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My great grandfather, Ernest LeSuer- Oil City PA area. Notice that the bells on the harness to the carriage are of different sizes for different tones. My mother relates a funny story about a time that on an icy day during his deliveries he lost his footing on a hill and slid down a hill, hit the door of the house below, knocked the door open and wound up in the kitchen of the home he was delivering to- at the feet of his customer! His lineage is below. (Photo from 1905-1911- my mother relates that his route was rural Erie)
(From a history written by Meredith Jenkins, long time McKean area resident 1939-41)
Mary Agnes Jenkins was born in a log cabin in Franklin Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania on July 19, 1863. She was the daughter of John C. and Rozillar Jenkins. Mary attended the Foy school and in 1880 went to the Waterford Academy for one term. She worked on the farm and in the house as an all a round helper. On April 19, 1885 she was married to Ernest S. LeSuer of Franklin Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania. To them were born two sons Elmer Allen and Floyd Emerson. Agnes and family moved to Oil City, Pennsylvania in 1905 and from there to Alabama in 1911. A year later they returned to Pennsylvania and now live at McLane, Pennsylvania. Agnes united with the Christian Advent Church in 1891 and is still a member. With the exception of seven or eight years, she has lived within five miles of where she was born.
Elmer Allen LeSuer, son of Agnes and Ernest LeSuer, was born in McKean, Pennsylvania on December 2, 1886. He received a fair education, took a correspondence course in drafting from the Seranton Correspondence School. Elmer got a job as a draftsman in a machine shop in Oil City. He was married on March 25, 1909 to Miss Emma Wise of Oil City, Pennsylvania. He went to Detroit, Michigan in 1910 and worked for the Ford Motor Company. He worked here until 1919 and then came back to Pennsylvania and tried farming for a few until ill health overtook him. He was employed by some Erie firms as a draftsman, and was called back to Detroit in 1936 where he now resides. Elmer and Emma were blessed with five children. Elmer Allen Jr., Hazel Virginia, Roger Frederick, Marjorie Eileen (my mother), Robert Blaine.
(From a family history written by Meredith Jenkins, Agnes' brother, about 1940.)
Today I selected an image that fully explains how I relate to Monday mornings ... :-) Go on, admit it, I'll bet that I'm not alone with those thoughts when the Monday morning alarm rings. LOL.
This burrowing owl was photographed expelling a pellet, which is a normal process and behavior exhibited by all owls. See, the pellet consists of the indigestible remnants of their meal. It's also quite interesting to see what they've been eating too! Now I have to admit that I haven't yet explored the contents of the burrowing owl pellets, but we have done it with the eastern screech owls that raised their young in our backyard ... lots of bird bones and yellow feathers were in those. We also used the pellet locations to find the male great horned owl out in Rocky Mountain NP ... those pellets actually contained an intact bird skull! Fascinating I think.
So, as I said before, though I don't expel pellets, I do feel this urge and reaction most Monday mornings ... except when on vacation, that is. :-)
Thanks for stopping by to view and share your thoughts and comments.
A new blog post was published tonight ... featuring images from the Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP. Check it out if you have time.
Blog: www.tnwaphotography.wordpress.com
Website: www.tnwaphotography.com
© 2014 Debbie Tubridy / TNWA Photography
Today in Ireland and in the US new regulations relating to drones has been introduced [effective from the 21st of December 2015]. There are many similarities in the regulations but there is one major differences in that here in Ireland they have not mention the penalties for failure to register but in the US the cost of failure to register appears to be rather extreme … “civil penalties up to $27,500, or criminal penalties up to 3 years in prison and $250,000.” According to the minister the aim here in Ireland is to encourage drone users to be responsible citizens.
I have included the press releases from both administrations, have a read and see what you think.
Thursday, 17th December 2015: The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) today announced a new drone regulation which includes the mandatory registration of all drones weighing 1kg or more from Monday, 21st December 2015.
The use of drones worldwide is expanding rapidly and there are estimated to be between 4,000 – 5,000 drones already in use in Ireland. Ireland has taken a proactive role in this fast emerging area and is currently one of only a handful of EU Member states that has legislation governing the use of drones.
The new legislation is intended to further enhance safety within Ireland and specifically addresses the safety challenges posed by drones.
From 21st December 2015, all drones weighing 1kg or more must be registered with the IAA via www.iaa.ie/drones. Drone registration is a simple two-step process. To register a drone, the registrant must be 16 years of age or older (Drones operated by those under 16 years of age must be registered by a parent or legal guardian). A nominal fee will apply from February 2016 but this has been initially waived by the IAA in order to encourage early registration.
Mr Ralph James, IAA Director of Safety Regulation, said
“Ireland is already recognised worldwide as a centre of excellence for civil aviation and the drone sector presents another major opportunity for Ireland. We’re closely working with industry to facilitate its successful development here. At the same time, safety is our top priority and we must ensure that drones are used in a safe way and that they do not interfere with all other forms of aviation.
Mr James explained that drone registration has been made a mandatory requirement as this will help the IAA to monitor the sector in the years ahead. The IAA encourages all drone operators to take part in training courses which are available through a number of approved drone training organisations.
“We would strongly encourage drone operators to register with us as quickly as possible, to complete a training course and to become aware of their responsibilities. People operating drones must do so in safe and responsible manner and in full compliance with the new regulations”, he said.
Welcoming the introduction of drone regulation, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Paschal Donohoe TD highlighted the importance of the new legislation and commended the IAA for the efficient manner to have the new registration system in place so quickly.
“The core safety message promoted today advocates the safe use of drones in civilian airspace. The development of drone technology brings opportunities as well as challenges for businesses and services in Ireland. I expect hundreds if not thousands of drones to be bought as presents this Christmas so getting the message to ensure that new owners and operators are aware of their responsibilities and the requirement to register all drones over 1 kg from 21st December 2015 is key. Tremendous potential exists for this sector and Ireland is at the forefront of its development. The speedy response by the IAA to this fast developing aviation area will make sure that drones are properly regulated and registered for use. As a result, Ireland is well placed to exploit the drone sector and to ensure industry growth in this area,” he said.
The new legislation prohibits users from operating their drones in an unsafe manner. This includes never operating a drone:
• if it will be a hazard to another aircraft in flight
• over an assembly of people
• farther than 300m from the operator
• within 120m of any person, vessel or structure not under the operator’s control
• closer than 5km from an aerodrome
• in a negligent or reckless manner so as to endanger life or property of others
• over 400ft (120m) above ground level
• over urban areas
• in civil of military controlled airspace
• in restricted areas (e.g. military installations, prisons, etc.)
• unless the operator has permission from the landowner for takeoff and landing.
For further information please visit www.iaa.ie/drones and see the IAA’s detailed Q&A sheet.
The Federal Aviation Administration has officially launched the drone registration program first reported in October. Drone operators are required to register their UAVs with the Unmanned Aircraft System registry starting December 21. Failure to register could result in criminal and civil penalties.
Under the new system, all aircraft must be registered with the FAA including those 'operated by modelers and hobbyists.' Once registered, drone operators must carry the registration certificate during operation. This new system only applies to drones weighing more than 0.55lbs/250g and less than 55lbs/25kg. The only exception to the registration requirement is indoor drone flights.
Required registration information includes a mailing address and physical address, email address, and full names; however, no information on the drone's make, model, or serial number is required from recreational users. Non-recreational users will need to provide drone information, including serial number, when that particular registration system goes live.
Failure to register could result in civil penalties up to $27,500, or criminal penalties up to 3 years in prison and $250,000. A $5 registration charge is applied, but will be refunded to those who register before January 20. The registration certificate is sent in an email to be printed at home.
Dundalk overwhelm Bangor in All Ireland Final
by Roger Corbett
Bangor’s amazing run in the All Ireland Junior Cup came to an abrupt end when they were comprehensively beaten by Dundalk, eventually losing by 55-5.
Where do you start when trying to relate and absorb the events of Saturday’s final at Chambers Park? Firstly, congratulations to worthy winners Dundalk who nullified the Bangor attack, then went on to produce some stunning plays which racked up no less than 8 tries, each by a different player. For Bangor’s part, they were unable to respond to the intensity of Dundalk’s game, and lacked the cutting edge which their opponents used to great effect.
The day started full of promise, as the strong support from North Down made their way to Chambers Park in Portadown, knowing Bangor would be fielding their best team. Once again, the pundits had Bangor as the underdogs – just as they had done so in the previous three rounds! In confounding the experts earlier, Bangor produced some awesome performances against top quality opposition to get to the final. Dundalk had produced some convincing wins in the early rounds of the competition, but had struggled to get past CIYMS in the semi-final, just managing to squeeze ahead at the second time of asking. However, with a number of key players returning to the side in time for this game, they were now back at full strength and would be a formidable force to contend with.
Having won the toss, captain Jamie Clegg elected to play into the stiff wind in the first half. For the first 5 minutes, Bangor doggedly retained possession and tried to play their way into Dundalk’s half through a series of determined forward moves. However, little ground was made and, when possession was finally lost, the Dundalk back line produced a burst that simply cut through the Bangor defence resulting in an easy touch down under Bangor’s posts for a 7-0 lead.
Bangor stuck to their plan and slowly, but patiently, got their attack moving forward, eventually winning a penalty to the left of Dundalk’s posts, but Mark Widdowson’s kick into the wind drifted just wide of the mark.
The contrast in play between the two teams was becoming clear, with Bangor trying to keep the ball close while Dundalk were throwing it wide. The latter strategy was proving to be the more effective as, with 20 minutes gone, a quick back line move with players looping around resulted in an overlap on the right wing which gave a clear run in to again, score under the posts. A further 9 minutes later, they did it again and, although the Bangor defence had sensed the danger and moved across to cover it, their tackling let them down allowing Dundalk to get over in the right hand corner, taking their lead to 19-0.
By now, Bangor were trying to hang on until half time when they could regroup and come out with the wind at their backs. Dundalk, on the other hand were anxious to press home their advantage and give them a more comfortable lead. To Bangor’s credit, although camped on their own line for lengthy spells, they dug in and managed to hold on until the referee’s half time whistle.
As the teams reappeared from the dressing rooms, it was obvious Bangor were ringing the changes, particularly in the backs. With the wind advantage having lessened considerably, Bangor got the second half underway. It was now Dundalk’s turn to adopt the slow, steady approach, just as Bangor had done earlier. However, their more confident off-loading and support play was, once again, taking play deep into Bangor’s territory. Frustration at not being able to gain possession and take play out of their danger area eventually resulted in a yellow card for Clegg after a succession of penalties. Dundalk kicked the penalty to touch, won their lineout and drove for the line. Although initially held up by the Bangor defence, Dundalk’s repeated drives were eventually rewarded with another converted score, extending their lead to 26-0.
From the touchline, the Bangor faithful had felt that if their players had managed to score first in the second half, they may have been able to mount a fight-back and close the gap to their opponents. As it was, this Dundalk score simply bolstered their confidence and pushed Bangor deeper into trouble. With Bangor still a man down, Dundalk added to the score with a penalty and then another score in the corner. Everything was now working for the Leinster men, as even the difficult touchline conversion into the biting wind successfully split the posts, bringing the score to 36-0.
As the game entered the final quarter, and with Dundalk all but holding the cup, Bangor were now on the ropes. By contrast, the Dundalk players were in almost total control, and were not going to slow down now. In a 10 minute spell, they ran in a further 3 tries, making the scoreline 55-0. By now, any sense of dejection the Bangor supporters may have been feeling was now moved to feelings of sympathy for their players. However, pride was at stake and once again Bangor rallied as the game entered its final minutes. At last, the forwards got within striking distance of the Dundalk line and, although their repeated attacks were repelled, they finally managed to do what their opponents had done so effectively, and quickly passed the ball wide to Davy Charles. Even though they were 55 points ahead, the Dundalk defence made Charles work hard to drive through the tackles and score Bangor’s consolation try, bringing the final score to 55-5.
From Bangor’s point of view, the final score doesn’t tell the whole story of this competition. While the final may have resulted in a sad anti-climax for Bangor, the remarkable journey to get there will be remembered for some time. On the day, Dundalk were by far the better side, and Bangor would have to concede that their game was not up to the usual standard. However, there is no doubt the experience of competing at this level is something to relish and the goal now will be to secure a top four place in the league and try again next year.
Everybody at the club has nothing but the highest respect and praise for what has been achieved this year by not just the 1sts, but all the senior teams, and one poor result isn’t going to change that – the welcome at Upritchard Park for the returning players is testament to that. With that in mind, the players now need to put this disappointment behind them and provide the best possible response against a struggling Portadown side at home in the league next Saturday.
Bangor side: J Leary, A Jackson, P Whyte, F Black, G Irvine, R Latimer, J Clegg, C Stewart, R Armstrong, K Rosson, D Charles, M Aspley, M Weir, M Widdowson, C Morgan
Subs: S Irvine, O McIlmurray, D Kelly, M Rodgers, C Harper, D Fusco, M Thompson
Bangor scores: D Charles (1T)
Dundalk Storm To Title Dundalk 55 v Bangor 5 from KnockOn.ie
Dundalk Scorers: Christopher Scully, Owen McNally, Jonathan Williams, John Smyth, Ultan Murphy, Tiernan Gonnelly, James McConnon and Stephen Murphy 1 try each. Ultan Murphy 6 cons, 1 pen.
Bangor Scorers: David Charles 1 try.
In front of a big crowd at Chambers Park on Saturday afternoon Dundalk delivered a stunning and ruthless display to see off the challenge of Bangor and capture the All Ireland Junior Cup title for the very first time.
Three first half tries had them firmly in control at 19-0 ahead having played with the elements at the Portadown venue during the first half and while the wind dropped somewhat after half time the Dundalk intensity most certainly didn’t as they cut loose scoring five more tries.
Dundalk returned to a heroes welcome at their Mill Road clubhouse on Saturday night after a display of pure brilliance throughout the afternoon.
Precision, pace and skill from the Louth men from start to finish left Bangor playing second fiddle for long periods.
Relating to Cardiff's public telescope situated atop Penylan Hill for much of the 20th century. More info on my blog here:
ilovesthediff.tumblr.com/post/12236378058/i-should-be-dis...
Legend relates that Pir Ghaib and his sister, the venerable Bibi Nani, arrived here to convert the local heathens in the early days of Islam. But the fire Worshippers sent an army after the pious pair. In the gorge of the Bolan the siblings split; Bibi Nani went down the gorge(her purported tomb is under a bridge about 15km/ 8 miles downstream) while her brother fled into this arid landscape with the army in hot pursiut. At the head of the gorge, seeing that he was blocked by the rock wall, the saint prayed to the Almighty to be rescued. As is the wont of the Lord of all saints, He cleaved the rock to receive the holy man. And so he was known as Pir Ghaib - The Invisible Saint.
Local Hindus worship Pir Ghaib as Mahadeve. But, long before the Bolan gorge had rung the vedic hymns or invocations of Pir Ghaib, travellers and traders from the Indus Valley would have stopped at this spring sacred to their own gods on the first leg of their long journey to esopotamian marts. As the Vedic god Shive derives from an earlier Indus Valley deity, and as the 5,000-year-old goddess Nania evolves into Bibi Nani or Durga, so too did Pir Ghaib develop from an early Indus Valley god. But until the Indis script is understood we will not know which from this pantheon was celebrated for waling into rock walls.
Source: Insigth Guides : Pakistan
Pictures Relating to the Gallipoli Operations: April-December, 1915.
The series of photographs on this and following pages will serve as an introduction to a special collection of absorbingly interesting pictures to be published in the "Mail" Anzac Number on April 25. The Anzac Number will not be a re-publication of illustrations familiar to the public - the pictures will be new, and will in thrilling manner fill up all gaps in the pictorial record of the magnificent but ill-fated Gallipoli expedition.
Many wonderful scenes were enacted in the beautiful harbour of Mudros, Lemnos Island, in connection with the Gallipoli campaign. It was from here that our gallant troops sailed to storm the heights and win imperishable renown. It was to this spot that thousands were brought back wounded and ill. It was here that many of our soldiers rested awhile from the trenches. And it was here that the troops again landed after the evacuation of the Peninsula and prior to returning to Egypt. No. 3 Australian General Hospital was stationed at Mudros, and the doctors and nurses, particularly in the early part of the campaign, did work no less magnificent than that of the soldiers at the front.
Caption for two photos at top of pictorial spread:
PANORAMIC VIEW OF MUDROS HARBOUR, LEMNOS.
The structure in the centre of this section of the picture is a huge condenser, which supplied pure water. The troops at first sank wells, but the water obtained in this way was not good; indeed, it was said to be responsible for a good deal of the sickness from which many of the men suffered so severely.
Photos by A.W. Savage. From The Sydney Mail, 5 April 1916.
Built 1399 and 1404, commemorates Timur's wife buried in a tomb located in a madrasa complex close by.
A contemporary chronicler relates that Timur brought in architects from Iran and India for the project (he had sacked Delhi in 1398) and used ninety-five elephants to haul construction material. One of the models for the building likely was the great mosque erected in Sultaniyya by the Ilkhanid (Mongol) ruler Uljaytu.
"Timur's mosque was designed not only to continue Iranian imperial tradition, but also to symbolize his conquest of the world."
depts.washington.edu/silkroad/cities/uz/samarkand/bibi.html In the 15th century it was one of the largest and most magnificent mosques in the Islamic world. By the mid-20th century only a grandiose ruin of it still survived, but now major parts of the mosque have been restored.
After his Indian campaign in 1399 Timur decided to undertake the construction of a gigantic mosque in his new capital.
When Timur (Tamerlane) returned from his military campaign in 1404 the mosque was almost completed. However, Timur was not happy with the progress of construction, therefore he had immediately made various changes, especially concerning the main cupola.
From the beginning of the construction, problems of statistical regularity of the structure revealed themselves. Various reconstructions and reinforcements were undertaken in order to save the mosque. However, after just a few years, the first bricks had begun to fall out of the huge dome over the mihrab.
IIt forced Timur to retaliate often beyond the structural rules. His builders were certainly aware of that, however he didn't want to accept their opinion and reality. [4][5]
In the late 16th century the Abdullah Khan II (Abdollah Khan Ozbeg) (1533/4-1598), the last Shaybanid Dynasty Khan of Bukhara, cancelled all restoration works in Bibi Khonym Mosque.
After that, the mosque came down and became a ruins gnawed at by the wind, weather, and earthquakes. The inner arch of the portal construction collapsed in 1897.[7][8] During the centuries the ruins were plundered by the inhabitants of Samarkand in search of building material especially the brick of masonry galleries along with the marble columns.
Architecture
Follows the basic plan of the courtyard mosque.
The cupola of the main chamber is 40 m high.
Formerly, there were open galleries measuring 7.2 m high inside the courtyard. Their cover was formed from the juxtaposition of many small, flat brick vaults and domes supported by a forest of more than 400 marble columns and buttresses. Today, only hints of the galleries can be seen.
Four minarets at the outer corners of the site have been restored. Four other, more majestic minarets that flanked the Portal arch of the entrance and the Pischtak of the main domed building are not completed yet.
In the middle of the courtyard is located the stone pedestal - the huge Quran stand crafted from ornate marble blocks. This remarkable sight originates from the time of Timur.
The huge Bibi Khonym Mosque with its three domed rooms, the covered galleries and the open courtyard was intended to gather the entire male population of Samarkand city for the joint Friday prayers.
In the construction of three domes of Bibi-Khanym mosque, sophisticated in Timur's time, one important innovation was applied: a two-fold construction, where the internal dome hall neither by the form nor by height corresponds to the dome's shape from outside. There is a hollow space between the inner ceiling and the outer cupola. This dome construction allowed the main hall of the mosque to be committed to the proportions and the aesthetics of the 30 m high interior above the mihrab. Meanwhile, the 40 m high outer dome of the main building could be designed for maximal impression and visibility. This scheme was applied also to the lateral dome structures that allowed making modest buildings the figuration tower-like structures with elegant melon-shaped and longitudinally ribbed outer domes
Bible Christian Methodists, Wesleyan Methodists and Primitive Methodists on the Adelaide Plains.
So much of the story of the Adelaide Plains relates to the activities of these Methodist zealots and pioneers. Their fervour and enthusiasm has left a permanent record across the Plains of churches, school rooms and cemeteries. Where did they come from and why were they so active between the Light and Para Rivers in the 1850s and 1860s? But firstly, who were they? Both Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists were breakaways from the Wesleyan Methodist church established by John Wesley in 1739. Wesley had been an Anglican minister. His new church, devoid of bishops and the pomp and ceremony of the Anglican Church included outdoor preaching and a great emphasis on prayer, scripture, singing and the acceptance of lay preachers. Less than 100 years after the foundation of Methodism by John Wesley in 1739 the Wesleyan Methodists in Cornwall and elsewhere broke away to form new Methodist churches with less hierarchy and formalism than that in the Wesleyan Methodist Church! They were the Bible Christian Methodists founded in 1815 in North Cornwall: and the Primitive Methodists founded in 1810 in the Midlands and known for their “all day camp prayer meetings.” Both the Bible Christians and the Primitive Methodists flourished as denominations in Cornwall and Devon. Both these areas provided many early settlers to SA. George Fife Angas toured Devon and Cornwall urging small farmers to migrate to the new colony in the 1840s; and once copper was discovered at Kapunda (1842) and Burra (1845) thousands of Cornish and south England families migrated to SA to work in the mines. These two forces interacted to produce religious revivals in SA in the 1850s and the establishment of many churches. The Bible Christian church accepted female lay preachers from its earliest years in England. In SA female lay preachers were rare before the 1870s but they did some preaching and then in 1900 the three Methodist denominations amalgamated and female lay preachers disappeared again until the 1960s!
The Bible Christian and Primitive Methodist mission societies in England funded and sent out the first ministers for both denominations in SA. They were the reverends James Blatchford to Burra in 1849 (Bible Christian) and James Rowe and James Way to Burra in 1850, followed by Samuel Keen to Gawler in 1853. Reverends Joseph Long and John Wilson (Primitive Methodist) arrived in SA in 1844 and began work in the city and Hills districts. In 1854 Reverend J Wright was sent to Burra to begin Primitive Methodism there. Meantime a Primitive Methodist congregation had been formed in Salisbury in 1849 with services on the banks of the Para. In 1851 they opened their Primitive Methodist Church called Hephzibah. They then established churches at Burton, Sturton, Carclew etc.
In 1853 Reverend Samuel Keen arrived in Gawler on Bible Christian mission work and within a few years he had opened a dozen Bible Christian churches across the plains. We will visit some, see others, and see the sites where some once stood. But why were there so many churches? The governance structure of the Primitive Methodist and the Bible Christian churches encouraged this. Local families could decide they wanted a church, usually with the urging of Rev. Keen, or someone else. Then they donated land and money to erect the church which was usually built by the men in the community. No church hierarchy permission or bishop approval was needed. People just got on and did it. This is a useful system in an early colonial society. Then because both denominations used lay preachers the community did not need to raise enough weekly revenue to pay for an onsite minister. They used free local lay preachers and the paid Circuit minister who preached across many churches. This ordained minister might only visit each church once a month for preaching, baptisms and marriages. Furthermore land settlement encouraged this too. In the late 1840s settlers on the Plains acquired 40 acres or at the most 80 acre sections. Population densities were high. By the 1860s farmers were acquiring 320 acres and population densities were lower and churches were further apart. This explains why the Bible Christian churches north of Mallala to Balaklava are much further apart. North of Mallala the Bible Christians had churches at Dublin, Grace Plains, Dalkey, Pinery, South Balaklava, Balaklava, Port Wakefield etc. Sturton Primitive Methodist Church.
Although we do not pass this church today it still stands within the old Weapons Research Establishment now D.S.T.O.- the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. This church was established by the local Jeffries family mainly for their own use. It opened in 1856 and closed in 1892. The building was restored in 1943 by W.R.E. and was closed for general access with government security clearance. These days you can once again drive in to visit this tiny church. It has a small cemetery adjoining the church for members of the Jeffries family.
Dundalk overwhelm Bangor in All Ireland Final
by Roger Corbett
Bangor’s amazing run in the All Ireland Junior Cup came to an abrupt end when they were comprehensively beaten by Dundalk, eventually losing by 55-5.
Where do you start when trying to relate and absorb the events of Saturday’s final at Chambers Park? Firstly, congratulations to worthy winners Dundalk who nullified the Bangor attack, then went on to produce some stunning plays which racked up no less than 8 tries, each by a different player. For Bangor’s part, they were unable to respond to the intensity of Dundalk’s game, and lacked the cutting edge which their opponents used to great effect.
The day started full of promise, as the strong support from North Down made their way to Chambers Park in Portadown, knowing Bangor would be fielding their best team. Once again, the pundits had Bangor as the underdogs – just as they had done so in the previous three rounds! In confounding the experts earlier, Bangor produced some awesome performances against top quality opposition to get to the final. Dundalk had produced some convincing wins in the early rounds of the competition, but had struggled to get past CIYMS in the semi-final, just managing to squeeze ahead at the second time of asking. However, with a number of key players returning to the side in time for this game, they were now back at full strength and would be a formidable force to contend with.
Having won the toss, captain Jamie Clegg elected to play into the stiff wind in the first half. For the first 5 minutes, Bangor doggedly retained possession and tried to play their way into Dundalk’s half through a series of determined forward moves. However, little ground was made and, when possession was finally lost, the Dundalk back line produced a burst that simply cut through the Bangor defence resulting in an easy touch down under Bangor’s posts for a 7-0 lead.
Bangor stuck to their plan and slowly, but patiently, got their attack moving forward, eventually winning a penalty to the left of Dundalk’s posts, but Mark Widdowson’s kick into the wind drifted just wide of the mark.
The contrast in play between the two teams was becoming clear, with Bangor trying to keep the ball close while Dundalk were throwing it wide. The latter strategy was proving to be the more effective as, with 20 minutes gone, a quick back line move with players looping around resulted in an overlap on the right wing which gave a clear run in to again, score under the posts. A further 9 minutes later, they did it again and, although the Bangor defence had sensed the danger and moved across to cover it, their tackling let them down allowing Dundalk to get over in the right hand corner, taking their lead to 19-0.
By now, Bangor were trying to hang on until half time when they could regroup and come out with the wind at their backs. Dundalk, on the other hand were anxious to press home their advantage and give them a more comfortable lead. To Bangor’s credit, although camped on their own line for lengthy spells, they dug in and managed to hold on until the referee’s half time whistle.
As the teams reappeared from the dressing rooms, it was obvious Bangor were ringing the changes, particularly in the backs. With the wind advantage having lessened considerably, Bangor got the second half underway. It was now Dundalk’s turn to adopt the slow, steady approach, just as Bangor had done earlier. However, their more confident off-loading and support play was, once again, taking play deep into Bangor’s territory. Frustration at not being able to gain possession and take play out of their danger area eventually resulted in a yellow card for Clegg after a succession of penalties. Dundalk kicked the penalty to touch, won their lineout and drove for the line. Although initially held up by the Bangor defence, Dundalk’s repeated drives were eventually rewarded with another converted score, extending their lead to 26-0.
From the touchline, the Bangor faithful had felt that if their players had managed to score first in the second half, they may have been able to mount a fight-back and close the gap to their opponents. As it was, this Dundalk score simply bolstered their confidence and pushed Bangor deeper into trouble. With Bangor still a man down, Dundalk added to the score with a penalty and then another score in the corner. Everything was now working for the Leinster men, as even the difficult touchline conversion into the biting wind successfully split the posts, bringing the score to 36-0.
As the game entered the final quarter, and with Dundalk all but holding the cup, Bangor were now on the ropes. By contrast, the Dundalk players were in almost total control, and were not going to slow down now. In a 10 minute spell, they ran in a further 3 tries, making the scoreline 55-0. By now, any sense of dejection the Bangor supporters may have been feeling was now moved to feelings of sympathy for their players. However, pride was at stake and once again Bangor rallied as the game entered its final minutes. At last, the forwards got within striking distance of the Dundalk line and, although their repeated attacks were repelled, they finally managed to do what their opponents had done so effectively, and quickly passed the ball wide to Davy Charles. Even though they were 55 points ahead, the Dundalk defence made Charles work hard to drive through the tackles and score Bangor’s consolation try, bringing the final score to 55-5.
From Bangor’s point of view, the final score doesn’t tell the whole story of this competition. While the final may have resulted in a sad anti-climax for Bangor, the remarkable journey to get there will be remembered for some time. On the day, Dundalk were by far the better side, and Bangor would have to concede that their game was not up to the usual standard. However, there is no doubt the experience of competing at this level is something to relish and the goal now will be to secure a top four place in the league and try again next year.
Everybody at the club has nothing but the highest respect and praise for what has been achieved this year by not just the 1sts, but all the senior teams, and one poor result isn’t going to change that – the welcome at Upritchard Park for the returning players is testament to that. With that in mind, the players now need to put this disappointment behind them and provide the best possible response against a struggling Portadown side at home in the league next Saturday.
Bangor side: J Leary, A Jackson, P Whyte, F Black, G Irvine, R Latimer, J Clegg, C Stewart, R Armstrong, K Rosson, D Charles, M Aspley, M Weir, M Widdowson, C Morgan
Subs: S Irvine, O McIlmurray, D Kelly, M Rodgers, C Harper, D Fusco, M Thompson
Bangor scores: D Charles (1T)
Dundalk Storm To Title Dundalk 55 v Bangor 5 from KnockOn.ie
Dundalk Scorers: Christopher Scully, Owen McNally, Jonathan Williams, John Smyth, Ultan Murphy, Tiernan Gonnelly, James McConnon and Stephen Murphy 1 try each. Ultan Murphy 6 cons, 1 pen.
Bangor Scorers: David Charles 1 try.
In front of a big crowd at Chambers Park on Saturday afternoon Dundalk delivered a stunning and ruthless display to see off the challenge of Bangor and capture the All Ireland Junior Cup title for the very first time.
Three first half tries had them firmly in control at 19-0 ahead having played with the elements at the Portadown venue during the first half and while the wind dropped somewhat after half time the Dundalk intensity most certainly didn’t as they cut loose scoring five more tries.
Dundalk returned to a heroes welcome at their Mill Road clubhouse on Saturday night after a display of pure brilliance throughout the afternoon.
Precision, pace and skill from the Louth men from start to finish left Bangor playing second fiddle for long periods.
Some information relating to 73970, taken from the UKRail.info website-
Number: 73970
Class: 73/9
Depot: SE - St. Leonard's T&RSMD
Pool: GBCS - GBRf Class73/9 for Caledonian Sleeper Scotland
Livery: EC - East Coast - Signalbox Grey with Purple stripe, Grey doors and East Coast branding
Builder: English Electric Vulcan Foundry
Built: 14/11/1965
Works Number: E3571/E341
Renumbered: From 73103 on 31/01/2015
Renumbered: 73103 from E6009 on 31/12/1973
Here it is seen passing the still extant Millmoor football ground, once hone to Rotherham United Football Club but who's new ground is just a short distance away at the New York Stadium; some of the land associated with the Millmoor Stadium now being used for wagon storage. Booths Scrapyard is still carrying on its lucrative Metal Recycling business to the left of the football ground and in the background, one of their boundaries being marked by the double-height line of green containers, along the Holmes Chord line into Rotherham Central; this is also the location of the truncated Westgate Branch, which occasionally sees loco hauled scrap traffic being backed into the Scrapyard, from Holmes Junction. GBRf class 73 in 'Osprey Livery', 73970 is on the 0Z73, Loughborough Brush to Craigentinny T&R.S.M.D. working though in the event it didn't get as far as Scotland.
The subject matter of images relating to the military come in many forms, and here the photographer recorded the packaging and bottles for 'Normal Human Plasma' in the USN Hospital at Creevagh.
The use of Blood Plasma during WW2 was a relatively new innovation. Blood plasma was an essential component of treating wounded soldiers. When a soldier is critically wounded, blood loss is extremely dangerous. Rather than the loss of oxygen carrying red blood cells, the greatest concern is the loss of fluids which results in low blood pressure. By transfusing casualties with plasma, blood volume is maintained and blood pressure remains at a normal level, preventing shock. Because the red blood cells are removed from plasma, the need to match the blood type of the donor to the recipient is unnecessary. Dried (desiccated) plasma was developed which could be stored for long periods of time without refrigeration or transportation difficulties. A package was designed for bottles of either the 250 or 500 ml equivalent of dried plasma to be reconstituted with companion bottles of distilled water. Both were supplied in boxes containing all that was necessary to infuse in the field.
In January 1941, U.S. military authorities asked the American Red Cross to organize a Blood Donor Service to meet the anticipated needs of the American armed forces should the United States enter the war and by the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Red Cross operated ten blood donor centers in the Eastern United States. Eventually, that number grew to 35 centers located across the country, supplemented by an additional 63 mobile units. At its peak, the program involved a paid staff of 2,285 doctors, nurses, and technicians, plus an estimated 25,000 volunteers. The Red Cross expended nearly $16 million in the Service which ended on 15 September 1945 after collecting 13.4 million pints of blood from 6.6 million donors. Near the end of the war, when the necessary collection, refrigeration, and air transport links had been established, whole blood was shipped to the battlefront and found to be superior.
The image shows the standard Army & Navy package containing one bottle of plasma and one bottle of distilled water, and the respective bottles.
Sources:
www.nationalww2museum.org/sites/default/files/2017-07/blo...
www.redcross.org/content/dam/redcross/National/history-ww...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1537-2995.2012....
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Always a helper somewhere. I'm trying to photograph this bouquet and mini arms are reaching in the shot.
The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name. They do however state on the back of the card that it was printed in England.
The card was posted in Folkestone on Wednesday the 10th. August 1960 to:
Mr. & Mrs. Meadows,
19 King Edward Road,
Ware,
Herts.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Wed, Folkestone.
Dear Both,
At the moment it's raining.
Yesterday morning it was
glorious.
Dinner time we had a hail
storm for 10 minutes, then
a glorious afternoon.
We went to Dover, talk
about mixed weather, it
will have to be a shopping
morning.
I hope you are not looking
for a letter, I have written
to Mother.
There are 23 of us here -
quite a jolly crowd.
Our time will soon be up
now.
Thank you for sending
letter on, it was from Barts,
to go for check-up in Oct.
I'll see you soon,
Mabel & Will".
The Significance of Black Cats
There are more black cats than any other color because the black gene is most dominant for felines.
Over the centuries, these dark, handsome, and friendly felines have been associated with cultural and historical myths, superstitions, and tales that make them either revered or feared.
Here are conflicting superstitions relating to black cats:
-- Black Cats Are Witches in Disguise
If you're spooked when you see a black cat, it’s probably from medieval folklore that continues to shroud the reputation of these dignified kitties. Black cats have long been associated with witches and witchcraft.
It's said that the story began when a black cat was seen running into a house thought to be inhabited by a witch. During the Middle Ages, black cats became equated with black magic.
Roaming nocturnal black cats were thought to be witches in disguise, witches' pets, or animal-shaped demons sent by witches to spy on humans.
From the early 13th. century in Europe through the 17th.-century Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, black cats were killed. Black cats have evolved into icons of anything related to witchcraft, especially during the Halloween season.
-- Black Cats Are Bad Luck
A black cat is also associated by some people with bad luck, and even death. This fear of black cats appears to stem from medieval times, when an animal with dark feathers or fur, including crows and ravens, signaled death.
In 16th.-century Italy, it was believed that death was imminent if a black cat would lay on someone's sickbed. In modern-day North America, negative connotations continue to haunt black cats: It’s considered bad luck if a black cat crosses your path, and good luck if a white cat crosses your path.
Another family member is bound to die if you spot a black cat during a funeral procession. And it's a bad omen if you see a black cat walking away from you.
Fortunately, all these ideas are just superstition.
-- Black Cats Are Good Luck
Black cats are also believed to bring good luck in many ways. In ancient Egypt, black cats were held in the highest esteem because they resembled Bastet, the cat-headed Egyptian goddess of home, fertility, and protection from disease.
Black cats are considered good luck in other parts of the globe as well. In Asia and the U.K., you're going to be lucky in life if you own a black cat. When British good luck postcards feature a cat, the cat is always black.
In Japan, you'll have luck in finding love if you spot a black cat.
In parts of England, a bride will have luck in her marriage if she receives a black cat as a gift.
In Europe, sailors will have a safe journey if they bring along a black cat on the ship.
In Scotland, you'll have coming prosperity if a black cat appears at your doorway or on your porch.
In France, something magical is about to happen if you see a black cat.
In other cultures around the world, it’s a sign of good luck if you dream about a black cat, see one walking towards you, or if you happen to find a stray white hair on its fur.
The Recovery of Discoverer 13
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 10th. August 1960, U.S. Navy frogmen successfully recovered the satellite Discoverer 13, marking the first retrieval of a satellite after twelve previous attempts had failed.
Although plans to make the first mid-air capture failed, the recovery opened the era of the spy satellite.
Antonio Banderas
The day also marked the birth of Antonio Banderas, Spanish actor, in Málaga.
José Antonio Domínguez Bandera, known professionally as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish actor and director. Known for his work in films of several genres, he has received various accolades, including a Cannes Film Festival Award and a European Film Award.
Banderas made his film debut in Pedro Almodóvar's screwball comedy Labyrinth of Passion (1982). They have since collaborated together on many films including Matador (1986), Law of Desire (1987), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989), and The Skin I Live In (2011).
For the 2019 film Pain and Glory, Banderas earned various accolades for Best Actor including the Goya Award, and nominations from the Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards.
Antonio is also known for films such as Philadelphia (1993), Interview with the Vampire (1994), Desperado (1995), Assassins (1995), Evita (1996), and The Mask of Zorro (1998).
He also appeared in the first three films of the Spy Kids series (2001–2003) and provided the voice of Puss in Boots in the Shrek franchise (2004–present) and its spin-off films Puss in Boots (2011) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022).
In 2003, Banderas made his US theater debut as Guido Contini in Nine, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award and won a Drama Desk Award.
He received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his roles in the television film And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2004) and the second season of Genius (2018); his portrayal of Pablo Picasso in the latter garnered him critical praise.
-- Antonio Banderas - The Early Years
José Antonio Domínguez Bandera was born to Civil Guard gendarme officer José Domínguez Prieto (1920–2008) and schoolteacher Ana Bandera Gallego (1933–2017). He has a younger brother named Francisco.
As a little boy, Banderas wanted to become a professional football player until a broken foot side-lined his dreams at the age of 15.
He showed a strong interest in the performing arts, and formed part of the ARA Theatre-School and the College of Dramatic Art, both in Málaga.
Antonio's work in the theater and his performances on the streets eventually landed him a spot with the Spanish National Theatre.
-- The Career of Antonio Banderas
Banderas made his acting debut at a small theater in Málaga. He was arrested by the Spanish police for performing in a play by Bertolt Brecht, because of political censorship under the rule of General Franco.
Banderas spent a whole night at the police station; he experienced several such arrests while he was working with a small theater troupe that toured all over Spain and was giving performances in small town theaters and on the street.
While performing with the theater, Banderas caught the attention of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who gave the young actor his film debut in Labyrinth of Passion. Five years later, he went on to appear in the director's Law of Desire (1987), making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required him to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss.
After Banderas appeared in Almodóvar's 1986 Matador, the director cast him in his internationally acclaimed 1988 film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
The recognition Banderas gained for his role increased, years later, when he starred in Almodóvar's controversial Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989) as a mental patient who kidnaps a porn star (Victoria Abril) and keeps her tied up until she returns his love. His breakthrough role in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! helped spur him on to Hollywood.
Almodóvar is credited for helping launch Banderas's international career, as he became a regular feature in his films throughout the 1980's.
-- Antonio Banderas in the 1990's
In 1991, Madonna introduced Banderas to Hollywood. (He was an object of her desires in her pseudo-documentary film of one of her concert tours, Madonna: Truth or Dare.)
The following year, still speaking minimal English, he began acting in U.S. films. Despite having to learn all his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a critically praised performance as a struggling musician in his first American drama film, The Mambo Kings (1992).
Banderas then broke through to mainstream American audiences in the Jonathan Demme film Philadelphia (1993), as the life-long partner of lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks), who has AIDS.
The film's success earned Banderas wide recognition, and the following year, he was given a role in Neil Jordan's high-profile adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire (1994), sharing the screen with Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Kirsten Dunst.
Antonio appeared in several major Hollywood releases in 1995, including a starring role in the Robert Rodriguez-directed film Desperado and the antagonist on the action film Assassins, co-starring with Sylvester Stallone.
In 1996, he starred alongside Madonna in Evita, an adaptation of the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in which he played the narrator, Che, a role played by David Essex in the original 1978 West End production.
Banderas also had success with his role as the masked swordsman Zorro in the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro starring Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
In 1999, he starred in The 13th Warrior, a movie about a Muslim caught up in a war between the Northman and human-eating beasts.
-- Antonio Banderas in the 2000's
In 2001, he collaborated with Robert Rodriguez who cast him in the Spy Kids film trilogy. He also starred in Michael Cristofer's Original Sin alongside Angelina Jolie the same year.
In 2002, he starred in Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale opposite Rebecca Romijn, and in Julie Taymor's Frida with Salma Hayek.
In 2003, Antonio starred in the last installment of the trilogy Once Upon a Time in Mexico (in which he appeared with Johnny Depp and Hayek).
Banderas' debut as a director was the poorly-received Crazy in Alabama (1999), starring his then-wife Melanie Griffith.
In 2003, he returned to the musical genre, appearing to great acclaim in the Broadway revival of Maury Yeston's musical Nine, based on the film 8½, playing the prime role originated by Raul Julia.
Banderas won both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk awards, and was nominated for the Tony Award for best actor in a musical.
Banderas' voice role as Puss in Boots in Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, and the last film in the Shrek franchise, Shrek Forever After, helped make the character popular on the family film circuit.
In 2005, he reprised his role as Zorro in The Legend of Zorro, though this was not as successful as The Mask of Zorro.
In 2006, he starred in Take the Lead, a high-set movie in which he played a ballroom dancing teacher. That year, he directed his second film, El camino de los ingleses, based on the novel by Antonio Soler.
Banderas received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005, the 2,294th. person to do so; his star is located on the north side of the 6800 block of Hollywood Boulevard.
-- Antonio Banderas in the 2010's
In 2011, the horror thriller The Skin I Live In marked the return of Banderas to Pedro Almodóvar, the Spanish director who launched his international career. The two had not worked together since 1990 (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!).
In The Skin I Live In he breaks out of the "Latin Lover" mold from his Hollywood work and stars as a calculating revenge-seeking plastic surgeon following the rape of his daughter. According to the Associated Press, Banderas' performance is among his strongest in recent memory.
He again lent his voice to Puss in Boots, this time as the protagonist of the Shrek spin-off prequel, Puss in Boots. This film reunited Banderas with Salma Hayek for the sixth time.
In 2015, Banderas starred in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water as Burger Beard, the film’s main antagonist.
In 2018, Banderas starred in the National Geographic limited series Genius: Picasso, as the noted sculptor and painter Pablo Picasso. For his performance he received a Primetime Emmy Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Golden Globe Award nomination.
He also starred in the ensemble drama Life Itself (2018) which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
In 2019, Banderas starred in the Spanish film Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria), directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The film centers around an aging film director, played by Banderas who has a chronic illness and writer's block as he reflects on his life in flashbacks to his childhood. The film has been described as semi-autobiographical, according to Almodóvar.
The film premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim. On the 25th. May 2019, Banderas won Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for his role in the film. He was later nominated for his first ever Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Pain and Glory.
Also in 2019, Banderas starred in Steven Soderbergh's Netflix film, The Laundromat alongside Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman.
-- Antonio Banderas in the 2020's
In 2020, he co-starred with Robert Downey Jr. in the fantasy adventure film Dolittle.
In 2022, Banderas appeared as Santiago Moncada, the antagonist of the Uncharted. In 2023, he is appearing in the Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny with Harrison Ford.
He also returned to work for DreamWorks Animation reprising his voice as Puss in Boots in the sequel Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
He is also appearing in The Enforcer which filmed in Greece in 2022.
In June 2023, it was announced that Banderas was cast in Paddington in Peru. He is reportedly playing Hunter Cabot, a dashing and intrepid riverboat captain who offers to help the Brown family on their Peruvian adventure.
-- Antonio Banderas' Personal Life
A long-time supporter of Málaga CF, Banderas is also an officer (mayordomo de trono) of a Roman Catholic religious brotherhood in his hometown of Málaga, and travels during Holy Week to take part in the processions, although he once described himself as an agnostic in an interview with People magazine.
In May 2010, Banderas received an honorary doctorate from the University of Málaga.
Banderas has always struggled with the pronunciation of certain English words. As he mentioned in a 2011 article with GQ magazine:
"The word that really gets me is 'animals.'
I just can never say it properly. Whenever
it is in a film I have to get it changed for a
synonym.
In Zorro, I had a line changed from 'you
look like a bunch of animals' to 'you look
like a collection of beasts'.
It worked much better, so I don't care."
In August 2015, Banderas enrolled in a fashion-design course at Central Saint Martins. As of 2016, Banderas resides in the United Kingdom in Cobham, Surrey.
-- Antonio Banderas' Relationships
Banderas married Ana Leza in 1986 or 1988 (sources differ) and divorced in 1996.
He met and began a relationship with the American actress Melanie Griffith in 1995 while shooting Two Much. They married on the 14th. May 1996 in London. They have a daughter, Stella del Carmen Banderas (born 24th. September 1996), who appeared onscreen with Griffith in Banderas' directorial debut Crazy in Alabama (1999).
In 2002, the couple received the Stella Adler Angel Award for their extensive philanthropy. Griffith had a tattoo of Banderas' name on her right arm that has since been removed.
In June 2014, Banderas and Griffith released a statement announcing their intention to divorce "in a loving and friendly manner". According to the petition filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, the couple had "irreconcilable differences" that led to their separation.
The divorce became official in December 2015. Despite being divorced, Banderas and Griffith remain close friends. His former stepdaughter Dakota Johnson has stated that she considers Banderas part of the family, calling him a "bonus dad".
Banderas is currently (2023) dating Nicole Kimpel, a Dutch investment banker. They have made public appearances such as the 2015 AFI Fest, the 2019 Cannes International Film Festival, and the 2020 Academy Awards.
-- Antonio Banderas' Health
In 2009, Banderas underwent surgery for a benign tumor in his back.
Speaking at the Málaga Film Festival in March 2017, Banderas revealed that he had suffered from a heart attack on the 26th. January 2017, but said:
"It wasn't serious and hasn't
caused any damages".
Following that incident, he underwent heart surgery to insert three stents into his arteries. In a Fresh Air interview in September 2019, he recalled it as being life changing. He said:
"It just gave me a perspective of who
I was, and it just made the important
things go to the surface. When I say
this, people may just think that I'm
crazy, but it's one of the best things
that ever happened in my life."
-- Antonio Banderas' Activism
In 1996, Banderas appeared among other figures of Spanish culture in a video supporting the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party lists in the general election.
In 2013, he called upon Europe and the United States to emulate Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and nationalize big corporations as a solution to the global economic crisis.
In June 2015, Banderas demonstrated his support for Israel by taking part in a fund-raising event organized by Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF), which raised $31m for Israeli soldiers.
-- Antonio Banderas' Business Activities
Banderas has invested some of his film earnings in Andalusian products, which he promotes in Spain and the US. He owns 50% of a winery in Villalba de Duero, Burgos, Spain, called Anta Banderas, which produces red and rosé wines.
Antonio performed a voice-over for a computer-animated bee which can be seen in the United States in television commercials for Nasonex, an allergy medication, and was seen in the 2007 Christmas advertising campaign for Marks & Spencer.
He is a veteran of the perfume-industry. The actor has been working with fragrance and beauty multinational company Puig for over ten years, becoming one of the brand's most successful representatives.
Banderas and Puig have successfully promoted a number of fragrances – Diavolo, Diavolo for Women, Mediterraneo, Spirit, and Spirit for Women. After the success of Antonio for Men and Blue Seduction for Men in 2007, he launched his latest Blue Seduction for Women the following year.
Ganesha, also spelled Ganesh, and also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, is a widely worshipped deity in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India.
Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rituals and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.
Ganesha emerged as a distinct deity in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, during the Gupta Period, although he inherited traits from Vedic and pre-Vedic precursors. He was formally included among the five primary deities of Smartism (a Hindu denomination) in the 9th century. A sect of devotees called the Ganapatya arose, who identified Ganesha as the supreme deity. The principal scriptures dedicated to Ganesha are the Ganesha Purana, the Mudgala Purana, and the Ganapati Atharvashirsa.
ETYMOLOGY AND OTHER NAMES
Ganesha has been ascribed many other titles and epithets, including Ganapati and Vighneshvara. The Hindu title of respect Shri is often added before his name. One popular way Ganesha is worshipped is by chanting a Ganesha Sahasranama, a litany of "a thousand names of Ganesha". Each name in the sahasranama conveys a different meaning and symbolises a different aspect of Ganesha. At least two different versions of the Ganesha Sahasranama exist; one version is drawn from the Ganesha Purana, a Hindu scripture venerating Ganesha.
The name Ganesha is a Sanskrit compound, joining the words gana, meaning a group, multitude, or categorical system and isha, meaning lord or master. The word gaņa when associated with Ganesha is often taken to refer to the gaņas, a troop of semi-divine beings that form part of the retinue of Shiva. The term more generally means a category, class, community, association, or corporation. Some commentators interpret the name "Lord of the Gaņas" to mean "Lord of Hosts" or "Lord of created categories", such as the elements. Ganapati, a synonym for Ganesha, is a compound composed of gaṇa, meaning "group", and pati, meaning "ruler" or "lord". The Amarakosha, an early Sanskrit lexicon, lists eight synonyms of Ganesha : Vinayaka, Vighnarāja (equivalent to Vighnesha), Dvaimātura (one who has two mothers), Gaṇādhipa (equivalent to Ganapati and Ganesha), Ekadanta (one who has one tusk), Heramba, Lambodara (one who has a pot belly, or, literally, one who has a hanging belly), and Gajanana; having the face of an elephant).
Vinayaka is a common name for Ganesha that appears in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. This name is reflected in the naming of the eight famous Ganesha temples in Maharashtra known as the Ashtavinayak (aṣṭavināyaka). The names Vighnesha and Vighneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) refers to his primary function in Hindu theology as the master and remover of obstacles (vighna).
A prominent name for Ganesha in the Tamil language is Pillai. A. K. Narain differentiates these terms by saying that pillai means a "child" while pillaiyar means a "noble child". He adds that the words pallu, pella, and pell in the Dravidian family of languages signify "tooth or tusk", also "elephant tooth or tusk". Anita Raina Thapan notes that the root word pille in the name Pillaiyar might have originally meant "the young of the elephant", because the Pali word pillaka means "a young elephant".
In the Burmese language, Ganesha is known as Maha Peinne, derived from Pali Mahā Wināyaka. The widespread name of Ganesha in Thailand is Phra Phikhanet or Phra Phikhanesuan, both of which are derived from Vara Vighnesha and Vara Vighneshvara respectively, whereas the name Khanet (from Ganesha) is rather rare.
In Sri Lanka, in the North-Central and North Western areas with predominantly Buddhist population, Ganesha is known as Aiyanayaka Deviyo, while in other Singhala Buddhist areas he is known as Gana deviyo.
ICONOGRAPHY
Ganesha is a popular figure in Indian art. Unlike those of some deities, representations of Ganesha show wide variations and distinct patterns changing over time. He may be portrayed standing, dancing, heroically taking action against demons, playing with his family as a boy, sitting down or on an elevated seat, or engaging in a range of contemporary situations.
Ganesha images were prevalent in many parts of India by the 6th century. The 13th century statue pictured is typical of Ganesha statuary from 900–1200, after Ganesha had been well-established as an independent deity with his own sect. This example features some of Ganesha's common iconographic elements. A virtually identical statue has been dated between 973–1200 by Paul Martin-Dubost, and another similar statue is dated c. 12th century by Pratapaditya Pal. Ganesha has the head of an elephant and a big belly. This statue has four arms, which is common in depictions of Ganesha. He holds his own broken tusk in his lower-right hand and holds a delicacy, which he samples with his trunk, in his lower-left hand. The motif of Ganesha turning his trunk sharply to his left to taste a sweet in his lower-left hand is a particularly archaic feature. A more primitive statue in one of the Ellora Caves with this general form has been dated to the 7th century. Details of the other hands are difficult to make out on the statue shown. In the standard configuration, Ganesha typically holds an axe or a goad in one upper arm and a pasha (noose) in the other upper arm.
The influence of this old constellation of iconographic elements can still be seen in contemporary representations of Ganesha. In one modern form, the only variation from these old elements is that the lower-right hand does not hold the broken tusk but is turned towards the viewer in a gesture of protection or fearlessness (abhaya mudra). The same combination of four arms and attributes occurs in statues of Ganesha dancing, which is a very popular theme.
COMMON ATTRIBUTES
Ganesha has been represented with the head of an elephant since the early stages of his appearance in Indian art. Puranic myths provide many explanations for how he got his elephant head. One of his popular forms, Heramba-Ganapati, has five elephant heads, and other less-common variations in the number of heads are known. While some texts say that Ganesha was born with an elephant head, he acquires the head later in most stories. The most recurrent motif in these stories is that Ganesha was created by Parvati using clay to protect her and Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant. Details of the battle and where the replacement head came from vary from source to source. Another story says that Ganesha was created directly by Shiva's laughter. Because Shiva considered Ganesha too alluring, he gave him the head of an elephant and a protruding belly.
Ganesha's earliest name was Ekadanta (One Tusked), referring to his single whole tusk, the other being broken. Some of the earliest images of Ganesha show him holding his broken tusk. The importance of this distinctive feature is reflected in the Mudgala Purana, which states that the name of Ganesha's second incarnation is Ekadanta. Ganesha's protruding belly appears as a distinctive attribute in his earliest statuary, which dates to the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries). This feature is so important that, according to the Mudgala Purana, two different incarnations of Ganesha use names based on it: Lambodara (Pot Belly, or, literally, Hanging Belly) and Mahodara (Great Belly). Both names are Sanskrit compounds describing his belly. The Brahmanda Purana says that Ganesha has the name Lambodara because all the universes (i.e., cosmic eggs) of the past, present, and future are present in him. The number of Ganesha's arms varies; his best-known forms have between two and sixteen arms. Many depictions of Ganesha feature four arms, which is mentioned in Puranic sources and codified as a standard form in some iconographic texts. His earliest images had two arms. Forms with 14 and 20 arms appeared in Central India during the 9th and the 10th centuries. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms. According to the Ganesha Purana, Ganesha wrapped the serpent Vasuki around his neck. Other depictions of snakes include use as a sacred thread wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Upon Ganesha's forehead may be a third eye or the Shaivite sectarian mark , which consists of three horizontal lines. The Ganesha Purana prescribes a tilaka mark as well as a crescent moon on the forehead. A distinct form of Ganesha called Bhalachandra includes that iconographic element. Ganesha is often described as red in color. Specific colors are associated with certain forms. Many examples of color associations with specific meditation forms are prescribed in the Sritattvanidhi, a treatise on Hindu iconography. For example, white is associated with his representations as Heramba-Ganapati and Rina-Mochana-Ganapati (Ganapati Who Releases from Bondage). Ekadanta-Ganapati is visualized as blue during meditation in that form.
VAHANAS
The earliest Ganesha images are without a vahana (mount/vehicle). Of the eight incarnations of Ganesha described in the Mudgala Purana, Ganesha uses a mouse (shrew) in five of them, a lion in his incarnation as Vakratunda, a peacock in his incarnation as Vikata, and Shesha, the divine serpent, in his incarnation as Vighnaraja. Mohotkata uses a lion, Mayūreśvara uses a peacock, Dhumraketu uses a horse, and Gajanana uses a mouse, in the four incarnations of Ganesha listed in the Ganesha Purana. Jain depictions of Ganesha show his vahana variously as a mouse, elephant, tortoise, ram, or peacock.
Ganesha is often shown riding on or attended by a mouse, shrew or rat. Martin-Dubost says that the rat began to appear as the principal vehicle in sculptures of Ganesha in central and western India during the 7th century; the rat was always placed close to his feet. The mouse as a mount first appears in written sources in the Matsya Purana and later in the Brahmananda Purana and Ganesha Purana, where Ganesha uses it as his vehicle in his last incarnation. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa includes a meditation verse on Ganesha that describes the mouse appearing on his flag. The names Mūṣakavāhana (mouse-mount) and Ākhuketana (rat-banner) appear in the Ganesha Sahasranama.
The mouse is interpreted in several ways. According to Grimes, "Many, if not most of those who interpret Gaṇapati's mouse, do so negatively; it symbolizes tamoguṇa as well as desire". Along these lines, Michael Wilcockson says it symbolizes those who wish to overcome desires and be less selfish. Krishan notes that the rat is destructive and a menace to crops. The Sanskrit word mūṣaka (mouse) is derived from the root mūṣ (stealing, robbing). It was essential to subdue the rat as a destructive pest, a type of vighna (impediment) that needed to be overcome. According to this theory, showing Ganesha as master of the rat demonstrates his function as Vigneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) and gives evidence of his possible role as a folk grāma-devatā (village deity) who later rose to greater prominence. Martin-Dubost notes a view that the rat is a symbol suggesting that Ganesha, like the rat, penetrates even the most secret places.
ASSOCIATIONS
OBSTACLES
Ganesha is Vighneshvara or Vighnaraja or Vighnaharta (Marathi), the Lord of Obstacles, both of a material and spiritual order. He is popularly worshipped as a remover of obstacles, though traditionally he also places obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked. Paul Courtright says that "his task in the divine scheme of things, his dharma, is to place and remove obstacles. It is his particular territory, the reason for his creation."
Krishan notes that some of Ganesha's names reflect shadings of multiple roles that have evolved over time. Dhavalikar ascribes the quick ascension of Ganesha in the Hindu pantheon, and the emergence of the Ganapatyas, to this shift in emphasis from vighnakartā (obstacle-creator) to vighnahartā (obstacle-averter). However, both functions continue to be vital to his character.
BUDDHI (KNOWLEDGE)
Ganesha is considered to be the Lord of letters and learning. In Sanskrit, the word buddhi is a feminine noun that is variously translated as intelligence, wisdom, or intellect. The concept of buddhi is closely associated with the personality of Ganesha, especially in the Puranic period, when many stories stress his cleverness and love of intelligence. One of Ganesha's names in the Ganesha Purana and the Ganesha Sahasranama is Buddhipriya. This name also appears in a list of 21 names at the end of the Ganesha Sahasranama that Ganesha says are especially important. The word priya can mean "fond of", and in a marital context it can mean "lover" or "husband", so the name may mean either "Fond of Intelligence" or "Buddhi's Husband".
AUM
Ganesha is identified with the Hindu mantra Aum, also spelled Om. The term oṃkārasvarūpa (Aum is his form), when identified with Ganesha, refers to the notion that he personifies the primal sound. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa attests to this association. Chinmayananda translates the relevant passage as follows:
(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire [Agni] and air [Vāyu]. You are the sun [Sūrya] and the moon [Chandrama]. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka [earth], Antariksha-loka [space], and Swargaloka [heaven]. You are Om. (That is to say, You are all this).
Some devotees see similarities between the shape of Ganesha's body in iconography and the shape of Aum in the Devanāgarī and Tamil scripts.
FIRST CHAKRA
According to Kundalini yoga, Ganesha resides in the first chakra, called Muladhara (mūlādhāra). Mula means "original, main"; adhara means "base, foundation". The muladhara chakra is the principle on which the manifestation or outward expansion of primordial Divine Force rests. This association is also attested to in the Ganapati Atharvashirsa. Courtright translates this passage as follows: "[O Ganesha,] You continually dwell in the sacral plexus at the base of the spine [mūlādhāra cakra]." Thus, Ganesha has a permanent abode in every being at the Muladhara. Ganesha holds, supports and guides all other chakras, thereby "governing the forces that propel the wheel of life".
FAMILY AND CONSORTS
Though Ganesha is popularly held to be the son of Shiva and Parvati, the Puranic myths give different versions about his birth. In some he was created by Parvati, in another he was created by Shiva and Parvati, in another he appeared mysteriously and was discovered by Shiva and Parvati or he was born from the elephant headed goddess Malini after she drank Parvati's bath water that had been thrown in the river.
The family includes his brother the war god Kartikeya, who is also called Subramanya, Skanda, Murugan and other names. Regional differences dictate the order of their births. In northern India, Skanda is generally said to be the elder, while in the south, Ganesha is considered the first born. In northern India, Skanda was an important martial deity from about 500 BCE to about 600 CE, when worship of him declined significantly in northern India. As Skanda fell, Ganesha rose. Several stories tell of sibling rivalry between the brothers and may reflect sectarian tensions.
Ganesha's marital status, the subject of considerable scholarly review, varies widely in mythological stories. One pattern of myths identifies Ganesha as an unmarried brahmacari. This view is common in southern India and parts of northern India. Another pattern associates him with the concepts of Buddhi (intellect), Siddhi (spiritual power), and Riddhi (prosperity); these qualities are sometimes personified as goddesses, said to be Ganesha's wives. He also may be shown with a single consort or a nameless servant (Sanskrit: daşi). Another pattern connects Ganesha with the goddess of culture and the arts, Sarasvati or Śarda (particularly in Maharashtra). He is also associated with the goddess of luck and prosperity, Lakshmi. Another pattern, mainly prevalent in the Bengal region, links Ganesha with the banana tree, Kala Bo.
The Shiva Purana says that Ganesha had begotten two sons: Kşema (prosperity) and Lābha (profit). In northern Indian variants of this story, the sons are often said to be Śubha (auspiciouness) and Lābha. The 1975 Hindi film Jai Santoshi Maa shows Ganesha married to Riddhi and Siddhi and having a daughter named Santoshi Ma, the goddess of satisfaction. This story has no Puranic basis, but Anita Raina Thapan and Lawrence Cohen cite Santoshi Ma's cult as evidence of Ganesha's continuing evolution as a popular deity.
WOSHIP AND FESTIVALS
Ganesha is worshipped on many religious and secular occasions; especially at the beginning of ventures such as buying a vehicle or starting a business. K.N. Somayaji says, "there can hardly be a [Hindu] home [in India] which does not house an idol of Ganapati. [..] Ganapati, being the most popular deity in India, is worshipped by almost all castes and in all parts of the country". Devotees believe that if Ganesha is propitiated, he grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity.
Ganesha is a non-sectarian deity, and Hindus of all denominations invoke him at the beginning of prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies. Dancers and musicians, particularly in southern India, begin performances of arts such as the Bharatnatyam dance with a prayer to Ganesha. Mantras such as Om Shri Gaṇeshāya Namah (Om, salutation to the Illustrious Ganesha) are often used. One of the most famous mantras associated with Ganesha is Om Gaṃ Ganapataye Namah (Om, Gaṃ, Salutation to the Lord of Hosts).
Devotees offer Ganesha sweets such as modaka and small sweet balls (laddus). He is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modakapātra. Because of his identification with the color red, he is often worshipped with red sandalwood paste (raktacandana) or red flowers. Dūrvā grass (Cynodon dactylon) and other materials are also used in his worship.
Festivals associated with Ganesh are Ganesh Chaturthi or Vināyaka chaturthī in the śuklapakṣa (the fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of bhādrapada (August/September) and the Gaṇeśa jayanti (Gaṇeśa's birthday) celebrated on the cathurthī of the śuklapakṣa (fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of māgha (January/February)."
GANESH CHATURTI
An annual festival honours Ganesha for ten days, starting on Ganesha Chaturthi, which typically falls in late August or early September. The festival begins with people bringing in clay idols of Ganesha, symbolising Ganesha's visit. The festival culminates on the day of Ananta Chaturdashi, when idols (murtis) of Ganesha are immersed in the most convenient body of water. Some families have a tradition of immersion on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, or 7th day. In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak transformed this annual Ganesha festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event. He did so "to bridge the gap between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharashtra. Because of Ganesha's wide appeal as "the god for Everyman", Tilak chose him as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule. Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavilions, and he established the practice of submerging all the public images on the tenth day. Today, Hindus across India celebrate the Ganapati festival with great fervour, though it is most popular in the state of Maharashtra. The festival also assumes huge proportions in Mumbai, Pune, and in the surrounding belt of Ashtavinayaka temples.
TEMPLES
In Hindu temples, Ganesha is depicted in various ways: as an acolyte or subordinate deity (pãrśva-devatã); as a deity related to the principal deity (parivāra-devatã); or as the principal deity of the temple (pradhāna), treated similarly as the highest gods of the Hindu pantheon. As the god of transitions, he is placed at the doorway of many Hindu temples to keep out the unworthy, which is analogous to his role as Parvati’s doorkeeper. In addition, several shrines are dedicated to Ganesha himself, of which the Ashtavinayak (lit. "eight Ganesha (shrines)") in Maharashtra are particularly well known. Located within a 100-kilometer radius of the city of Pune, each of these eight shrines celebrates a particular form of Ganapati, complete with its own lore and legend. The eight shrines are: Morgaon, Siddhatek, Pali, Mahad, Theur, Lenyadri, Ozar and Ranjangaon.
There are many other important Ganesha temples at the following locations: Wai in Maharashtra; Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh; Jodhpur, Nagaur and Raipur (Pali) in Rajasthan; Baidyanath in Bihar; Baroda, Dholaka, and Valsad in Gujarat and Dhundiraj Temple in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Prominent Ganesha temples in southern India include the following: Kanipakam in Chittoor; the Jambukeśvara Temple at Tiruchirapalli; at Rameshvaram and Suchindram in Tamil Nadu; at Malliyur, Kottarakara, Pazhavangadi, Kasargod in Kerala, Hampi, and Idagunji in Karnataka; and Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh.
T. A. Gopinatha notes, "Every village however small has its own image of Vighneśvara (Vigneshvara) with or without a temple to house it in. At entrances of villages and forts, below pīpaḹa (Sacred fig) trees [...], in a niche [...] in temples of Viṣṇu (Vishnu) as well as Śiva (Shiva) and also in separate shrines specially constructed in Śiva temples [...]; the figure of Vighneśvara is invariably seen." Ganesha temples have also been built outside of India, including southeast Asia, Nepal (including the four Vinayaka shrines in the Kathmandu valley), and in several western countries.
RISE TO PROMINENCE
FIRST APEARANCE
Ganesha appeared in his classic form as a clearly recognizable deity with well-defined iconographic attributes in the early 4th to 5th centuries. Shanti Lal Nagar says that the earliest known iconic image of Ganesha is in the niche of the Shiva temple at Bhumra, which has been dated to the Gupta period. His independent cult appeared by about the 10th century. Narain summarizes the controversy between devotees and academics regarding the development of Ganesha as follows:
What is inscrutable is the somewhat dramatic appearance of Gaņeśa on the historical scene. His antecedents are not clear. His wide acceptance and popularity, which transcend sectarian and territorial limits, are indeed amazing. On the one hand there is the pious belief of the orthodox devotees in Gaņeśa's Vedic origins and in the Purāṇic explanations contained in the confusing, but nonetheless interesting, mythology. On the other hand there are doubts about the existence of the idea and the icon of this deity" before the fourth to fifth century A.D. ... [I]n my opinion, indeed there is no convincing evidence of the existence of this divinity prior to the fifth century.
POSSIBLE INFLUENCES
Courtright reviews various speculative theories about the early history of Ganesha, including supposed tribal traditions and animal cults, and dismisses all of them in this way:
In the post 600 BC period there is evidence of people and places named after the animal. The motif appears on coins and sculptures.
Thapan's book on the development of Ganesha devotes a chapter to speculations about the role elephants had in early India but concludes that, "although by the second century CE the elephant-headed yakṣa form exists it cannot be presumed to represent Gaṇapati-Vināyaka. There is no evidence of a deity by this name having an elephant or elephant-headed form at this early stage. Gaṇapati-Vināyaka had yet to make his debut."
One theory of the origin of Ganesha is that he gradually came to prominence in connection with the four Vinayakas (Vināyakas). In Hindu mythology, the Vināyakas were a group of four troublesome demons who created obstacles and difficulties but who were easily propitiated. The name Vināyaka is a common name for Ganesha both in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. Krishan is one of the academics who accepts this view, stating flatly of Ganesha, "He is a non-vedic god. His origin is to be traced to the four Vināyakas, evil spirits, of the Mānavagŗhyasūtra (7th–4th century BCE) who cause various types of evil and suffering". Depictions of elephant-headed human figures, which some identify with Ganesha, appear in Indian art and coinage as early as the 2nd century. According to Ellawala, the elephant-headed Ganesha as lord of the Ganas was known to the people of Sri Lanka in the early pre-Christian era.
A metal plate depiction of Ganesha had been discovered in 1993, in Iran, it dated back to 1,200 BCE. Another one was discovered much before, in Lorestan Province of Iran.
First Ganesha's terracotta images are from 1st century CE found in Ter, Pal, Verrapuram and Chandraketugarh. These figures are small, with elephant head, two arms, and chubby physique. The earliest Ganesha icons in stone were carved in Mathura during Kushan times (2nd-3rd centuries CE).
VEDIC AND EPIC LITERATURE
The title "Leader of the group" (Sanskrit: gaṇapati) occurs twice in the Rig Veda, but in neither case does it refer to the modern Ganesha. The term appears in RV 2.23.1 as a title for Brahmanaspati, according to commentators. While this verse doubtless refers to Brahmanaspati, it was later adopted for worship of Ganesha and is still used today. In rejecting any claim that this passage is evidence of Ganesha in the Rig Veda, Ludo Rocher says that it "clearly refers to Bṛhaspati—who is the deity of the hymn—and Bṛhaspati only". Equally clearly, the second passage (RV 10.112.9) refers to Indra, who is given the epithet 'gaṇapati', translated "Lord of the companies (of the Maruts)." However, Rocher notes that the more recent Ganapatya literature often quotes the Rigvedic verses to give Vedic respectability to Ganesha .
Two verses in texts belonging to Black Yajurveda, Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā (2.9.1) and Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (10.1), appeal to a deity as "the tusked one" (Dantiḥ), "elephant-faced" (Hastimukha), and "with a curved trunk" (Vakratuņḍa). These names are suggestive of Ganesha, and the 14th century commentator Sayana explicitly establishes this identification. The description of Dantin, possessing a twisted trunk (vakratuṇḍa) and holding a corn-sheaf, a sugar cane, and a club, is so characteristic of the Puranic Ganapati that Heras says "we cannot resist to accept his full identification with this Vedic Dantin". However, Krishan considers these hymns to be post-Vedic additions. Thapan reports that these passages are "generally considered to have been interpolated". Dhavalikar says, "the references to the elephant-headed deity in the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā have been proven to be very late interpolations, and thus are not very helpful for determining the early formation of the deity".
Ganesha does not appear in Indian epic literature that is dated to the Vedic period. A late interpolation to the epic poem Mahabharata says that the sage Vyasa (Vyāsa) asked Ganesha to serve as his scribe to transcribe the poem as he dictated it to him. Ganesha agreed but only on condition that Vyasa recite the poem uninterrupted, that is, without pausing. The sage agreed, but found that to get any rest he needed to recite very complex passages so Ganesha would have to ask for clarifications. The story is not accepted as part of the original text by the editors of the critical edition of the Mahabharata, in which the twenty-line story is relegated to a footnote in an appendix. The story of Ganesha acting as the scribe occurs in 37 of the 59 manuscripts consulted during preparation of the critical edition.[174] Ganesha's association with mental agility and learning is one reason he is shown as scribe for Vyāsa's dictation of the Mahabharata in this interpolation. Richard L. Brown dates the story to the 8th century, and Moriz Winternitz concludes that it was known as early as c. 900, but it was not added to the Mahabharata some 150 years later. Winternitz also notes that a distinctive feature in South Indian manuscripts of the Mahabharata is their omission of this Ganesha legend. The term vināyaka is found in some recensions of the Śāntiparva and Anuśāsanaparva that are regarded as interpolations. A reference to Vighnakartṛīṇām ("Creator of Obstacles") in Vanaparva is also believed to be an interpolation and does not appear in the critical edition.
PURANIC PERIOD
Stories about Ganesha often occur in the Puranic corpus. Brown notes while the Puranas "defy precise chronological ordering", the more detailed narratives of Ganesha's life are in the late texts, c. 600–1300. Yuvraj Krishan says that the Puranic myths about the birth of Ganesha and how he acquired an elephant's head are in the later Puranas, which were composed from c. 600 onwards. He elaborates on the matter to say that references to Ganesha in the earlier Puranas, such as the Vayu and Brahmanda Puranas, are later interpolations made during the 7th to 10th centuries.
In his survey of Ganesha's rise to prominence in Sanskrit literature, Ludo Rocher notes that:
Above all, one cannot help being struck by the fact that the numerous stories surrounding Gaṇeśa concentrate on an unexpectedly limited number of incidents. These incidents are mainly three: his birth and parenthood, his elephant head, and his single tusk. Other incidents are touched on in the texts, but to a far lesser extent.
Ganesha's rise to prominence was codified in the 9th century, when he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism. The 9th-century philosopher Adi Shankara popularized the "worship of the five forms" (Panchayatana puja) system among orthodox Brahmins of the Smarta tradition. This worship practice invokes the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and Surya. Adi Shankara instituted the tradition primarily to unite the principal deities of these five major sects on an equal status. This formalized the role of Ganesha as a complementary deity.
SCRIPTURES
Once Ganesha was accepted as one of the five principal deities of Brahmanism, some Brahmins (brāhmaṇas) chose to worship Ganesha as their principal deity. They developed the Ganapatya tradition, as seen in the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana.
The date of composition for the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana - and their dating relative to one another - has sparked academic debate. Both works were developed over time and contain age-layered strata. Anita Thapan reviews comments about dating and provides her own judgement. "It seems likely that the core of the Ganesha Purana appeared around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries", she says, "but was later interpolated." Lawrence W. Preston considers the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana to be between 1100 and 1400, which coincides with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by the text.
R.C. Hazra suggests that the Mudgala Purana is older than the Ganesha Purana, which he dates between 1100 and 1400. However, Phyllis Granoff finds problems with this relative dating and concludes that the Mudgala Purana was the last of the philosophical texts concerned with Ganesha. She bases her reasoning on the fact that, among other internal evidence, the Mudgala Purana specifically mentions the Ganesha Purana as one of the four Puranas (the Brahma, the Brahmanda, the Ganesha, and the Mudgala Puranas) which deal at length with Ganesha. While the kernel of the text must be old, it was interpolated until the 17th and 18th centuries as the worship of Ganapati became more important in certain regions. Another highly regarded scripture, the Ganapati Atharvashirsa, was probably composed during the 16th or 17th centuries.
BEYOND INDIA AND HINDUISM
Commercial and cultural contacts extended India's influence in western and southeast Asia. Ganesha is one of a number of Hindu deities who reached foreign lands as a result.
Ganesha was particularly worshipped by traders and merchants, who went out of India for commercial ventures. From approximately the 10th century onwards, new networks of exchange developed including the formation of trade guilds and a resurgence of money circulation. During this time, Ganesha became the principal deity associated with traders. The earliest inscription invoking Ganesha before any other deity is associated with the merchant community.
Hindus migrated to Maritime Southeast Asia and took their culture, including Ganesha, with them. Statues of Ganesha are found throughout the region, often beside Shiva sanctuaries. The forms of Ganesha found in Hindu art of Java, Bali, and Borneo show specific regional influences. The spread of Hindu culture to southeast Asia established Ganesha in modified forms in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Indochina, Hinduism and Buddhism were practiced side by side, and mutual influences can be seen in the iconography of Ganesha in the region. In Thailand, Cambodia, and among the Hindu classes of the Chams in Vietnam, Ganesha was mainly thought of as a remover of obstacles. Today in Buddhist Thailand, Ganesha is regarded as a remover of obstacles, the god of success.
Before the arrival of Islam, Afghanistan had close cultural ties with India, and the adoration of both Hindu and Buddhist deities was practiced. Examples of sculptures from the 5th to the 7th centuries have survived, suggesting that the worship of Ganesha was then in vogue in the region.
Ganesha appears in Mahayana Buddhism, not only in the form of the Buddhist god Vināyaka, but also as a Hindu demon form with the same name. His image appears in Buddhist sculptures during the late Gupta period. As the Buddhist god Vināyaka, he is often shown dancing. This form, called Nṛtta Ganapati, was popular in northern India, later adopted in Nepal, and then in Tibet. In Nepal, the Hindu form of Ganesha, known as Heramba, is popular; he has five heads and rides a lion. Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent views of him. A Tibetan rendering of Ganapati is tshogs bdag. In one Tibetan form, he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākāla, (Shiva) a popular Tibetan deity. Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, and sometimes dancing. Ganesha appears in China and Japan in forms that show distinct regional character. In northern China, the earliest known stone statue of Ganesha carries an inscription dated to 531. In Japan, where Ganesha is known as Kangiten, the Ganesha cult was first mentioned in 806.
The canonical literature of Jainism does not mention the worship of Ganesha. However, Ganesha is worshipped by most Jains, for whom he appears to have taken over certain functions of Kubera. Jain connections with the trading community support the idea that Jainism took up Ganesha worship as a result of commercial connections. The earliest known Jain Ganesha statue dates to about the 9th century. A 15th-century Jain text lists procedures for the installation of Ganapati images. Images of Ganesha appear in the Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat.
WIKIPEDIA
during Queens Park Cricket Club 125th Anniversary Gala Dinner at the Hilton Trinidad & Conference Centre, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Photo by WICB Media/Randy Brooks of Brooks Latouche Photography
Activity relating to the carrying of the more than 100 portable shrines (mikoshi) around the Asakusa neighbourhood to bless the businesses and residents with prosperity in the coming year.
Sanja Matsuri (Festival) at the Sensoji Temple, Asakusa,
Tokyo, Japan, 2016
Only the street shots - thestreetzine.blogspot.com/
Sarah Dallon, aged about 65 Taken at Blackpool GB124.DPA/645/4 No Date, circa 1925
See also www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/7214624268/in...
Myth and Psyche
The Evolution of Consciousness
This introduction to Jungian psychology was written by Donald Kalsched and Alan Jones as a companion to a photographic exhibition at The Hofstra Museum, in New York City, November 15 – December 19, 1986. The exhibit was presented by The Hofstra Museum with The Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS). The exhibit was curated by Karin Barnaby and Annmari Ronnberg.
Introduction
Mythology is the most archaic and profound record we have of mankind's essential spirit and nature. As far back as we are able to trace the origins of our species, we find myth and myth-making as the fundamental language through which man relates to life's mystery and fashions meaning from his experiences. The world of myth has its own laws and its own reality. Instead of concepts and facts that make logical sense, we find patterns of irrational imagery whose meaning must be discerned or experienced by the participant-observer. Discovering these patterns of meaning is what Jung meant by the symbolic approach to religion, myth, and dream.
The mythic image is not to be taken literally and concretely as it would be in the belief-system of a particular religion, nor is it to be dismissed as 'mere illusion,' as often happens in scientific circles. Instead, we must approach myth symbolically as revealed eternal 'truths' about mankind's psychic existence — about the reality of the psyche. 'Once upon a time' does not mean 'once' in history but refers to events that occur in eternal time, always and everywhere. Any myth is very much alive today. Every night in sleep we sink back into that source of all mythological imagery, the unconscious psyche — the origin of dreams. Many of our games have their roots in mythology and much of contemporary art, literature, and film is shot through with mythological themes.
The comparative method is the basic key to a symbolic understanding of mythology. Through it we discover certain patterns which recur in widely varying cultures separated by an immensity of both distance and time. Jung called these underlying patterns 'archetypes' from 'arche' meaning primordial, and 'typos' meaning typical. Archetypal images embody the most essential elements of the human experience and drama. They manifest both as powerful images, and as dynamic behavioral patterns. They are a repertoire of instinctive human functioning, analogous in our species to the instinctive impulse that impels, say, the Baltimore Oriole to build a beautiful teardrop nest, or Salmon to return to the streams of their birth. The generality of these images result from recurrent reactions of human beings to situations and stimuli of the same general order, repeated over thousands of years.
The archetypal images represent several basic stages of the life drama symbolized by the Hero myth. They lead from an initial stage of unconsciousness before the ego has awakened, through various stages of heroic struggle, to a final state of 'wholeness' or integration when life has reached its full potential and a relationship between the human and divine has been reestablished. Jung called this process 'individuation,' the process of becoming the true individual that one really is. This 'true self' Jung felt to be the dynamic factor in the unconscious of each individual. It represents the central archetype of order and wholeness among the other archetypes. Jung called it the Self.
The Original Embryonic State
In the beginning of many creation myths is an image of an original state of perfection, wholeness, and beatific containment. This is often represented as a containing circle, cave, pool, or sphere. The predominant archetypal symbol is that of the primordial Earth Goddess — the Great Mother with her nourishing and protective womb. Many other symbols express this archetype. Anything large and embracing or containing, such as a vessel, that enwraps, shelters, and preserves something small and fragile partakes of this 'primordial mother' One very common symbol is the uroborus, the snake with its tail in its mouth. These symbols express a paradisal state prior to any degree of self-sufficiency and autonomy. The Garden of Eden, and the Golden Age when mankind lived in union with the gods, partaking of divine fullness and totality, are other common motifs of this psychological condition. In the biological life of the individual this symbolism corresponds not only to the pre-natal gestation of the embryo in the mother's uterus, but to the state of the newborn's total dependence upon the mother. Psychologically, these symbols express the stage when the ego is only a potential, or when the ego is dominated by the universal instinctual patterns of human response to the world, or a condition when little or nothing of a uniquely personal value is expressed by the individual.
Separation, Creation, and the Birth Of Consciousness
Comparative mythology teaches us that there is always a creative tension or urgency in the original embryonic state which leads to trouble. The great uroboric round breaks open and light is born into the world. A typical personification of this impulse is the snake that tempts Eve to violate her passive containment in the Garden, or the shadowy figure or animal in Fairy Tales that tempt the hero or heroine to break the status quo and do something 'evil,' i.e., individual. Such acts result in expulsion from paradisal condition. The protection of childhood, as well as the contentment with the past or with what has been achieved, are types of a paradise that are lost when life calls for a new adaptation.
This process begins with a cataclysmic separation. In myth it is often imaged as the separation of the world Parents. Father Sky and Mother Earth hold each other in an embrace and the world is left in darkness. The children born between them must thrust them apart, despite their parents' protesting cries and groans. Only then does light enter the world. This light symbolizes consciousness. Only in the light of consciousness can man know. Yet the acquisition of consciousness is a Promethean act subjecting the hero to the danger of inflation and retribution. For stealing fire from the Gods Prometheus was chained to a rock where an eagle ate his liver every night; when Icarus flew too high on his man-made wings, their wax melted and he plunged to his death in the sea. As a bearer of light, the hero is willing to face these dangers, despite the awareness of his aloneness, individuality, and mortality, in order to carry development further.
However, once the apple is eaten the world falls into opposites, and 'good' and 'evil' are assigned their place in the world. The Great Good Mother shows her dark aspect, the hateful or Terrible Mother, while the creative Father now sits opposite the Destructive Father, and brothers kill each other in the name of love, and the world is alternately either an enchanted or persecutory place.
The Hero Myth: Birth, Call, Journey
The hero myth symbolizes that personality formation occurs only through struggle, suffering, and sacrifice. The hero's triumphs and defeats are the paradigms of the individual's confrontation with the challenges of his or her own individual life — no matter how mundane or exalted. The birth of the hero usually occurs in humble surroundings such as a manger or cave, but it is always extraordinary in some way. Often there is a special light around the child, or the child is perceived to be a threat to the King. Frequently, the hero has two fathers — his personal father and a 'higher' father. Often the mother is a virgin, and the hero's conception is of divine origin. The hero thereby inherits a dual nature. He is a human being like everyone else, yet at the same time he feels himself to be an outsider, a stranger to the community. He does not fit in, and discovers within himself something that sets him apart, such as his prophetic powers, healing abilities, or creative powers. These lead him to extraordinary deeds.
The heroic adventure often begins with some message or 'call' from a miraculous source. A frog talks to the princess, or Moses confronts a burning bush, or an empty rice bowl floats upstream (Buddha), or there is an annunciation in a dream. The call often comes at an important moment. Old life values have often been outgrown and a certain sterility has set in. Parsifal's quest for the Holy Grail was set in motion by the Fisher King's realm having become a wasteland. Whatever its form, the call awakens the hero to his or her special destiny.
The Hero Myth: The Dragon Fight and Redemption of the Feminine
In the fight with the dragon the hero battles the regressive forces of the unconscious which threaten to swallow the individuating ego. The forces, personified in figures like Circe, Kali, medusa, sea serpents, Minotaur, or Gorgon, represent the Terrible side of the Great Mother. The Hero may voluntarily submit to being swallowed by the monster, or to a conscious descent into Hades so as to vanquish the forces of darkness. This mortifying descent into the abyss, the sea, the dark cave, or the underworld in order to be reborn to a new identity expresses the symbolism of the night-sea journey through the uterine belly of the monster. It is a fundamental theme in mythology the world over — that of death and rebirth. All initiatory rituals involve this basic archetypal pattern through which the old order and early infantile attachments must die and a more mature and productive life be born in their place.
The mythological goal of the dragon fight is almost always the virgin, the captive, or more generally, the 'treasure hard to attain.' This image of the vulnerable, beautiful, and enchanting woman, guarded by and captive of a menacing monster gives us a picture of the inner core of the personality and its surrounding defenses. The hero's task is to rescue the maiden from the grasp of the monster and, ultimately, to marry her and establish his kingdom with her. This dragon fight and liberation of the captive is the archetypal pattern that can guide us through those major transitional passages in our personal development where a rebirth or reorientation of consciousness is indicated. The captive represents the 'new' element whose liberation makes all further development possible.
In response to the call the hero undertakes a journey, usually a dangerous journey to an unknown region full of both promise and danger. Often the journey is a descent. Sometimes, as with Jonah, Aeneas, Christ, and Psyche, it is a descent into the depths — the sea, the underworld, or Hades itself. Always there is a perilous crossing. Sometimes the faintheartedness of the hero is balanced by the appearance of guardians or helpful animals that enable the hero to perform the superhuman task that cannot be accomplished unaided. These helpful forces are representatives of the psychic totality that supports the ego in its struggle. They bear witness to the fact that the essential function of the hero myth is the development of the individual's true personality.
The Goal of Individuation and Its Symbols
The successful completion of the hero drama forges a relationship between the psychic opposites which split apart at the birth of consciousness. The major symbols for this synthesis are various forms of the Coniunctio Oppositorium or Mandala in which the original wholeness is now re-established but on a higher, more differentiated level. In the images of King and Queen united in marriage, or male and female united in the form of the androgyne, or geometrical opposites paradoxically united in the 'squared circle' or life and death come together in the mysterious image of the immortal God suffering a mortal wound, the integration of the opposites within the personality are symbolized. Additional symbols of wholeness are the elixir of immortality, the pearl of great price, and the divine child, representing a life-transcending potential for future growth.
The hero myth tells us that the ego's courage to suffer the burdens of fear, guilt, and the conflicts within the personality — the willingness to be crucified on the cross of one's own doubleness and to hold this inwardly — is the only way God and man can be reconciled and drawn closer together. The original unity of God and man, as in the Garden, is broken when the ego aspires to consciousness. The ego is then banished to a world full of opposites which war with each other within the personality, as brother falls upon brother in war and devastation. But into the chaos is born the child of light, the hero, whose struggle can forge an everlasting relationship between male and female, light and darkness, life and death, God and man. This is the promise, the Ring, the Covenant, the Flaming Rainbow Bridge which can unite the human and divine in the inward depths of the human psyche.
www.cgjungny.org/d/d_mythpsyche.html
The biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis Chapters 2-3) is foundational to our Western culture and has influenced the upbringing and psychology of all of us, whether we realize it or not.Mythologists as well as many biblical scholars recognize the story as being in the genre of myth, which makes it appropriate to analyze it from the perspective of depth psychology, among other approaches. Indeed, as Joseph Campbell concluded, “This story yields its meaning only to a psychological interpretation” (2001, p. 50). Further, Carl Jung (CW 9.2, para. 230) had already written that “cosmogonic myths are, at bottom, symbols for the coming of consciousness.” But the literature about the Eden story taking such a psychological approach is scant, largely due to traditional and problematic gaps and tensions between academic disciplines. My recent book, The Mythology of Eden, is in part an interdisciplinary effort to take on this fascinating and important task and advance our knowledge on the subject. Below I distill some of my findings from this approach to the Eden myth, and I hope they break some new ground: The Story as Told.In the story, Yahweh warns Adam (before Eve is created) not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or he will die that very day. In many mythologies and religions, including traditional Canaanite-Israelite religion, sacred trees have been thought of as conduits for connecting with and directly experiencing the divine, whereas the Eden story’s author insisted upon a covenant (contract) relationship between the divine (Yahweh) on the one hand and the human (earthly, profane, non-divine) sphere on the other. In the ancient biblical world, one way to experience the divine was to partake of the fruit or other produce of the sacred tree or plant, thus imbibing the essence of the divinity represented by or immanent within the tree, but this practice was condemned in the Bible.When Eve was tempted by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit, she decided to eat it for various reasons, but mainly because she desired wisdom (Gen. 3:6). This purpose was realized when, immediately after Eve and then Adam ate the fruit, “the eyes of both were opened” (Gen. 3:7), and Yahweh remarked (to other divine beings), “See, the man has become like one of us [deities], knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:22). The questions become: What kind of knowledge/wisdom did Adam and Eve acquire, and what kind of transformation did these archetypal humans undergo? Both relate to the psyche.
The Creation of the Cosmos from ChaosIn ancient Near Eastern creation myths, there was no such thing as creation from nothing. Before the creation, there was always a formless watery substance characterized as “chaos” (see, e.g., Gen. 1:1) because at that stage no time, space, or other order existed. The same is true before the beginning of creation in the Eden story (a separate creation story from that in Genesis 1, by a different, earlier author), only a different metaphor for chaos was used, that of a desert wasteland (Gen. 2:4-5). The ordered cosmos is created like a bubble within the surrounding chaos and is bordered by the solid firmament above and the ground below, as shown in Diagram 1 below. The cosmos (including humans) is made of the same substance as chaos; the only difference is that it is ordered, has multiplicity, and the things created have names given by the creator decreeing their function and destiny.This motif of creation from chaos was universal in the ancient Near East and common around the world. Why? Marie-Louise von Franz (1995, pp. 2-4) explained that this is a natural result of our psyche experiencing its own ego-consciousness coming into being as “world-becoming.” As far as our psyche is concerned, our becoming aware of the world and the world coming into existence are one and the same. This process occurred not only when humans first developed ego-consciousness but also occurs in any young child’s development (as shown by developmental psychology) and in the life of adults, such as when we wake up in the morning from an unconscious state and order falls into place. Our unconscious has no sense of space or time and little sense of order; it is indeed chaotic and is experienced as such. Thus, the dawn of consciousness and our image of the creation of the world are parallel and related processes which throw up corresponding, related symbols. The notion of primordial chaos is a natural projection of an archetypal image that helps make the unknown comprehensible.Chaos as Evil and Sin.After the creation, chaos is not eliminated but continues outside the cosmos, always trying to encroach upon and undo the created cosmos. Particular things are “created” only to the extent that chaos is absent in them. But in fact nothing is perfect (except the initial Garden of Eden); each thing contains some element of chaos. In nature, chaos is manifested in natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and violent storms. Since humans are made of the same substance as the rest of the cosmos (recall Adam being formed from the ground and water), chaos can and will inevitably erupt in humans too. In modern psychological terms, this is the unconscious at work. In the biblical world, chaos was typically symbolized by a serpent, so when in the Eden story the serpent appears before Eve, the story’s ancient audience knew that chaos had entered the Garden and Eve’s mind. Her dialogue with the serpent represents this manifestation of chaos within herself and inner turmoil.In normative terms, chaos is viewed as bad (evil), while creation is good. After all, God had created the ordered cosmos from chaos, so that’s what He wanted. The cosmos in this respect has a teleological nature, which should be respected, maintained, and furthered. Chaos manifested in humans is what results in human evil (which the biblical authors said includes pagan religion). This is what Yahweh warns Cain about: “sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7, by the same author as the Eden story). The same biblical author later described this chaotic trait within human nature as wild imaginings of the human heart (in the ancient world thought to be the repository of thought) (Gen. 6:5; 8:21), much like Eve’s imaginings during her temptation (Gen. 3:6). Later rabbinical writings characterized this trait as the yezer hara (“impulse to evil”), which became the standard rabbinical explanation for the origin of evil. The ancients did not understand the nature of the unconscious as such, but they did reach the insight that much of human behavior, especially evil behavior, stems from urges deep within and barely susceptible to our rational, conscious control.The Antidote: The Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Law
Adam and Eve’s transgression in the Garden showed what happens if unrestricted human nature takes its natural course. The author had to provide a remedy. His antidote was twofold: the knowledge of good and evil, combined with the Law (here in its incipient form).First, the immediate result of eating the forbidden fruit was to acquire the godlike knowledge of good and evil. What this knowledge consists of has been the subject of much debate, but actually the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls go fairly far in explaining it. In several passages they describe this knowledge as being acquired (or perfected) as one passes from minority to adulthood, at the age of 20 (e.g., Isa. 7:14-16). Thus, when the Hebrews rebelled against Yahweh in the wilderness of Sinai, those 20 or older (except for the virtuous Joshua and Caleb) were implicated in this sin and so were not allowed to enter the Promised Land (hence the long stay in the wilderness), while minors under 20 had no knowledge of good and evil and so were considered incapable of sin, and therefore would eventually enter the Promised Land (Num. 14:29-30; Deut. 1:39). The Hebrew Bible goes on to portray Israel’s best kings, David and Solomon, has having an extra dose of the knowledge of good and evil, which is described as wisdom and a power of discernment (2 Sam. 14:17, 20; 1 Kings 3:9-12, 28; 4:29-31).The above understanding means that Adam and Eve’s transgression did not rise to the level of sin, since they had not yet acquired the knowledge of good and evil. They were like minors without legal capacity. In fact, their transgression was the result of human nature already at creation having the aforementioned inclination toward evil, not the cause of our sinfulness, as claimed in the doctrine of original sin.Given that evil is a form of chaos and good is a manifestation of the divinely created order of creation, the knowledge of good and evil is nothing less than the godlike knowledge of how the universe works in terms of the dynamic between chaos and order, both at the cosmic level and at the human moral level of good and evil. This understanding was likewise an insight into how the human psyche works. According to the biblical writers, in principle the knowledge of good and evil is what can (if applied) enable humans to avoid sin and further good.As shown by the snowballing of human evil leading up to Noah’s flood, however, in practice merely having this knowledge was not enough for good to prevail. Humans needed divine guidance and assistance. It was for this reason that Yahweh bestowed on the Hebrews the Law, a set of ordering principles which, if followed, would result in good prevailing, as well as the greatness of the Israelite nation. Having the knowledge of good and evil would enable humans to understand and follow the Law. This scheme is shown in Diagram 2 below, presenting the knowledge of good and evil as a type of merism, encompassing these opposites at the cosmic and human level.The Psychic Nature of the Transgression.Having the knowledge of good and evil enables humans to discern and understand both external and internal (psychic) reality, in particular pairs of opposites, symbolized by the opposites of good and evil but including others in the story such as male and female, and God and humans. Therefore, Adam and Eve’s acquisition of this knowledge constituted an enlightenment and transformation into a higher psychic level, that of full ego-consciousness. Before that, they were mired in a lower psychic state dominated by the unconscious that Erich Neumann (1954) famously called the “uroboros,” where all is one and there are no pairs of opposites (pp. 5-38). Yahweh’s warning that Adam would “die” upon eating the fruit, may well render this moment a kind of initiation scenario, with the old human dying and entering a new state of being. This transformation is what made humans responsible and accountable for their actions (especially before God), truly capable of sin or of good, and ready to act in the real world. That is when Adam and Eve exited the Garden. In psychological terms, they were not driven from the Garden but grew up and walked out on their own. As Joseph Campbell explained, “The Garden is a metaphor for the following: our minds” (2001, p. 50).Although no act of “original sin” occurred, the Eden story remains principally a story explaining human nature, in particular our psyche. Especially important is the story’s recognition of the role of chaos in the psyche, which today means the unconscious and especially the Shadow. As Jung recognized, “it is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow-side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism” (CW 7, para. 35). This chaos eventually came to be represented by the Devil. The author of the Eden story honestly brought out this psychic fact, and he did his best to fashion a way to deal with it. His remedy was the application of our knowledge of good and evil (an aspect of ego-consciousness) plus the Law.
What Does the Eden Story Mean for Us?In considering the relevance of the Eden story in today’s world, we must reevaluate the biblical author’s remedy and determine what our conclusions mean for us individually (spirituality, psychology), as well as socio-politically in terms of criminology, social policy, ethics and morality, education, religious doctrine (or abandonment thereof), and law. This complicated endeavor would take us far beyond the scope of this article, so I will end with just two points in this regard.
First, to the extent the biblical remedy involves conscious application of the knowledge of good and evil, this seems inevitably to involve, at least in part, ego-consciousness repressing and suppressing contents of our unconscious, which modern psychology has shown to cause still more problems.Second, historically, the biblical authors’ reliance on prophylactic laws to control human behavior has had mixed results. Further, such approach assumes that the human psyche is incapable of further change, even though it had transformed once before in the Garden. As a result, the prophylactic approach treats symptoms rather than the underlying problems, including evolved traits that once had survival value but which in many cases are now dysfunctional.
An alternative approach is to endeavor to transform the human psyche to a higher level, in which case the need for prophylactic measures and suppression and repression of the unconscious would lessen. Such is the approach, for example, being explored by Allan Combs (2009), the integral psychology movement championed by Ken Wilber (1996; 2000), and other progressive thinkers and initiatives. One means toward this end may well be spiritual practices giving a direct experience of divinity (however conceived), the type of approach condemned in the Bible but which resulted in the elevation of Adam and Eve’s consciousness.
www.depthinsights.com/Depth-Insights-scholarly-ezine/jung...
This lantern slide relates to a photograph taken by Clement Lindley Wragge (b.1852, d.1922), date unknown.
The slide is a red/purple tinted image of lunar landscape depicting two mountains and a valley. In the distance, a yellow depiction of saturn and its rings is placed against a dark sky full of stars.
Inscription Details: Handwritten in black ink at top of plate, 'Saturn from satellite -ideal. Handwritten in black ink in lower left corner of plate, 'Aux:U'. VERSO, handwritten in black ink at top of plate, 'Tinted CLW Karangahaki 17/11/14'.
Credit: Shared by Auckland War Memorial Museum, Tāmaki Paenga Hira, as part of the Clement Lindley Wragge collection.
Rights: No known copyright restrictions.
Reference: 236016|PH-1984-1-LS78-4-9
For more details, please visit: www.aucklandmuseum.com/discover/collections/record/1033200
This image relates to my new research question "Why does our society over sexualize young girls in our sources of media?" because it is an image of a young girl sitting provocatively with her legs spread open, due to her up bringing with current media. She is over exposed to sexual images of other girls in magazines and other sexual scenes depicted in movies and even TV shows. This relates to my question as well as my other pictures pertaining to it because it shows a young girl sitting provocatively to an audience that we do not know, is it a boy her age? An older man? Multiple people? This is the effect media has on girls in our society. It shows that to have a good time and be more grown up, you need to look the part and to be sexually active and it is simply not true.
立法會鐵路事宜小組委員會視察港鐵沙田貨運場及馬場站
立法会铁路事宜小组委员会视察港铁沙田货运场及马场站
LegCo Subcommittee on Matters Relating to Railways visits the MTR Shatin Freight Yard and Racecourse Station (2014.01.10)
Brasília 28/03/2017 Relator da reforma política na câmara, Vicente Cândido, durante entrevista para agência PT.
Foto: Lula Marques/Agência PT
Because of recent news relating to the development [re-development] of Cherrywood in the South of County Dublin I decided to see if I had any relevant photograph but the earliest usable photographs were taken in July 2013. I do know that I did photograph the area in 2010 and possibly in 2009 but I cannot locate the original photographs.
This photograph was taken in 2013 but nothing really changed between 2010 and 2013,
Back in 2010 I made the following comment online:
“The New Luas Extension Has Been Criticised By Commuters Who Cannot Park.”
“When it comes to transport in Dublin there have been two success stories in recent years. The DublinBike scheme is one and the other is the Luas tram system. Last Monday was a beautiful sunny day and after photographing the Dublin Marathon I decided that it would be a good idea to get the Luas to Cherrywood to see if I could take a few photographs. It was explained to me, by a gentleman that I met on the tram, that the land is now tied up in NAMA and as a result it cannot be developed as a park and ride facility. Commuters were turned away from the new Cherrywood terminus on opening day as there were no parking facilities available.”
“Cherrywood is one of Dublin's newest suburbs and as can be seen from my photographs it is partly developed and there are some very large empty spaces and believe it or not there is a shortage of parking spaces. Some time ago a decision was made to extend the Sandyford (Green) Luas line to Cherrywood and construction started in February 2007 and the line became operational this month (October 2010) There are now two Luas stops in Cherrywood: Cherrywood and the terminus, Brides Glen.”
I would suggest that the tram stop at Laughanstown could be described as being in the area.
FRIDAY 10 FEB 2016:
Hines Ireland has officially started work on the first key phase of construction at Cherrywood in South County Dublin. If all goes well up to 30,000 people will live at Cherrywood by early in the next decade meaning that it will be as large as Bray and even larger than a town such as Athlone.
Brian Moran said, “The upfront delivery of the roads, cycle and pedestrian network and three wonderful parks is a pivotal moment for the Cherrywood project. These will be the green lungs for this modern new town and this not only strikes the right environmental note for Cherrywood to come but it also underpins our commitment to expedite the delivery of the 4,000 modern new homes within the Hines land holding."
"We are acutely aware of the enormous public demand for new housing stock and the submission of planning for the new €875 million Cherrywood Town Centre in the coming months will include 1300 new smart design apartments as part of this highly ambitious plan.”
In 2014, Hines acquired Cherrywood in South Dublin. The two components of this investment include an existing 52,000-square-meter office park and a 390-acre master-planned development site. The Cherrywood site has been acquired with approval for the construction of a new, retail-led mixed-use town center; up to 3,800 apartments and houses; and zoning capacity to expand the second largest office park in Dublin to three times its current size.
Mr. Moran is the Senior Managing Director responsible for developing Hines’ Ireland projects. He established the Hines platform in Ireland which currently has more than €1.2 billion of retail, office and residential assets under management, in addition to a major development pipeline which includes an additional €500 million of retail development and over 4,000 residential units. He rejoined the firm in 2011 having previously worked with Hines in Russia in the 1990's.
This photo shows cartilage cell infiltration into a fibrous metallic scaffold. The cell nuclei are stained orange with Hoechest and the metal fibres are in monochrome. The project relates to the introduction of a relatively thick metallic layer, strongly attached to a conventional hip prosthesis. This metal layer is highly porous, being composed of a network of stainless steel fibres bonded together. Provided the pore size of the scaffold is suitable (~100-400 microns), tissue in-growth can readily occur forming a strong bond between the prosthesis and the surrounding tissue. The photo is a combined reflectance and fluorescence confocal microscope image, taken 260 micrometres below the scaffold surface.
Someone once said that if you can relate to Edgar Allen Poe then you must be mentally ill. That person was also a simpleton and devoid of any real awareness of the dark corners of the human character. There is no doubt Poe was tortured man, an eccentric man and just maybe towards the end of his life mentally ill due to disease. No one knows for sure. His works are an expedition into love and loss, grief and insanity. They smite our emotions so hard because the human spirit is largely enveloped in feelings of sadness, rage, longing and feeling out of place. We may not perceive these things every second of everyday but they are there occasionally and they are very real for us. You cannot gaze upon the line “And all I loved, I loved alone” and not feel your heart fracture just a little, not because of the simple cluster of words but because we know all too well what he means! We feel it so deeply! That’s a truly great poet! A great poet deserves great homage, a series bridging many artistic journeys through some of the most adored compositions in Poe’s collection, a chance to create our own visions and build so much more on what he gave us.
"The Masque of the Red Death “is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, host a masquerade ball within seven rooms, each decorated with a different color. Prospero and 1,000 other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land. Victims are overcome by "sharp pains", "sudden dizziness", and die within half an hour. Prospero and his court are indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large; they intend to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut. At the chiming of midnight, the revelers and Prospero notice a figure in a dark, blood-splattered robe resembling a funeral shroud. The figure's mask resembles the rigid face of a corpse and exhibits the traits of the Red Death. When the figure turns to face him, the Prince lets out a sharp cry and falls dead... Only then do we realize the figure is the Red Death itself, and all of the guests contract and succumb to the disease. The final line of the story sums it up, "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all".
In this project I have been exploring the feeling of alienation. In order to understand this topic more fully I researched philosophers and psychologists. In doing this, I learnt more in depth about current schools of thought relating to the concept of alienation. This was important because it informed the meaning and intentions behind all my physical work completed in this project. It allowed me to collect my thoughts and ideas and link them to pre existing philosophies. Albert Camus is an existentialist philosopher who wrote about the absurd, human mortality and suicide. In his book, The Outsider, the protagonist, Meursault, becomes so alienated from reality that he does not mourn his mother's death, does not care about getting married and eventually does not care about killing a man or being executed for this. Camus believed that humans had no purpose or meaning and that we must create these for ourselves. It can be hard to do this and failure to do this can lead to alienation in all forms. This school of thought came into popularity after World War 2 due to a questioning of religion, something that gives people purpose. This questioning resulted from the atrocities that were committed in the war. The ‘existential attitude’ is a feeling of dread or disorientation felt when faced with a meaningless and absurd world. This feeling also affected the art world, with movements like abstract expressionism emerging. Inspired by surrealist ideas, abstract expressionism is a movement which emphasises the self, anxiety and grief being expressed through vigourous, active brush strokes and expressive mark making.
Another existentialist philosopher I researched was Sartre. One of his key ideas was bad faith. This is when a person submits to societal forces and does not utilise their personal freedom. Sartre’s common example was a waiter who is too ‘waiter-esque’, too eager to please, too absorbed in his waiter identity that he has forgotten he is a free entity. He is acting inauthentically and therefore is suppressing his freedom. In this modern interconnected world I believe people are acting in bad faith more and more as there is not often a time when one is truly alone. We are always communicating via social media. We act as our perceived ‘best’ form of ourselves where we are not actually being free. We are merely pretending to be ‘cooler’ than we actually are, pretending that we fit into societies boxes, when, more often than not, we don’t. This is possibly a reason for increased mental health issues in today’s society (although I do not believe this is the only or even the main reason).
A psychologist I researched was Carl Jung. He was a psychodynamic psychologist who worked with Freud and the Vienna Society. He wrote about the shadow self. This is an unconscious part of the self which one does not identify with oneself. Contrary to Freud’s definition of the shadow, Jung believed it not only contains very negative parts of oneself but also can contain positive parts; it is comprised of anything hidden from our consciousness. Positive parts of the self are more commonly held in the shadow in people suffering from mental health disorders like low self esteem and anxiety. Jung wrote that the shadow is the animalistic and instinctive part of the self which the ego suppresses when you develop out of childhood. It is linked with the Id, the part of the self which operates on the pleasure principle. Jung also wrote that the shadow is prone to psychological projection, a phenomenon where a persons insecurities and perceived deficiencies are projected onto another person. For example, someone who is very intolerant may call someone else intolerant when they are called out on their intolerance. They do not want to believe they are intolerant and have not accepted that part of themselves so they use projection as a defence mechanism. Furthermore, Jung wrote that the shadow self is a window to creativity and expressing one’s true self, “in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness, or perhaps because of this, the shadow is the seat of creativity”. I feel that all of these philosophical and psychological ideas will be very interesting to express through visual art.
After this research I went on to research artists whose ideas linked to existentialist philosophy and psychodynamic psychology. One artist I researched was Francis Bacon. He was a painter from the 1900s who painted grotesque, raw and bold images. Usually portraits, his paintings are distorted and mangled into emotional expressions of the artists own troubles. He had a troubled life, one example being kicked out of his home at 15 because of his homosexuality. A lot of these troubles shine through in his paintings. His paintings often have an element of aggressive expressionism, using obvious brush strokes and mark-making to accentuate the raw emotion he is expressing in his paintings. The distortion of the face could link to Sartre’s idea of bad faith, the figures changing and distorting themselves to fit into societies prescribed boxes, creating ugly versions of oneself. Also, it could link to the shadow self as it is an ugly representation of the figure which seems surreal or disconnected to reality.
Another artist who links to these ideas is Giacometti. Although his most famous works are his sculptures, I think his paintings are also very interesting. They often depict a figure sitting, staring straight at the viewer. The colours he uses are very muted, creating a negative, depressing mood. His brush strokes are again expressive, attacking the canvas with colour. This creates a sense of anxiety and conflict. This may be felt by the subject, the artist and the viewer. The proportions of the subject are often distorted, stretched to make them more slender, almost ghost-like.
A third artist I researched who greatly influenced my work was Emilio Villalba. His paintings are a mismatch of facial features. He greatly distorts the face of his subjects, creating a strange, eerie mood. The dark background contrasts the often over saturated face, creating interesting depth in his works. He often combines elements of realism with very expressive areas, adding to the surreal, psychological mood. From these artists I created responses, meaning I learnt more fully about the techniques they use. They also informed my first photoshoot which I presented in my source book. This photoshoot contained simple portraits that I intended to distort and change through my drawings and paintings. They helped to link my ideas into ideas for my own pieces. For example, throughout my project I experimented with lighting to create a dark almost ghostlike atmosphere.
After completing my source book, I started to work on the main book. I completed in depth research on two artists, Kwang Ho Shin and Frank Auerbach. From Kwang Ho Shin I learnt about impasto, a technique used by both of these artists to create an interesting, distorted image. Another idea I learnt from Kwang Ho Shin was to use bold, unnatural colours. This creates the unnatural mood. It could be related to the modern, technological world where we are becoming more and more detached from nature, also linking to my idea of modern bad faith. Also, I learnt about contrast. In his paintings, Kwang Ho Shin uses a large amount of contrast with the often plain white canvas backgrounds and the textural, bold figure. He also accentuates this with the black areas of the figure. This leads to the creation of an interesting image and could symbolise our detachment from society. From Auerbach I learnt about choosing subject matter. He said, “I find myself simply more engaged when I know the people. They get older and change; there is something touching about that, about recording something that’s getting on.” I believe that using yourself and subjects you know well in real life can lead to the creation of more intimate and honest pieces because you aren’t creating the emotions, you are expressing existing emotions which you have insight into. This lead to me predominantly using myself and my girlfriend in my pieces as I felt that we are the people I know best, meaning I know more of what's going on inside our heads. Another technique I learnt from Auerbach and Kwang Ho Shin was the use of randomness. Although it is generally informed randomness, it often can lead to a very honest piece as you are allowing your subconscious to take over. This links to a surrealist idea of automatism (used by artists like André Masson and Joan Miro) and Jean Arp’s use of randomness in pieces like ‘Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance’. I also learnt about colour from Auerbach with his use of distorted colours. Unlike Kwang Ho Shin, Auerbach doesn’t use such vibrant colours, creating a more moody atmosphere.
Using ideas from this in depth research and previous research, I took the first large photoshoot. I placed objects over the lens, used long exposure techniques and used coloured LEDs to distort the image. I tried to capture an atmosphere of uneasiness and anxiety. These ideas come from existentialist ideas like bad faith. The images distortions could signify the distortions we make to ourselves in order to fit into society. The bright colours take the images further away from reality. This lead to the creation of a series of work from these photos. I took ideas of mixed media from Kwang Ho Shin. I used chalk, charcoal and pastel to create surreal, sometimes angry self portraits using ideas from Kwang Ho Shin and Auerbach. I also drew a skull, using the macabre idea from artists like Ensor and Bacon. I also created many continuous line drawings, using a range of different techniques. In some of the pieces I tied multiple pens of different colours together, using ideas of unnatural colour from Auerbach and Kwang Ho Shin. I also used extended arm techniques where I tied a pen to a 30cm ruler and drew with that. Some other continuous line drawings used a dark background with a white pen, again taking ideas of contrast and dark backgrounds from artist research. All of these continuous line drawings have an element of randomness, an idea from Auerbach and Kwang Ho Shin. They also strongly link to surrealist automatism.
A second photoshoot was then carried out. This photoshoot was just 2 photos which I then made many photoshopped versions of. This photoshoot was heavily influenced by Emilio Villalba and his tapestries of facial features. I tried to distort the images to create a mood of estrangement and alienation. Similarly to the first photo shoot, this one was influenced by bad faith, just expressed in a different way. The duplicated facial features and the disfigurement expresses the way one warps oneself into the boxes society forces us into. This lead to the creation of many more pieces using ideas of distortion and uneasiness. I tried to capture this through the use of pencil, pen, paint, pastel and more. In some of my pieces, I added colours to further emphasize the existentialist ideas from the first photoshoot. In others, I used impasto, a technique learned from Auerbach and Shin. The impasto further accentuates the ideas of bad faith and alienation. Another technique I used was expressive line. This was learnt from the line drawings of Giacometti and Auerbach. This allows me to express emotion through the gestures I make while drawing the piece. If I am angry, the lines will be more erratic and rough. For example, the black and red self portrait with felt tip pen was drawn when I was in a very angry mood. Another example was the mixed media self portrait where it started off as a pencil drawing. As I was carefully drawing it, the outcome was not what I wanted, making me quite angry. I then expressed this anger through the gestural paint and pen. The anger could link to the idea of bad faith and the shadow self through it being an expression of frustration of our true self (or our unconscious self) when we are forced to confine it to society's norms. This unconscious frustration and alienation from ourselves can often be the cause of irrational anger that seems to come from nowhere.
I then decided to work towards creating a final piece. I was aiming to experiment with different techniques and compositions which I felt would sum up my ideas the most fully. I experimented with cropping out most of the face and making the focal point the eye. I feel that the eyes are the most expressive part of the face and can reveal the most about a person's feelings. Another aspect I experimented with was colour. Using ideas from my first photoshoot I quickly chose to use unnatural colours. I didn’t wish to use colours as vibrant as Kwang Ho Shin because I felt that more muted colours create a darker mood. I wanted the colours to be similar to real life but still far enough away to create the surreal mood. This was the same in the proportions I distorted. This links to the idea of the ‘Uncanny valley’ which suggests that ‘humanoid objects which appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings elicit uncanny, or strangely familiar, feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers’. In terms of composition, I created many quick drawings experimenting with composition. I decided to use a black background as it contrasts nicely with the colours and almost signifies that the figures are subconscious representations as they are not placed into reality. This was inspired by Emilio Villalba and some of Bacon’s work. I created two oil pastel pieces heavily inspired by Francis Bacon’s distorted portraits. I was aiming to capture the way we warp our self by warping the physical self. This led to more research into Francis Bacon’s process and I learned that he used unprimed canvas. This meant that in my development I experimented with different fabrics and found that I liked the unprimed canvas the most. It creates an interesting texture and I prefer the way it feels to paint on as it is rough and lends itself to a rough and expressive style of painting. He also painted a lot of triptychs. I decided on painting a triptych because they allow for time to be included in the piece. I decided to create a piece that gets more and more disoriented and warped, showing how over time we get more and more alienated from our true selves as we get more indoctrinated into societies norms. The composition of the triptych will have the least distorted piece in the center as it will be the most eye catching of the three and provide context for the more distorted ones.
ca. 1917
Image H2010.127/5
Scenes relating to Mont Park Hospital: interior views of hospital with staff, group portraits, views of buildings and grounds.
Visit our catalogue to download a hi-res copy or find out more about this image: handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/96294
Want to find more pictures from the State Library of Victoria's collections? guides.slv.vic.gov.au/pictures
Someone once said that if you can relate to Edgar Allen Poe then you must be mentally ill. That person was also a simpleton and devoid of any real awareness of the dark corners of the human character. There is no doubt Poe was tortured man, an eccentric man and just maybe towards the end of his life mentally ill due to disease. No one knows for sure. His works are an expedition into love and loss, grief and insanity. They smite our emotions so hard because the human spirit is largely enveloped in feelings of sadness, rage, longing and feeling out of place. We may not perceive these things every second of everyday but they are there occasionally and they are very real for us. You cannot gaze upon the line “And all I loved, I loved alone” and not feel your heart fracture just a little, not because of the simple cluster of words but because we know all too well what he means! We feel it so deeply! That’s a truly great poet! A great poet deserves great homage, a series bridging many artistic journeys through some of the most adored compositions in Poe’s collection, a chance to create our own visions and build so much more on what he gave us.
"The Masque of the Red Death “is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, host a masquerade ball within seven rooms, each decorated with a different color. Prospero and 1,000 other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land. Victims are overcome by "sharp pains", "sudden dizziness", and die within half an hour. Prospero and his court are indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large; they intend to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut. At the chiming of midnight, the revelers and Prospero notice a figure in a dark, blood-splattered robe resembling a funeral shroud. The figure's mask resembles the rigid face of a corpse and exhibits the traits of the Red Death. When the figure turns to face him, the Prince lets out a sharp cry and falls dead... Only then do we realize the figure is the Red Death itself, and all of the guests contract and succumb to the disease. The final line of the story sums it up, "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all".
Gov. Neil Abercrombie today signed House Bill 656, establishing the Health Care Transformation Program within the Governor’s office to advance the transformation.
“Improving health and the quality of care while bending the cost curve are among my administration’s top priorities,” Gov. Abercrombie said. “Addressing these concerns requires a new systematic approach that affects health care statewide.”
HB656 (Relating to Health Care Administrative Uniformity) also sets specific responsibilities for creating a strategy and timeline for statewide healthcare transformation that includes developing standards to measure quality and costs, reducing administrative burdens for providers and insurers, and improving and expanding the use of information technology to support transformation.
The measure explicitly gives the Governor the authority to obtain information by consulting with any stakeholders, individually or in groups, as part of the foundation for transformation. This is crucial since the healthcare sector cannot make systematic, coordinated changes of its own volition because:
- antitrust issues preclude many kinds of concerted group action that are not mandated and/or supervised by government authority;
- while insurers, hospitals, and provider groups can all make sweeping changes within the scope of their own organizations, these changes may have little effect on the rest of the system; and
- private sector health organizations agree on improving health, quality and cost, but implementing strategies without regulation or at least industry coordination is difficult because such organizations may have mixed motivations in a competitive environment.
“The cost of health care affects every resident and business in Hawaii,” said Beth Giesting, the state’s Healthcare Transformation Coordinator. “While health insurance premiums in Hawaii are relatively modest and offer good coverage, the inflationary trend – on average about 6 percent per year – results in wage stagnation and limited opportunities for business expansion.”
More than any other entity in Hawaii, the state is directly impacted by the effectiveness of the healthcare system as it purchases coverage for nearly 40 percent of the population, and that percentage will grow when new eligibility provisions and requirements under the federal Affordable Care Act result in Medicaid expansion. Med-QUEST programs now cover more than 20 percent of the state’s population with a budget of nearly $2 billion. The Hawaii Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund covers nearly 15 percent of the population (Its annual budget is $523 million and it carries an unfunded liability of $14.4 billion). The state budget also supports the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, emergency and trauma services at other facilities, behavioral health care, federally qualified health centers, and more.
Also today, Gov. Abercrombie signed the following measures in separate bill signing ceremonies:
Kupuna Bills
Individuals 65 years or older account for 14.7 percent of Hawaii’s population, which makes Hawaii the eighth in the nation in terms of the greatest percentage of older Americans. The following bills provide protections and resources needed for Hawaii’s growing kupuna population.
- HB529 (Relating to Care Homes)
- HB120 (Relating to Health)
- SB106 (Relating to Aging)
- HB398 (Relating to Human Services)
- SB102 (Relating to the Elderly)
SB102 specifically requires that financial institutions report instances of suspected financial abuse of an elder directly to the appropriate county police department (via 911) and the state Department of Human Services via Adult Protective Services:
Oahu – 832-5115
Kauai – 241-3337
Maui – 243-5151
East Hawaii – 933-8820
West Hawaii – 327-6280
Other Health-Related Bills
These bills protect consumers, ensure qualified professionals provide medical treatment, and help families who have loved ones suffering from a severe mental illness obtain treatment.
- HB847 (Relating to Enforcement Tools to Improve Patient Safety)
- SB1074 (Relating to Physical Therapy)
- SB310 (Relating to Mental Health Treatment)
Housing Bills
The following bills address housing needs and recognize that one size does not fit all when finding a solution to end homelessness.
- SB515 (Relating to Housing)
- HB536 (Relating to Public Housing)
Activity relating to the carrying of the more than 100 portable shrines (mikoshi) around the Asakusa neighbourhood to bless the businesses and residents with prosperity in the coming year.
Sanja Matsuri (Festival) at the Sensoji Temple, Asakusa,
Tokyo, Japan, 2016
Only the street shots - thestreetzine.blogspot.com/
Kagura, a shamanic ritual of ancient Japan was performed here recently. Team Viva attended
Shinto, the ancient Japanese religion has many rites and rituals relating to sacred worship. Among them is the Kagura, a theatrical dance, performed wearing heavy, colourful costumes of animals, with demon masks and featuring graceful body movements.
It was delivered by the Iwami Kagura troupe. The whole extravaganza was divided in three parts.
The last was particularly riveting. It involved a huge bamboo and paper serpent, about 40cm in diameter and 16mts long.
Tomoharu Katsuta, director of The Japan-India Association explained, “This is a sacred dance offered to Gods and Goddess at local shrines during the autumn harvest festival. It is based on old scriptures and was begun during 1100AD, by Shinto priests. Ordinary folk began performing it from the start of the Meiji Era, from 1869-1912, using Taiko drums, hand claps and flutes.”
It originally lasted for 12 hours, beginning from 7pm. It ended by 7am. The Delhi show was organised by ICCR and supported by the Embassy of Japan.
The evening began with a section called the Jin-rin, named after a demon, represented with a big mask. It was followed by Ebisu, the of fishing and Orochi, the name of a giant serpent. “According to myth, Jin-rinwas a winged demon king who flew all over Japan and killed people.” Later, King Chuai, second son of Emperor Yamato Takeru decided to kill the Jin-rin. The second piece featured Ebisu and Daikoku, God of wealth and prosperity. This is usually performed at weddings and auspicious ceremonies.
Orochi’s story involves an old couple and their daughter. The serpent would take the girls away and kill them. The couple was saved by the hero, Susano no Mikoto, who was exiled from the Heaven called Takamagahara. He asked the couples to make eight barrels of strong sake (rice wine), because the Orochi serpent had eight heads and eight tails. And its length swept over eight mountains and eight valleys.
“Mikoto succeeded in killing the monster while it was drunk and sleeping. Since then, sake is used to be drink in the weddings,” explained Tomoharu Katsuta.
He added, “This traditional dance form is used as a tool for Japans’ cultural exchange activities. It includes the Orochi (giant evil Serpent) episode, which received acclaim for its scale and dynamic movement. And the Iwami Kagura is a source of pride for locals. However, the big masks used, with their small eyes, create problem for performers vision. And the heavy costumes weigh over 20kgs, with gold and silver threads, plus glass beads.” Carrying the heavy serpent is also a tough job.
[Credit to Pioneer article]
Kagura, a shamanic ritual of ancient Japan was performed here recently. Team Viva attended
Shinto, the ancient Japanese religion has many rites and rituals relating to sacred worship. Among them is the Kagura, a theatrical dance, performed wearing heavy, colourful costumes of animals, with demon masks and featuring graceful body movements.
It was delivered by the Iwami Kagura troupe. The whole extravaganza was divided in three parts.
The last was particularly riveting. It involved a huge bamboo and paper serpent, about 40cm in diameter and 16mts long.
Tomoharu Katsuta, director of The Japan-India Association explained, “This is a sacred dance offered to Gods and Goddess at local shrines during the autumn harvest festival. It is based on old scriptures and was begun during 1100AD, by Shinto priests. Ordinary folk began performing it from the start of the Meiji Era, from 1869-1912, using Taiko drums, hand claps and flutes.”
It originally lasted for 12 hours, beginning from 7pm. It ended by 7am. The Delhi show was organised by ICCR and supported by the Embassy of Japan.
The evening began with a section called the Jin-rin, named after a demon, represented with a big mask. It was followed by Ebisu, the of fishing and Orochi, the name of a giant serpent. “According to myth, Jin-rinwas a winged demon king who flew all over Japan and killed people.” Later, King Chuai, second son of Emperor Yamato Takeru decided to kill the Jin-rin. The second piece featured Ebisu and Daikoku, God of wealth and prosperity. This is usually performed at weddings and auspicious ceremonies.
Orochi’s story involves an old couple and their daughter. The serpent would take the girls away and kill them. The couple was saved by the hero, Susano no Mikoto, who was exiled from the Heaven called Takamagahara. He asked the couples to make eight barrels of strong sake (rice wine), because the Orochi serpent had eight heads and eight tails. And its length swept over eight mountains and eight valleys.
“Mikoto succeeded in killing the monster while it was drunk and sleeping. Since then, sake is used to be drink in the weddings,” explained Tomoharu Katsuta.
He added, “This traditional dance form is used as a tool for Japans’ cultural exchange activities. It includes the Orochi (giant evil Serpent) episode, which received acclaim for its scale and dynamic movement. And the Iwami Kagura is a source of pride for locals. However, the big masks used, with their small eyes, create problem for performers vision. And the heavy costumes weigh over 20kgs, with gold and silver threads, plus glass beads.” Carrying the heavy serpent is also a tough job.
[Credit to Pioneer article]
Today in Ireland and in the US new regulations relating to drones has been introduced [effective from the 21st of December 2015]. There are many similarities in the regulations but there is one major differences in that here in Ireland they have not mention the penalties for failure to register but in the US the cost of failure to register appears to be rather extreme … “civil penalties up to $27,500, or criminal penalties up to 3 years in prison and $250,000.” According to the minister the aim here in Ireland is to encourage drone users to be responsible citizens.
I have included the press releases from both administrations, have a read and see what you think.
Thursday, 17th December 2015: The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) today announced a new drone regulation which includes the mandatory registration of all drones weighing 1kg or more from Monday, 21st December 2015.
The use of drones worldwide is expanding rapidly and there are estimated to be between 4,000 – 5,000 drones already in use in Ireland. Ireland has taken a proactive role in this fast emerging area and is currently one of only a handful of EU Member states that has legislation governing the use of drones.
The new legislation is intended to further enhance safety within Ireland and specifically addresses the safety challenges posed by drones.
From 21st December 2015, all drones weighing 1kg or more must be registered with the IAA via www.iaa.ie/drones. Drone registration is a simple two-step process. To register a drone, the registrant must be 16 years of age or older (Drones operated by those under 16 years of age must be registered by a parent or legal guardian). A nominal fee will apply from February 2016 but this has been initially waived by the IAA in order to encourage early registration.
Mr Ralph James, IAA Director of Safety Regulation, said
“Ireland is already recognised worldwide as a centre of excellence for civil aviation and the drone sector presents another major opportunity for Ireland. We’re closely working with industry to facilitate its successful development here. At the same time, safety is our top priority and we must ensure that drones are used in a safe way and that they do not interfere with all other forms of aviation.
Mr James explained that drone registration has been made a mandatory requirement as this will help the IAA to monitor the sector in the years ahead. The IAA encourages all drone operators to take part in training courses which are available through a number of approved drone training organisations.
“We would strongly encourage drone operators to register with us as quickly as possible, to complete a training course and to become aware of their responsibilities. People operating drones must do so in safe and responsible manner and in full compliance with the new regulations”, he said.
Welcoming the introduction of drone regulation, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Paschal Donohoe TD highlighted the importance of the new legislation and commended the IAA for the efficient manner to have the new registration system in place so quickly.
“The core safety message promoted today advocates the safe use of drones in civilian airspace. The development of drone technology brings opportunities as well as challenges for businesses and services in Ireland. I expect hundreds if not thousands of drones to be bought as presents this Christmas so getting the message to ensure that new owners and operators are aware of their responsibilities and the requirement to register all drones over 1 kg from 21st December 2015 is key. Tremendous potential exists for this sector and Ireland is at the forefront of its development. The speedy response by the IAA to this fast developing aviation area will make sure that drones are properly regulated and registered for use. As a result, Ireland is well placed to exploit the drone sector and to ensure industry growth in this area,” he said.
The new legislation prohibits users from operating their drones in an unsafe manner. This includes never operating a drone:
• if it will be a hazard to another aircraft in flight
• over an assembly of people
• farther than 300m from the operator
• within 120m of any person, vessel or structure not under the operator’s control
• closer than 5km from an aerodrome
• in a negligent or reckless manner so as to endanger life or property of others
• over 400ft (120m) above ground level
• over urban areas
• in civil of military controlled airspace
• in restricted areas (e.g. military installations, prisons, etc.)
• unless the operator has permission from the landowner for takeoff and landing.
For further information please visit www.iaa.ie/drones and see the IAA’s detailed Q&A sheet.
The Federal Aviation Administration has officially launched the drone registration program first reported in October. Drone operators are required to register their UAVs with the Unmanned Aircraft System registry starting December 21. Failure to register could result in criminal and civil penalties.
Under the new system, all aircraft must be registered with the FAA including those 'operated by modelers and hobbyists.' Once registered, drone operators must carry the registration certificate during operation. This new system only applies to drones weighing more than 0.55lbs/250g and less than 55lbs/25kg. The only exception to the registration requirement is indoor drone flights.
Required registration information includes a mailing address and physical address, email address, and full names; however, no information on the drone's make, model, or serial number is required from recreational users. Non-recreational users will need to provide drone information, including serial number, when that particular registration system goes live.
Failure to register could result in civil penalties up to $27,500, or criminal penalties up to 3 years in prison and $250,000. A $5 registration charge is applied, but will be refunded to those who register before January 20. The registration certificate is sent in an email to be printed at home.
Mary's maternal grandmother nee Sarah Dallon. Born 1860 and died in 1926. Her nephew is Cannon of Chester Hill and his name: Morris Hill Ridgeway. She lived at Washway Road, Sale. 645/3 No Date
This relates to the broken window theory. One person comes in and bombs an alley, then other hoodrats come in and put their own mark over the first one. Then someone writes "eat a dick" on it. This is on the side of Katie Blue Salon in.
The Papers of General Sir Trevor BISCOPE comprising correspondence, manuscripts of books, lectures, photographs, slides and press cuttings relating to his entire army career and his work carried out. Chronicling the life of a man for whom danger is a way of life. He is often known by the initialism TDB.
After service in a regiment of the British army with which the General was associated as an officer, Sir Trev adopts a similar spirit and values with traditions and an established reputation for its recognized development of successful leaders.
Sworn in as a Kingsman in 1987 upon professional selection from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1989, Biscope served as a regular commissioned officer in the Canadian Army for twenty-three years before his post as a Major General in May 2012.
Works Consulted:
In Her Majesty's courtesy: "Do you want to do something that may only last six months, or do you want to shape the rest of your life?" -Cdr. Trevor D. Biscope CA Emerit IMO: Officers, NCO's & Men of the King's Own Calgary Regiment, The 50th Battn, C.E.F. and The King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster)
Rev. Fr. Matthew Johnson. Priest. pers. comm. April 4, 2023. (St. James' Anglican Church, Vancouver, BC)
Rev. Fr. Matthew Johnson. Priest. pers. comm. March 14, 2023. (St. James' Anglican Church, Vancouver, BC)
Rev. Fr. Matthew Johnson. Priest. pers. comm. February 26, 2023. (St. James' Anglican Church, Vancouver, BC)
Rev. Fr. Matthew Johnson. Priest. pers. comm. January 11, 2023. (St. James' Anglican Church, Vancouver, BC)
Rev. Fr. Matthew Johnson. Priest. pers. comm. September 19, 2022. (St. James' Anglican Church, Vancouver, BC)
Rev. Fr. Matthew Johnson. Priest. pers. comm. August 2, 2022. (St. James' Anglican Church, Vancouver, BC)
Rev. Fr. Matthew Johnson. "Britannia Secondary School Class of 2022, Leonardo Arce". Presentation. St James' Anglican Church, Diocese of New Westminster, Priest. Vancouver, B.C. July 22, 2022 -IMO: Teresa Sandi-Arce, Registered Nurse (1946-95).
Rev. Fr. M. Johnson. "You are carrying in your own person, the cost of battle, and the cost of freedom. As a fellow Canadian, I thank you for your Service." St James' Anglican Church, Diocese of New Westminster, Priest. Vancouver, B.C. February 20, 2022.
IMO: Guerra de las Malvinas, Falkland Islands, South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands, 2 April – 14 June 1982.
"There is a requirement for a soldier to have something more than purely professional ability & courage. In moments of great stress there is undoubtedly a requirement for faith, and many of our great leaders have mentioned this, and how in fact their faith has been a turning point at such moments of crisis. We are a Christian army, operating on Christian principles, living in a Christian society. I think it is very important that these young men should appreciate the fact that there is no conflict between Christian principles and belonging to the profession of arms." (18:36-19:34) General Sir R C Ford (1923-2015) the former Commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst 1973-75. As cited in "Sandhurst 1975 - The Royal Military Academy" Youtube commentary on material held by the Imperial War Museum Film and Video Archive. British Army Documentaries. Filmed in 1975, Feb 21, 2021 youtu.be/knGi-ixkhbw Web access Sept 2, 2024.
General Sir Trevor BISCOPE appointed Commander - British, American & French Joint Forces, Latin America Caribbean - he is a senior British Army officer. Fluent in Computer Business Systems, his association with the SAS included service in DRES & BATUS before becoming this elite force's Commander in 1989. A portrait of a life with years which include outstanding success for the SAS in Spain, Bermuda & St Lucia, and action in Jamaica & the Dominican Republic.
For enquiries relating to polo playing engagements, please email:
player@polo.international
Welcome!
###
Tank and SAS Officer of the Minister of Defence, COMMANDER TREVOR DANIEL BISCOPE RCAC BATUS(RMAS) LdSH(RC) SOF NATO CA Emerit, is on an official mission.
ORDO ESSENDI, ANTEBELLUM.
POLO™ is a trademark of Trevor Biscope. Complies with: NATO SoFA (2009) Art. V, KR's, DoD, DAOD 2008-6, 5002-10 3.4, 6001-1 and KR&O 19-36.
Letter from Germany – Scrisoare din Germania: the Tragedy of Romania
Dear Mircea,
I promised to relate my Romanian experience, yet I would not know where to start: on one hand it was pleasant, yet on the other it was quite sad. In spite of all the effort aimed at reaching the projected goal, the country has not attained the intended standard. True enough, one can find everything one desires, the shops are bursting with goods and it looks as if the standard of living is comparable to that in the West, but this is as far as it goes – the people have not changed an iota, in fact they have stagnated, taking advantage of a civilization somehow offered on a silver plate, out of the blue, as if it was normal. It is not unlike a bunch of lazy monkeys, perched on trees, in the jungle, spending the whole day eating all bananas within their reach. Describing the manner in which these people live is beyond belief, as their sole (existentialist) concern boils down to eating well, drinking well and above all not exerting themselves with too much work.
I have never ever seen so much misery in a place where, given the resources at hand, there ought to be good order. Wherever you look there are luxury goods mixed with paraphernalia of poor taste, miserable goods. I have seen bare-feet, unwashed peasant farmers, in their horse-drawn wooden carts, busy talking on their cell phone; I have seen rural folk, who were exhibiting to all and sundry their newly- acquired luxury car, displayed on the back of a rusty lorry, which they were conveying, just to show off to the rest of the world to marvel at… I have seen hundreds of stray dogs curled up, asleep in the middle of the highway… In downtown Bucharest, I had seen hovels whose windows were covered with hanging tee shirts, or pyjamas, for lack of curtains… I have seen top-notch luxury malls with their ubiquitous uniformed security guards, only to discover, round the corner, people begging in the street.
In the countryside, I walked the main streets of villages covered in thick dust and boulders… I have seen sanitary installations, which were at least seventy-years old… I sat at dining tables laden with foodstuff, yet covered in shoals of flies, which cut my appetite… I cried my eyes out seeing the destitute elderly villagers, seated in the doorways of their rural homes, looking forlorn as the world went bye… I would have liked so much to fathom out what thoughts were visiting their vacuous faces… as the darkness enveloped their cottage, I would have liked to find out what they were doing in the evening, what were they thinking of, the next morning, as immediate prospects were fading fast, biting the dust of their farmyard… I tried to help as much as I could, I bought washing machines, clothes for the children and sundry goods needed in every household, but, as I said, it felt like a bottomless pit.
By contrast, the grandomania of the nouveau-rich, of those who made it overnight, was quite unbelievable. There are so many Romanians who work abroad only to return home playing a game of one-upmanship. In the outskirts of Bucharest they build for themselves some horrible, if pompous villas, which are completely out of kilter with the traditional rural abodes of their neighbours, living in cottages built of clay mixed with horse manure and straw, with whitewashed walls under a tilted roof, not unlike some old people seated on a bench, for a natter. The once bucolic rural atmosphere is completely ruined, yet to cap it all, in some of these farmyards, where such villas look out of place, one could discover, by looking through the iron fence, a wooden cart next to a malnourished cow, trying to graze next to a pile of broken bricks.
The overall impression I got is one of a journey into the past, yet one intermingled with the future, an odd mixture of social scales, a motley palette of a nation, which, in my opinion, will never have a chance of getting very far, at all, just because the discrepancies are too great to smooth over. How could one convert some innocent old woman to the benefits of a new century, when she crosses herself to chase away the evil eye, each time you take her picture and show it to her on the screen of your cell phone?
Yet it is for this very reason that I understand and feel compassionate for those who live in a world of their own, a hundred years ago, as opposed to the present-day wheeler-dealers, replete with underhand, dirty tricks, trying to put this country on the rack. Unfortunately one feels hopeless attempting to do anything to forestall this contrast, a failure which gives overall a painful sensation.
As you can see, after returning home to Germany, I am still haunted by the Romanian realities left behind. Yet, as I wake up, in the middle of the night, thinking that I was still there, I feel absolutely hopeless, unable to find a solution…
I trust I have not bored you stiff with my story, as, on the whole, my re-immersion in the Romanian reality, as it is, was worthwhile and perhaps long-overdue, after all these years.
Love,
Magda
www.romanianstudies.org/content/2012/09/letter-from-germa...
Dundalk overwhelm Bangor in All Ireland Final
by Roger Corbett
Bangor’s amazing run in the All Ireland Junior Cup came to an abrupt end when they were comprehensively beaten by Dundalk, eventually losing by 55-5.
Where do you start when trying to relate and absorb the events of Saturday’s final at Chambers Park? Firstly, congratulations to worthy winners Dundalk who nullified the Bangor attack, then went on to produce some stunning plays which racked up no less than 8 tries, each by a different player. For Bangor’s part, they were unable to respond to the intensity of Dundalk’s game, and lacked the cutting edge which their opponents used to great effect.
The day started full of promise, as the strong support from North Down made their way to Chambers Park in Portadown, knowing Bangor would be fielding their best team. Once again, the pundits had Bangor as the underdogs – just as they had done so in the previous three rounds! In confounding the experts earlier, Bangor produced some awesome performances against top quality opposition to get to the final. Dundalk had produced some convincing wins in the early rounds of the competition, but had struggled to get past CIYMS in the semi-final, just managing to squeeze ahead at the second time of asking. However, with a number of key players returning to the side in time for this game, they were now back at full strength and would be a formidable force to contend with.
Having won the toss, captain Jamie Clegg elected to play into the stiff wind in the first half. For the first 5 minutes, Bangor doggedly retained possession and tried to play their way into Dundalk’s half through a series of determined forward moves. However, little ground was made and, when possession was finally lost, the Dundalk back line produced a burst that simply cut through the Bangor defence resulting in an easy touch down under Bangor’s posts for a 7-0 lead.
Bangor stuck to their plan and slowly, but patiently, got their attack moving forward, eventually winning a penalty to the left of Dundalk’s posts, but Mark Widdowson’s kick into the wind drifted just wide of the mark.
The contrast in play between the two teams was becoming clear, with Bangor trying to keep the ball close while Dundalk were throwing it wide. The latter strategy was proving to be the more effective as, with 20 minutes gone, a quick back line move with players looping around resulted in an overlap on the right wing which gave a clear run in to again, score under the posts. A further 9 minutes later, they did it again and, although the Bangor defence had sensed the danger and moved across to cover it, their tackling let them down allowing Dundalk to get over in the right hand corner, taking their lead to 19-0.
By now, Bangor were trying to hang on until half time when they could regroup and come out with the wind at their backs. Dundalk, on the other hand were anxious to press home their advantage and give them a more comfortable lead. To Bangor’s credit, although camped on their own line for lengthy spells, they dug in and managed to hold on until the referee’s half time whistle.
As the teams reappeared from the dressing rooms, it was obvious Bangor were ringing the changes, particularly in the backs. With the wind advantage having lessened considerably, Bangor got the second half underway. It was now Dundalk’s turn to adopt the slow, steady approach, just as Bangor had done earlier. However, their more confident off-loading and support play was, once again, taking play deep into Bangor’s territory. Frustration at not being able to gain possession and take play out of their danger area eventually resulted in a yellow card for Clegg after a succession of penalties. Dundalk kicked the penalty to touch, won their lineout and drove for the line. Although initially held up by the Bangor defence, Dundalk’s repeated drives were eventually rewarded with another converted score, extending their lead to 26-0.
From the touchline, the Bangor faithful had felt that if their players had managed to score first in the second half, they may have been able to mount a fight-back and close the gap to their opponents. As it was, this Dundalk score simply bolstered their confidence and pushed Bangor deeper into trouble. With Bangor still a man down, Dundalk added to the score with a penalty and then another score in the corner. Everything was now working for the Leinster men, as even the difficult touchline conversion into the biting wind successfully split the posts, bringing the score to 36-0.
As the game entered the final quarter, and with Dundalk all but holding the cup, Bangor were now on the ropes. By contrast, the Dundalk players were in almost total control, and were not going to slow down now. In a 10 minute spell, they ran in a further 3 tries, making the scoreline 55-0. By now, any sense of dejection the Bangor supporters may have been feeling was now moved to feelings of sympathy for their players. However, pride was at stake and once again Bangor rallied as the game entered its final minutes. At last, the forwards got within striking distance of the Dundalk line and, although their repeated attacks were repelled, they finally managed to do what their opponents had done so effectively, and quickly passed the ball wide to Davy Charles. Even though they were 55 points ahead, the Dundalk defence made Charles work hard to drive through the tackles and score Bangor’s consolation try, bringing the final score to 55-5.
From Bangor’s point of view, the final score doesn’t tell the whole story of this competition. While the final may have resulted in a sad anti-climax for Bangor, the remarkable journey to get there will be remembered for some time. On the day, Dundalk were by far the better side, and Bangor would have to concede that their game was not up to the usual standard. However, there is no doubt the experience of competing at this level is something to relish and the goal now will be to secure a top four place in the league and try again next year.
Everybody at the club has nothing but the highest respect and praise for what has been achieved this year by not just the 1sts, but all the senior teams, and one poor result isn’t going to change that – the welcome at Upritchard Park for the returning players is testament to that. With that in mind, the players now need to put this disappointment behind them and provide the best possible response against a struggling Portadown side at home in the league next Saturday.
Bangor side: J Leary, A Jackson, P Whyte, F Black, G Irvine, R Latimer, J Clegg, C Stewart, R Armstrong, K Rosson, D Charles, M Aspley, M Weir, M Widdowson, C Morgan
Subs: S Irvine, O McIlmurray, D Kelly, M Rodgers, C Harper, D Fusco, M Thompson
Bangor scores: D Charles (1T)
Dundalk Storm To Title Dundalk 55 v Bangor 5 from KnockOn.ie
Dundalk Scorers: Christopher Scully, Owen McNally, Jonathan Williams, John Smyth, Ultan Murphy, Tiernan Gonnelly, James McConnon and Stephen Murphy 1 try each. Ultan Murphy 6 cons, 1 pen.
Bangor Scorers: David Charles 1 try.
In front of a big crowd at Chambers Park on Saturday afternoon Dundalk delivered a stunning and ruthless display to see off the challenge of Bangor and capture the All Ireland Junior Cup title for the very first time.
Three first half tries had them firmly in control at 19-0 ahead having played with the elements at the Portadown venue during the first half and while the wind dropped somewhat after half time the Dundalk intensity most certainly didn’t as they cut loose scoring five more tries.
Dundalk returned to a heroes welcome at their Mill Road clubhouse on Saturday night after a display of pure brilliance throughout the afternoon.
Precision, pace and skill from the Louth men from start to finish left Bangor playing second fiddle for long periods.
This lantern slide relates to a photograph taken by Clement Lindley Wragge (b.1852, d.1922), likely dating between 1890-1922.
The slide shows 8 images of moon in different stages of eclipse in a 2x4 grid. Handwritten in pencil on right side of plate, 'Phases of the Moon.'.
Inscription Details: Handwritten in pencil on right side of plate, 'Phases of the Moon.'. RECTO: Handwritten in black ink on white paper in top left corner of plate, 'S W E N'. Handwritten in pencil on right side of plate, 'Phases of the Moon.'.
Credit: Shared by Auckland War Memorial Museum, Tāmaki Paenga Hira, as part of the Clement Lindley Wragge collection.
Rights: No known copyright restrictions.
Reference: 235695|PH-1984-1-LS78-2-21
For more details, please visit: www.aucklandmuseum.com/discover/collections/record/1033517
Legend relates that in January 1297 François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, sought shelter at the castle. On obtaining entry he murdered the guard, whereupon his men appeared and captured the castle. Thus the fortress became the stronghold of the Grimaldi. This event is commemorated by a statue of François Grimaldi in the precincts of the palace and in the arms of the House of Grimaldi where François is depicted wielding a sword while in the garb of a monk
Contrast the Problem of Relating Politics and Administration Today with Those in President Woodrow Wilson’s Essay: The Study of Administration
“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem (Reagan, 1981).” This, now famous, expression appeared in President Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address. The Calvinist antistatism sentiment found in this maxim reveals the passion surrounding the role of American government in our lives today, just as it did at the birth of our Constitution (Stillman, 2010, p. 17). Given these public attitudes, America’s geographic attributes and the propensity of the Constitution to define a “night watchman” (Stillman, 2010, p. 17) style of government: how does the administration of government (Stillman, 2010, p. 6) relate to the politics of government today contrast with those in President Woodrow Wilson’s essay, The Study of Administration?
President Wilson stated in this famous essay that government administration is a field of business divorced from the “hurry and strife of politics (Stillman, 2010, p. 10).” He thought that administration should be treated as a science and that it should “lie outside the proper sphere of politics (Stillman, 2010, p. 10).”
There were only five cabinet level departments established prior to Wilson’s 1887 essay and these essential bodies were still compatible with a minimal state promulgated by the founding fathers and their constituents (Garrett & Rhine, On the Size and Growth of Government, 2006). Today there are twenty entities with cabinet level rank (United States Government, 2011). The simple infrastructure required to run these additional bureaucracies would demand a faster pace and additional strife associated with the demands of networking. This growth in government is reflected in the cost of government.
A quantitative look at the expenses of government from 1792 through the year 2000 reveals a very inexpensive undertaking before 1913. Each resident of the United States paid an average of $85 a year (in year 2000 dollars) during this period to support his government (Garrett & Rhine, On the Size and Growth of Government - DATA, 2006). A linear plot of these per capita expenses in Figure 1 reveals a linear increase in government expenditure after 1913, the year in which the sixteenth amendment was passed removing obstacles to federal income taxation. The dawn of public administration may have started with the publication of Wilson’s essay but the funding for it appeared with the sixteenth amendment.
Successful executive directed bureaucracies are those that have either intrinsically visible outputs and outcomes or leadership that is committed to the politics and power of favorable visibility (Gormley & Balla, 2008, pp. 203-217). Shaping its public image is overlooked at the peril of the agency that ignores this political necessity.
A recent example of a government agency that lost control of its public relations and political image was the United States Coast Guard during the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Although the Federal On-Site Coordinator, in the form of U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry, was responsible for disseminating cleanup information to the public, the preponderance of information came from British Petroleum and Transocean Ltd (Region 6 US EPA, 2004). These two parties had a financial interest in “cooking” the information in a self promotional manner. The result was a series of false statements that had a tone of official government endorsement. The question: who is in charge, was then asked by my friends and many “lazy” pundants. U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen replaced the Rear Admiral within two weeks of the disaster and began a very compelling interaction with news media and a visibly demanding attitude toward the companies responsible for financing the clean-up. Politically motivated communication was essential in this case and is desirable in most other circumstances including the case study of Los Angeles Street Services Bureau head, William Robertson (Stillman, 2010, pp. 87-94).
President Wilson states that the greater a man’s [administrative] power the less likely he is to abuse it and the less significant a man’s power the more likely he is to abuse it (Stillman, 2010, p. 12). This is contrary to the Calvinist assumption that all men in power are corruptible and that one of the greatest precautions against this abuse is a balance of power and oversight in the form of rules, regulations and “sunshine.” The Government in the Sunshine Act is a more recent attempt to make commission dealings more visible and less corruptible by opening meetings to interested parties from outside the government (Gormley & Balla, 2008, p. 13).
Although President Wilson has covered many issues in his essay that have proven to be true over time, two of his assertions on administration appear to be incongruent with current bureaucratic government operations. The first, that public administration and politics are and should be separated is shown to be a bad organizational strategy in today’s culture. Finally, the presumption that powerful administrators are less prone to corruption than their less empowered colleagues may be true, but is certainly not believed to be true in today’s culture.
References
Garrett, T. A., & Rhine, R. M. (2006, January/February). On the Size and Growth of Government - DATA. Retrieved February 9, 2011, from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review: research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/01/0601tgd...
Garrett, T. A., & Rhine, R. M. (2006, January/February). On the Size and Growth of Government. Retrieved February 9, 2011, from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review: research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/01/GarrettRhine.pdf
Gormley, W. T., & Balla, S. J. (2008). Bureaucracy and Democracy Accountability and Performance. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Reagan, R. (1981, January 20). Presidential Inaugurations: Ronald Reagan, First Inauguration, January 20, 1981. Retrieved Febrary 8, 2011, from American Memory from the Library of Congress: www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speeches/1981/12081a.htm
Region 6 US EPA. (2004, June). Oil Spill Response Roles. Retrieved February 9, 2011, from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: www.epa.gov/Region06/6sf/pdffiles/document_oil_spill_resp...
Stillman, R. J. (2010). Public Administration Concepts and Cases. Boston: Wadsworth.
United States Government. ( 2011, February 9). The Cabinet | The White House. Retrieved February 9, 2011, from The White House: www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet/
his is my entry for STUDENT SCISSORS’s 20K Subscriber MOC competition. The rules are that one must build a fully convertible Lego transformer that somehow relates to the number ‘2.’
I have decided to build the Decepticon Duocon Flywheels (AKA Skytread) from the G1 continuity, relating to the theme of two in how his robot mode is composed of two vehicles that combine. However, I have decided to throw a twist on the character’s traditional design, which has his tank mode become his entire body, and his jet mode become his head and a seeker-y chestplate. I have designed Flywheels so that each mode becomes half of his body LENGTHWAYS, with each mode becoming half his chest, and providing one arm and one leg. Only his head is entirely concealed inside one mode, so it can freely rotate and move up and down. ( The head does, however, still continue the two-toned theme of the design with different styling and coloring on each cheek plate.)
I wanted Flywheel’s tank mode to be as functional as possible. I constructed the Tank turret so that it rotates on a mixel ball joint, and its barrel can raise and lower on a pair of battle droid arms. It also sports an infrared periscope, and being a Decepticon, an exaggeratedly large set of mineplows. The front of the turret conceals the head, which is connected to the same battle droid arm assembly as the cannon barrel. This construction allows for the head to fold into place automatically when the barrel is pushed in.
Despite being the less intricate of the two altmodes, the Jet mode was the hardest part of the build to design. The design I settled on had the jet’s fuselage asymmetric, so a system to keep the wings evenly spaced over the body was hard to build. At one point, the wings and cockpit all attached to the shoulder, which was symmetric, but they put a little more weight on it than its t-joint could handle. I ended up attaching the wings to one side of the jet, so they would be on the robot mode’s back, and allow one to angle outward as a callback to the original design. Even this was still difficult, as I had to find a way to get the structure to sit symmetrically over the robot shoulder while still being relatively secure.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie today signed House Bill 656, establishing the Health Care Transformation Program within the Governor’s office to advance the transformation.
“Improving health and the quality of care while bending the cost curve are among my administration’s top priorities,” Gov. Abercrombie said. “Addressing these concerns requires a new systematic approach that affects health care statewide.”
HB656 (Relating to Health Care Administrative Uniformity) also sets specific responsibilities for creating a strategy and timeline for statewide healthcare transformation that includes developing standards to measure quality and costs, reducing administrative burdens for providers and insurers, and improving and expanding the use of information technology to support transformation.
The measure explicitly gives the Governor the authority to obtain information by consulting with any stakeholders, individually or in groups, as part of the foundation for transformation. This is crucial since the healthcare sector cannot make systematic, coordinated changes of its own volition because:
- antitrust issues preclude many kinds of concerted group action that are not mandated and/or supervised by government authority;
- while insurers, hospitals, and provider groups can all make sweeping changes within the scope of their own organizations, these changes may have little effect on the rest of the system; and
- private sector health organizations agree on improving health, quality and cost, but implementing strategies without regulation or at least industry coordination is difficult because such organizations may have mixed motivations in a competitive environment.
“The cost of health care affects every resident and business in Hawaii,” said Beth Giesting, the state’s Healthcare Transformation Coordinator. “While health insurance premiums in Hawaii are relatively modest and offer good coverage, the inflationary trend – on average about 6 percent per year – results in wage stagnation and limited opportunities for business expansion.”
More than any other entity in Hawaii, the state is directly impacted by the effectiveness of the healthcare system as it purchases coverage for nearly 40 percent of the population, and that percentage will grow when new eligibility provisions and requirements under the federal Affordable Care Act result in Medicaid expansion. Med-QUEST programs now cover more than 20 percent of the state’s population with a budget of nearly $2 billion. The Hawaii Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund covers nearly 15 percent of the population (Its annual budget is $523 million and it carries an unfunded liability of $14.4 billion). The state budget also supports the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, emergency and trauma services at other facilities, behavioral health care, federally qualified health centers, and more.
Also today, Gov. Abercrombie signed the following measures in separate bill signing ceremonies:
Kupuna Bills
Individuals 65 years or older account for 14.7 percent of Hawaii’s population, which makes Hawaii the eighth in the nation in terms of the greatest percentage of older Americans. The following bills provide protections and resources needed for Hawaii’s growing kupuna population.
- HB529 (Relating to Care Homes)
- HB120 (Relating to Health)
- SB106 (Relating to Aging)
- HB398 (Relating to Human Services)
- SB102 (Relating to the Elderly)
SB102 specifically requires that financial institutions report instances of suspected financial abuse of an elder directly to the appropriate county police department (via 911) and the state Department of Human Services via Adult Protective Services:
Oahu – 832-5115
Kauai – 241-3337
Maui – 243-5151
East Hawaii – 933-8820
West Hawaii – 327-6280
Other Health-Related Bills
These bills protect consumers, ensure qualified professionals provide medical treatment, and help families who have loved ones suffering from a severe mental illness obtain treatment.
- HB847 (Relating to Enforcement Tools to Improve Patient Safety)
- SB1074 (Relating to Physical Therapy)
- SB310 (Relating to Mental Health Treatment)
Housing Bills
The following bills address housing needs and recognize that one size does not fit all when finding a solution to end homelessness.
- SB515 (Relating to Housing)
- HB536 (Relating to Public Housing)