The Brisbane Courier

14 June 1880

 

The Late Mr. Justice Lutwyche.

 

On Saturday morning, a little before 7 o'clock, Alfred James Peter Lutwyche ceased from his long and honorable service in this colony..

 

The news of Mr. Lutwyche's demise was a painful surprise to all of us, as, although he had been too ill to discharge his judicial duties for some little time past, his family and immediate attendants had no idea he was so near the end, and he himself thought he was sufficiently recovered to dispense with medical attendance.

 

For years Mr. Lutwyche had suffered from most painful and violent attacks of gout, and the same quiet fortitude with which these had been borne characterised his last illness. The frequency of these attacks had probably familiarised both himself and his nearest friends with his invalid condition to an extent to allay those apprehensions of fatal consequences that serious illness awakens in more robust sufferers, and the day before his death the deceased gentleman declined to see a doctor, and spoke cheerfully of his speedy convalescence.

 

Shortly before midnight, however, a sudden and unfavorable turn took place, and it became evident that the vital forces were too exhausted to admit any hope of the patient rallying, and at ten minutes to 7 o'clock on Saturday morning the late Judge passed peacefully out of existence. Mr. Justice Lutwyche has been associated with this colony since its foundation twenty-one years ago, having filled one of the most responsible offices during that time with much credit to himself and advantage to the State. He was the first of our Judges, having occupied the position of Resident Judge of Moreton Bay for ten months before Separation was obtained, and for nearly three years after the birth of this colony Mr. Justice Lutwyche was the sole representative of its Supreme Court Bench. The astute and discriminating intellect of Mr. Lutwyche eminently qualified him for the discharge of the weighty responsibilities of his position, and during the long term of his service nothing has ever occurred to shake public confidence in his high ability and integrity as an impartial dispenser of our laws, while the lucidity of his summing up in intricate cases, and the general perspicacity of his judgments, have worthily upheld the dignity and fair repute of our Queensland Bench.

 

The life of a public man who has for so long been one of the most prominent figures in the community has an interest for all, and such facts as we have been able to glean concerning the late Judge's career will doubtless be welcome to our readers.

 

Mr. Lutwyche was born in London in 1810. In a biographical notice published by a contemrary, and prepared and revised by the deceased himself, the late Judge with pardonable pride commences his history with Doomsday Book and Hugo de Lutwyche. A man's ancestors, however, have little interest for anyone but their immediate descendant, so we may accept the late gentleman's family-tree as one of ancient and honorable growth without tasking the patience of our readers by any enumeration of its ramifications. As the memory of Mr. Justice Lutwyche would be none the less respected were he the first of his race who had made his mark in the world, and as his useful life and worthy actions are all that give the chronicle of his career its interest for Queenslanders, we pass over the honorable descent so dear to the late gentleman, merely mentioning that his father, Mr. John Lutwyche, was of a Worcestershire family, and coming young to London, embarked in business in the leather trade, and was fairly successful. The firm of Lutwyche and George, of Skinner-street, Snow Hill, was well known and of good repute in the city. Alfred James Peter was the eldest son, and his father's means were sufficient to give him the best English education procurable. At fourteen he was sent to the Charterhouse, where he remained for four years, at the expiration of which time he went up to Oxford as a member of Queen's College. While at the university he resolved upon the law as a profession, and before taking his degree entered as a student at Middle Temple.

 

Then when Alma Mater cast him forth well equipped to win his way in the world, he commenced the hard study of the law in a conveyancer's chambers. For two years he worked at conveyancing and fitting himself for the duties of a special pleader, and at the end of this term practised in the latter capacity till he was called, which event took place on May 8, 1840. A young man of ability, striving to win his way in London at a profession that is thronged with men of talent, must not only possess patience if he would succeed, but some readiness of resource in providing himself with an income that will enable him to outlive that inevitable neglect of attorneys which is such a sore discouragement at the opening of a barrister's career. The Press usually provides employment for the restless intellectual energies of those who find insufficient outlet for them in their legitimate profession, and to the Press Mr. Lutwyche turned to supplement an income that must have been slender enough for the first few years of his ractice. He found employment on the Morning Chronicle, Charles Dickens being a fellow-worker with him on the same paper, and he was wont to express his gratification at having belonged to the Fourth Estate, and at being claimed by Press-men as one of themselves.

 

At this time he joined the Oxford circuit, and attended at some of the Midland County Quarter Sessions, but symptoms of failing health warned him that his constitution was unequal to the severe strain of his English life, and he turned his attention to a newer field, where competition was less keen, advancement less doubtful and more rapid, and the exile by no means insupportable. In 1853 Mr. Lutwyche, then 43 years of age, embarked in the Meridian for Melbourne. He was, however, fated to many wanderings before reaching his destination. On the same day that the Meridian left London, another ship—the John Sugars—also started from the same port for Melbourne, and between the respective captains of the two vessels was a strong spirit of rivalry as to who should first pass through Port Phillip Heads. The voyage was looked upon as a match, and the anxiety as to the result felt by the captains infected the passengers, and bets were freely booked on board both ships as to the result. During the voyage every vessel hat could be seen from the deck of the Meridian steering a similar course was anxiously scrutinised to see if it were the John Sugars, and when this latter vessel reached Melbourne it was a joyful relief to all on board to find the Meridian had not arrived. As the weeks passed, however, without tidings of the lagging vessel, the exultation of the victors gradually changed to apprehension.

 

The Meridian never finished in that race. Running before a strong westerly wind she came, just before daylight one morning, with all sail set, clean on to the island of Amsterdam. The captain, who had his wife on board, was the only man lost, but that any of the passengers were saved was little short of a miracle. The eastern side of this barren little spot in the ocean is a precipitous cliff rising to the height of about 200ft. out of the sea, and so close had the wrecked vessel driven that her main-mast going overboard rested against one of the lava ledges that score the face of the cliff. Along this spar all on board passed, and the sailors managing to scale the cliff hoisted the passengers on to the top, where, although rescued from the waves, their situation was a most critical one. Mr. Lutwyche lost all his family plate and extensive library, and a considerable amount of other property, by this mischance ; but, what was of far more consequence, the rapid breaking up of the wreck afforded no opportunity of saving any stores for the sustenance of the castaways. Fortunately the rocky coast of this little island abounds in fish, so that starvation was never imminent, and after twelve days of anxious suspense a whaler took them off and landed them in Mauritius. The courage which, in a moral form, was one of the late Judge's most emphatic characteristics he at Amsterdam showed himself to possess equally in its physical character. Those who remember Mr. Lutwyche's behavior during this trying time agree that concerning his own fate he showed no sort of solicitude, and that his bearing under very perilous adversity was not only composed but cheerful. From Mauritius the authorities forwarded the passengers and crew of the Meridian onto Melbourne, and Mr. Lutwyche came on at once to Sydney.

 

At the New South Wales bar Mr. Lutwyche's abilities and experience obtained him an immediate practice and position, and after two years of successful toil he was chosen as the Solicitor-General in the brief administration of Mr. Cowper in 1855, and appointed to a seat in the Council. Mr. Cowper's tenure of office on this occasion was of the shortest, and Mr. Lutwyche had for the four succeeding years to sit in the cold shade of Opposition. As a politician he was keen, vigilant, full of partisan zeal, an earnest Liberal, and an opponent of some weight in debate ; and when in 1857 the second Cowper Ministry succeeded to office Mr. Lutwyche came in with them as Solicitor-General, with the lead in the Upper Chamber. A year later Mr. Martin left the Cabinet, and the Attorney-Generalship was given to Mr. Lutwyche, who at the same time received the silk gown. He occupied this position only a few months, as a vacancy in the Supreme Court Bench occurring, Mr. Lutwyche was appointed to fill it, and came as Resident Judge to Moreton Bay.

 

Within the year Moreton Bay had become Queensland, and Mr. Justice Lutwyche was the sole occupant of the Supreme Court Bench of the new colony. Fresh from political strife of an exciting and somewhat embittered kind, it was difficult for a man of the late Judge's naturally combative nature to at once divest himself of all party feeling, and during the first year or two of his judicial life he was constantly colliding with either the Governor or the Government. But for this attitude of pugnacity there is no doubt Mr. Justice Lutwyche would have been the first Chief Justice of the colony, and the late Judge made no secret of his mortification at the appointment of Mr. Cockle. A few years of association, however, entirely obliterated any feelings of hostility to the Chief Justice that this event may have originally engendered, and the two Judges became sincere and attached friends. Sir James always paid a very marked deference to the opinion of his learned brother, and the amiable disposition of the Chief Justice so wrought upon the sterner nature of his colleague that when Sir James left for Europe two years ago, the parting was a severe trial to Mr. Lutwyche, who was extremely affected at bidding goodbye to a friend whom he rightly divined he was never to see again. On Sir James Cockle's retirement, Mr. Lutwyche's physical infirmities forbade his appointment to the Chief Justiceship, though the promotion of a junior was doubtless an implied slight that was keenly felt.

 

But, although infirm of body, and incessantly tortured by a malady that had become chronic and was constantly threatening his life, to the very end he deceased gentleman preserved his mental faculties in their full vigor ; and it will be long before his well-known features, with the bright unblinking eyes, fixed always with a strange intentness on witness, counsel, or his own notes, will fade from the recollection of visitors to the Supreme Court.

 

Outside his duties, the late Judge had many of the tastes of an English squire. He was a great poultry fancier, and his opinion on the merits of various breeds was an authority no breeder ventured to dispute. His Honor was also a sportsman, though he took to the turf somewhat late in life, and had no very marked success on it. In 1870 he won the Brisbane Cup with Dandy, and Flirtation also won him a race or two. Isaac Walton, Mayflower, Young May Moon, Master Mariner, and other second and third class animals also carried the Judge's colors at a number of meetings, but beyond a Sapling Stakes in Ipswich, and a race in Toowoomba, we can recall no triumphs secured for their owner. For some time past Mr. Lutwyche's failing health, rather than his want of success, had forced him to relinquish all active interest in racing matters.

 

It is one of the most melancholy tasks of journalism to record from time to time the disappearance of some well-known figure that has been long an object of respectful interest to the community, though on such occasions it is well if the biographer have no unworthy passages to hurry over or doubtful actions to glance at or charitably pass in silence. Concerning Alfred James Peter Lutwyche we know of nothing that if living he might not fearlessly challenge us to proclaim. We know that he was an upright, honest, fearless-gentleman, with a certain lion-hearted courage that never permitted him to retreat from any position he had once maturely affirmed, and we know also that he possessed a frank generosity that prevented him from ever resenting any of the hard knocks that are sometimes exchanged between the bench and the bar.

 

Mr. Lutwyche was not a man of many intimates. The few he had deeply deplore the loss of a warm-hearted friend, whilst with the general public regret at the removal of a trusted officer and worthy gentleman will be the universal sentiment. As an expression of this feeling the Supreme Court and various public offices were closed on Saturday, and most of the shops had some of their shutters up.

 

Mr. Lutwyche is to rest in the family vault at St. Andrew's Church, in the locality to which he has given his name. The funeral is appointed for to-morrow, and leaves Kedron Lodge at 3 p.m.

 

Queensland State Archives Digital Item ID 5648

I took this photo in the foyer of my local cinema, looking down on the display advertising the film "1917". I saw it a few days ago. The Guardian reviewer gave it four stars but The List gives it three, as do I. Cinematographically it is very good. The costumes appear to me, no expert, to be accurate. The barbed wire entanglements in front of the British trenches are awesomely portrayed. However, having read several histories and memoirs about the Great War, and having conversed, in my youth, with men who had fought in the trenches, I found that the premise the film was based on to be unrealistic. Also the depiction of the battle areas seemed to me to be flawed in numerous ways. The director, Sam Mendes, even includes the cliché error, near the end of the film, of a British soldier saluting whilst bareheaded.

"1917" is not nearly as realistic as the German film Westfront 1918 made in 1930. Regrettably, I can only find an unsubtitled German language version of this.

 

My dog Jess

 

My brown–eyed girl is hairy

As hairy as can be

Her breath it smells like gravy

When she sits upon my knee

 

She sighs . . . love unrequited

With worship in her eyes

On me they’re always sighted

By me she always lies

 

There’s ne'er a pout or failure

Of willingness to please

But when she licks her genitalia*

I chuck her off my knees

 

She likes her biscuits softened

With gravy at a pinch

But as for sniffing bottoms

She doesn't give an inch

 

She'll run her heart to bursting

Retrieving objects thrown

For her the very worst thing

is being on her own

 

'Walkies!' makes her eyes shine

And 'frisbees' make her bark

People think she's so fine

When I take her to the park

 

She knows what I am thinking

You can see it in her face

Eyes challenge me, unblinking

To beat her in a race

 

She loves to watch the 'telly'

'specially snooker or football

And when I tickle that soft belly

It holds her in a thrall

 

She's so enthusiastic

With people on the street

From child to geriatric

She sweeps them of their feet

 

She loves to chase a rabbit

She thinks they're just soft toys

That, if she could just nab it

It would make a squeaky noise

 

I mentioned she was hairy

The posh word is 'hirsute'

A poodle perm could nary

Make her more doggone cute

 

As Border collies go

She is a prime example

For any top dog show

Her attributes are ample

 

Though now she's getting older

With an ache and pain or two

If anything she's bolder

And loves life through and through

 

There will never be another

Such, very special friend

As devoted as a mother

She'll be there 'til the end

 

© Mike Laycock (Silversalt)

 

An extended version of an already posted poem. Did this in an attempt to make a song of it for my 3 grandaughters .. .

a failure as they can't bear my singing.

Charles Pike (Henry Fonda) studies snakes. Very devotedly. To be honest, he's more comfortable with snakes than people. That lack of experience makes him an easy mark for Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck), a cardsharp working the pre-war cruise ships with her father 'Colonel' Harrington (Charles Coburn). Neither counted on falling for each other like a ton of bricks or on Pike's sort-of bodyguard Muggsy (William Demarest) discovering the truth about Jean and her father. Needless to say, it ends badly--she goes back to fleecing suckers, he goes back to his snakes--but when the chance to get even arises, she goes for it with a vengeance, after all, there's no one who gets you as mad as the person who got you to fall in love . . .

 

How Preston Sturges got away with some of his best films, which deal in sexual duplicity, unmarried pregnancy, and a generally unblinking look at adult behavior, often at its worst, is still a subject of amazement to me. Equally amazing is how smart and sophisticated and complicated his scripts were, not just in terms of plot twists, but also emotionally. His characters are often wonderful and awful in equal measure and put each other through the emotional ringer with great force. They stumble to the happy endings dented but somehow triumphant, as imperfect as ever, and the audience often finds it has been moved to tears as often as laughter.

 

He got a lot of help from his cast here. More than most directors, Sturges brought out the coldness beneath Fonda's earnest demeanor and exploited it brilliantly, particularly in the scene where Charlie gives Jean the brush-off despite her desperate pleas to him. As for Stanwyck, she runs the gamut with out a trace of effort or hyperbole; cool amusement, tenderness, icy rage, and utter desolation. I've always been of the opinion that Stanwyck had the chops to tackle the stage classics of both farce and tragedy, and this performance just strengthens that belief.

 

And what a supporting cast! Charles Coburn as Stanwyck's father, a calculating con one moment, a loving father the next, and keeping both sides of the character's personality believably in balance, Eugene Pallette as Fonda's unintentionally terrifying father, Eric Blore as a working-class Englishman doing the To The Manor Born routine in the heart of "The Contact Bridge Belt" ("We have them by the year--like a lease"), and of course William Demarest, who takes his trademark pugnaciousness close to the level of mental imbalance and throws in some fearless physical comedy on top of it. All in all, truly a thing of comic beauty, complete with all of the human ugliness that's a part of such beauty.

This Messenger never returned on a certain morning one certain September. Near St. Paul's Church, here his bike remaining locked up for a over a month. It was made into a shrine by his family, friends, and co-workers. Like so many others, this bike may be his only remains. Perhaps he was making a delivery to a business directly hit such as Kanter Fitzgerald. No New Yorker can forget the acrid, certain smell of the cement dust and the gut-wrenching anguish of the hopeful against the crushing weight of hundreds of millions of pounds and a subterranean fire. A hell on Earth if there ever there was one. All of us New Yorkers know at least somebody who knows someone who was murdered. The degrees of separation in the knowing are usually only two persons away. We don't have to search further away from ourselves so this IS personal. I want justice in the form of an unblinking, just-as-heartless vengence to be shown toward ANYONE on Earth who thinks or though this was a wonderful thing to do. They are all COWARDS who use their own women and children as sandbags.

Casio qv-300ex

p.s. On a clear, crisp fall morning, during the beginning of a work-week, while outside sipping a cup of coffee, all New Yorkers have that uneasy, deja vu sensation.

[Not a good day for a 747 AF1 photo-op fly-by along southern Manhattan]

I hope our next generation does not have to deal with this horror. I don't think

it is going to go away anytime soon. BTW: This is ONE block over from the collapse.

** PLEASE LEAVE A POIGNANT MESSAGE FOR OTHER VIEWERS **

New State-of-the-art Facility Enhances Logistics, Technology and Security

March 22, 2018

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Air and Marine Operations Center (AMOC) based on March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California held a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the grand opening of their new building.

 

“Today we are celebrating an important milestone. Our critical mission toils silently in the background keeping watch over our national leadership, supporting special events, collaborating with international partners and unblinking over-watch of our nation’s non-commercial air and maritime environments,” said Tony D. Crowder, AMOC Executive Director.

 

NAMES:

Left to right: Brigadier General Russell A. Muncy, March ARB, U.S. Air Force Reserve, Zulfi Jamil Facilities Director AMO, Loren Flossman Border Patrol and Air and Marine Program Manager Office (BPAM/PMD), Tony D. Crowder AMOC Executive Director and Edward E. Young Acting Executive Commissioner AMO.

China's out-of-control space station carrying toxic chemicals is set to crash to Earth on Easter Sunday.  

In an attempt to reassure the world, the Chinese government says it will 'promptly be in touch' if Tiangong-1 looks set to hit a nation.

But any warning may be too late, as China admits it still has no idea where parts of the space station will land.

The bus-sized space station, weighing 8.5-tons, is predicted to reenter Earth's atmosphere at 3pm BST (10am ET) on April 1, according to the latest estimates.

It could crash into a number of highly populated areas, including New York, Barcelona, Beijing, Chicago, Istanbul, Rome and Toronto. 

When the station does eventually enter the atmosphere, it may unleash a 'series of fireballs' that could be seen by the naked eye, scientists claim.

  

The bus-sized space station, weighing 8.5-tons, is predicted to reenter Earth's atmosphere at 3pm BST (10am ET) on April 1, according to the latest estimates. It could crash into a number of highly populated areas, including New York, Barcelona, Beijing, Chicago, Istanbul and Rome

 

The latest prediction comes from Aerospace engineering, who claims the time for re-entry could be anywhere within 16 hours either side of this.

Others have more conservative estimates. China's space agency stated that Tiangong-1 will re-enter the atmosphere some time between Saturday and Monday. 

  

The European Space Agency has a smaller window between midday Saturday and early Sunday afternoon GMT time.

Speaking at a daily news briefing, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the government had been continually informing the U.N. space agency of the latest information about the Tiangong-1.

China had been responsible and transparent, Lu said.

  

WHICH CITIES LIE IN THE TIANGONG-1 'DANGER ZONE'?

Name of city

Country

Name of city

Country

Barcelona

Spain

Milwaukee

USA

Beijing

China

Monaco

Monaco

Bilbao

Spain

Naples

Italy

Boise

USA

New York

USA

Boston

USA

Nice

France

Boulder

USA

Philadelphia

USA

Buffalo

USA

Pittsburgh

USA

Cannes

France

Punta Arenas

Chile

Chicago

USA

Rochester

USA

Christchurch

New Zealand

Rome

Italy

Cleveland

USA

Salt Lake City

Spain

Concord

USA

San Sebastian

Spain

Des Moines

USA

Sapporo

Japan

Detroit

USA

Sioux Falls

USA

Florence

Italy

Sochi

Russia

Istanbul

Turkey

Stanley

Falkland Islands

Kushiro

Japan

Toronto

Canada

Madrid

Spain

Trelew 

Argentina 

Marseilles

France

Valladolid

Spain

 

'If there is a need, we will promptly be in touch with the relevant country,' he said.

'As to what I have heard, at present the chances of large fragments falling to the ground are not very great, the probability is extremely small.'

There is 'no need for people to worry', the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) said on its WeChat social media account.

Such falling spacecraft do 'not crash into the Earth fiercely like in sci-fi movies, but turn into a splendid (meteor shower) and move across the beautiful starry sky as they race towards the Earth', it said.

  

At the Fraunhofer Institute, scientists can track Tiangong-1 using radar (pictured). Radar allows the institute to watch the station regardless of the weather, or if it is day or night

 

Due to its gentle descent, Tiangong-1 is now experiencing significant drag as it brushes against the planet's denser outer atmosphere and it is dropping out of orbit by about 2.5 miles a day. 

During the uncontrolled re-entry, atmospheric drag will rip away solar arrays, antennas and other external components at an altitude of around 100 kilometres (60 miles), according to the Chinese space office.

The intensifying heat and friction will cause the main structure to burn or blow up, and it should disintegrate at an altitude of around 50 miles (80km), it said.

Most fragments will dissipate in the air and a small amount of debris will fall relatively slowly before landing, most likely in the ocean, which covers more than 70 percent of the Earth's surface.

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, estimates that the Tiangong-1 is the 50th most massive uncontrolled re-entry of an object since 1957.

'Much bigger things have come down with no casualties,' McDowell told AFP.

'This thing is like a small plane crash,' he said, adding that the trail of debris will scatter pieces several hundred kilometres apart.

  

During the uncontrolled re-entry, atmospheric drag will rip away solar arrays, antennas and other external components at an altitude of around 100 kilometres (60 miles), according to the Chinese space office

  

This image of the Chinese Space Station was taken over a two second exposure and from the Virtual Telescope Project live feed. The space station was travelling at 18 degrees a second across the sky 

 

At an altitude of around 40 miles (70km), debris will begin to turn into 'a series of fireballs', which is when people on the ground will 'see a spectacular show', he said. 

The dramatic reentry will be unmissable, but keen astronomers are keeping their eyes peeled for Tiangong-1 throughout its final days.

Earlier this week, a live stream was set up by Virtual Telescope Project to capture Tiangong in one of its final passes across the sky.

  

At an altitude of around 40 miles (70km), debris will begin to turn into 'a series of fireballs'

 

It is visible to the naked eye and can be seen by people living in mid-latitude areas in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere.

Like many satellites and the ISS, Tiangong-1 looks like an unblinking white light gliding swiftly across the sky.  

Predicting when and where the rogue station will reach the surface is extremely difficult as it orbits the Earth at around 18,000 mph (29,000km/h).

To track the satellite, experts are using some of the most advanced and powerful telescopes in the world. 

At the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques, scientists were recently able to capture images of the craft using radar imaging.

Commissioned by the ESA, Fraunhofer researchers are studying the speed of the satellite and its rotation. 

The tracking and imaging radar system uses signals in the Ku-band (12 to 18 gigahertz) and I-band (100 – 150 megahertz) radio frequencies to follow Tiangong-1.

Radar allows the institute to watch the station regardless of the weather, or if it is day or night. 

  

Fall of Chinese space station Tiangong-1 over time and potential landing spots and times. The odds of being struck by space debris at one in 1.2 trillion. That is roughly 10 million times less likely than getting hit by lightning

 

In a statement, Esa aid: 'The Chinese space station Tiangong-1 will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere where it will to a large extent burn up.

'It is possible that some debris will reach the Earth's surface.'  

As stated by experts tracking the station at the European Space Agency (ESA), it has the highest chance of crashing along a narrow strip around latitudes of 43 degrees north and south.

This includes a number of highly populated cities including New York, Barcelona, Beijing, Chicago, Istanbul, Rome and Toronto.

There is a chance parts of the station containing hazardous hydrazine could plummet into these highly-populated area.

Hydrazine is a chemical which is included in rocket fuel that causes irritation of the eyes and throat, dizziness and can lead to the growth of cancerous tumours. 

The chances of human injury are small, claims Stijn Lemmens, an ESA space debris expert based in Darmstadt, Germany.

'Over the past 60 years of space flight, we are nearing the mark of 6,000 uncontrolled reentries of large objects, mostly satellites and upper (rocket) stages,' he told AFP. 

'Only one event actually produced a fragment which hit a person, and it did not result in injury.'

Mr Lemmens says the odds of being struck by space debris are at one in 1.2 trillion.

  

Scientists will only know the precise date Tiangong-1 will impact and exactly where debris will fall during the finals days of its decline. Pictured is a graph showing how the window of predicted impact dates (y-axis) has changed over time (x-axis)

 

That is roughly 10 million times less likely than getting hit by lightning.

Although nobody has ever died from being hit by space junk falling back to Earth, one Australian region did fine Nasa $400 for littering when its Skylab crashed around the town of Esperence in 1974. 

'At no time will a precise time/location prediction from ESA be possible,' the agency's Space Debris Office, based in Darmstadt, Germany, said in a previous statement.

 

WHAT IS THE TIANGONG-1 SPACE STATION?

  

The vehicle is 10.4 metres long and has a main diameter of 3.35 metres. It has a liftoff mass of 8,506 kilograms and provides 15 cubic metres of pressurised volume

 

Tiangong-1 is China's first Space Station Module.

The vehicle was the nation's first step towards its ultimate goal of developing, building, and operating a large Space Station as a permanent human presence in Low Earth Orbit.

The module was launched on September 29, 2012.

Tiangong-1 features flight-proven components of Chinese Shenzhou Spacecraft as well as new technology.

The module consists of three sections: the aft service module, a transition section and the habitable orbital module.

The vehicle is 10.4 metres long and has a main diameter of 3.35 metres.

It has a liftoff mass of 8,506 kilograms and provides 15 cubic metres of pressurized volume. 

  

The Tiangong-1 space station (artist's impression) is hurtling towards Earth carrying a 'highly toxic chemical'. The doomed 8.5-tonne craft is believed to contain dangerous hydrazine

  

The doomed 8.5-tonne craft, which is roughly the size of a bus, has been hurtling towards Earth since Chinese scientists lost control of it in 2016

 

The doomed 8.5-tonne craft has been hurtling towards Earth since Chinese scientists lost control of it in 2016.  

Although far smaller than some other satellites (the ISS is 450 tons (408,000 kg) for example) it is still the size of a school bus. 

 

WHAT IS THE 'HIGHLY TOXIC' CHEMICAL ONBOARD CHINA'S TIANGONG-1 SPACE STATION?

 

A 'highly-toxic' corrosive chemical could land on Earth when parts of an out-of-control Chinese space station crash into our planet.

The chemical, called hydrazine, is used in rocket fuel and long-term exposure is believed to cause cancer in humans.

It is being carried aboard the Tiangong-1 space station which is hurtling towards Earth. 

The warning over exposure to the chemical came from Aerospace Corp, a non-profit corporation based in El Segundo, California, which provides technical guidance and advice on all aspects of space missions.

Hydrazine is a colourless, oily liquid or sometimes white crystalline compound with a very highly reactive base.

  

A 'highly-toxic' corrosive chemical could be spread over the planet when a Chinese space station crashes to Earth, experts have warned. The substance, called hydrazine, is used in rocket fuel and is believed to cause cancer in humans (stock image)

 

It has a number of industrial, agricultural and military uses, including in rocket fuel.

Symptoms of short-term exposure to high levels of hydrazine include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, dizziness, headache, nausea, pulmonary edema, seizures, and coma, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Long-term exposure can also damage the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system in humans.

The liquid is corrosive and may produce dermatitis from skin contact in humans and animals.

Increased incidences of lung, nasal cavity, and liver tumours have been observed in rodents exposed to hydrazine.

The EPA has classified hydrazine as a Group B2, a probable human carcinogen.

  

The last time people set foot on the space station was in 2013.

After completing its final life phase, the space craft became unresponsive. 

The descent is difficult to predict as the conditions in space are widely unknown and unpredictable.

The orbit pattern of Tiangong-1 is also making predictions more complex. 

Explaining why, Dr Hugh Lewis, senior lecturer in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southampton, compared the geometrical processes at work to crossing the road.

  

The last time people set foot on the space station was in 2013. After completing its final life phase, the space craft became unresponsive

  

Tiangong-1 is China's first Space Station Module. The vehicle was the nation's first step towards its ultimate goal of developing, building, and operating a large Space Station and it is set to die a fiery death as it reenters the atmosphere 

 

Speaking to MailOnline, he said: 'The spacecraft is travelling around a more or less circular orbit, which is tipped with respect to the equator at 43°.

'If you plot this path on a map of the Earth, it produces a sine wave pattern, with the slower curve of the wave in northern and southern latitudes and the faster straighter sections running from east to west. 

'If you imagine the green low risk area on the map is the part of the road we're trying to walk across, the quickest way is to go at 90 degrees – straight across.

  

The descent of the space craft is difficult to predict as the conditions in space are widely unknown and unpredictable. The orbit pattern of Tiangong-1 is also making predictions more complex and leads to 'highly variable' predictions

 

'When the spacecraft crosses the equator, it's crossing the road at this point, and it does so really fast.

'When it goes across the red bands further north and south, it's crossing at a steeper angle - almost parallel to the road. 

'It takes longer to cross at these latitudes, which is why it has a higher risk of coming down here.' 

Predictions of Tiangong-1's most likely point of impact come from Aerospace, a US research organisation based in El Segundo, California, that advises government and private enterprise on space flight.

  

The vehicle is 10.4 metres long and has a main diameter of 3.35 metres. It has a liftoff mass of 8,506 kilograms and provides 15 cubic metres of pressurised volume

  

Tiangong-1 is experiencing drag as it brushes against the planet's denser outer atmosphere and it is dropping out of orbit by about 2.5 miles a day. When Tiangong-1, Chinese for Heavenly Place, reaches an altitude of about 43 miles above the surface, it will begin its re-entry

 

Estimates from Aerospace say the space station will enter the Earth's atmosphere on April 1, give or take a few days, and debris will fall no further north than 42.7° N latitude or south of 42.7° S latitude.  

An interactive map from SatView allows you to track the space stations's descent in real-time.

There are two maps available; the largest one shows the past path and the predicted path as a series of dots, whilst the smaller inset map shows the space station's exact location above Earth at any given moment.  

The Satview map shows several different satellites in orbit, including the Hubble telescope and the International Space Station.

  

 

Tracking website SatView allows users to follow the exact movements of a range of different satellites, the Chinese Tiangong-1 is one of them. It shows a predicted time of reentry to the atmosphere as well as information on where it has been and where it is going 

The larger map which shows the dots revealing the satellite's route is produced by Satview. 

The second map is powered by USstratcom (United States Strategic Command) and then overlaid on to Google Maps. 

As more information is garnered as to when the reentry will take place, the site updates with the most likely landing spot for the space station. 

 

famzn.com/china039s-out-of-control-space-station-to-crash...

Explored

Leica M6,

Leica 50mm Summilux f1.4,

Kodak TriX ISO400,

Developed in Rodinal 1+50 for 13mins at 20C,

Scanned at 3200 dpi using Epson F3200 scanner,

Processed in Photoshop CS3/ SilverEfex.

 

If you go down to the main shopping centre in my city on a weekend, you may find this windswept fellow. He stands motionless for many minutes at a time. His eyes are unblinking and his face is painted and fixed with a grimace etched on it. When someone drops coins into his tin, there is a deafening clang and he lurches into motion for a few seconds before going back into a frozen state. It’s a living, I guess.

Rising above the two lightning towers around the pad, a Delta IV rocket races into the sky with the GOES-O satellite aboard.

 

The GOES-O satellite lifted off from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 6:51 p.m. EDT atop a Delta IV rocket. From a position about 22,300 miles above Earth, the advanced weather satellite will keep an unblinking eye on atmospheric conditions in the Eastern United States and Atlantic Ocean.

 

GOES-O is the latest weather satellite developed by NASA to aid the nation's meteorologists and climate scientists. The acronym stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. The spacecraft in the series provide the familiar weather pictures seen on United States television newscasts every day. The satellites are equipped with a formidable array of sensors and instruments.

 

Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

  

When you look in the eyes of something that will die soon, you feel your own death.

 

The corrida was hours away, but the attendants and such people were away, leaving the plaza de toros unguarded. We stole in as if blithe tourists, but we felt like we were thieves. We walked quietly around the arena, trying to sense what it felt like to be the matador, tracing the footsteps and hoofprints in the dirt. A veronica here, a feint there, a long stand off in the center, waiting for the mátame (the head lowered in fatigue, 'kill me'), and then the charge and the moment of truth when the man with the sword leapt over the sharpened horns of the dying bull... That line there, that dragged line of sand leading out of the arena with small clipped hoofprints of the butcher's burros - that stopped us cold. That was the exit of the slain; heavy iron chains wrapped around the ankles while a pitiless little man jams blunt knife in the back of the cabeza, disrespectfully wiping it on the dead.

 

We walked through the infirmary where sometimes the bull wins. It was cold and blue and unclean, perhaps as a warning to the matador, 'Do not lose your footing, do not fail. This is where we will drag you off to...'

 

Behind a high wall outside the infirmary, I heard a low, guttural snort. I found a tight passage to the side of the wall and squeezed through, coming out in a small corral. The smell of raw cattle was powerful; fecal, musky, uncertain. I peered over the wall and found a bull, bred for hundreds of years for their ferocity and strength, peering back at me, maybe a foot or more away. He snorted and stepped back, never taking his eyes off me.

 

The bulls are born and live in the fields. Their breeders don't allow contact with humans, lest they became tame or complacent in their company. A bull should be angry, fierce, and fiery. A bull should never know what is coming next.

 

I felt like Theseus or a devotee of Mitra in the final chamber. Bullfighting arouses our deepest passions - and compassions. The popular idea of the the bullfight is that it demonstrates the manliness, the macho of the matador, but that is false. The truth is that the matador is the feminine principle in the combat, dressed in bright, tight, spangled clothes, whipping a distracting cape while hiding the blade, taunting and teasing the bull, as it slowly bleeds out gashed muscles from a dozen stabs by the matador's cuadrilla. The bull is the masculine principle. It is the yang of primal strength and vitality, uncivilized, unbounded. It rushes into the arena; alone, simple, wary, shocked by the spectacle of the crowds and colors. It charges and clashes as it did in the pastures against other bulls but that does not prepare it for the orchestrated waves of attacks from the horsemen and their lances or the footmen and their barbed sticks.

 

This is Insurgente, the rebel. In Mexican history, the Insurgentes were the first to buck the Gachupines, the mainland, highborn Spanish conquerors. Gachupines means 'those who wear spurs'. They led a civil war to overthrow the Spanish, they fought with wooden spears against steel. Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama - the first insurgentes, lost, thousands of their indio compatriots killed by Spanish arms after a vain strike on the capital. This Insurgente fought back too.

 

He rushed through toril door and charged the matador directly, with barely a moment of pause. He chased the horsemen, nearing knocking them off their padded armored mounts, he refused the banderillas, shaking them loose, and when the it was time for the matador to do his work, Insurgentes focused on him alone. After a few passes of the the cape, the bull learned what was real and what was illusion. He went past the cape and ran down the matador, who scurried behind the barrier that guards the callejon, the small alley between the arena floor and the seats of the audience. Insurgente leap over the man-tall wall into the callejon and tore down after the matador. He actually paused to kick and horn the matador's equipment and spare cape, dragging it on his horn as he ran down the alley, before being shunted back into the arena. The matador called his cuadrilla to return to the ring to make another attack on Insurgente, and when they were finally done, the matador circled in warily to finish his work. But again Insurgente refused to go easily.

 

An incompetent matador is a criminal, a butcher. In a well-executed bullfight, the matador leaps over the horns, exposing himself to the bull, and delivers his sword, between the shoulder blades, and severs the heart, immediately and mercifully releasing the bull. But this matador was a hack. He stabbed like a punk in an alley, unable to kill the bull, not after the second lunge, the third, the fourth, nor the fourteenth. It was grotesque. Insurgente kept standing up and lunging at the matador, shaming him for his incompetence. The crowd started to yell 'Give the bull the pistol, for God's sake.' Still the matador hacked away, his hand shaking trying to line up his sword on the wounded bull, even banging his finger on Insurgente's horn. 'Dont shoot the bull, shoot the fucking matador,' someone yelled.

 

Finally, it was over. Insurgente was down. The burros were brought out to drag the bull from the arena while the matador walked around the ring to claim his applause, which was met by a volley of shoes and beer cups from the crowd.

 

I can hear the chorus of the indignant and self-righteous now, aghast at the disgusting spectacle of a bullfight. Please hold your comments. The difference between a tourist and traveler is in the way they view the world outside their own. I take this wonderful country as it is, its traditions, its contradictions, its intimacy with suffering and death. Mexico is unpasteurized. It is raw and real, generous and remorseless, perhaps in their unblinking acceptance of death comes their fierce love of life.

This is a McLaren 765LT Coupe.

Introducing the new McLaren 765LT. Born from fearless supercar engineering.

cars.mclaren.com/en/super-series/765lt

Aggressive. Pure. Created with singular vision

At McLaren, we do not fear the unknown. We do not fear the challenge. The new McLaren 765LT has a legend to live up to: Longtail. Every car that's carried this name has been unique. Extreme and utterly focused around the driver. All about maximum engagement. Searing performance. Sensational handling.

Uncompromising. Singular. Focused. shaped by the pursuit of driving purity. The 765LT. Taking the perfectly formed 720S closer to the edge. With a powerful presence and aggressive design language that deliver incredible performance. Less weight. More downforce. Aerodynamic innovation. Bespoke carbon fibre body panels shape an iconic elongated profile. Suspension is lowered. And the front track is wider. The message is clear: nothing gets in the way of dynamic ability. Everything is here for a reason. Inside the McLaren 765 Long Tail, the unblinking sense of purpose and minimal clarity continue. There's lightweight Alcantara®. And the seats used in the awe-inspiring McLaren P1™. Sculpted carbon fibre is everywhere. The Longtail story continues.

 

And this is the most powerful LT yet, with a shattering 765PS. Just 765 will ever be produced. For the lucky few, the next chapter is beginning…

 

www.caranddriver.com/mclaren/765lt

The McLaren 765LT is a supercar that makes track performance a priority and lets most creature comforts fall by the wayside. With a 755-horsepower twin-turbocharged V-8 mounted amidships, it’s wickedly quick, and its lightweight construction makes it a missile around the racetrack. Its “LT” name refers to the fact that it’s a “longtail” version of the 720S, with which it shares many components. The simplistic interior has a no-nonsense feel, and the standard retractable convertible top on the Spider version adds a bit of weight but shouldn’t detract too much from the pure driving experience.

 

Special car, supercar

Romanian actor Anamaria Marinca, director Cristian Mungiu and actor Laura Vasiliu arrive at the Festival Palace for the screening of their film "4 Luni, 3 Saptamini si 2 Zile" (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days).

(Source: Valery Hache)

SYNOPSIS:

CANNES -- Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu's In Competition entry "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" is a harrowing tale of the grim lengths to which two young women will go to end an unwelcome pregnancy in a totalitarian society that is indifferent to their fate unless it involves punishing them.

 

Set in the shabby rooms of rundown buildings on neglected city streets, the film casts an unblinking eye on life in the last years of communism in Romania. Its story of desperation forced on two hapless youngsters indicts a regime that was as callous as it was empty. The film is dark, gloomy and without music, but it is also observant and highly suspenseful, with Mungiu using his often static camera to balance banal cruelty with simple generosity. The film, which boasts an exceptional performance by Anamaria Marinca, may not break out of the festival and art house circuit, but it is likely to pick up some awards along the way.

 

The title describes the exact length of time that scatterbrained Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) has left things before seeking an abortion. But she lies about it not only to her considerate roommate Otilia (Marinca) but also more dangerously to the abortionist recommended by a fellow student.

 

Tolerant and generous, Otilia not only helps Gabita find the money for the procedure but also goes to meet the man who's going to do the job. He's a coolly nasty piece of work named Bebe (Vlad Ivanov) who complains about all the arrangements and describes unfeelingly just what is going to happen.

 

Having paid for a room in a seedy but expensive hotel and with her body clock ticking, Gabita is willing to put up with almost any indignity in order to solve her problem short of the single motherhood that would drive her to disgrace and poverty. Otilia's willingness to help her witless friend is tested to the extreme when Bebe demands sex with both of them as a mandatory bonus. Otilia's required visit on the same night to the home of her boyfriend Adi (Alex Potocean) and his relentlessly bourgeois family serves to make that sacrifice inexpressibly bleak.

 

Mungiu's screenplay and Oleg Mutu's piercing cinematography capture the offhand gestures and remarks by which, in a place ruled by faceless authority, those with a small amount of power grind others into compliance and complacency. Ivanov is chilling as the abortionist who is secure in his grasp of the young women's vulnerability. Vasiliu's Gabita is pretty and empty-headed at first but appears shell-shocked by the time she's through.

 

Marinca, who won the BAFTA TV award as best actress for the miniseries "Sex Traffic" in 2004, is superb at displaying internal turmoil, whether watching her friend being groped as she's examined or listening to the braying of people who long ago made peace with their evil masters. The Romanian actress also shines in a tense and heartbreaking sequence at the end of the film in which Otilia must dispose of the aborted foetus in the darkness and squalor of an unlamented urban hell.

Source: "Hollywood Reporter"

--------------------------------------------------------

Cristian Mungiu este fratele doamnei Alina Mungiu-Pippidi care figureaza in Antologia intitulata:

"Bouse roumaine - the Unsug Voices of Romanian Women"

care se poate descarca de pe Internet sub forma de E-book (11 MB - 1000 pagini)

 

LINK: www.blouseroumaine.com/orderthebook_p1.html

Pay by Card ONLINE click above.

The Blouse Roumaine Anthology - formatted as an E-BOOK

PRICE: $54.99, £ 24.99 (circa 35.50 Euros)

  

Guin follows him through the scanner, scowling as the thing starts to go off. "I'm the one who gets to have the gun," she points out, retaking the prisoner's arm and leading him to the woman. Oh, now there's a man, enter testosterone. "Prisoner transfer." The man has an air of importance, so she looks to him. "Liam Fitzgerald? Sent the paperwork earlier, though wouldn't surprise me if someone here lost it... "

 

Alayna looked up and scowled then went on another frantic search. "Not fucking here." she muttered. "I'll check the database." she baegan typing in the name, likely mispelling it.

 

Eamon's eyes skate past the male corporal to the bars behind him, lining the corridor wall. His hands clench into fists behind his back; he sways unsteadily on his feet, as if he's been drinking a bit, although there's no smell of liquor on him.

 

Michael nods and grips his arm. "We'll find a place for him.. " He shoves him violently, face-first against the counter and mesh metal fencing there to check the hand cuffs. "Nice fuckin hair.. ." he mutters at the pony tail.

 

Guin bites back a protest and has to force herself from stepping in-between, or forcing the man away. She swallows back anger and steps up sharply. "Hey! I wasn't handing him to you on a silver platter. -My- prisoner, not yours. I hear you guys have a history of losing them, anyway." She smiles sweetly at the man.

 

Alayna's head jerked up and she found herself face to face with the prisoner. Man she HATED processing. Lips curled in a practiced sneer. "Got him...Liam. Transfer." she nodded, eyes flicking back to the screen to read before settling on him. "Welcome to our little bed and breakfast. Don't raid the mini bar and we'll get on JUST fine."

 

Eamon's jaw clenches, muscles drawing taut beneath the orange, but he doesn't resist. He slams into the wall, his face and glasses inches from the mesh. Say something, any fucking thing... all right, if he can't get rid of his accent, he slather on a Dublin like plaster. Closing his eyes, he grits his teeth, and calls up memories of home, streets, waggy lads bumming a smoker on the corner... "Oi, an' ye like'a look o' that, do ye, ye coolchie gad?" He cocks his head back and fixes the corporal with a half-mad grin. "Gotcha all'n a twist, does it?"

 

Michael swivels his head towards the other marine "NO fucker ever got out on my watch.. " he advises her .. and almost without looking he jams the end of the stun baton right under the left buttock of the prisoner .. just where the inside of his thigh meets the gluteous maximus and discharges a moderate level short blast. "Shut that mouth full of cock talk up...!" he barks irritatedly at the long haired man.

 

Guin blinks in surprise, though she tries to hide. They had it? Well. All right, then. But her attention is jerked back to the Marine, and she has the insane urge to punch him. She can't even really tell what Eamon said, but it got to this Marine, which might have made her smile if he hadn't just tazered him. Instead, she grabs at his baton--procedure or not, she has no idea, but she's not just going to stand there... "I said, enough! He is not your prisoner, at least not yet. Don't you idiots have procedure here? Processing, protocol? Or are you all just a bunch of cavemen?"

 

Alayna stared, then looked to Guin. "What the fuck did he say?" eyes raked over him again. "Gonna be trouble, aren't you, I can tell." she glanced at the monitor and then at Mike. "I'm putting him in with your little red haired girl. He looks like the type she'd like."

 

Eamon stiffens, his back bowing, his teeth clenched together so hard it feels like they'll crack from the strain. White-hot pain explodes where the baton meets flesh and sizzles through his body, cutting off speech as neatly as shutting off a radio. He collapses forward, weight slamming into the ledge, and fights to catch his breath. "Gi' us a breather, missus," he rasps, ragged, and sways upright once more. His head falls back, eyes closed. "No' feelin so round an' toast, this ould lad..."

 

Michael drives his forearm into the back of the prisoner insuring he stays put as he looks down at the female marine's hand. "You had better unhand that baton ...or we are gonna have a a fuckin problem..." he says in a dead cold voice, looking at you thru his visor,

 

Eamon slams forward again, his glasses knocked askew. "No' be mindin a bit o' a lie-down, aye...?"

 

Guin channels her growing fury into her eyes as she meets the Marine's, unblinking. She remembers who she is, who she's supposed to be, what's at stake. "I think we might already," she says coldly, and deliberately keeps her hand on the baton. "I need this prisoner in one piece. They didn't send me all this way with him to have him beaten to a pulp by the likes of you." She quiets for a moment, then releases her hand. "Now. Processing. Then take him to his cell. LIke a good soldier."

My dog Jess

 

My brown–eyed girl is hairy

As hairy as can be

Her breath it smells like gravy

When she sits upon my knee

 

She sighs . . . love unrequited

With worship in her eyes

On me they’re always sighted

By me she always lies

 

There’s ne'er a pout or failure

Of willingness to please

But when she licks her genitalia*

I chuck her off my knees

 

She likes her biscuits softened

With gravy at a pinch

But as for sniffing bottoms

She doesn't give an inch

 

She'll run her heart to bursting

Retrieving objects thrown

For her the very worst thing

is being on her own

 

'Walkies!' makes her eyes shine

And 'frisbees' make her bark

People think she's so fine

When I take her to the park

 

She knows what I am thinking

You can see it in her face

Eyes challenge me, unblinking

To beat her in a race

 

She loves to watch the 'telly'

'specially snooker or football

And when I tickle that soft belly

It holds her in a thrall

 

She's so enthusiastic

With people on the street

From child to geriatric

She sweeps them of their feet

 

She loves to chase a rabbit

She thinks they're just soft toys

That, if she could just nab it

It would make a squeaky noise

 

I mentioned she was hairy

The posh word is 'hirsute'

A poodle perm could nary

Make her more doggone cute

 

As Border collies go

She is a prime example

For any top dog show

Her attributes are ample

 

Though now she's getting older

With an ache and pain or two

If anything she's bolder

And loves life through and through

 

There will never be another

Such, very special friend

As devoted as a mother

She'll be there 'til the end

 

© Mike Laycock (Silversalt)

 

An extended version of an already posted poem. Did this in an attempt to make a song of it for my 3 grandaughters .. .

a failure as they can't bear my singing.

"With an unblinking gaze, Daedalus peers into the depths of the cosmos, charting pathways yet to be discovered." ️🌌

 

- PDF INSTRUCTIONS on my Rebrickable page (Link in Bio)

This work by a former Ramapo High School student, hangs in our principal's conference room. We do the special education Annual Reviews under its unsettling gaze. this week I attended a workshop under its unblinking eyes.

I stand on this corner for hours with a dream to nowhere, a fork in the road with two dead-ends in both directions. No car passes, no dog barks, no spark of a streetlight can outshine the unblinking eye of the moon in the sky above. Love seems more obvious in the arms of this crumbling history. The mystery is full and fresh when the walls come tumbling down. There is no religion remaining, no doctrine spoken; there's no communion taken, just the open space in silence with a solitary soul. I've heard nothing but the creaking, of wood on wood and the spring peepers singing. I've seen nothing but the stillness, only the tallest, thinnest branches stealing a bit of passing wind. Every inch of my thin frame is still out of reach of this broken bell tower, and all my heart is giving in to the glory, and the power...

 

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But as she got closer, she realized that the creature looked rather...dumb, to say the least.

 

Myst stared at it for several seconds before speaking to it.

 

"Do you...have anything to say to your creator?", she said, looking at the creature with a quizzical expression.

 

"NAAAHHHHHHH, NYAHHHHH", the creature said with a dumb stare and unblinking eyes.

SOURCE: The Brooklyn Rail

TITLE: Liubo Borissov: Crowdsource

DATE: JUNE 26 2010

AUTHOR: Gail Victoria Braddock Quagliata

 

Crowdsourcing, “crowd” and “outsourcing,”* is the act of tasking an often random multitude with solving a problem typically handled by one person or group, entrusting the entire hive to efficiently complete what a single member might find daunting. Cultivating a heady mixture of narcissism, technological wizardry, and the irresistible lure of audience participation, Liubo Borrisov’s crowdsource explores, among other things, the observer’s response to the unexpected confrontation of his or her own gaze in a surreal staredown.

 

The narcissistic impulse is not new to art, as any cave-painting Cro-Magnon with access to a glossy pond or preening aristocrat with access to Jan van Eyck could likely attest. The concept of crowdsourcing, though only in recent years given a dynamic moniker, is not terribly new to art either, as “add your mark” or “cut my dress” have become familiar concepts that subvert the usually static relationship between creator and consumer. These trends have found new vitality today; our digital culture has transformed every cell phone and laptop into a flattering mirror, while social networking enables the wider dissemination of all things navel-gazing. In this light, nothing could be more hypnotic and compelling for the viewer’s vanity than the opportunity to become an element of an artwork with minimal effort beyond arriving in a space at a specified time.

 

This concept quickly hooks the unassuming passerby by the eyeballs via “Racing Stripes,” Borissov’s “interactive video painting.” Revealing itself patiently from the gallery window, “Racing Stripes” thrusts all that crosses its sightline into a manipulated and delayed reflection of its P.O.V.’s dreamy, color-streaked cityscape. Stills captured every minute by this stealthy spy-painting are then uploaded onto a flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/liuboto/tags/racingstripes) where, the artist informs us, all images are available for use under Creative Commons license. This concession, that these images belong, in a sense, to anyone who might want to access them, is both a nod to the openly collaborative nature of this work’s process of creation, and a surprising act of generosity. Here the viewer is not only lured into participation by the promise of gazing upon him or herself as a Work of Art™, but he or she is then rewarded with an online, downloadable, shareable souvenir of The Time I Was a Work of Art™.

 

This brief flash of imagined celebrity is part curious spectacle and part great equalizer: passersby are compelled to behave like hyperactive, attention-starved children; passersby are compelled to gaze meaningfully into their blurred reflections as if they were the oh-so-soulful eyes of a “Present” Marina Abramovic; passersby are compelled to move past quickly as though the photos could perhaps be used as evidence in court; passersby cease passing by as frame after frame of changing light and parking patterns consume the image archive.

 

Yet, in spite of any given action, non-action, or reaction, this piece remains impassive, simply a machine spitting out a calculation, albeit an aesthetically pleasing one. Its choppy, watercolor-like aesthetic, dreamlike staccato motion blur, and positively inclusive web presence belie the far darker implications at the core of “Racing Stripes.” This painting is little more than an unblinking electronic eye, a dolled-up surveillance camera dispassionately documenting every minute in its limited field of view and reporting all it sees.

 

In “The Narcissus Series,” also on view, the artist inflicts momentary self-reflection on the voyeurs and exhibitionists flooding the world of Chatroulette.com, the recent social networking (and snubbing) phenomenon. He has created a software program that redirects the webcam images of Chatroulette participants so that they receive not a chance chat partner, but a flipped, upside-down image of themselves, as if seducing them into a still reflecting pool to drown. Gazing at the varied states of maturity and undress depicted in Borissov’s survey of narcissists gazing upon their own reflection, the viewer is confronted by the utter lack of self-awareness present in this crushingly self-conscious digital world. While a vast number of these people have surely indulged themselves in one of those cringe-inducing “pouty-faced self-portraits in mirror” now wasting pixels on Facebook, none seem to immediately recognize his or her own face when, by all means of time, space, and Internet logic, it should be the face of another. In the brief moment before his subjects “next” themselves in favor of new random prospects, Borissov captures a kind of yearbook of subtle emotions and blank gazes, all presumably searching for something beyond their own reflections.

 

With his digital mirrors, Borissov hands the viewer his or her own image to admire and gives nothing in return, just the vacant, detached gaze of a machine masking its intents and silent observations with a familiar face. The hacking and recontextualization of any candid moment in any person’s everyday life is rich with the potential for either inadvertent beauty or casual horror, but here the viewer is handed neither, just the facts arranged in a slightly more pleasing shape, as though assembled by an unseen mechanical hand adhering to some rote algorithm.

 

After enlightenment Buddha spent the succeeding seven weeks at seven different spots in the vicinity meditating and considering his experience. Several specific places at the current Mahabodhi Temple relate to the traditions surrounding these seven weeks:

 

The first week was spent under the Bodhi tree.

 

During the second week, the Buddha remained standing and stared, uninterrupted, at the Bodhi tree. This spot is marked by the Animeshlocha Stupa, that is, the unblinking stupa or shrine, which is located on the north-east of the Mahabodhi Temple complex. There stands a statute of Buddha with his eyes fixed towards the Bodhi tree.

 

The Buddha is said to have walked back and forth between the location of the Animeshlocha Stupa and the Bodhi tree. According to legend, lotus flowers sprung up along this route, it is now called Ratnachakarma or the jewel walk.

 

You may be able to see a bit of our friend Ken's Ashes sprinkled (with the flower) in the stone lotuses marking the Buddha's steps. This is looking east (uphill) towards the Animeshlocha Stupa. The Bodhi Tree is behind and around the corner to the right.

This little girl was watching me as I was photographing World heritage Site buildings in Bhaktapur, Nepal. Photographing near to where she was standing, I was able to capture her steady, almost unblinking gaze with my long zoom lens.

 

I was careful not to intrude onto her space.

 

 

Click & Listen - Annbjørg Lien and the amazing Hardanger fiddle,

expanding from her Norwegian traditional roots to incorporate Middle

Eastern, Irish, and electronic influences.

 

For anyone interested in modern nordic folk music, this site offers a good

introduction, and the chance to hear some beautiful tunes.

 

___________________________________________________

 

These sculptures always inspire a deep contemplative melancholy

in me as they stare out to sea looking for and remembering

'Another Place'. Passive resistance to the ebb and flow of the tides,

but unblinking in their constancy ...

   

 

These 'red-orange' photos are probably easiest viewed as the set slideshow.

.

A woman looks out from a crowded BTS Skytrain at the Siam station in Bangkok, Thailand.

 

I was drawn by the way she carried herself and looked directly at the camera in contrast to the downcast faces of the men on either side of her.

Yup folks, under the radar nose of all versions of the F-35 is an integrated IR eye & laser designator. It's called the Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) and according to Lockheed Martin, give "Situational awareness and allows aircrews to identify areas of interest, perform reconnaissance and precisely deliver laser and GPS-guided weapons." There is however an advanced version in the works that is according to Lockheed Martin have, "A wide range of enhancements and upgrades, including short-wave infrared, high-definition television, an infrared marker and improved image detector resolution. These enhancements increase F-35 pilots’ recognition and detection ranges, enabling greater overall targeting performance."

 

Otherwise, happy to share this F-35A photo (more up at flic.kr/s/aHsm7xqhZe including the F-35A actually flying at other airshows) from Arctic Thunder 2018 (album: flic.kr/s/aHsmnHLymL ). Honour to spend a few minutes with one of the pilots, Beo Wolfe - who transitioned from the F-22 to the F-35A between quantity of bases & more options to go air-to-ground. Please enjoy this photo responsibly...

 

PHOTO CREDIT: Joe A. Kunzler Photo, AvgeekJoe Productions, growlernoise-AT-gmail-DOT-com

She never tires of the birds. Unblinking, all day long.

There's nothing Brian likes more than buzzing happily around and pooing pollution out of his little puckered orifice. When not doing this he enjoys destroying Imperial scum.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ40

 

The deer's head,

she thinks, is hieroglyphic,

eyes of wet ink, unblinking.

- from "Deer, 6:00 AM" by Sarah Getty

Bring it on.

 

Bring on the breathless TV weather drones. Bring on the frantic milk-and-toilet-paper shoppers. Bring on the desperate homeowners fighting for the last snow shovel, stick of firewood or bag of ice melt at the hardware store. Bring on the school-closing second-guessing. Bring on the endless chorus that "no one" in Washington knows how to drive.

 

Bring it on.

 

Bring on the snow.

 

Silence, if only briefly, the honking and the squealing and the rubber-on-asphalt moan that is our daily soundtrack. Force us to hear the hush of falling snowflakes, an almost imperceptible sound, like two hands being rubbed together.

 

Throw a thick white blanket over all our human imperfections: our cracked sidewalks, our crooked shingles, our dented cars, our stinky dumpsters, our towering billboards, our trash-strewed riverbanks, our ugly strip malls, our mute and unblinking bollards.

 

Whiten all our window ledges.

 

Frost our gardens and our hedges.

 

Obscure all the city's edges

 

With your powder so sublime.

 

Inspire in us a primal longing for food and shelter. Engender in some long-suppressed strand of our DNA a nervousness that drives us to the market to hunt and gather. Convince us that a few talismans -- a gallon of milk, a bag of Bugles, a roll of toilet paper -- will appease the spirits, will help us survive the storm.

 

Let us succumb to our primitive urges.

 

Gather our shamans -- Toppershutt, Bobryan, Suepalka -- and make them chant and fall into a trance and summon forth the magic SuperDoppler.

 

There! On the flickering screen! It's a bird's-eye view of our village, etched with lines of barometric pressure and wind chill temperatures, the squiggly portents of our future, as reliable as the goat intestines our augurs once spilled.

 

Remind us of Nature.

 

Remind us that Nature isn't our creation; we're Nature's, subject to its immutable rules, occasional victims of its nonchalant shrug. Remind us that Nature doesn't care if we're inconvenienced by winter, any more than a tree cares when we cut ourselves shaving or a stone that we sat on our cellphone.

 

Slow us down. Make us decide what's really important -- what trip, what task, what so-called necessity. Challenge us to find new ways to reach the nearest store, ways that don't involve driving the paltry three-quarters of a mile.

 

Compel us to pull on socks and lace up boots, to bundle up and sally forth. Make us lean into the wind and hike, our footprints leaving temporary traces of our passage (for are they not a metaphor for our very lives?).

 

Encourage us to see the world anew, to notice how the fresh white mantle both blurs and transforms all that it covers: parked cars turned into lumpy hillocks, curbs turned into mere suggestions of the granite underneath.

 

Force us into close proximity with our families (without wringing one another's necks).

 

When the power goes out, challenge us to somehow entertain ourselves (without wringing one another's necks).

 

Shush the whiners who can't recognize that a snowstorm is a gift. Quiet those who would have us power through the day as if it were like any other. Shut the traps of people who believe a day off school for a kid is the end of the world. Silence those who are ticked that they're "essential personnel" -- or that they're not.

 

Allow us just a few hours of communion: with the huddled masses in the checkout line, with all the people shoveling off their stoops, with Nature itself.

 

So bring it on.

 

Bring on the snow.

 

Ice, however, we could do without. And sleet. We don't want any of that. Ditto freezing rain.

The City Hall of Toronto, Ontario, Canada is one of the most distinctive landmarks of the city. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, Seppo Valjus), landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965; its modernist architecture still impresses today. It was built to replace Old City Hall which was built in 1899.

 

From the air, the building is seen as a giant unblinking eye, thus the building's original nickname of "The Eye of Government".

 

When finished, the building caused a storm of controversy among many people, who felt that it was extremely futuristic, too futuristic for the city. Even 40 years later, it still appears very modern.

 

In front of the main structure is Nathan Phillips Square, a public space containing a fountain/skating rink.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_City_Hall

 

Done in AI, Finalized in Photoshop

 

From the Twilight Heir to the Amethyst Sovereign — their reign spans eternity.

 

Regal beyond compare, Empress Seralyth is the eternal heart of the Celestial Abyss. Her towering crown and black-gold armor, inlaid with brilliant amethyst gemstones, speak of a reign carved in both majesty and fear. Encircled by a blazing runic halo, she radiates the unshakable authority of a ruler who has endured centuries of war and intrigue. Her gaze burns like molten suns, unblinking and absolute, and her mere presence bends entire kingdoms to their knees. Seralyth is more than a queen — she is the axis upon which empires turn.

pursuing his ball, on a cliff, above a river of red hot, molton lava.

 

Nuu Nuu (aka Snoopy) is an occasional dog-sitting chore for me, and he constantly hoovers underfoot, wanting to play "ball". I turn around and find the beloved ball has fallen into the former hot tub (that has been transformed into a fish pond). Under the unblinking eye of the "comfort crane", the trembling little mini-daschund scrunches his way along the lip of the spa. It's an even scarier backwards retreat to safety (he's too long to negotiate a u-turn on that narrow pathway).

 

God thing my daughter doesn't waste her time looking at photos I post online--she'd be upset with my lenient style of caregiving. But a true hero is not measured by the size of his strength, but by

the strength of his heart.

Scary Trail

     

There's nothing Brian likes more than buzzing happily around and pooing pollution out of his little puckered orifice. When not doing this he enjoys destroying Imperial scum.

Nikon D5300 & Nikon 18-55mm lens

 

With complete confidence in her cryptic plumage providing a camouflage that blends with the forest floor, the wily Woodcock sits unblinking, still as a stone statue, knowing the casual passer-by is unlikely ever to spot her.

 

Nowadays, however, with the advent of thermal imaging, birds that are masters of camouflage like the Woodcock, Jack Snipe and Nightjar are relatively easy to find if the habitat is suitable. This particular nest was stumbled upon without the use of one of those devices simply by searching an area of woodland where the birds were known to breed.

 

Woodcock nests are often well-screened beneath vegetation or surrounded by a latticework of twigs as was the case here, helping the bird to merge with its surroundings. Unfortunately, this isn't ideal for unobstructed photographs of the bird. It would have been possible in this case to remove the offending fallen branches and twigs easily enough though to do so would have exposed the bird and rendered it more conspicuous without these aids to camouflage it. In any event, the resulting photographs would have looked unnaturally 'perfect'.

 

In the 1920s the most controversial topic in ornithology was whether or not the Woodcock carried her chicks. That controversy continues. There are those who claim to have witnessed it and those who don't believe it happens. I lack sufficient knowledge of the bird to express an opinion either way. However, a salutary tale concerning expressing opinions on this particular topic is worth repeating.

 

Harry Mortimer Batten was a popular natural history writer who in the late 1920s sought to prove that the Woodcock carried her chicks. Such was the interest in ornithological circles, proof of such an event would enhance the reputation of anyone able to provide it.

 

Poltalloch Estate in Mid-Argyll enjoyed its heyday in that era with visitors like Peter Scott and the aviator Charles Lindbergh coming to shoot game birds and wildfowl there. In those bygone days the estate employed thirteen gamekeepers and Batten decided that if he was to see the Woodcock carry her chicks, Poltalloch Estate was as good (and as prestigious) a place as any. He enlisted the help of the head keeper Jack Wills and over the course of several days, together they combed through all the likely woods without any success. Batten then returned to London and to his writing,

 

Several weeks later an article by Batten appeared in the Shooting Times in which he stated that while staying at Poltalloch Estate he had witnessed a Woodcock carrying her chicks. Now Batten might have 'got away' with the lie had he not mentioned he was in the company of the head keeper Jack Wills, who, he claimed, also witnessed it. Here Batten made two mistakes. First, he ought to have been aware that most gamekeepers were avid readers of the Shooting Times and Jack Wills was no exception. Second, mentioning the keeper by name to substantiate his claim. The keeper was incensed. Not only was he being involved as a 'witness' but it was his personal belief that the Woodcock did NOT carry her chicks. He sent an immediate disclaimer to that effect to the Shooting Times which promptly published it in their next edition.

 

Unlike today, when politicians and other prominent people lie, very often without apparent shame or any consequences, this was an era when a gentleman's word was his bond. Far from cementing Batten's reputation as a naturalist, the gamekeeper's article destroyed any credibility Batten's writings had and thereafter no publisher would have his work. He was finished in this country and fled to New Zealand where he resumed his writing career, judging correctly he was sufficiently far away for his tarnished reputation not to have followed him.

 

How things have changed since those days. . . .

   

"Some derisively called her a man-eater. But they each knew it was love. Her unblinking stare awaited the touch of his tears on the fringe of seductively curled lashes that framed cocoa soft receptors. With each life giving drop one orb fluttered closed with a thigmonastic whoosh and another winked open. He could neither stay nor leave, compelled as he was by the grip of his attraction. But as each sad plop was squeezed from his heart by the vice of her insatiable longing he grew measurably smaller as she loomed larger in their terrible struggle for solace and possession. Finally, when there was nothing more to give, nothing more to receive, they lay down their heads, each on a sun-dappled pillow placed side by side, and died."

Kathleen Fonseca

♫ ♪ ♫

 

More hooded silliness!

 

Now finding some of my pics being used on websites including one on what appears to be a rent boy site. And the person I rumbled posting others' images for their 52 weeks? Still doing it.

 

Gotta love t'internet

 

Facebook - 500px

unblinking ...

Among my first experiments in watercolour illustrations for poems...

 

WOODLAND DEARTH

 

Others may range widely,

But I shall stay at home,

And sleep behind the screen

Of this holly. None

Shall see me by the day.

 

And in the lean year,

When the quiver-nosed

Rodents dwindle, I shall

Pluck the last of them

From their haunts:

 

Under that beech, they must

Expose themselves

To steal the mast; this oak

Hides squirrels I have

Watched all week,

 

The litter of those leaves

Heaves at night,

I snatch black moles

Out of their element,

Squealing, almost blind.

 

This stump hides a hole

Where rabbits, buck

And doe, have been mating.

Their kittens shall emerge,

And I am waiting.

 

The stream I drink at now

Serves rats and voles

As well; though they, too

Are scrawny, they must

Drink, or else die.

 

It is all down to patience

And a watchful eye:

I thrive by knowing every hole.

 

Others may range widely,

But I shall stay at home.

 

Source material: Species of owl which subsist on rodents in tundra or moorland are compelled to wander in years of dearth, but woodland species such as the Tawny Owl, Strix aluco, are entirely sedentary. They rely on an intimate knowledge of the geography of their woodland, which enables them to subsist on the few remaining rodents in the area. It is necessary for Tawny Owls to do this, because it is much more difficult to hunt in a woodland habitat than in the more open, and less variable, moorland and tundra habitats, and thus “local” knowledge is a key to survival. See John Sparks and Tony Soper, Owls: Their Natural and Unnatural History, p. 92.

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2004.

 

NIGHT IN THE CLEFT

 

It was pitch darkness for him, climbing the pylon hide

Beside the cleft tree where she nested; he clambered

Up the rungs by touch, blackness pounding his rods and cones.

 

She saw him easily, when all his sense was dulled;

Her muffled wings did not beat, but swept her

Soundless from the cleft; he was fixed

In the spherical lenses of her eyes, and she inserted

 

One claw in his gaping pupil. Feathers

Flurried around his head like dizziness

As he slipped from the rungs. Her way

Of saying: “Touch not my little ones.”

 

*

 

He has her in a picture, one wing upturned

As she clambers through the cleft, her head

Looks in his direction, two pinpoints of flash

In her wide, unblinking orbs. Her left leg

Ends in a talon, hooked for eye-taking.

 

Her iris has no time to close.

She is blinded

Awhile, by his light.

 

Source material: In 1937, the wildlife photographer Eric Hosking was blinded in one eye by a female Tawny Owl whilst he was climbing the ladder of a pylon hide adjacent to the tree in which she was nesting. Hosking himself observed, “I attach no blame whatever to the owl who thought her young were threatened and was prepared to defend them.” At the time, there were no antibiotics available to treat the resulting opthalmia, and Hosking’s eye was later removed. “After all,” Hosking observed, only one eye is used when taking photographs.” A picture of the owl in question may be seen in his Eric Hosking’s Birds: Fifty Years of Photographing Wildlife, London, 1979, p. 26. A pylon hide is a wooden structure erected near to a tree in which birds are nesting, which allows the photographer to come relatively close to the birds without causing so much disturbance as to cause them to desert the nest. For a detailed discussion of owls’ superior night-time vision, see John Sparks and Tony Soper, Owls: Their Natural and Unnatural History, pp. 172ff.

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2004.

Your eyes

Give nothing away

They just stare

Unblinking

While

You are thinking

Your eyes

Give nothing away.

 

Fred 1994

 

better view

 

When the black dog comes scratching

at the back door

it is not pink-gummed wagging like the others

or rheumy-eyed and faithful hoping to come inside.

It circles the cottage

snuffling in the shadows,

tail erect in the expectation of some scrap,

a morsel for its appetite

never satisfied

and cocks its leg on the front porch

and sits.

Still. Sits still

and waits without panting.

 

It doesn’t have a collar

to chain it up

beside a rusty forty-four under a box tree

away from the house

where its barking can’t be heard

at night, and on and on,

too far away to be silenced

by word or whistle.

It waits. Patiently

knowing it will feed eventually

and can’t be ignored forever,

unblinking and yellow-eyed

outside the cobwebbed windows of the mind.

 

'Depressed' From "Shearing at Coonong". by Peter Hansen

Models: Myself and the hubby, Malcolm.

 

Young in New Orleans

Charles Bukowski

 

starving there, sitting around the bars,

 

and at night walking the streets for hours,

 

the moonlight always seemed fake

 

to me, mabye it was,

 

and in the French Quarter I watched

 

the horses and buggies going by,

 

everybody sitting high in the open

 

carriages, the black driver, and in

 

back the man and the woman,

 

usually young and always white.

 

and I was always white.

 

and hardly charmed by the

 

world.

 

New Orleans was a place to

 

hide.

 

I could piss away my life,

 

unmolested.

 

except for the rats.

 

the rats in my small dark room

 

very much resented sharing it

 

with me.

 

they were large and fearless

 

and stared at me with eyes

 

that spoke

 

an unblinking

 

death.

 

women were beyond me.

 

they saw something

 

depraved.

 

there was one waitress

 

a little older than

 

I, she rather smiled,

 

lingered when she

 

brought my

 

coffee.

 

that was plenty for

 

me, that was

 

enough.

 

there was something about

 

that city, though:

 

it didn't let me feel guilty

 

that I had no feeling for the

 

things so many others

 

needed.

 

it let me alone.

 

sitting up in my bed

 

the lights out,

 

hearing the outside

 

sounds,

 

lifting my cheap

 

bottle of wine,

 

letting the warmth of

 

the grape

 

enter

 

]me

 

as I heard the rats

 

moving about the

 

room,

 

I preferred them

 

to

 

humans.

 

being lost,

 

being crazy mabye

 

is not so bad

 

if you can be

 

that way:

 

undisturbed.

 

New Orleans gave me

 

that.

 

nobody ever called

 

my name.

 

no telephone,

 

no car,

 

no job,

 

no anything.

 

me and the

 

rats

 

and my youth,

 

one time,

 

that time

 

I knew

 

even through the

 

nothingness,

 

it was a

 

celebration

 

of something not to

 

do

 

but only

 

know.

Done in Ai, Finalized in Photoshop

 

Seated upon a throne hewn from black stone and the bones of vanquished kings, the alien queen rules in absolute silence. Her armor, alive with intricate filigree and jagged edges, mirrors the twisted architecture of her hall. Crimson embers glow from her eyes and crown, casting threads of bloodlight across the mist that swirls at her feet. Every shadow bends to her will, and every soul trembles beneath her unblinking gaze.

Unblinking, watching book lovers come and go.

"Silent and still, Daedalus gazes into the abyss, its cyclopean eye capturing the cosmic opera, unblinking like the eternal stars it contemplates." 🎭️

  

Check out my page on Rebrickable.com for instructions, and parts used in my builds (Link in bio)

Patita Pavana transformations&impressions

 

SALABEGA

Salabega (1607/1608 – ?; Odia: ସାଲବେଗ) an Odia religious poet of India in the early 17th century, was refused entrance into the temple of Jagannath due to his Muslim birth (Wikipedia). "Muslim-born Salabeg heard from his mother about the glories of Lord Jagannath, the deliverer of all fallen souls. Thus a tremendous desire to see Jagannath awakened in Salabeg’s heart. With a great desire to see the Lord, he arrived in Jagannath Puri, but was not allowed to enter the temple. Out of grief, he lay down in front of the main entrance of the temple and began to cry. His tears of separation from the Lord attracted Jagannath, who came from the main altar and appeared at the main gate of the temple to please his devotee." source: gopaljiu.org/excerpts/kk_13_patita-pavana_pp_6-9.pdf

 

MAHARAJA RAMACHANDRA DEV II (1727-1736)

The deity of Patita Pavana Jagannath was installed just behind the Singha-Dwara of the temple so that Raja Ramachandra Deva II could have his darsana (Orissa-tourism-portal).

 

DEVDUTT PATTANAIK

about the Hindu ritual of Darshan, in TED-talks: "So, when you go to the temple, all you seek is an audience with God. You want to see God. And you want God to see you, and hence the gods have very large eyes, large unblinking eyes, sometimes made of silver, so they look at you. Because you don't know whether you're right or wrong, and so all you seek is divine empathy. " source: www.ted.com/talks/devdutt_pattanaik/

 

MAHATMA GANDHI

“Up till now, I was also an opponent of temple-entry by Hari-jans but my inner voice today, all of a sudden, spoke to me that, unless the so-called untouchables are given the right of having darshan of patita-pavana Bhagavan in temples, Hinduism is doomed.” Gandhi (Mahatma), Collected works, 1973; Tom 55 p. 267;

For a few tense moments Mohruin and the Slaaneshi Marine circled each other, sizing up their opponent. Without warning, the augmented human lunged. Combat knife met venom blade, sparks skittering as Mohruin parried wildly. This mon keigh was fast. He hadn't been expecting that. Blows rained down upon him as the astartes set to work with savage glee. It was all he could do to avoid being torn asunder by the ferocious assault. Disengaging for a split second he keyed the command for his drug dispenser. Hypex flooded his circulatory system, wrenching him into a state of hyper-consciousness. The sound of his accelerated breathing assaulted his senses. The colours of his surroundings stung his unblinking eyes. Nerves searing with the speed of their reaction he set about his counter-attack. Strikes rang out like church bells to his enhanced senses, chunks of ceramite exploding where he outmanouvered his foe. His movements were ragged, twitchy...but fast. Blindingly fast. Subconsciously he found himself subtly manipulating the anti-gravity generators in his jetpack, jerking clear of snarling counter-strikes. Veering away from a vertical strike, he clasped his sword in both shaking hands and violently activated his thrusters to lend momentum to his sideways strike.

 

He staggered aside as the astartes' torso slid apart. The sound of his rapid heartbeat thundered in his ears, red dots clouded his vision where blood vessels had burst. Fingers twitching erratically, he keyed the drug dispenser to release the anti-venom into his bloodstream. Twitches and tics calming, he paused for a second to recover his breath. "Sweet dreaming Lileath that was exhilarating", he muttered in awe.

This summer I was at a festival, taking to a friend in a field when he turned his head and spit and this is the amazed/outraged/startled/incensed look Audrey gave him, for what seemed like several minutes, unblinking, unwavering, like she had never been so shocked and horrified in all her life. It was only later we found this is her response to most any mouth noise and not directly related to her extreme distaste for terrible manners.