9.1 m. However, the moat no longer exists. The fort is well fortified with 37 bastions (‘burj’ in local language) and seven gates (two are main gates) to counter enemy attacks. The fort was built as a “new stronghold” outside of the ruins of an old fort built by Rao Bika and on the periphery of the Bikaner city walls (1.5 kilometres from the city centre); the old fort was demolished a century after it was built.
The fort with seven gates contains several palaces, pavilions and many temples of Hindu and Jain religions - the earliest dated to the 16th century. A major feature of the fort is the stone carving done in red and gold coloured sandstones. The interiors of the palaces are decorated and painted in traditional Rajasthani style. The Junagarh palaces have a large number of rooms, as every king built his own separate set of rooms, not wanting to live in his predecessors’ rooms. These structures were considered as “at par with those of Louis’s France or of Imperial Russia”. Several types of architectural style are discerned in the fort complex and hence it is called a true depiction of composite culture. The earliest style is of Rajput architecture, defined by Gujarati and Mughal architectural influence reflecting the association with Mughal rulers, the second type is of semi-western architecture reflecting British influence, and finally the revivalists Rajput architecture that evolved particularly during the rule of Maharaja Ganga Singh. Only the most representative of all these architectural styles are on display for visitors. Thus, the unique monuments on display in the Junagarh Fort represent sixteen successive generations of the rulers of Bikaner, starting from the end of the 16th century.
GATES
While the main entry gate was Karan Pol or Parole, facing east, the current gate of entry is called Suraj Pol (meaning the Sun gate), 'pol' also colloquially spelt prol, built in gold coloured or yellow sandstone, unlike the other gates and buildings built in red sandstone. It is the east facing gate permitting the rising Sun’s rays to fall on the gate, which is considered a good omen. The doors of this gate are strengthened with iron spikes and studs to prevent ramming by elephants during an attack. At the entrance to the gate, two red stone statues of elephants with mahouts stand as sentinels. The gate was also the location for announcing the arrival and departure of royalty by musicians playing the trumpet from a gallery in the gate. The other gates are Karan Pol, Daulat Pol, Chand Pol (a double gate) and Fateh Pol; these provided access to various monuments in the fort. The Karan Pol gate is also braced with iron spikes to prevent battering of the gate by elephants. To the right of this gate is Daulat Pol. Forty-one hand imprints are seen on the Daulat Pol gate wall, in red colour, of the wives of the Maharajas of Bikaner, who committed sati (self immolation) on the funeral pyres of their husbands who died in battle.
Between the main gate and the palace, there is a quadrangle, and then another gate called the Tripolia gate (triple gateway) before accessing the royal chambers. Next to this gate is a small temple called the Har Mandir, where the Royal family used to offer worship. In the quadrangle, which houses a large pavilion with a water pool built in Carrara Italian marble. The Karan Mahal, where public audience was held in the Diwan-i-Am by Karan Singh (1631–39) and his successors till the 20th century, can also be seen in the same quadrangle.
TEMPLES
Har Mandir temple was the royal chapel - private temple of the royal family. The royal family celebrated the Hindu festival of Dussera and Gangaur here, apart from celebrating other family functions such as birthdays and marriages. In the Dussera celebrations, weapons and horses were worshipped here. The main deities worshipped in this temple are the Hindu deities Lakshmi Narayan, a combined representation of god Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi.
The Ratan Behari temple located near the Junagarh Fort, was built in 1846 by the 18th ruler of Bikaner. It was built in Indo-Mughal architectural style using white marble. The Hindu god Krishna is deified in this temple.
PALACES
Karan mahal (Public Audience Hall) was built by Karan Singh in c.1680 to mark his victory over the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. It is considered as one of the most exquisite palaces built with gardens, which displays the aesthetic sensibilities of the royalty of Rajasthan. It has stained glass windows and intricately carved balconies built in stone and wood fluted columns. Later Rajas, Anup Singh and Surat Singh, also added lot of glitter to this palace with inlaid polychrome glass, intricate mirror patterns, and red and gold paint. In the coronation chamber, there is a shored up alcove, which was used as a throne.
Phool Mahal ("Flower Palace") is the oldest part of the palace and was built by king Raja Rai Singh of Bikaner, who ruled between 1571-1668.
Anup Mahal is a multi-storey structure, which functioned as the administrative headquarters of the kingdom. It has ornate wooden ceilings with inlaid mirrors, Italian tiles, and fine lattice windows and balconies. It has some gold leaf paintings. It is considered as one of the “grandest construction”.
Chandra Mahal has the most luxurious room in the palace, which houses gold plated deities and paintings inlaid with precious stones. In the royal bedroom, mirrors have been strategically placed so that the Maharaja could see from his bed, any intruder entering his room.
Ganga Mahal was built in the 20th century by Ganga Singh who reigned for 56 years from 1887 to 1943, has a large durbar hall known as the Ganga Singh Hall that houses the Museum. The museum has exhibits of war weaponry and also a World War I aeroplane (biplane), which is stated to be well maintained.
Badal Mahal (The weather palace) is part of the Anup Mahal extensions. It has paintings of Shekhawati Dundlod chiefs paying respects to the Maharaja of Bikaner in different types of turbans. Photos of people standing on nails, wood, swords and saws are also depicted here – a display of faith and endurance. The walls in this palace depict fresco paintings of the Hindu god Krishna and his consort Radha amidst the rain clouds.
Bikaneri Havelies located both within and outside the fort in the Bikaner city’s by lanes are also of unique architectural style in home architecture. Aldous Huxley who visited these havelis reportedly said “They are the pride of Bikaner.”
FORT MUSEUM
The museum within the fort called the Junagarh Fort Museum was established in 1961 by Maharaja Dr.Karni Singhji under the control of "Maharaja Rai Singhji Trust". The Museum exhibits Sanskrit and Persian manuscripts, miniature paintings, jewels, royal costumes, farmans (royal orders), portrait galleries, costumes, headgear and dresses of gods’ idols, enamelware, silver, palanquins, howdahs and war drums. The museum also displays armoury that consists of one of the assorted collection of post medieval arms.
MAHARAJA RAI SINGHJI TRUST
Maharaja Rai Singhji Trust has been set up by the 'Royal family of Bikaner' with the basic objective to showcase the fort with professional inputs in various areas and to improve the experience for visitors. Another objective is to promote education and research scholarships, cultural activities, setting up of libraries and integration with other such trusts.
WIKIPEDIA
Here is my new mini-fig scale AH-64 Apache Helicopter made on LDD! It has a zero-stud design, using SNOT and conventional techniques, to accomplish a smooth design. It also has rotating blades and cockpit that fits two mini-figs. Other design features include authentic forward sensor, 33mm cannon, landing gear, radar dome, and pylons with hellfire missiles and hydra rocket launchers! P.S. this is my first attack helicopter so, PLEASE RATE and COMMENT!
7/31/365 ― nighthawks
“Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”
“Voices of the Night” ―Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1839
Marijuana is on the ballot in 6 states this election. We have an opportunity to use social media to influence the election as well as future policy with the new reality series in development with $RFMK's Spokesperson Cheryl. If you would like to see the REAL people behind the scenes of this movement to be a part of the series instead of using actors, then please support us in our vision. Please share everywhere. Some supportive comments would be great also. Let's make sure we have a lot of positive support out there in the mainstream and take this viral :) My company's products "The CANNACIG" by stock symbol $RFMK is featured! Marijuana is safer than alcohol!!!! Spread the word! :) Please share, like, comment, G+, tweet etc :)
Thanks all! Cheryl Shuman
Please support "Marijuana Moms" Women Who Prefer Cannabis Over Alcohol (It takes courage to be on the front lines of the drug war :)
CBS TV COMPLETE INTERVIEW RAW FOOTAGE ON THIS LINK:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSV612T4_CA
Behind the Scenes Footage:
Cheryl Shuman Sit Down Complete Interview:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NJ4X5uqsmM
Cannabis Tasting with Pot Moms:
Photos: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LLXY-oXSDA
Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5ZV-JcMpfM
Video Shout Out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRlV2HsRdM8
Signing with William Morris Endeavor:
Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V287Vug8vFM
Press Release: finance.yahoo.com/news/rapid-fire-marketings-cheryl-shuma...
Rebuilding MCM - Medical Cannabis Management: finance.yahoo.com/news/rapid-fire-marketing-announces-che...
About Cheryl Shuman:
Tom Cruise, Steven Tyler, Julia Roberts, Madonna, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mike Myers, Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Fergie, Will.i.am and Michael Jackson are just a few of the names you'll find scrolling through the client files during the 25 year career of Cheryl Shuman. Known as the "Martha Stewart of Marijuana," Cheryl Shuman announces the formation of Green Asset International Inc.. Shuman brings decades of experience working with media, celebrities, marketing and health care in Beverly Hills. Shuman found her passion in the cannabis movement since 1996 working as an activist and legal cannabis patient. Since using cannabis therapy, she has survived cancer and injuries from two car crashes.
Shuman was the founder of Beverly Hills NORML producing the largest cannabis convention on earth known as KUSHCon. As the face of KUSH Magazine, Cheryl Shuman was a founding member of the NCIA, National Cannabis Industry Association. Shuman transformed her non-profit career into a thriving profitable media enterprise.
Her private medical cannabis collective, "The Beverly Hills Cannabis Club" is unlisted and membership is by referral only. Through her personal relationships and connections within Hollywood, Cheryl Shuman has been named as one of the most influential women in the cannabis reform movement by international media. Her position within the cannabis industry creates the first and only company of its kind and at the forefront of entertainment marketing, celebrity endorsements, product placement integration, sponsorships, production and technology.
Cheryl Shuman serves as media spokesperson for the hot new vaporizer CANNACig Rapid Fire Marketing (pink sheets: RFMK) and conducts their marketing, public relations, product placement, and consulting services.
Medical Cannabis Management is a wholly owned subsidiary of RFMK. Cheryl Shuman Inc., is a business development company and acquisition vehicle, made news with an historic funding facility dedicated to the cannabis industry with plans to go public by 2014. Cheryl Shuman currently has a hot new reality TV series in development and is represented by the prestigious William Morris Endeavor Agency in Beverly Hills, California.
President & C.E.O.
www.MedicalCannabisManagement.com
Spokesperson for CANNACig by RFMK
Beverly Hills Cannabis Club - Join Free Using "Cheryl Shuman" invitation code on:
www.BeverlyHillsCannabisClub.com
Social Network Links:
LinkedIN: www.LinkedIn.com/in/CherylShuman
Facebook: www.FaceBook.com/CherylShumanInc
Twitter: www.Twitter.com/CherylShuman
YouTube: www.YouTube.com/BeverlyHillsCannabis
YouTube: www.YouTube.com/CherylShumanTheOnly
Vimeo: www.vimeo.com/cherylshuman
George Rosema is an amateur photographer who has a passion for landscapes and night photography. “I love the Elora Gorge area and have been there several times, but this was my first time shooting from right on the river,” said Rosema, when asked about the day he took the winning photograph. He captured the photo, showing the David Street bridge from the banks of the Grand River in the gorge, at sunset in June, 2014.
Camera model: NIKON D800E
F-stop: f/11
Exposure time: 2.5 sec.
ISO speed: ISO-100
Focal length: 24mm
Photo: Grand River Conservation Authority/G. Rosema
super excited to be featured amongst such talented artists in a lovely 11 page piece in computers arts magazine this month. the article: Illustration - Today and Tomorrow - looks at "how leading artists are climbing to new heights"
this is the front double opening page of story - you can see my piece, "there's no place like home", in the bottom right hand corner.
the text reads as follows:
"jo 'miss led' henly is another illustrator whose work is making people take notice. she's not only dabbling in the uk art scene - she's used it to launch her career. after falling into teaching art, she realised she was inspiring others to do what she was frightened of doing herself. subsequent work invovled online and offline exhibitions closer in concept than illustration work. everything was self-initiated. this gave her the confidence to keep pushing boundaries, thereby increasing the creativity and experimentation in her work. inspired by poster pop, pre-raphaelite portraits, graffiti and art nouveau, her free flowing, almost classic illustration style came about on its own. she is now regularly taking on editioral work as well as further opportunities in the art space.
when secretwars wars took their live drawing competition to the designersblock festival in london last september, henly emerged the winner. she says, "being the only female ever to enter was enough for me, but after three exhausting hours over a 20x8-foot wall space, four rounds and four stories , i was victorious!"
The following article was released on July 10th, 1972 by the Radio Free Europe. Here it is:
A luxurious new resort, advertised as "a complete island paradise in Europe," was recently opened on the Yugoslav Adriatic island of Krk. Bob Guccione, editor and publisher of Penthouse, an American "international magazine for men" invested 45 million dollars in the project. The resort, which will be owned and operated by Yugoslavs, is seen by Guccione as an antidote to cold war misunderstanding. It is expected that hundreds of well-to-do Americans visit Krk and the "Penthouse Adriatic," and divest themselves of a little hard currency in the process.
"We have detected a real formula in the struggle against the cold war" revealed Bob Guccione, editor and publisher of Penthouse - "The International Magazine for Men." The ingredients were described in an interview with Nedeljne informativne novine (NIN), the Belgrade weekly. A reasonable amount of Western capital, in this case 45 million dollars provided by Guiccione's publication, is combined with socialist financing and skills, in this case supplied by the Rijeka "Brodokomerc," and "the most exciting and exotic resort experience of all time" is constructed for Westerners vacationing in the East. On June 15 of this year the "grand opening" of just such a mutual enterprise, The Penthouse Adriatic, was celebrated on Krk, the largest island in the Adriatic Sea (410 square km.). The establishment was described in the June 1972 issue of Penthouse: "Richly located on the idyllic island of Krk, a few miles south of Trieste and directly opposite Venice, this mile-long Xanadu of glittering buildings will become for international cognoscenti a premier playground for summer and winter seasons alike."
The complex was designed by a Yugoslav "grand prix (twice awarded) architect" whose name has not been given. The architectural center of the resort, whose Yugoslav name is "Haludovo," is the Penthouse Palace, "a gracefully colonnaded construction within whose elegant interior is the Great Lounge, bedecked with hanging gardens, pools and fountains." The Anglo-American Penthouse Casino (for foreigners only) can compare "with the finest casinos in Las Vegas and other principal gambling centers."
On July 3 the first group of American guests landed at the Krk airport, only 12 minutes away from the Penthouse Adriatic. Sixteen such groups are now expected, but the possibilities of and interest in this large Yugoslav-American project far outrun its tourist count to date. Guccione would like to create a world center for various congresses, conventions and international meetings in Krk, The huge Ford Company has announced plans to use the Penthouse Adriatic for its conventions. A meeting of commercial air lines is soon to take place in Krk and will be highlighted by the election of a "most beautiful stewardess." In the July issue of Penthouse, Krk is called "a complete island paradise in Europe's most up-and-coming resort location".
This is a continuation of the current project of an Image a day.
This will take a year to complete. It will be a "Colour Project"....numbered 731 to 1100 and it will begin on September 1st 2022..
I will also include an additional 4 Sets that will last a month each.
First will be Vines and Vineyards in November.2022.
Second is Forests ,,Water, ,Trees and Leaves in February 2023.
Third "Light Eating Objects" in May 2023.
Forth will be another B&W . August 2023.
On top of all that every month will feature a small set of 4 pics with different themes.
As you can see I shall be a busy Bunny!.
Hope you like the stuff!!!!!!!.
Director Theophilus Raynsford Mann
~ a Taiwanese social reformer, philosopher, photographer, and film director
“Do Everything for My People”
馬天亮導演
~ 臺灣的社會改革者，哲學家，攝影師，和電影導演
《造福人民》
SUMMARY
Theophilus Raynsford Mann is a naturalist, occultist, Buddhist and Taoist. In 1982, Mann developed a technique for abstract photography, applied “Rayonism” into photographic works. Mann staged 32 individual, extraordinary exhibitions around Taiwan, who was the first exhibitor around Formosa. Mann’s works is the beginning of modernization in the modern abstract arts in the world. At the University of Oxford, Mann’s attractive topic was “A View of Architectural History: Towns through the Ages from Winchester through London Arrived at Oxford in England”; also an author at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan in the United States; an alumnus from Christ Church College at the University of Oxford in England, the University of Glamorgan in Wales, and National Taiwan University in Taipei on Taiwan. Mann’s works have been quoted by the scholars many times, making Mann one of the highly cited technological, artistic, and managing public administrators in the academia. Mann was listed in “Taiwan Who’s Who In Business” © 1984, 1987, 1989 Harvard Management Service.
Early Life and Record of Genealogy
Theophilus Raynsford Mann possesses both Taiwanese and German surnames from birth. Usually, whenever anyone asks Mann about where he comes from, he would reply “Formosa” as he grew up and was educated in the Far East and lives in Taiwanese and Japanese lifestyles. Moreover, he often teaches and educates younger generations based on the methods of the Far Eastern teaching he experienced when he was young, though he does not oppose the Western ways of teaching and thinking. Mann takes great pride in his roots, which go back 150 years (since 1864); Mann’s ancestry originates and creates generations, and prepares younger generations to succeed their personality and ethical standards and integrity.
Education in Taiwan and a Brief of Latest Generation of History in Taiwan / Formosa
In 1980, Mann obtained his postgraduate certificate from the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering of National Taiwan University in Taipei; successfully completed another graduate studies in Information dBase III Plus and Taiwanese Traditional Chinese Mandarin Information System at National Sun Yat-Sen University in Kaohsiung in 1989.
In history, the Portuguese explorers discovered and called the island (Taiwan), “Formosa” (meaning “Beautiful Island”) in 1590. They are non-Chinese people; it was long a Chinese and Japanese pirate base. Fighting continued, between its original inhabitants of Taiwanese and the Chinese settlers, into the 19th century. In 1894-95 first Sino-Japanese War that ended in Manchus of the Qing (Ching) dynasty defeat, the late Manchu Qing Government forced to cede Formosa to Japan. This result was made by the Treaty of Shomonoseki in 1895 and remained under Japanese control until the end of the Second World War. Early on, Taiwan was conquered by the Qing in 1683 and for the first time became part of older China dynasty. However, today, the home country of Mann’s origin has around 165 institutions (93 universities) of higher education, which now has one of the best-educated populations in Asia. Among the major public (state) ones are the National Taiwan University (NTU) at Taipei, and National Sun Yat-Sen University (NSYSU) at Kaohsiung. NSYSU is also called National Chun-Shan University; according to Times Higher Education 2010-2011, NSYSU ranks as the 3rd university in Taiwan, 21st in Asia, and 163rd worldwide. National Taiwan University is ranked 51 to 60 ranks on Times Higher Education World University Rankings - Top Universities by Reputation 2013, the United Kingdom (see www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/...); King's College London (KCL) (21st in the world and 6th in Europe in the 2010, QS World University Rankings), the University of London, and University of Southern California (is one of the world's leading private research universities, located in the heart of Los Angeles), afterward.
Backing to Mann’s early school-time of Taiwan Provincial Kaohsiung Industrial Senior High School (Kaohsiung Municipal Kaohsiung Industrial High school), the professional technical education, which is equivalent to Advanced Level General Certificate of Education, commonly referred to as an A-level in the United Kingdom; China Electronic Engineering College, the distance learning programme, which is in equivalence as UK’s Diploma of Higher Education / Undergraduate Diploma (as an Associate Degree in the United States). An additional, his middle education was taught by the Kaohsiung Municipal Chihjh (Ci Sian) Junior High School; and Kaohsiung Municipal San Min Elementary School was his first school in Taiwan.
Early Career
In 1989, Mann instituted Mann’s Office of Electrical Engineer, he settled himself in electrical technology and industries as a chief engineer in his early years. He put his professional and precise knowledge to good account in business management. A formal business management with business relationship established to provide for regular services, dealings, and other commercial transactions and deed. He had many customers having a business and credit relationship with his firm then he was a successful engineer.
Study Abroad and Immigration into the United Kingdom
In 1998, Mann studied abroad when he arrived in Great Britain; he studied at School of Built Environment, the University of Glamorgan (Prifysgol Morgannwg) in Merthyr Tydfil, Pontypridd, Wales for a master of science in real estate appraisal. Until the summer of 2000, Mann completed an academic course on “Towns through the Ages” from Christ Church College at the University of Oxford (is ranked the 2nd place worldwide on The Times Higher Education, World University Rankings 2012-2013 www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/...) in England. Afterward, Mann immigrated into the United Kingdom in the early year of 2004.
PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS
Mann is a naturalist; he trusts spiritual naturalism and naturalistic spirituality, which teaches that “the unknown” created this wonderful world. “The unknown” arranged the nature with its law so that everything in nature is kept balanced and in order. However, human beings failed to control themselves, deliberately went against the law of nature, and resulted in disasters, which we deserved. He also is an occultist, a Taoist, and a Buddhist; but in Britain, he frequently goes to Christian and Catholic churches, where he makes friends with pastors and fathers as well as churchgoers. In his mind, he recognizes “Belief is truth held in the mind; faith is a fire in the heart”. He is always a freethinker, does not accept traditional, social, and religious teaching, but based on his ideas: a thought or conception that potentially and actually exists in his mind as a product of mental activity - his opinion, conviction, and principle. If people have not come across eastern classics and philosophy, we are afraid that people would never understand Theophilus Raynsford Mann. People cannot judge an eastern philosopher based on western ways of thinking. He studies I Ching discovering eastern classics of ancient origin consisting of 64 interrelated hexagrams along with commentaries. The hexagrams embody Taoist philosophy by describing all nature and human endeavour in terms of the interaction of yin and yang, and the classics may be consulted as an oracle.
Back in the 1990s when Mann just arrived at England, he had been offered places to do Ph.D. and LL.M. degrees (degree in Law and Politics of the European Union) by several western professors in the Great Britain. He has met all the requirements for postgraduate admissions to study at UK’s universities.
During his time at Oxford, he learnt a lot of British culture and folk-custom while carrying out research with many British and Western professors, experts, and archaeologists. This proves that Mann understands various aspects in British society, culture, and lifestyles. Of course, he does not fully understand about the perspectives of thinking of a typical British. For example, what would be the most valuable in life for a British person? What would a British want to gain from life? What is the goal in life for a British? Is it fortune or a lover? Alternatively, perhaps honour? On the other hand, maybe being able to travel around the world and see the world?
FAIRNESS and JUSTICE
As Theophilus Raynsford Mann’s saying are:
“Touching Fairness and Justice”
Feel good about themselves, but do not know the sufferings of the people...
Who can get easy life like them?
What is profile of modern society?
What type and style is truly solemn for this society identify?
Where “the characterization” is? Who can see? Did you see it?
《感動的公平與正義》
自我感覺良好, 不知民間疾苦...
誰能得到安逸的生活如同他們一樣？
這是個什麼樣子的社會？
這個社會認定什麼樣的類型和風格是真正莊重的?
「特徵」在那裡？誰可以看到？你看到了嗎？
Jurisprudence and Political Philosophy and Perspectives
Mann ever studied judicial review and governmental action, the impact of law and legal techniques, constitutional mechanisms for the protection of basic rights, and ensuring the integrity of commercial activity, the impact of law and legal techniques on government, policymaking, and administration, as well as the creation of markets. He tries to understand these critical trends in the political development of modern state. Mann will combine both theoretical and empirical approaches, and the conditions for democratic transition and the nature of state development in the ‘post-industrial’ era of globalisation and economic integration.
According as Mann’s legal experiences, he comprehend that “the knowledge of the law is like a deep well, out of which each man draught according to the strength of his understanding”, and, law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. He is also sure law and institutions are constantly tending to gravitate like clocks; they must be occasionally cleansed, and wound up, and set to true time.
The government issues a decree - an authoritative order having the force of law, which charged with putting into effect a country's laws and the administering of its functions. Any of the officials promulgate a law or put into practice relating to the government charged with the execution and administration of the nation's laws then they announce and carry out the creation of any order or new policy that will be responsible for the people.
Mann had knowledge in connexion with construction law; he also understands architectural arts, and as well learnt the forms by combining materials and parts include as an integral part concerning modern construct. I ever built urban buildings and rural architecture in different styles under new housing and building projects by the governmental administration and construction corporations.
Right now, Mann studies the problems caused by ethnic disputes and human armed conflicts in the modern society resulted code of mixed civil and criminal procedure. He wishes an agreement or a treaty to end human hostilities - the absence of war and other hostilities around the world. The interrelation and arrangement of freedom from quarrels and disagreement become harmonious relations living in peace with each other. Actually, erect peace in more friendly ways of making friendships for modern human society is comfortable in my ideal. It is like building monolithic architecture: houses and buildings for the people. Mann would like to do “something beautiful for `the unknown`”.
In the ethnic disagreement and armed conflicts as concerning the poor people and children notwithstanding they live through a bad environment on any of poor or crowded village or town in a particular manner - lived frugally. However, after years of industrialisation as a more educated population, becomes more aware of global plenum, continuing to be alive. Environmental groups are increasing and lobbing government will legislate to stop bad environmental and social practices. The establishments of human rights’ wide and untiring efforts will be alleviated people’s suffering. And as well the poor people shall meet and debate sustainable development and for a concerted government led action towards sustainability is an example that the younger generation are concerned for the future. It shall be making the younger easier for their life and make better on their lives, and help them to build a better future.
In present world, Mann really knows the full meanings of “Fundamental Human Rights and Equal Opportunities for the People”. He thinks ethics is the moral code governing the daily conduct of the individual toward those about him / her. It represents those rules or principles by which men and women live and work in a spirit of mutual confidence and service. Without going into the question of how an ethical code was formulated or why anybody should obey it, we can look at the matter in a common-sense fashion with reference to its influence upon our legal affairs. In brief, from the law point of view, a reputable ethical code embodies the qualities of accuracy, dependability, fair play, sound judgement, and service. It is based upon honesty.
No person can have an ethical code that concerns him / her alone. Living in society, as he / she must, a person encounters others whose rights must be respected as well as his / her own. An honest regard for the rights of others is an essential element of any decent code of ethics, and one that anyone must observe if anybody intends to follow that code. After all, ethics is not something apart from human beings. Indeed, there is no such thing apart from our actions and us. It is the duty, therefore, of every man and woman in legal affairs to see that his daily associations with others are truly in conformity with the plain meaning of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not barratry, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not receive illegal fee and the rest”.
The knowledge Mann has, in connection with legal affairs, was usually come from his precious experiences of his past over ten year’s law and political careers. In an interval regarded as a distinct period of 1980s, he studied mixed civil and crime, and the code of mixed civil and criminal procedure for the problems caused by ethnic disputes and human armed conflicts in the modern society. He was especially one who maintains the language and customs of the group, and social security in Taiwan.
Since 30 July of 1988, Mann settled himself in law as a chief executive and scrivener at Central Legal, Real Estate, and Accounting Services Office; it is in the equivalent to a solicitor of the United Kingdom. The Office provided full legal, accounting, real estate, and commercial services to the public. He did his job as a person legally appointed by another to act as his or her agent in the transaction of business, specifically one qualified and licensed to act for plaintiffs and defendants in legal proceedings and affairs. Over and above Mann was a chairman and executive consultant at Taiwan Credit Information Company®, founded in 1994. The company offered services to the public in response to need and demand in the area of credit information.
Mann had excellent experiences in political and law work was pertaining to mixed civil and crime, the code of mixed civil and criminal procedure, construction, and commercial law abroad. The experiences of legal services related to the rights of private individuals and legal proceedings concerning these rights as distinguished. In the criminal proceedings, he did many cases for the defendants. Although an act committed or omitted in violation of a law forbidding or commanding it and for which punishment is imposed upon conviction; but he also laid legal claim, required as useful, just, proper, or necessary to the defendants under the human rights in the meantime. This provision ensures to the defendant a real voice in the subject.
The men whose judgement we respect are those who do not allow prejudices, preferences, or personalities to influence their decisions. Profit and self-aggrandisement are likewise ignored in their determination to reach an equitable and fair settlement. What are the basic principles upon which good judgement is founded? A keen intellect, a normal emotionally, a through understanding of human nature, experience of law work, sincerity, and integrity.
Developed a Technique for Abstract Photography and Abstractionist
In 1982, Mann developed a technique for abstractive photography, which applied “rayonism” to the photographic works. In November of 1984, Mann was 26-year-old, he instructed many professors and students of National Taiwan Normal University in photography of abstract impressionism and rayonnisme in Taipei, Taiwan. The word “rayonnisme” is French for rayonism - a style of abstract painting developed in 1911 in Russia.
Photographic Exhibitions
Theophilus Raynsford Mann Photographic Exhibition of “Rayonnisme / Rayonism” Tour - Invitational Exhibition of Taiwan 1983-84.
一九八三〜八四年中華民國臺灣 馬天亮攝影巡迴邀請展
Theophilus Raynsford Mann Photographic Exhibition of Rayonism (32 individual exhibitions) 1983~1985.
馬天亮『光影』攝影特展（個人展32場）1983〜1985年.
Mann staged 32 individual, extraordinary exhibitions and annual special exhibitions on photography of abstractive image and Rayonnisme around Taiwan / Formosa. Mann was the first exhibitor around the country. All of the invited displays were by the Taiwan’s Government, cultural and artistic organisations, and sponsors. Mann’s earliest exhibition took place in the National Taiwan Arts Education Center (Museum) on 19 December 1983 when Mann was 25 years old; Mann was the youngest exhibitor in the history of the Center in any solo exhibitions. The Center that was opened in March 1957, kept a collection of Mann’s work. It is currently updating the Center’s internal organisation and strengthening co-operation with leading centers and museums around the world. Meanwhile, it widened the center’s scope to increase its emphasis on Taiwan’ regional culture and folk arts.
Modernization in the Modern Abstract Arts of Taiwan
Mann’s works is the beginning of modernization in the modern abstract arts of Taiwan, China and greater Chinese society in the world. The use of “modernisation” as a concept that is opposed to “Traditional” of “Conservative” ideas began with the approach of the 20th century. It spreads rapidly through academic circles, and was broadly accepted as a means to reform society. Chinese Manchu Qing (Ching) dynasty’s first steps toward modernisation began in the Tung-chih era (1862-1874) with the “Self-Empowerment Movement”. During the late 19th century, as late Manchu dynasty was confronted on all sides by foreign aggression, voices throughout society debated the most effective means to reform and strengthen the country. Some advocated “combining the best of East and West”, while others went so far as to call for “complete Westernisation”. Taiwan was at the centre of these waves of reform. Faced with direct threats against the island by foreign enemies, the Chinese Ching dynasty court took special steps to push Taiwan’s modernisation.
In a role just like that of a gardener wanting to create a rich and fertile environment for the seeds of culture, one in which Mann may sprout, grow and bloom. Mann aims to provide an educational stimulus for society by introducing his works - Mann can express the neo-romantic spirit deftly from various creations and supporting international artistic exchanges. Mann believes that the first step in creating such a new and independent state is the real emergence of culture and arts, for which the art and science of designing and erecting buildings, and fine arts (including photography and motion picture) of the civilization is a good measurement of success. For the foreseeable future, Mann should be continuing to forge ahead, working diligently and unceasingly towards its mission of raising China and Formosa / Taiwan’s culture in his spare time.
Became an Author and a Scholar
In 1980, Theophilus Raynsford Mann completed his first book - scenario original “The Soul's Sentimentalizing”, also named: “Hun Yun : Jin Qi Tu Rui” 電影原著《魂韻》(衿契吐蕊) then Mann was at the age of 22. In 1983, The General Library of the University of California, Berkeley in the United States of America, collected and kept Mann’s writings - scenario original 「魂韻 : 衿契吐蕊」“Hun Yun : jin qi tu rui”, included a musical composition of his own – “Sonate Nr. 1 C-dur op. 3 für Klavier (piano)”, composed on 3rd April 1977 then Mann was 18 years old. The works were published in 1980; the theme was based on “The Soul's Sentimentalizing”. Another masterpiece was an Album of Academic Work for News Publication “Theophilus Raynsford Mann Photographic Exhibition of Rayonnisme / Rayonism”, published in 1985. The Hathi Trust Digital Library, the University of Michigan also collected and kept Mann’s writings.
Authorship
Mann’s articles and writings were published in more than 200 different kinds of domestic and foreign magazines, newspapers, and periodicals, in the period between May of 1972 and 1990s. It was all started when Mann was just 13-year-old. Many of which have been very influential. These have been quoted by Western and Eastern scholars many times in the last few years, making Mann one of the highly cited technological, artistic, and managing public administrators in the world in the late 20th and early 21st century. The Ministry of the Interior in Taiwan had registered Mann’s professional writings and given him two certificates of copyright. The numbers are 33080 and 33081 on 4th July of 1985; and Taiwan’s Gazette of The Presidential Office issue No. 4499, featured his writings on 4th September 1985.
Became an Academic and Film Director
Today, Mann is a professor at Space Time Life Research Academy, and a photographer, film director, and computer engineer now live and work in London.
Director Works:
FILMS:
Experimental Film “New Image for the Spring” © 1982
Documentary Film “Rayonnisme” © 2011
“The Soul's Sentimentalizing” of the feature film is based on the scenario original “The Soul's Sentimentalizing” (preparation)
FASHION SHOWS:
New Image for the Spring of Shapely Models International © 1982
High Lights on the Summer and Fall Fashion of Shapely Models Int’l © 1982
ART EXHIBITIONS:
The Cadillac Club International Fine Arts Exhibition © 1981
The Cinematic & Photographic Arts Salon and the Hall of the Arts, Pegasus Academy of Arts © 1981
Musician Work:
MUSIC COMPOSITION:
Sonate Nr. 1 C-dur op. 3 für Klavier (piano) © 1977, © 1980, © 1981, © 1983, the theme was based on “The Soul's Sentimentalizing”.
PHOTOGRAPHIC ALBUMS:
Portrait and Landscape in France © 2000
Portrait and Landscape in Scotland © 2001
Portrait and Landscape in England © 2009
Portrait at Queen Mary, University of London © 2010
Rayonism of London © 2011
Portrait at The University of Nottingham, United Kingdom © 2011
Snowy London © 2012
Portrait at King's College London © 2013
BOOKS:
Scenario Original 「魂韻」(衿契吐蕊) “Hun yun: jin qi tu rui” © December 1980, © 1981, © 1983 (Date of First Publication: 31 December 1980, Second Edition on 29 July 1981, Date of Revision: Revised Edition on 8 May 1983), Languages: Chinese (traditional), and English language.
“Album of the Cadillac Club International Fine Arts Exhibition” © 1981
“Album of the Cinematic & Photographic Arts Salon and the Hall of the Arts, Pegasus Academy of Arts” © 1981
“Album of New Image for the Spring of Shapely Models International” © 1982
“Album of High Lights on the Summer and Fall Fashion of Shapely Models Int’l” © 1982
“Romantic Carol” © 1982
Album of Academic Work for News Publication: “Theophilus Raynsford Mann Photographic Exhibitions of Rayonnisme” © May 1985
New version of scenario original “The Soul's Sentimentalizing” (to be published)
「曾經輝煌到頂天立地」(individual biography, to be published)
“My Life, My History, and My Love” (based on a legend, to be published, a film scenario will be developed later)
「感動的公平與正義」“Touching Fairness and Justice” (political science and social studies, to be published)
Research Interests:
University of Oxford
Research Studies in Archaeology:
Mann’s attractive topic was “A View of Architectural History: Towns through the Ages from Winchester through London Arrived at Oxford in England”.
National Taiwan University
Graduate Certificate,
Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering:
Mann’s monograph of seminar was “Applied the sequence control in the electric power distribution engineering”.
University of Glamorgan
M.Sc. Course,
Master of Science in Real Estate Appraisal:
Mann’s thesis - major subject, with relevant construction law was “The Assignment is under Economics of Construction Management in Architecture”.
National Sun Yat-Sen University
Postgraduate Certificate,
Postgraduate Studies in Computing:
Mann’s required subject was Information dBase III Plus and Taiwanese Traditional Mandarin Chinese Information System. He combined academic course work and practical laboratory sessions in “Applied Mandarin Phonetic Symbols into Traditional Taiwanese Personal Computer and Its Information System”.
Associations:
Member of The Kaohsiung Life Line Association since 11 January 1979, an association established in the USA.
Member of The Society of Youth Writers, Tien (Catholic) Educational Center, Taipei since 1980.
Since 1980, a member of Chinese Taipei Film Archive (CTFA, National Film Archive, Taiwan; founded in 1978), The Motion Picture Foundation, R.O.C. (member of Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film, FIAF; The International Federation of Film Archives was founded in Paris in 1938 by the British Film Institute, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Cinémathèque Française and the Reichsfilmarchiv in Berlin.)
Commissioner of the cinema, photography, radio, and television committee of The Culture and Arts Association (Chinese Writers and Artists Association) of Taiwan ever since September 1983.
Classic member, the membership is equivalent to a doctorate membership of the Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering since 23 March 1984.
On 15 March 1989, Mann promoted and founded the Consortium Juridical Person Mr. Theophilus Raynsford Mann Social Benefit Foundation 財團法人馬天亮先生社會公益基金會籌備處 (Social Charity 社會慈善事業) in Taiwan.
near.archives.gov.tw/cgi-bin/near2/nph-redirect?rname=tre...
Classic member, the membership is equal to a professor or associate professor of The Chinese Institute of Engineers since 30 September 1991.
Honours:
Listed on ‘Taiwan Who’s Who In Business’, © 1984, © 1987, and © 1989 Harvard Management Service.
中華民國企業名人錄編纂委員會, 哈佛企業管理顧問公司.
On 26 August 1985, Mann was awarded a professional certificate of the Outdoor Artistry Activities issued by Education Bureau, Kaohsiung City Government, Taiwan. He acquired awards and certificates of honour about twenty times from National Taiwan Arts Education Center (Museum) on 24 December 1983; Kaohsiung Municipal Social Education Center on 17 March 1984, Kaohsiung Cultural Center, Taipei Cultural Center (Taipei Municipal Social Education Hall); and Taiwan Province Government, Taipei City Government, Kaohsiung City Government, and many cultural centres and art galleries, and so on.
Careers:
Honorary Professor at Space Time Life Research Academy, 7 June 2012 to present; Professor at Space Time Life Research Academy, 1 September 2011 to 1 June 2012 in London, United Kingdom:
Academia,
Teaching and Research:
business management and consultant, political philosophy, Chinese classics, Chinese humanities, modern Chinese language and literature, photography (portrait, fashion, commercial, digital, architectural, abstract photography), visual arts and filmmaking.
教學與研究：
企業管理及顧問、政治哲學、中華經典 (古典漢學、文學、藝術、語言) 、中華人文、中華現代語言與文學、攝影 (人像、時裝、商業、數位/數碼、建築、抽象攝影) ，視覺藝術和製作影片。
Consultant and Translator at Eternal Life Consultants of Immigration and Translations Services, 10 March 2004 to present in London, United Kingdom:
consultants of immigration, translations, and legal services.
永生移民顧問翻譯服務社的移民諮詢顧問和翻譯：
移民事務，翻譯和法律服務。
Computer Hardware & Networking Engineer at Mann Office of Electrical Engineer, 8 March 2004 to present in London, United Kingdom:
Computer Engineering and Network Services. Repairing of Motherboards, Monitors, Power Supplies, CD-ROM Drives; UPS, Hard Disk Drives, H.D.D Data Recovery; BIOS Programming, and all types of Computer Hardware and Software Solutions.
計算機工程和網絡服務。維修主機板，顯示器，電源供應器，光碟機/光盘驱动器，不斷電系統，硬碟/硬盘，硬盤數據恢復，基本輸入輸出系統編程，以及所有類型的電腦/計算機硬體/硬件和軟體/軟件解決方案。
Film Director and Photographer at Shapely Studio of Creative and Cultural Industries, 2 April 2007 to present in London, United Kingdom:
1) Photo, Video and Film Production; 2) Graphic Design, Web Design, Social Networking, Social Media and Advertising; 3) Architectural Design and Interior Design.
Reformer and Philosopher at Taiwanese Social Reformer and Philosopher, 7 April 2012 (location: Los Angeles, California) to present in London, United Kingdom:
Social Reform in Taiwan
www.facebook.com/twreform/info
《魂韻》(衿契吐蕊) - 馬天亮22歲寫的電影原著。Theophilus Raynsford Mann (TianLiang Maa) wrote “Hun Yun” (Jin Qi Tu Rui), scenario original “The Soul’s Sentimentalizing” © 1980, 1981, 1983, was at the age of 22.
Website
mtltwp.pixnet.net/album/set/1265174
photo.roodo.com/photos/mtltwp/albums/small/100469.html
Sonate Nr. 1 C-dur op. 3 für Klavier (piano) by Theophilus Raynsford Mann (TianLiang Maa 馬天亮) © 1977, © 1980, © 1981, © 1983. The Sonate composed on 3rd April 1977 then Mann was 18-year-old. The work was published in 1980; the theme was based on “The Soul's Sentimentalizing”.
Website
mtltwp.pixnet.net/album/set/1265208
www.facebook.com/sonate1c/info
LINKS:
University of California, Berkeley
berkeley.worldcat.org/search?q=Ma%2C+Tianliang&dblist...
berkeley.worldcat.org/title/hun-yun/oclc/813684284?refere...
oskicat.berkeley.edu/record=b11283690~S1
University of Michigan
mirlyn.lib.umich.edu/Record/006237256
catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006237256
WorldCat® Identities
www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3AMa%2C+Tianliang%2C&dbl...
www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/np-ma,%20tianliang$1958
Google Books
books.google.co.uk/books?id=PkyaAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y
books.google.co.uk/books?id=JfxnMwEACAAJ&dq=editions:...
scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=3569983911138966023&am...
National Bibliographic Information Network (NBINet)
nbinet3.ncl.edu.tw/search~S10?/a%7bu99AC%7d%7bu5929%7d%7b...
192.83.186.170/search*cht/a%E9%A6%AC%E5%A4%A9%E4%BA%AE
National Yang Ming University 國立陽明大學
library.ym.edu.tw/search~S7*cht?/tThe+Soul%27s+and+sentim...
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology 國立臺灣科技大學
millennium.lib.ntust.edu.tw/record=b1016706~S1
Wikimedia Commons 維基共享資源
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=TianLiang+Maa+%E...
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TianLiang_Maa_馬天亮.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:馬天亮_TianLiang_Maa.jpg
國家圖書館 期刊文獻資訊網, 臺灣期刊論文索引
readopac3.ncl.edu.tw/nclJournal/search/search_result.jsp?...
聲音藝術的審美角度, 大學雜誌, 天然
readopac3.ncl.edu.tw/nclJournal/search/detail.jsp?sysId=0...,
readopac3.ncl.edu.tw/nclJournal/search/detail.jsp?sysId=0...
為文化中心把脈, 幼獅文藝
readopac3.ncl.edu.tw/nclJournal/search/detail.jsp?sysId=0...,
科學家與守財奴, 中國地方自治
weblib.exam.gov.tw/ccdb2/Result_List.asp?idx_id=CCVOL&...
Yahoo, Bing, Google Search
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Atomzone
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lurvely.com www.lurvely.com/photographer/77438197_N03/
www.flickriver.com/photos/mtltwp/
www.flickriver.com/photos/mtltwpprof/
Nature - National Library Board Singapore
snap.nl.sg/searchflickr.aspx?q=Theophilus+Raynsford+Mann&...
画像検索
flickr.akitomo.net/Theophilus+Raynsford+Mann/1
Japan Photos and Pictures
japan.pictures-photos.com/professor-tianliang-maa%E2%80%A6
summer.pictures-photos.com/professor-tianliang-maa%E2%80%A6
far-east-movement - Blogcu (Turkey)
far-east-movement.blogcu.com/professor-tianliang-maa/1226...
A Story of Professor Theophilus Raynsford Mann
spirehim.com/3450/a-story-of-professor-tianliang-maa-theo...
Sports Wallpapers
www.gosportwallpaper.com/photos/8c8e0fd510/photographer-a...
www.gosportwallpaper.com/photos/obey-tumblr.html/page/57
Travel Splash
travel-splash.com/photos/view.php?id=13397167315&sear...
Country profile Taiwan
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itpints
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AskJot
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Who is talking
whotalking.com/flickr/Theophilus+Raynsford+Mann
University of California, Berkeley period
atomzone.co.uk/scaffold/images/search/University%20of%20C...
University of Michigan period
atomzone.co.uk/scaffold/images/search/University%20of%20M...
University of Oxford period
atomzone.co.uk/scaffold/images/search/University%20of%20O...
www.wer-ist.org/person/Oxford_Archaeology
University of Glamorgan period
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www.wer-ist.org/person/Glamorgan_University
University of Huddersfield period, UK. Huddersfield period
atomzone.co.uk/scaffold/images/search/Huddersfield%20period
art galleries uk
artgalleriesuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/bigandtall-stores-s...
Mitrasites system
sites.google.com/site/mitrasites/system/app/pages/customS...
articles.whmsoft
articles.whmsoft.com/related_search.php?keyword=Tianliang...
pantieslace-forwomen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/motherhood-ma...
3piece-suits.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/nursing-shawl-become-...
3piece-suits.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/body-briefers-childre...
modeling-agencies-inboston.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/black-a...
www.flickriver.com/search/%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%B8+OR.../intere...
www.flickriver.com/search/%E8%AB%96%E6%96%87+OR.../recent/
German
www.wer-ist.org/person/Jin_Mann
www.pediatr.org.tw/DB/News/file/1913-1.pdf
atomzone.co.uk/images/search/Director+Theophilus+Raynsfor...
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