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Greetings mate! As many of you know, I love marrying art, science, and math in my fine art portrait and landscape photography!
The 45surf and gold 45 revolver swimsuits, shirts, logos, designs, and lingerie are designed in accordance with the golden ratio! More about the design and my philosophy of "no retouching" on the beautiful goddesses in my new book:
www.facebook.com/Photographing-Women-Models-Portrait-Swim...
"Photographing Women Models: Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype"
If you would like a free review copy, message me!
Epic Landscape Photography! New Book!
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And here's more on the golden ratio which appears in many of my landscape and portrait photographs (while shaping the proportions of the golden gun)!
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The dx4/dt=ic above the gun on the lingerie derives from my new physics books devoted to Light, Time, Dimension Theory!
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Thanks for being a fan! Would love to hears your thoughts on my philosophies and books! :)
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Beautiful swimsuit bikini model goddess!
Golden Ratio Lingerie Model Goddess LTD Theory Lingerie dx4/dt=ic! The Birth of Venus, Athena, and Artemis! Girls and Guns!
Would you like to see the whole set? Comment below and let me know!
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I am working on several books on "epic photography," and I recently finished a related one titled: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography: An Artistic and Scientific Introduction to the Golden Mean . Message me on facebook for a free review copy!
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The Golden Ratio informs a lot of my art and photographic composition. The Golden Ratio also informs the design of the golden revolver on all the swimsuits and lingerie, as well as the 45surf logo! Not so long ago, I came up with the Golden Ratio Principle which describes why The Golden Ratio is so beautiful.
The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Dr. E’s Golden Ratio Principle: The golden ratio exalts beauty because the number is a characteristic of the mathematically and physically most efficient manners of growth and distribution, on both evolutionary and purely physical levels. The golden ratio ensures that the proportions and structure of that which came before provide the proportions and structure of that which comes after. Robust, ordered growth is naturally associated with health and beauty, and thus we evolved to perceive the golden ratio harmonies as inherently beautiful, as we saw and felt their presence in all vital growth and life—in the salient features and proportions of humans and nature alike, from the distribution of our facial features and bones to the arrangements of petals, leaves, and sunflowers seeds. As ratios between Fibonacci Numbers offer the closest whole-number approximations to the golden ratio, and as seeds, cells, leaves, bones, and other physical entities appear in whole numbers, the Fibonacci Numbers oft appear in nature’s elements as “growth’s numbers.” From the dawn of time, humanity sought to salute their gods in art and temples exalting the same proportion by which all their vital sustenance and they themselves had been created—the golden ratio.
The Birth of Venus! Beautiful Golden Ratio Swimsuit Bikini Model Goddess! Helen of Troy! She was tall, thin, fit, and quite pretty!
Read all about how classical art such as The Birth of Venus inspires all my photography!
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"Photographing Women Models: Portrait, Swimsuit, Lingerie, Boudoir, Fine Art, & Fashion Photography Exalting the Venus Goddess Archetype"
Like if You Love to #Travel! I can plan the trip of a lifetime or your next great #vacation
Chicago Attracts Record Numbers- The Bloomberg report attributes Chicago’s tourism success… www.besttravelagentonline.com/news/chicago-attracts-recor...
St Peter, Ketteringham, Norfolk
In 2006, I wrote: Ketteringham is just south of the main A11 road, but clever planning policies have left it feeling remote; more remote than it felt before the new road was built, probably. The village straggles along a mile or so of street, and the church is about half a mile to the south. My OS map showed a road leading up to it, but when we looked for this road it turned out to be the private drive of Ketteringham Hall, and was very firmly locked off. Instead, we had to go out into the country on the road to East Carleton and then come back northwards towards the church. It sits immediately beside another entrance to the Hall grounds, and you can see at once that it was a park church, the main churchyard entrances pointing towards gates into the grounds, the public lychgate in the corner added almost as an afterthought.
Another sign that this was a park church is that it was patently given a good going over in the late 18th century. The antiquarian-minded squirearchy of the times didn't know much about medieval architecture, but it knew what it liked. Hence, the fortress-like pinnacle to the tower stairway, and the guardian angels at the other three corners. The residents of the Hall at the time were the Atkyns; their successors were the Boileaus, whose famous mausoleum is to the east of the church. It was built under very traumatic circumstances, one of the central incidents in Owen Chadwick's masterly Victorian Miniature, a book I only read after my visit here, but which will send me back there as soon as possible.
There have been four main families that have left their impression here - the Grays, the Heveninghams, the Atkyns and the Boileaus. The atmosphere of the interior, at once rustic and grand, tells you that the Boileaus had more say in the 19th century than the ecclesiologists of Oxford and Cambridge ever did. Sir John Boileau, the hot-tempered, paternalistic Squire, was responsible for the elegant west gallery; he spent thirty years in dispute with the vain, egotistical, Calvinist Rector William Andrew, and his appalling wife Ellen, a tale recounted in Chadwick's book.
The key lets you in through the vestry, and you step into a chancel which is quite overwhelming in the quantity of its memorials. There are over 500 years worth of them from all four families, and the best thing is that they are almost all both interesting and quirky - few of them are merely pompous or run of the mill.
There are, broadly speaking, four groups. On the south side of the chancel is a large table tomb which might once have formed an Easter sepulchre. Set in its recess are two late 15th century brasses to Sir Henry and Lady Gray. An older brass to Jane Gray is set on the wall to the west of it. Moving west, the massive tomb by Robert Page for Edward Atkyns, who died in 1750, looks like nothing so much as a bath tub with lion's feet.
Directly opposite is the family pew of the Atkyns, later that of the Boileaus - memorials of both families tower above it, most prominently the weeping woman and urn on the Richard Westmacott memorial to father and son Edward and Wright Atkyns; the array of weapons stacked beside the urn recall that the son died in battle.
This is echoed in one of the later brass inscriptions set below to Charles Augustus Penryn Boileau, youngest son of Sir John Boileau. Something of a rake, he went to the Crimean War as a way of escaping his debts, and died in Malta on his way home as a result of injuries suffered at the 1855 seige of Sebastapol; a tangle of musket, sword, bugle and so on, is starkly carved from stone beneath.
A memorial of similar size to John, Charles' eldest brother, matches it; more successful in public life than his brother, he was a parliamentary private secretary to Lord John Russell. Russell's retirement coincided with the end of the Crimean War; John rushed out to see it end, but caught a fever in Austro-Hungary. He came home, but was sent to the south of France to recuperate. He got as far as Dieppe, and died there in 1861.
Between the two brasses is a central, larger one to their parents; SIr John Boileau, his movements, talents and emotions known to us today from Chadwick's book, a bull-headed yet sympathetic character who might have stepped out of the pages of Trollope, and his wife Catherine.
Catherine should have been remembered by a memorial window depicting the Saint that gave her name; but there was such an uproar in the parish, fanned by the Rector, about having an image of a Saint in the church that Sir John relented. The Rector, who was not unkind, reported to Sir John that his greatest fear was that the simple people of the parish might think it was the Virgin Mary.
Perhaps the most curious memorial is the most westerly one of this group. It is a 1910 memorial to Charlotte Atkyns, who died in Paris in 1836, and is buried in an unmarked grave; born a Walpole, she found herself caught up in the events of the French Revolution, and the inscription further recalls that she was the friend of Marie Antoinette, and made several brave attempts to rescue her from prison; and after that Queen's death strove to rescue the Dauphin of France. She bankrupted the family fortunes in her quest, mortgaging the Ketteringham estate and claiming to have spent an extraordinary eighty thousand pounds, about fifteen million in today's money.
Owen Chadwick recalls that, on her death, she requested that her body be returned to Ketteringham and a marble slab be placed on the chancel walls. Her relatives of the time, left destitute by her enthusiasms, not unreasonably failed to carry out either request. You might think that Charlotte's Francophile adventures and the French name of the Boileaus might indicate a family connection; in fact, the Boileaus were an old Huguenot family who came to Norfolk by way of Dublin, and already owned Tacolneston Hall. They bought the bankrupt Ketteringham estate after Charlotte's death.
Perhaps the best of all the memorials is in the north-east corner of the chancel, to Sir William Heveningham and his wife Mary. It is curious, the way the figures and prayerdesk at the bottom, and the ascending angel above, appear to obscure the inscription; but there may be a reason for this. Sir William was one of those who sat in judgement on Charles I, and although he did not actually sign the death warrant, he was deprived of his inheritance, and for many years his name was under a cloud.
St Peter is obviously worth the visit for the memorials alone, but there is rather more to it than that. The church has one of the best collections of medieval and Flemish glass in central Norfolk. One of the most interesting aspects of the collection, given that the Hall was in the hands of four powerful families over the centuries, is that it includes a 15th century Grey arms, and so we may perhaps assume that the families that collected the later continental glass were adding it to English medieval glass that was already in situ.
The most important glass is an English medieval Coronation of the Queen of Heaven, an extraordinarily rare pair of panels. Also English are numerous angels, a Saint Cecilia playing her psaltery, and a Bishop. Continental roundels include St Barbara, and there is also a fascinating St Christopher with a hermit looking on, which I take to be 15th century continental.
One of the striking things about the east window is that this is a collection set for display. I assume that this was the work of the late 18th century Atkyns family. Mary Parker tells me that the entire window was reset in 1908 by the King workshop of Norwich, and that some of it is now in reverse order to that given in an account of 1851. Some of the panels are in poor condition, and I fear that this may be because they were originally set back-to-front, that is to say with the painting outside, exposed to the elements. The King restoration corrected this, but not before the damage had been done.
If St Peter had none of the glass, and none of the memorials either, there would still be much to recommend it. The font is fascinating; four of the panels feature evangelistic symbols, and two others flowers; but the final two panels are very unusual. They are the only two that appear to have suffered iconoclasm; one is clearly a crucifixion scene, something like that which you find often on fonts in the seven sacraments series. The eighth panel is harder to decode. It shows a seated figure holding a staff - could it be Christ in judgement? Or the Mother of God enthroned? It is hard to say. The renewed roof, with its restored angels, is set on outstanding corbels, and there is a good view of them from up in the gallery. This is a small, narrow church, and the intimacy of the views from aloft is much to be recommended. In such a small building it even gives a good vantage point for photographing the east window if you have a decent zoom.
Sir John Boileau built the gallery as a way of providing accommodation for the Sunday School, an interference that the Rector deeply resented. There was no way that Sir John's liberal paternalism and the Rector's fundamentalist intransigence were ever likely to accommodate each other. The firm security of tenure enjoyed by both, and the further sources of friction that arose between them, not least the interference of the Rector's wife, made the situation explosive.
All around are hatchments of Atkyns and Boileaus. There is no doubt that they had their say, but strangely enough there is no sense of triumphalism; rather, they mark a church which is a real backwater, both geographically and in terms of English church furnishing and decoration. But if this was a backwater, it was a moneyed one; there is a real quality to the way everything was carried out here, and this remains today. As a good example, take the late 16th century painting on boards of the Wedding at Canaa in use as a reredos. My goodness, what a thing to find in an English country church! At the time it was painted, we were all enthusiastic protestants, stripping our churches and our lives of things of beauty. But here it is, an extraordinary Flemish survival, probably collected in the early 19th century.
As I said at the start, Norfolk is still full of surprises. This is not a church you find by accident, and so it fully repays the effort of getting here and getting in. What must it have been like to attend divine service here in the 19th century? I assume that the entire parish, pretty much, worked for the Hall. Whose side were they on in the long-running dispute between Squire and Rector? The Rector had the advantage of a three-decker pulpit. The reading light now faces north-west, but at one time he would have faced north-east, to address the Hall pew. This must have given him something of an advantage on a Sunday.
But today it is the Hall families we remember; the Grays, the Heveninghams, the Atkyns and especially the Boileaus. So, spare a glance and a thought before leaving for the cold stone memorial on the south nave wall for William Wayte Andrew, Rector through the middle years of the 19th century. In his evangelical Calvinist zeal he faced up to the Boileaus, but it must be with pursed lips that he is a silent witness to them now.
Simon Knott, 2006, updated 2016
Halberstädter Verkehrs-GmbH (HVG): the city of Halberstadt (41,000 inhabitants), in the federal state of Sachsen-Anhalt, has one of the smallest tram networks in Germany: 11.7 km of metric gauge tracks electrified at 600 V DC, with two routes (1 and 2). The service is provided by nine trams: four old Esslingen GT4, built between 1960 and 1966 and acquired second hand (numbers 156, 164, 167 and 168), and five modern low floor Leoliner NGTW6-H, built by HeiterBlick GmbH between 2006 and 2007 (numbers 1 to 5).
Here we see one of the Leoliner trams starting a service on line 1 from Friedhof towards Hauptbahnhof, leaving the HVG workshops. The terminal of line 1 in Friedhof involves a curious maneuver: this line ends in a single track siding; since the Leoliner trams are uni-directional, in order to leave in the opposite direction, they must reverse to enter the premises of the company's workshops, and then change the direction again to begin their journey.
Saturday, August 28th at the Victorian Iron Horse Roundup (held at the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad) featured activities centered around Chama, New Mexico.
The day started with a light power move of D&RG No. 168 from Cumbres Pass to Chama. The 4-6-0 had spent the night inside the Cumbres snowshed as there were no rested crews available to bring it down the mountain to Chama the previous evening (it had been on the “Across the Railroad” excursion with D&RG No. 425).
The daily Chama-Osier excursion was handled by C&TS 2-8-2 No. 487; locomotive No. 484 was at Chama but was not under steam.
The main event was an excursion behind 4-4-0 Eureka and 2-6-0 Glenbrook from Chama to Cumbres Pass and return, followed by a dinner train trip from Chama to Cumbres Pass behind 2-8-0 No. 425 and 4-6-0 No. 168.
The day did not go exactly as planned. After the regular train departed at 10:00 AM, Eureka and Glenbrook (which had been coupled together earlier in the morning) were supposed to depart ten minutes later. However, a few minor delays pushed the departure back to early afternoon. The train steamed up towards Cumbres Pass without difficulty and stopped at Cresco for water. It was there that Eureka began to lose steam pressure as its blower line (in the smokebox) had become disconnected ( a situation unbeknownst to the crew). With no way to build pressure in Eureka an attempt was made to continue up to Cumbres behind Glenbrook, but even though it was able to start the train, it was not able to keep the heavy train moving upgrade. After this the difficult decision was made to return to Chama; No. 425 was dispatched and traveled up to Cresco, then pulled the excursion train back down the mountain at a slow speed.
The dinner train ended up leaving Chama later than advertised, but its passengers did make it to the summit of Cumbres Pass that night where everyone enjoyed a good meal.
Despite the issues, it was a great day for photography.
In terms of length now.
No. Wait.
She is now two inches taller than me.
Darn.
She used to look up to me, now it is the reverse...
Copyright - All Rights Reserved - Black Diamond Images
Lord Howe Island is known as "The Last Paradise" and not without some considerable justification.
The coral surrounding the island and in the lagoon is the furthest southern coral in the world apart from some coral around Balls Pyramid 20km South East of Lord Howe.
With global warming seriously threatening the very existence of Australia's Great Barrier Reef it looks as if Lord Howe will be a last refuge for coral reefs as we know them today.
There are legally limited numbers of cars residents and visitors to World Heritage listed Lord Howe and the only way to get around is on foot or by bicycle or boat.
Accommodation is limited so costs are comparatively high.Nevertheless the natural beauty of this magnificent paradise make every dollar spent well worthwhile.
At least 10 days is needed to actively explore the island and you will need every bit of that time as every day starts early and ends late,and you will be a whole lot fitter by the time you jump reluctantly back on the plane home.
Some options for doing custom house numbers. For my show display.
Different fonts and set ups. Ring saw and mosaic.
These are done on tile.
Glass tile, stained glass, and ball chain.
Not everything I shot on the boardwalk was abstract. Contax III, Original Wolfen NC400 Color, ECN-2.
DETAILS FOR THIS VEHICLE.
Location : Tonbridge West Yard.
Date : 29/06/1993.
Type : 31 ton capacity Open Spoil Wagon.
Weight : 41 t GLW / 13 t Tare.
Number : DC 210254.
Number Series : Random numbers in the 210100 to 210399 range.
Builder : 1977-78 by BREL Shildon Works.
TOPS Code : ZCA.
CCE Code : SEA URCHIN.
Lot No. 3908.
Diagram No. : -
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
With British Rail having gone for air brakes as default standard for wagons in 1983 the bulk of the Civil Engineers fleet remained largely vacuum braked or unfitted vehicles well into the 1980's but as more and more ex revenue air braked vehicles became available so more of the older dedicated engineers types disappeared. The problem came when certain types of vehicles were required which hadn't been cascaded from the revenue fleet like suitable wagons to carry ballast spoil which could be loaded and unloaded by mechanical excavators. The older short wheel based 'Grampus', 'Lamprey's and 'Tunney's were very susceptible to floor damage when unloaded by digger so BR set out in the late 1980's and early 90's on a conversion programme for redundant Air braked vans using the underframes as chassis for new spoil wagons. An initial conversion programme saw former VJX Ferry vans converted to 'Sea Hares' but the most successful conversion was the redundant air braked goods vans from VAA, VBA, VCA and VDA to ZCA 'Sea Urchins'. Further ZCA vehicles were built using chassis from ex OBA Open goods vehicles too in the 110xxx range.
The vehicle seen here is loaded with chalk removed from one of the many cuttings through the North Downs during weekend engineering work and will be destined for landfill at East Peckham Tip on the Medway Valley line.
[Taken on a Practika MTL5B using Jessop CT100 film and scanned from a print]
Edinburgh Accies v Currie Chieftains
Accies 45. Currie 27
14th September 2024
Raeburn Place, Stockbridge, Edinburgh
Death Valley National Park Winter Fine Art Photos! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape and Nature Photography
45EPIC Elliot McGucken Fine Art Nature and Landscape Photography!
Join my new 45EPIC fine art landscapes page on facebook!
Working on a couple photography books! 45EPIC GODDESS PHOTOGRAPHY: A classic guide to exalting the archetypal woman. And 45EPIC Fine Art Landscape Photography!
More on my golden ratio musings: facebook.com/goldennumberratio
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Greetings all! I have been busy finishing a few books on photography, while traveling all over--to Zion and the Sierras--shooting fall colors. Please see some here: facebook.com/mcgucken
Let me know in the comments if you would like a free review copy of one of my photography books! :)
Titles include:
The Tao of Epic Landscape Photography: Exalt Fine Art with the Yin-Yang Wisdom of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching!
The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Why the Fibonacci Numbers Exalt Beauty and How to Create PHI Compositions in Art, Design, & Photography
And I am also working on a book on photographing the goddesses! :) More goddesses soon!
Best wishes on your epic hero's odyssey!:)
Exalt in the glorious golden ratio! facebook.com/goldennumberratio
The American Roots of Nazi Eugenics -> hnn.us/articles/1796.html edwinblack.com/
<- By Edwin Black. An excerpt of the article below:
Mr. Black is the author of IBM and the Holocaust and the just released War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, from which the following article is drawn.
Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a co-called "Master Race."
But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.
Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.
California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the Twentieth Century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate and Polytechnic benefactor Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles M. Goethe, as well as members of the California State Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.
Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Stamford, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.
Stanford president David Starr Jordan originated the notion of "race and blood" in his 1902 racial epistle "Blood of a Nation," in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.
In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation's social service agencies and associations.
The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, trumped up confinement or forced sterilization.
The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.
Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California's quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as the Pasadena-based Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations--which functioned as part of a closely-knit network--published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis.
Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people only married other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton's ideas were imported into the United States just as Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenic advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man.
In an America demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early twentieth century. Elitists, utopians and so-called "progressives" fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton's eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind--and less or none of everyone else.
The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark-haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists.
How? By identifying so-called "defective" family trees and subjecting them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior--the so-called "unfit." The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.
Eighteen solutions were explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 "Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder's Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population." Point eight was euthanasia.
The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in America was a "lethal chamber" or public locally operated gas chambers. In 1918, Popenoe, the Army venereal disease specialist during World War I, co-wrote the widely used textbook, Applied Eugenics, which argued, "From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself is execution… Its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated." Applied Eugenics also devoted a chapter to "Lethal Selection," which operated "through the destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency."
Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be immune. Thirty to forty percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln. Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect.
Nonetheless, with eugenicide marginalized, the main solution for eugenicists was the rapid expansion of forced segregation and sterilization, as well as more marriage restrictions. California led the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little or no due process. In its first twenty-five years of eugenic legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were classified as "bad girls," diagnosed as "passionate," "oversexed" or "sexually wayward." At Sonoma, some women were sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or labia.
In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 of which were on women. The state's two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals.
Even the United States Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…. Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes's words in their own defense.
Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German official and scientists.
Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti-Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his side. While Hitler's race hatred sprung from his own mind, the intellectual outlines of the eugenics Hitler adopted in 1924 were made in America.
During the '20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep personal and professional relationships with Germany's fascist eugenicists. In Mein Kampf, published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. "There is today one state," wrote Hitler, "in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States."
Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress of the American eugenics movement. "I have studied with great interest," he told a fellow Nazi, "the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock."
Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenic leader Madison Grant calling his race-based eugenics book, The Passing of the Great Race his "bible."
Hitler's struggle for a superior race would be a mad crusade for a Master Race. Now, the American term "Nordic" was freely exchanged with "Germanic" or "Aryan." Race science, racial purity and racial dominance became the driving force behind Hitler's Nazism. Nazi eugenics would ultimately dictate who would be persecuted in a Reich-dominated Europe, how people would live, and how they would die. Nazi doctors would become the unseen generals in Hitler's war against the Jews and other Europeans deemed inferior. Doctors would create the science, devise the eugenic formulas, and even hand-select the victims for sterilization, euthanasia and mass extermination."
For more reading:
www.bankingonbaghdad.com/archive/hnn20041122/7774.html
www.waragainsttheweak.com/offSiteArchive/HitlerDebtToAmer...
Selkirk 17
Currie Chieftains 47
Teams: Selkirk: C Anderson; C Findlater, J Welsh, A Grant-Suttie, B Cullen; C Easson, Aaron McColm; L Pettie, B Riddell, Z Szwagrzak, A Cochrane, D Nichol, J Turnbull, S McClymont, Andrew McColm. Substitutes: F Easson, J Milliband, C Turnbull, J Beveridge, F Malin.
Currie Chieftains: C Brett; R Daley, DJ Innes, C Gray, I Sim,;M O’Neil, C Lessels; C Anderson, R Vucago, G Carson, C West, W Inglis, A McCallum, S Cardosi, R Davies. Substitutes: T Jeffrey, O Blyth-Lafferty, A Bain, K Steel, K McGovern.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
During Operation Barbarossa, the Panzer Divisions were once again spearheading the German advance, as in the previous year in the West. Initially, the lightly protected Soviet early tanks (like the BT series and the T-26) proved to be easy prey for the advancing German Panzers. However, the Panzer crews were shocked to discover that their guns were mostly ineffective against the armor of the newer T-34, the KV-1 and KV-2. German infantry units also discovered that their 3.7 cm PaK 36 anti-tank towed guns were of little use against these. The stronger 5 cm PaK 38 towed anti-tank gun was only effective at shorter distances and it had not been produced in great numbers by that time. Luckily for the Germans, the new Soviets tanks were immature designs, plagued by inexperienced crews, a lack of spare parts, ammunition and poor operational use. Nevertheless, they played a significant role in slowing down and eventually stopping the German assault in late 1941. In North Africa, the Germans also faced increasing numbers of Matilda tanks which also proved to be hard to knock out.
The experience gained during the first year of the invasion of the Soviet Union raised a red alert in the highest German military circles. One possible solution to this problem was the introduction of the new Rheinmetall 7.5 cm PaK 40 anti-tank gun. It was first issued in very limited numbers at the end of 1941. It became the standard German anti-tank gun used until the end of the war, with some 20,000 guns being built. It was an excellent anti-tank gun, able to penetrate 87 mm of hardened steel at a 60° angle at 1.000 m (3.000 ft) with a muzzle velocity of 990 m/s – enough to knock out the armor of the Soviet KV-1 tank at 500 meters, and at 1.500m the gun was still able to penetrate up to 77 mm of armor, enough to eliminate most Allied medium tanks like the M4 Sherman. Maximum engagement range was 1,800 metres (5,906 ft) and the PaK 40 had an indirect range of 7,678 metres (25,190 ft) with a HE shell. A trained crew was able to fire 14 rounds per minute and more.
However, despite these impressive figures, the main problem with the PaK40 as a mobile field weapon was its heavy weight of 1,425 kilograms (3,138 lb), making it somewhat difficult to deploy and hard to manhandle. This also made it hard to adapt the weapon to existing battle tank designs: it was too large for the Panzer III turret and its narrow chassis that did not allow a bigger turret, but the adaptation to the slightly bigger Panzer IV as 7.5 cm KwK 40 succeeded. The gun was even adapted to aerial platforms as the BK 7,5 in the Henschel Hs 129B-3 and the Junkers Ju 88P-1 ground attack aircraft.
The solution to this mobility and deployment problem was to mount the PaK 40 on available tank chassis', creating SPGs. These new Panzerjäger (literally meaning “tank hunter”) vehicles all followed the same pattern: most were open-topped adaptations of not-so-state-of-the-art-anymore tanks, with a fixed gun with limited traverse in the hull, and with only thin armor. Notwithstanding these limitations, they were armed with an effective anti-tank gun, and usually with one machine gun for self-defense. Another beneficial factor: they were cheap and easy to build, and lent outdated vehicles a second frontline life. Panzerjägers were, in essence, improvised and temporary solutions, but effective, nevertheless. They were designed to engage enemy tanks at long ranges on open fields, or from well-hidden positions, usually on the flanks, with frequent changes of the location to avoid enemy fire. This mentality led to a series of such specialized German vehicles, all running under the family handle “Marder” (marten) that was developed using many different armored vehicles as a basis, including captured French armored vehicles (Marder I), the light Panzer II tank chassis (Marder II), the Czech LT vz.38 tank (Marder III) and, finally, the medium Panzer III (Marder IV).
The Marder IV, officially known as SdKfz. 144 'Panzerjäger III fuer 7.5 cm PaK 40/2', was the last member of the light Panzerjäger family, and it was designed as a lighter and cheaper alternative to the fully armored Sturmgeschütz III (Sd.Kfz.142), which had been introduced in early 1940 as an infantry support vehicle. By 1942 it had evolved into a capable assault gun and tank hunter, thanks to its new, long-barreled 7.5 cm StuK 40 L/43 gun (which actually was a development of the PaK 40). More than 10.000 StuG III SPGs were newly produced, but a small number (around 300) were converted between November 1943 and June 1944 from damaged and refurbished Panzer III battle tanks.
However, since this parallel production of the same vehicle was rather inefficient, the conversion line at MIAG gradually switched in early 1944 to the much simpler Marder IV. It had been developed in the meantime by Alkett as a successor for the Marder I and II SPGs, which suffered from many technical and tactical weaknesses. The Marder IV prototype was built by mid-September 1943, and on 20th October 1943 it was presented to the OKH. The vehicle proved to be satisfactory and thus was immediately adopted for production.
Even though the Marder IV still followed the earlier light tank hunter pattern with an open and just lightly armored superstructure that only gave inadequate protection for the crew, it was assumed that the stronger Panzer III chassis could better cope with the heavy 7.5 cm PaK 40 anti-tank gun and the vehicle’s relatively high center of gravity that frequently overstressed the earlier Marder I & IIs’ running gear.
Like the former Marder creations, the conversion was straightforward and followed the Marder II's pattern: the Panzer III battle tank basis lost the turret and the whole crew compartment was opened to provide the gun and the crew of four with more space. The engine remained the same and located in the chassis’ rear end, with the powertrain running all through the hull to the front under a fairing. Since the Marder IV was lighter than the Panzer III, the gear ratio was slightly altered, resulting in a higher top speed. However, the drive shaft in the lower combat compartment resulted in a relatively high position of the gun mount and consequently in a tall silhouette that made the Marder IV hard to conceal and an easy prey to enemy infantry, once detected. The boxy superstructure had slightly sloped armor at the front and at the sides (30 mm at the front, 11 mm elsewhere), which only protected against small arms fire or shrapnel. It was not suited against heavier weapons – but the Marder IV would try to avoid these, anyway. The new superstructure was widened at its base, so that ammunition racks and other equipment could be stored on both sides of the gun. The driver kept his original position and sights on the left side of the hull, the commander was typically standing behind him, and gunner and loader operated the main weapon at the rear of the compartment. In the front armor was an opening for the PaK 40 that was slightly offset to the right, where it replaced the former radio/machine gun operator position. The opening was protected by a square armor shield, 50 mm strong, and a machine gun could be mounted on top of the front glacis plate, operated by the commander against ground and aerial targets. This weapon was without any further protection, though, but many crews improvised armored shields, e.g. salvaged from StuG III or IV vehicles. The crew compartment's top remained open and the rear plate featured a double door for ease of boarding and re-supplying. A tarpaulin could be mounted to offer the a limited degree of protection against rain.
Beyond the enlarged combat compartment, the hull remained unchanged. The ammunition supply for the gun was thirty-two rounds – a weakness that the Marder IV inherited from its predecessors and limited its combat effectiveness. Some of the vehicles received additional, bolted-on 30 mm armor plates on the front, or simply retained them from their former Panzer III lives. 5 mm (0.20 in) Panzerschürzen spaced armor to protect the vehicle’s flanks and running gear could be mounted, too, but they were rarely fitted because they were short in supply and easily lost in the heat of battle.
The Marder IV just arrived after the breakout from Normandy at the end of July 1944 and the Allied landings in southern France in August 1944, when Allied forces advanced towards Germany more quickly than anticipated. The Marder IV was also used during the ‘Battle of the Bulge’ in the Ardennes in December of the same year. Units at the Eastern front received the Marder IV, too, and the type fought in frontline units until mid-1945. A total of 255 vehicles were produced until then, twenty of them were delivered to Hungarian forces. Some of the final production vehicles apparently had their PaK 40 replaced with a 8.8 cm Raketenwerfer 43 (also known as "Puppchen"), a reusable anti-tank rocket launcher that was much lighter and compact than the anti-tank gun.
However, the range of its missile, the RPzB. Gr. 4312, was very limited. Maximum range was just 750m, with an effective range of just 30 m (750 ft) against a moving target) and 500 m (1,600 ft) againts a stationary target. Coming that close into a firing position with the vehicle against an enemy battle tank was unlikely, if not suicidal, and most probably these Marder IVs were rather used as observation and command vehicles than as tank hunters. The number of these vehicles is uncertain, though, but probably less than 30 had been produced and delivered to frontline units until the end of the war.
Specifications:
Crew: Five (commander, gunner, loader, driver, radio-operator)
Weight: 18.5 tonnes
Length: 5.56 m (18 ft 3 in), hull only
6,62 m (21 ft 8 1/2 in) overall
Width: 2.90 m (9 ft 6 in)
Height: 2.46 m (8 ft 1/2 in)
Suspension: Torsion bar
Fuel capacity: 300 litres
Armor:
15 – 50 mm (0.6 – 1.97 in), sometimes up-armored to 80 mm at the front
Performance:
Maximum road speed: 48 km/h (30 mph)
Off-road speed: 28 km/h (18 mph)
Operational range: 185 km (115 mi) on roads with internal fuel
100 km (62 mi) off-road
Power/weight: 16.21 PS (11.92 kW)/tonne
Engine:
Maybach HL120 TRM water-cooled 12-cylinder gasoline engine with 300 PS (296 hp, 220 kW),
combined with a Maybach OG 55 11 77 semi-automatic transmission
Armament:
1× 75 mm (2.95 in) 7.5 cm PaK 40/2 L/48 anti-tank gun with thirty-two rounds
1× 7.92 mm MG 34 or 42 machine gun with 2.400 rounds
The kit and its assembly:
This project was the result of a surplus 1:72 Revell Flakpanzer III "Ostwind" kit that I had in my stash after I had used the gun and the octagonal turret for a Panther conversion with twin 3.7 cm FlaK guns in an open turret. And even though the Ostwind kit was still buildable as a standard Panzer III (it includes a complete standard turret), I wanted to create something whiffy from it. An SPG was a serious option, maybe a tank hunter (since there was, apart from the StuG III with the long gun no such vehicle on this chassis), and then I remembered the Marder family of converted, outdated tanks - all of them had open superstructures, though and were only lightly armored, for hit.and-run tactics.
But I accepted this challenge and the plan was to mount a PaK 40 on the Panzer III chassis, with a new, scratched superstructure. The gun came from an Italeri set with infantry weapons, which also includes a 37 mm Pak and a quadruple 20 mm anti-aircraft gun. Initially I wanted to use the PaK 40's shield and build the combat compartment around it, but that soon turned out to be too complex, so that the gun just fired through a hole in the font plate, protected by an externa shield left over from an Elefant SPAAG (Trumpeter kit). The rest was inspired by the cabin of the Marder III (Ausf. H), with sloped side walls that widened the combat section beyond the lower hull between the tracks. Unlike the Marder III, however, the Panzer III offered enough space to mount a rear wall, offering better crew protection.
Work started with the lower hull, with a raised floor (above the torsion bar suspension), new side walls and a tunnel for the cardan shaft from the engine to the driver wheels at the front - which seriously eats up lots of space and prevents a low mounting position for the main gun! Then the floors of the alcoves left and right were added and the side walls mounted to them. The front was the final challenge - after the gun position had been decided, I tried to build the front armore from segments around the necessary opening, which tunred out to be more complex than expected. But the Elefant front panel came to the rescue, I just had to cut the gun barrel to mount the matching shield and finally attach it to the gun inside of the hull.
The rest from the kit was taken OOB, I just added a driver seat inside and replaced the original segmented plastic tracks with aftermarket Panzer III/IV vinyl tracks from CMK - they match perfectly and are much easier to mount than a zillion of single track links that never look right...
Painting and markings:
Straightforward, following official regulations and inspired by a Wespe SPG with a similar camouflage concept: an overall countershading, with a Dunkelgelb (RAL 7928, Huimbrol 83 "Ochre") base and Olivgrün (RAL 6003, I used Humbrol 159 because it is slightly lighter than the recommended 86) mottles that become denser and denser the higher they are placed on the hull, with a "clean" running gear area (which provides shadow contrasts that break the vehicles outlines by themselves) and an almost exclusively green top of the superstructure. The visible interior remained Dunkelgelb, though.
Markings were minimal, and after securing the decals (taken from the OOBH sheet, the tactical code comes from a Hasegawa tank) with acrlyic varnish the model received a treatment with watercolors, a mix of umbra, burnt sienna and black that makes a great coat of dust and dirt at the small 1:72 scale. To break up the outlines even more I also added some camouflage nets to the superstructure - simple gauze bandage, drenched with olive green, dark brown and beige acrylic paint and mounted into place - and some branches - dry moss that was dyed with watercolors. Finally, after the painted vinyl tracks (with grey, brown and iron acrylic paint) had been mounted, the lower areas of the model were dusted with mineral artist pigments to simulate more dust.
It does not look complex, but this small Marder derivative was quite a challenge with its scratched superstructure and the implanted PaK 40, which remained visible and even movable! The result looks very plausible, though - a really subtle whif model.