View allAll Photos Tagged Understanding
This picture was taken at open air exhibition dedicated to Blocade of Leningrad during WWII. Blocade lasted for 872 days, over 600.000 died of starvation. This man took part in the exhibition, he wears uniform of those days. I think we can see strong emotions on his face.
Just as bridges provide safe passage over rivers, gorges or other depressions, jetties built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers help ocean-going vessels move between coastal rivers and the Pacific Ocean. Simply put, jetties are rock fingers which stretch out into the ocean from the beaches, essentially extending the mouths of the rivers well into the sea.
Jetties were never intended to be used for recreational purposes. Powerful waves remove or shift even the largest boulders from the jetties, while underwater currents penetrate the structure, and remove smaller rocks and sand from inside the jetty, creating unique dangers. Some dangers are apparent, such as slippery rock surfaces and strong waves overtopping the structure. Other dangers are hidden and include open crevasses, sinkholes and caverns that are caused by the ocean eroding away stones and sand just below the surface of the jetty.
Learn more about coastal jetties at www.nwp.usace.army.mil/pa/docs/pubs/jetty.pdf
(News and useful links found at bottom of description)
Read the inspiring MayDay Rally speeches! #1 by Howard Woodhouse
I’ve come here today with several questions:
What is a University?
What are some of the defining characteristics of a public university like the U of S?
Shouldn’t a university provide universal, or rather inclusive, forms of understanding to those who come to learn?
Hence, a place where there is a balanced relationship between teaching, learning, scholarship, and research?
Certainly, these have until recently been defining characteristics of public universities.
So, in light of these, let us imagine a family from Saskatchewan who wish to send their daughter to the U of S.
There are two immediate questions they have to ask: first, can we afford to send our daughter to the U of S; second, how much choice will she have in her undergraduate programs?
To the first question, the family will soon learn that Saskatchewan universities have the second highest fees in the country, according to Stats Canada.
To the second question, the daughter will soon learn that among the programs under threat by TransformUS are those in languages, mathematics, philosophy, religion and culture, art, music, and drama.
In other words, a liberal arts education may well be expunged together with the critical thought which it develops.
As a result, the sons and daughters of the people of Saskatchewan who pay for the U of S are being robbed of a pillar of university education.
And what, one might ask do senior administrators have to say about this state of affairs?
Bearing in mind that their numbers have increased by more than 100% since the year 2000 and that their salaries amount to $4.74 million?
In December, the president offered some encouragement by stating that “the university missions are teaching and learning and discovery, and any dollar spent on administration is a dollar that isn’t going to the core missions” (SP, 10 December 2013, p.A2).
This is a frank admission that senior administrators do not carry out any of the core functions of the U of S.
However, at the GAA last month the president stated that she did not know what educational quality means and was mistrustful of its use.
This is another frank admission, one that reveals either an ignorance of pedagogical practice or a dismissal of its importance.
Considerable research shows that educational quality requires classes small enough that dialogue can take place among faculty and students, enabling critical thought in which all knowledge claims can be questioned.
But, of course, the practice of questioning knowledge claims by faculty and students has its dangers for those in power.
When questioned by a student at the same meeting, the president ruled out not only a debate about TransformUS but also any further discussion of the alleged deficit in the university budget.
Is this a trend we can expect from senior administrators, namely the abandonment of reason in the one place in society where one should expect rationality to be sovereign?
Today’s rally demonstrates that some of us – students, faculty, staff, alumni, members of the public – are aware of the need to defend the core values of the university before they are frittered away for a few pieces of gold.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some News Articles and videos a regarding the Rally and issues that lead to it:
Rally held opposing TransformUS plan of action (Video and Article on Global News):
globalnews.ca/news/1305395/rally-held-opposing-university...
As rally takes place on campus, NDP raises concerns about University of Saskatchewan's overhaul plan (Video on The StarPhoenix)
www.thestarphoenix.com/news/rally+takes+place+campus+rais...
U of S should face elephant in room (The StarPhoenix): www.thestarphoenix.com/should+face+elephant+room/9794892/...
U of S upheaval unwarranted (The StarPhoenix): www.thestarphoenix.com/upheaval+unwarranted/9799333/story...
Campus May Day rally protests looming cuts (The StarPhoenix):
www.thestarphoenix.com/business/Campus+rally+protests+loo...
TransformUS plan to cut $25.3M from University of Saskatchewan spending (The StarPhoenix): www.thestarphoenix.com/news/saskatoon/TransformUS+plan+mi...
Campus rally pans U of S cuts(CKOM):
ckom.com/story/campus-rally-pans-u-s-cuts/330558
Free Academia at USask:
freeacademiausask.blogspot.ca/
U of S cost-cutting a ‘disaster,’ Killam Prize winner says (The StarPhoenix):
www.thestarphoenix.com/entertainment/cost+cutting+disaste...
U of S distanced from noble ideal (The StarPhoenix):
www.thestarphoenix.com/touch/story.html?id=9424521
University of Saskatchewan Faculty Association VOX (USFA):
Nestlé Research Center studies behaviour to understand drivers of pleasure and healthy food choices.
© DM Parody 2019 (www.dotcom.gi/photos) These images are protected by copyright. You CANNOT copy or republish any of these photos without written consent of the photographer even if you retain the watermark (if present) and/or credit the photographer. You cannot use on any media including social media either. You CAN post a link to the page where the image appears without reference to the photographer only if not promoting a commercial product or service. Copyright infringements will be followed up, legally if necessary. Thank you for your understanding.
The Ajanta Caves (Ajiṇṭhā leni; Marathi: अजिंठा लेणी) in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are about 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 or 650 CE. The caves include paintings and sculptures described by the government Archaeological Survey of India as "the finest surviving examples of Indian art, particularly painting", which are masterpieces of Buddhist religious art, with figures of the Buddha and depictions of the Jataka tales. The caves were built in two phases starting around the 2nd century BCE, with the second group of caves built around 400–650 CE according to older accounts, or all in a brief period of 460 to 480 according to the recent proposals of Walter M. Spink. The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India, and since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The caves are located in the Indian state of Maharashtra, near Jalgaon and just outside the village of Ajinṭhā 20°31′56″N 75°44′44″E), about 59 kilometres from Jalgaon railway station on the Delhi – Mumbai line and Howrah-Nagpur-Mumbai line of the Central Railway zone, and 104 kilometres from the city of Aurangabad. They are 100 kilometres from the Ellora Caves, which contain Hindu and Jain temples as well as Buddhist caves, the last dating from a period similar to Ajanta. The Ajanta caves are cut into the side of a cliff that is on the south side of a U-shaped gorge on the small river Waghur, and although they are now along and above a modern pathway running across the cliff they were originally reached by individual stairs or ladders from the side of the river 35 to 110 feet below.
The area was previously heavily forested, and after the site ceased to be used the caves were covered by jungle until accidentally rediscovered in 1819 by a British officer on a hunting party. They are Buddhist monastic buildings, apparently representing a number of distinct "monasteries" or colleges. The caves are numbered 1 to 28 according to their place along the path, beginning at the entrance. Several are unfinished and some barely begun and others are small shrines, included in the traditional numbering as e.g. "9A"; "Cave 15A" was still hidden under rubble when the numbering was done. Further round the gorge are a number of waterfalls, which when the river is high are audible from outside the caves.
The caves form the largest corpus of early Indian wall-painting; other survivals from the area of modern India are very few, though they are related to 5th-century paintings at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. The elaborate architectural carving in many caves is also very rare, and the style of the many figure sculptures is highly local, found only at a few nearby contemporary sites, although the Ajanta tradition can be related to the later Hindu Ellora Caves and other sites.
HISTORY
Like the other ancient Buddhist monasteries, Ajanta had a large emphasis on teaching, and was divided into several different caves for living, education and worship, under a central direction. Monks were probably assigned to specific caves for living. The layout reflects this organizational structure, with most of the caves only connected through the exterior. The 7th-century travelling Chinese scholar Xuanzang informs us that Dignaga, a celebrated Buddhist philosopher and controversialist, author of well-known books on logic, lived at Ajanta in the 5th century. In its prime the settlement would have accommodated several hundred teachers and pupils. Many monks who had finished their first training may have returned to Ajanta during the monsoon season from an itinerant lifestyle.
The caves are generally agreed to have been made in two distinct periods, separated by several centuries.
CAVES OF THE FIRST (SATAVAHANA) PERIOD
The earliest group of caves consists of caves 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15A. According to Walter Spink, they were made during the period 100 BCE to 100 CE, probably under the patronage of the Satavahana dynasty (230 BCE – c. 220 CE) who ruled the region. Other datings prefer the period 300 BCE to 100 BCE, though the grouping of the earlier caves is generally agreed. More early caves may have vanished through later excavations. Of these, caves 9 and 10 are stupa halls of chaitya-griha form, and caves 12, 13, and 15A are vihāras (see the architecture section below for descriptions of these types). The first phase is still often called the Hinayāna phase, as it originated when, using traditional terminology, the Hinayāna or Lesser Vehicle tradition of Buddhism was dominant, when the Buddha was revered symbolically. However the use of the term Hinayana for this period of Buddhism is now deprecated by historians; equally the caves of the second period are now mostly dated too early to be properly called Mahayana, and do not yet show the full expanded cast of supernatural beings characteristic of that phase of Buddhist art. The first Satavahana period caves lacked figurative sculpture, emphasizing the stupa instead, and in the caves of the second period the overwhelming majority of images represent the Buddha alone, or narrative scenes of his lives.
Spink believes that some time after the Satavahana period caves were made the site was abandoned for a considerable period until the mid-5th century, probably because the region had turned mainly Hindu
CAVES OF THE LATER OR VAKATAKA PERIOD
The second phase began in the 5th century. For a long time it was thought that the later caves were made over a long period from the 4th to the 7th centuries CE, but in recent decades a series of studies by the leading expert on the caves, Walter M. Spink, have argued that most of the work took place over the very brief period from 460 to 480 CE, during the reign of Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka dynasty. This view has been criticized by some scholars, but is now broadly accepted by most authors of general books on Indian art, for example Huntington and Harle.
The second phase is still often called the Mahāyāna or Greater Vehicle phase, but scholars now tend to avoid this nomenclature because of the problems that have surfaced regarding our understanding of Mahāyāna.
Some 20 cave temples were simultaneously created, for the most part viharas with a sanctuary at the back. The most elaborate caves were produced in this period, which included some "modernization" of earlier caves. Spink claims that it is possible to establish dating for this period with a very high level of precision; a fuller account of his chronology is given below. Although debate continues, Spink's ideas are increasingly widely accepted, at least in their broad conclusions. The Archaeological Survey of India website still presents the traditional dating: "The second phase of paintings started around 5th – 6th centuries A.D. and continued for the next two centuries". Caves of the second period are 1–8, 11, 14–29, some possibly extensions of earlier caves. Caves 19, 26, and 29 are chaitya-grihas, the rest viharas.
According to Spink, the Ajanta Caves appear to have been abandoned by wealthy patrons shortly after the fall of Harishena, in about 480 CE. They were then gradually abandoned and forgotten. During the intervening centuries, the jungle grew back and the caves were hidden, unvisited and undisturbed, although the local population were aware of at least some of them.
REDISCOVERY
On 28 April 1819, a British officer for the Madras Presidency, John Smith, of the 28th Cavalry, while hunting tiger, accidentally discovered the entrance to Cave No. 10 deep within the tangled undergrowth. There were local people already using the caves for prayers with a small fire, when he arrived. Exploring that first cave, long since a home to nothing more than birds and bats and a lair for other larger animals, Captain Smith vandalized the wall by scratching his name and the date, April 1819. Since he stood on a five-foot high pile of rubble collected over the years, the inscription is well above the eye-level gaze of an adult today. A paper on the caves by William Erskine was read to the Bombay Literary Society in 1822. Within a few decades, the caves became famous for their exotic setting, impressive architecture, and above all their exceptional, all but unique paintings. A number of large projects to copy the paintings were made in the century after rediscovery, covered below. In 1848 the Royal Asiatic Society established the "Bombay Cave Temple Commission" to clear, tidy and record the most important rock-cut sites in the Bombay Presidency, with John Wilson, as president. In 1861 this became the nucleus of the new Archaeological Survey of India. Until the Nizam of Hyderabad built the modern path between the caves, among other efforts to make the site easy to visit, a trip to Ajanta was a considerable adventure, and contemporary accounts dwell with relish on the dangers from falls off narrow ledges, animals and the Bhil people, who were armed with bows and arrows and had a fearsome reputation.
Today, fairly easily combined with Ellora in a single trip, the caves are the most popular tourist destination in Mahrashtra, and are often crowded at holiday times, increasing the threat to the caves, especially the paintings. In 2012, the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation announced plans to add to the ASI visitor centre at the entrance complete replicas of caves 1, 2, 16 & 17 to reduce crowding in the originals, and enable visitors to receive a better visual idea of the paintings, which are dimly-lit and hard to read in the caves. Figures for the year to March 2010 showed a total of 390,000 visitors to the site, divided into 362,000 domestic and 27,000 foreign. The trends over the previous few years show a considerable growth in domestic visitors, but a decline in foreign ones; the year to 2010 was the first in which foreign visitors to Ellora exceeded those to Ajanta.
PAINTINGS
Mural paintings survive from both the earlier and later groups of caves. Several fragments of murals preserved from the earlier caves (Caves 9 and 11) are effectively unique survivals of court-led painting in India from this period, and "show that by Sātavāhana times, if not earlier, the Indian painter had mastered an easy and fluent naturalistic style, dealing with large groups of people in a manner comparable to the reliefs of the Sāñcī toraņa crossbars".
Four of the later caves have large and relatively well-preserved mural paintings which "have come to represent Indian mural painting to the non-specialist", and fall into two stylistic groups, with the most famous in Caves 16 and 17, and apparently later paintings in Caves 1 and 2. The latter group were thought to be a century or more later than the others, but the revised chronology proposed by Spink would place them much closer to the earlier group, perhaps contemporary with it in a more progressive style, or one reflecting a team from a different region. The paintings are in "dry fresco", painted on top of a dry plaster surface rather than into wet plaster.
All the paintings appear to be the work of painters at least as used to decorating palaces as temples, and show a familiarity with and interest in details of the life of a wealthy court. We know from literary sources that painting was widely practised and appreciated in the courts of the Gupta period. Unlike much Indian painting, compositions are not laid out in horizontal compartments like a frieze, but show large scenes spreading in all directions from a single figure or group at the centre. The ceilings are also painted with sophisticated and elaborate decorative motifs, many derived from sculpture. The paintings in cave 1, which according to Spink was commissioned by Harisena himself, concentrate on those Jataka tales which show previous lives of the Buddha as a king, rather than as an animal or human commoner, and so show settings from contemporary palace life.
In general the later caves seem to have been painted on finished areas as excavating work continued elsewhere in the cave, as shown in caves 2 and 16 in particular. According to Spink's account of the chronology of the caves, the abandonment of work in 478 after a brief busy period accounts for the absence of painting in caves such as 4 and 17, the later being plastered in preparation for paintings that were never done.
COPIES
The paintings have deteriorated significantly since they were rediscovered, and a number of 19th-century copies and drawings are important for a complete understanding of the works. However, the earliest projects to copy the paintings were plagued by bad fortune. In 1846, Major Robert Gill, an Army officer from Madras presidency and a painter, was appointed by the Royal Asiatic Society to replicate the frescoes on the cave walls to exhibit these paintings in England. Gill worked on his painting at the site from 1844 to 1863 (though he continued to be based there until his death in 1875, writing books and photographing) and made 27 copies of large sections of murals, but all but four were destroyed in a fire at the Crystal Palace in London in 1866, where they were on display.
Another attempt was made in 1872 when the Bombay Presidency commissioned John Griffiths, then principal of the Bombay School of Art, to work with his students to make new copies, again for shipping to England. They worked on this for thirteen years and some 300 canvases were produced, many of which were displayed at the Imperial Institute on Exhibition Road in London, one of the forerunners of the Victoria and Albert Museum. But in 1885 another fire destroyed over a hundred paintings that were in storage. The V&A still has 166 paintings surviving from both sets, though none have been on permanent display since 1955. The largest are some 3 × 6 metres. A conservation project was undertaken on about half of them in 2006, also involving the University of Northumbria. Griffith and his students had unfortunately painted many of the paintings with "cheap varnish" in order to make them easier to see, which has added to the deterioration of the originals, as has, according to Spink and others, recent cleaning by the ASI.
A further set of copies were made between 1909 and 1911 by Christiana Herringham (Lady Herringham) and a group of students from the Calcutta School of Art that included the future Indian Modernist painter Nandalal Bose. The copies were published in full colour as the first publication of London's fledgling India Society. More than the earlier copies, these aimed to fill in holes and damage to recreate the original condition rather than record the state of the paintings as she was seeing them. According to one writer, unlike the paintings created by her predecessors Griffiths and Gill, whose copies were influenced by British Victorian styles of painting, those of the Herringham expedition preferred an 'Indian Renascence' aesthetic of the type pioneered by Abanindranath Tagore.
Early photographic surveys were made by Robert Gill, who learnt to use a camera from about 1856, and whose photos, including some using stereoscopy, were used in books by him and Fergusson (many are available online from the British Library), then Victor Goloubew in 1911 and E.L. Vassey, who took the photos in the four volume study of the caves by Ghulam Yazdani (published 1930–1955).
ARCHITECTURE
The monasteries mostly consist of vihara halls for prayer and living, which are typically rectangular with small square dormitory cells cut into the walls, and by the second period a shrine or sanctuary at the rear centred on a large statue of the Buddha, also carved from the living rock. This change reflects the movement from Hinayana to Mahāyāna Buddhism. The other type of main hall is the narrower and higher chaitya hall with a stupa as the focus at the far end, and a narrow aisle around the walls, behind a range of pillars placed close together. Other plainer rooms were for sleeping and other activities. Some of the caves have elaborate carved entrances, some with large windows over the door to admit light. There is often a colonnaded porch or verandah, with another space inside the doors running the width of the cave.
The central square space of the interior of the viharas is defined by square columns forming a more or less square open area. Outside this are long rectangular aisles on each side, forming a kind of cloister. Along the side and rear walls are a number of small cells entered by a narrow doorway; these are roughly square, and have small niches on their back walls. Originally they had wooden doors. The centre of the rear wall has a larger shrine-room behind, containing a large Buddha statue. The viharas of the earlier period are much simpler, and lack shrines. Spink in fact places the change to a design with a shrine to the middle of the second period, with many caves being adapted to add a shrine in mid-excavation, or after the original phase.
The plan of Cave 1 shows one of the largest viharas, but is fairly typical of the later group. Many others, such as Cave 16, lack the vestibule to the shrine, which leads straight off the main hall. Cave 6 is two viharas, one above the other, connected by internal stairs, with sanctuaries on both levels.
The four completed chaitya halls are caves 9 and 10 from the early period, and caves 19 and 26 from the later period of construction. All follow the typical form found elsewhere, with high ceilings and a central "nave" leading to the stupa, which is near the back, but allows walking behind it, as walking around stupas was (and remains) a common element of Buddhist worship (pradakshina). The later two have high ribbed roofs, which reflect timber forms, and the earlier two are thought to have used actual timber ribs, which have now perished. The two later halls have a rather unusual arrangement (also found in Cave 10 at Ellora) where the stupa is fronted by a large relief sculpture of the Buddha, standing in Cave 19 and seated in Cave 26. Cave 29 is a late and very incomplete chaitya hall.
The form of columns in the work of the first period is very plain and un-embellished, with both chaitya halls using simple octagonal columns, which were painted with figures. In the second period columns were far more varied and inventive, often changing profile over their height, and with elaborate carved capitals, often spreading wide. Many columns are carved over all their surface, some fluted and others carved with decoration all over, as in cave 1.
The flood basalt rock of the cliff, part of the Deccan Traps formed by successive volcanic eruptions at the end of the Cretaceous, is layered horizontally, and somewhat variable in quality, so the excavators had to amend their plans in places, and in places there have been collapses in the intervening centuries, as with the lost portico to cave 1. Excavation began by cutting a narrow tunnel at roof level, which was expanded downwards and outwards; the half-built vihara cave 24 shows the method. Spink believes that for the first caves of the second period the excavators had to relearn skills and techniques that had been lost in the centuries since the first period, which were then transmitted to be used at later rock-cut sites in the region, such as Ellora, and the Elephanta, Bagh, Badami and Aurangabad Caves.
The caves from the first period seem to have been paid for by a number of different patrons, with several inscriptions recording the donation of particular portions of a single cave, but according to Spink the later caves were each commissioned as a complete unit by a single patron from the local rulers or their court elites. After the death of Harisena smaller donors got their chance to add small "shrinelets" between the caves or add statues to existing caves, and some two hundred of these "intrusive" additions were made in sculpture, with a further number of intrusive paintings, up to three hundred in cave 10 alone.
A grand gateway to the site, at the apex of the gorge's horsehoe between caves 15 and 16, was approached from the river, and is decorated with elephants on either side and a nāga, or protective snake deity.
ICONOGRAPHY OF THE CAVES
In the pre-Christian era, the Buddha was represented symbolically, in the form of the stupa. Thus, halls were made with stupas to venerate the Buddha. In later periods the images of the Buddha started to be made in coins, relic caskets, relief or loose sculptural forms, etc. However, it took a while for the human representation of the Buddha to appear in Buddhist art. One of the earliest evidences of the Buddha's human representations are found at Buddhist archaeological sites, such as Goli, Nagarjunakonda, and Amaravati. The monasteries of those sites were built in less durable media, such as wood, brick, and stone. As far as the genre of rock-cut architecture is concerned it took many centuries for the Buddha image to be depicted. Nobody knows for sure at which rock-cut cave site the first image of the Buddha was depicted. Current research indicates that Buddha images in a portable form, made of wood or stone, were introduced, for the first time, at Kanheri, to be followed soon at Ajanta Cave 8 (Dhavalikar, Jadhav, Spink, Singh). While the Kanheri example dates to 4th or 5th century CE, the Ajanta example has been dated to c. 462–478 CE (Spink). None of the rock-cut monasteries prior to these dates, and other than these examples, show any Buddha image although hundreds of rock-cut caves were made throughout India during the first few centuries CE. And, in those caves, it is the stupa that is the object of veneration, not the image. Images of the Buddha are not found in Buddhist sailagrhas (rock-cut complexes) until the times of the Kanheri (4th–5th century CE) and Ajanta examples (c. 462–478 CE).
The caves of the second period, now all dated to the 5th century, were typically described as "Mahayana", but do not show the features associated with later Mahayana Buddhism. Although the beginnings of Mahāyāna teachings go back to the 1st century there is little art and archaeological evidence to suggest that it became a mainstream cult for several centuries. In Mahayana it is not Gautama Buddha but the Bodhisattva who is important, including "deity" Bodhisattva like Manjushri and Tara, as well as aspects of the Buddha such as Aksobhya, and Amitabha. Except for a few Bodhisattva, these are not depicted at Ajanta, where the Buddha remains the dominant figure. Even the Bodhisattva images of Ajanta are never central objects of worship, but are always shown as attendants of the Buddha in the shrine. If a Bodhisattva is shown in isolation, as in the Astabhaya scenes, these were done in the very last years of activities at Ajanta, and are mostly 'intrusive' in nature, meaning that they were not planned by the original patrons, and were added by new donors after the original patrons had suddenly abandoned the region in the wake of Emperor Harisena's death.
The contrast between iconic and aniconic representations, that is, the stupa on one hand and the image of the Buddha on the other, is now being seen as a construct of the modern scholar rather than a reality of the past. The second phase of Ajanta shows that the stupa and image coincided together. If the entire corpus of the art of Ajanta including sculpture, iconography, architecture, epigraphy, and painting are analysed afresh it will become clear that there was no duality between the symbolic and human forms of the Buddha, as far as the 5th-century phase of Ajanta is concerned. That is why most current scholars tend to avoid the terms 'Hinayana' and 'Mahayana' in the context of Ajanta. They now prefer to call the second phase by the ruling dynasty, as the Vākāţaka phase.
CAVES
CAVE 1
Cave 1 was built on the eastern end of the horse-shoe shaped scarp, and is now the first cave the visitor encounters. This would when first made have been a less prominent position, right at the end of the row. According to Spink, it is one of the latest caves to have been excavated, when the best sites had been taken, and was never fully inaugurated for worship by the dedication of the Buddha image in the central shrine. This is shown by the absence of sooty deposits from butter lamps on the base of the shrine image, and the lack of damage to the paintings that would have been happened if the garland-hooks around the shrine had been in use for any period of time. Although there is no epigraphic evidence, Spink believes that the Vākāţaka Emperor Harishena was the benefactor of the work, and this is reflected in the emphasis on imagery of royalty in the cave, with those Jakata tales being selected that tell of those previous lives of the Buddha in which he was royal.
The cliff has a more steep slope here than at other caves, so to achieve a tall grand facade it was necessary to cut far back into the slope, giving a large courtyard in front of the facade. There was originally a columned portico in front of the present facade, which can be seen "half-intact in the 1880s" in pictures of the site, but this fell down completely and the remains, despite containing fine carving, were carelessly thrown down the slope into the river, from where they have been lost, presumably carried away in monsoon torrents.
This cave has one of the most elaborate carved façades, with relief sculptures on entablature and ridges, and most surfaces embellished with decorative carving. There are scenes carved from the life of the Buddha as well as a number of decorative motifs. A two pillared portico, visible in the 19th-century photographs, has since perished. The cave has a front-court with cells fronted by pillared vestibules on either side. These have a high plinth level. The cave has a porch with simple cells on both ends. The absence of pillared vestibules on the ends suggest that the porch was not excavated in the latest phase of Ajanta when pillared vestibules had become a necessity and norm. Most areas of the porch were once covered with murals, of which many fragments remain, especially on the ceiling. There are three doorways: a central doorway and two side doorways. Two square windows were carved between the doorways to brighten the interiors.
Each wall of the hall inside is nearly 12 m long and 6.1 m high. Twelve pillars make a square colonnade inside supporting the ceiling, and creating spacious aisles along the walls. There is a shrine carved on the rear wall to house an impressive seated image of the Buddha, his hands being in the dharmachakrapravartana mudra. There are four cells on each of the left, rear, and the right walls, though due to rock fault there are none at the ends of the rear aisle. The walls are covered with paintings in a fair state of preservation, though the full scheme was never completed. The scenes depicted are mostly didactic, devotional, and ornamental, with scenes from the Jataka stories of the Buddha's former existences as a bodhisattva), the life of the Gautama Buddha, and those of his veneration. The two most famous individual painted images at Ajanta are the two over-life size figures of the protective bodhisattvas Padmapani and Vajrapani on either side of the entrance to the Buddha shrine on the wall of the rear aisle (see illustrations above). According to Spink, the original dating of the paintings to about 625 arose largely or entirely because James Fegusson, a 19th-century architectural historian, had decided that a scene showing an ambassador being received, with figures in Persian dress, represented a recorded embassy to Persia (from a Hindu monarch at that) around that date.
CAVE 2
Cave 2, adjacent to Cave 1, is known for the paintings that have been preserved on its walls, ceilings, and pillars. It looks similar to Cave 1 and is in a better state of preservation.
Cave 2 has a porch quite different from Cave one. Even the façade carvings seem to be different. The cave is supported by robust pillars, ornamented with designs. The front porch consists of cells supported by pillared vestibules on both ends. The cells on the previously "wasted areas" were needed to meet the greater housing requirements in later years. Porch-end cells became a trend in all later Vakataka excavations. The simple single cells on porch-ends were converted into CPVs or were planned to provide more room, symmetry, and beauty.
The paintings on the ceilings and walls of this porch have been widely published. They depict the Jataka tales that are stories of the Buddha's life in former existences as Bodhisattva. Just as the stories illustrated in cave 1 emphasize kingship, those in cave 2 show many "noble and powerful" women in prominent roles, leading to suggestions that the patron was an unknown woman. The porch's rear wall has a doorway in the center, which allows entrance to the hall. On either side of the door is a square-shaped window to brighten the interior.
The hall has four colonnades which are supporting the ceiling and surrounding a square in the center of the hall. Each arm or colonnade of the square is parallel to the respective walls of the hall, making an aisle in between. The colonnades have rock-beams above and below them. The capitals are carved and painted with various decorative themes that include ornamental, human, animal, vegetative, and semi-divine forms.
Paintings appear on almost every surface of the cave except for the floor. At various places the art work has become eroded due to decay and human interference. Therefore, many areas of the painted walls, ceilings, and pillars are fragmentary. The painted narratives of the Jataka tales are depicted only on the walls, which demanded the special attention of the devotee. They are didactic in nature, meant to inform the community about the Buddha's teachings and life through successive rebirths. Their placement on the walls required the devotee to walk through the aisles and 'read' the narratives depicted in various episodes. The narrative episodes are depicted one after another although not in a linear order. Their identification has been a core area of research since the site's rediscovery in 1819. Dieter Schlingloff's identifications have updated our knowledge on the subject.
CAVE 4
The Archeological Survey of India board outside the caves gives the following detail about cave 4: "This is the largest monastery planned on a grandiose scale but was never finished. An inscription on the pedestal of the buddha's image mentions that it was a gift from a person named Mathura and paleographically belongs to 6th century A.D. It consists of a verandah, a hypostylar hall, sanctum with an antechamber and a series of unfinished cells. The rear wall of the verandah contains the panel of Litany of Avalokiteśvara".
The sanctuary houses a colossal image of the Buddha in preaching pose flanked by bodhisattvas and celestial nymphs hovering above.
CAVES 9-10
Caves 9 and 10 are the two chaitya halls from the first period of construction, though both were also undergoing an uncompleted reworking at the end of the second period. Cave 10 was perhaps originally of the 1st century BCE, and cave 9 about a hundred years later. The small "shrinelets" called caves 9A to 9D and 10A also date from the second period, and were commissioned by individuals.
The paintings in cave 10 include some surviving from the early period, many from an incomplete programme of modernization in the second period, and a very large number of smaller late intrusive images, nearly all Buddhas and many with donor inscriptions from individuals. These mostly avoided over-painting the "official" programme and after the best positions were used up are tucked away in less prominent positions not yet painted; the total of these (including those now lost) was probably over 300, and the hands of many different artists are visible.
OTHER CAVES
Cave 3 is merely a start of an excavation; according to Spink it was begun right at the end of the final period of work and soon abandoned. Caves 5 and 6 are viharas, the latter on two floors, that were late works of which only the lower floor of cave 6 was ever finished. The upper floor of cave 6 has many private votive sculptures, and a shrine Buddha, but is otherwise unfinished. Cave 7 has a grand facade with two porticos but, perhaps because of faults in the rock, which posed problems in many caves, was never taken very deep into the cliff, and consists only of the two porticos and a shrine room with antechamber, with no central hall. Some cells were fitted in.
Cave 8 was long thought to date to the first period of construction, but Spink sees it as perhaps the earliest cave from the second period, its shrine an "afterthought". The statue may have been loose rather than carved from the living rock, as it has now vanished. The cave was painted, but only traces remain.
SPINK´S DETAILED CHRONOLOGY
Walter M. Spink has over recent decades developed a very precise and circumstantial chronology for the second period of work on the site, which unlike earlier scholars, he places entirely in the 5th century. This is based on evidence such as the inscriptions and artistic style, combined with the many uncompleted elements of the caves. He believes the earlier group of caves, which like other scholars he dates only approximately, to the period "between 100 BCE – 100 CE", were at some later point completely abandoned and remained so "for over three centuries", as the local population had turned mainly Hindu. This changed with the accession of the Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka Dynasty, who reigned from 460 to his death in 477. Harisena extended the Central Indian Vakataka Empire to include a stretch of the east coast of India; the Gupta Empire ruled northern India at the same period, and the Pallava dynasty much of the south.
According to Spink, Harisena encouraged a group of associates, including his prime minister Varahadeva and Upendragupta, the sub-king in whose territory Ajanta was, to dig out new caves, which were individually commissioned, some containing inscriptions recording the donation. This activity began in 462 but was mostly suspended in 468 because of threats from the neighbouring Asmaka kings. Work continued on only caves 1, Harisena's own commission, and 17–20, commissioned by Upendragupta. In 472 the situation was such that work was suspended completely, in a period that Spink calls "the Hiatus", which lasted until about 475, by which time the Asmakas had replaced Upendragupta as the local rulers.
Work was then resumed, but again disrupted by Harisena's death in 477, soon after which major excavation ceased, except at cave 26, which the Asmakas were sponsoring themselves. The Asmakas launched a revolt against Harisena's son, which brought about the end of the Vakataka Dynasty. In the years 478–480 major excavation by important patrons was replaced by a rash of "intrusions" – statues added to existing caves, and small shrines dotted about where there was space between them. These were commissioned by less powerful individuals, some monks, who had not previously been able to make additions to the large excavations of the rulers and courtiers. They were added to the facades, the return sides of the entrances, and to walls inside the caves. According to Spink, "After 480, not a single image was ever made again at the site", and as Hinduism again dominated the region, the site was again abandoned, this time for over a millennium.
Spink does not use "circa" in his dates, but says that "one should allow a margin of error of one year or perhaps even two in all cases".
IMPACT ON MODERN INDIAN PAINTINGS
The Ajanta paintings, or more likely the general style they come from, influenced painting in Tibet and Sri Lanka.
The rediscovery of ancient Indian paintings at Ajanta provided Indian artists examples from ancient India to follow. Nandlal Bose experimented with techniques to follow the ancient style which allowed him to develop his unique style. Abanindranath Tagore also used the Ajanta paintings for inspiration.
WIKIPEDIA
Leipziger Buchmesse 2015 / Leipzig Book Fair 2015
2015-03-14 (Saturday)
2015_038
2015#162
_Kimi_ (___) 530267 as Chii from Chobits
Thank you for any group invites which I'd be glad to accept. However, if I can't check the content of such groups ("This group is not available to you") I'd rather not add any of my photos. Thanks for your understanding.
"If you spend more time understanding your competitors than your customers, you will never come up with something unique."
Stefan Erschwendner
A series of AI-generated pictures of pixies in the forest at night in different art styles.
To be continued.
Pictures made with Midjourney.
I'm always happy to accept invites to groups as long as I can see their content. Should I see "this group is not available to you", my photos won't be made available to that group. Thanks for your understanding.
On Wednesday, October 29th, 8th graders from Harding Middle School in Cedar Rapids visited campus for a Junior Mini Medical School experience. Students learned about medical education and got to see real human plastinated specimens, visited the medical museum to learn about health and old medicine practices used at UI Hospitals and Clinics, and then engaged in an interactive session where they tested their visual-spatial skills on the laparoscopic surgical trainer, and also made their own cast.
University of Iowa Health Care is committed partners with formal and informal educators and community organization across the state to advance STEM literacy to inspire the next generation of health care professionals and build a foundation for children to understanding their own health. In FY2014, more than 13,000 school age children were engaged in hands on learning provided by 260 faculty, staff and students.
©All rights reserved © sundeepkullu.com ®™ © SunDeep ™® Bhardwaj Kullu SDBK™ FAWP™
Permission alloted to share this Photostory (As i call it..) Publically with these URL Links below in text form only on the social netwrking sites like facebook orkut only ( No Embedding or
blogging is Allowed, Thanks for your understanding ) :
www.flickr.com/photos/wittysam
www.flickr.com/photos/wittysam/show
SunDeep ™ Bhardwaj Kullu (SDBK) Fine Art World Photostories (FAWP)™ | SDBK™ FAWP | 70+Countries | 555+Places-Destinations | 6 Continents | 2222+ World Travel Photostories | Official-
sundeepkullu.com | Fine Art Photography | 5 years World Tour May 2007-till date-continued | 2 Years Himalayan Arc Landscapes 2400 Kms Himalayas | 10
years Incredible India tour 1997-2007 | Multiple years Photography of most exotic & unexplored Unforgettable Himachal Pradesh Himalayas India | Exhibitions & Fine art Gallery HCVK |
HimachalCulturalVillage.com Ethenic Cultural experience in Himalayas of India HCVK | PhotoTube.Co Fine
Art Auctions , Web Design SEO & Digital Design | Landscapes, People & Portraits | Books ( Print / Digital ) Coffee Table Books, eBooks, iBooks | Recently Explored Dozens ALGERIA ,
SWITZERLAND RAWANDA BRAZIL INDIA SCOTLAND JORDAN EGYPT NORWAY SWEDEN GERMANY TIBET | Book Under Design Full version 3 (240 pages) "STUPENDOUS HIMALAYAS Unforgettable Himachal & Leh"
www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3370979 | Updated Contacts | WORLD +974 55344547 | INDIA HIMACHAL +91 8527745789 | WhatsApp Skype SMS Tango FaceTime | wittysam@gmail.com Facebook
Email | sb@sundeepkullu.com |
Official website sundeepkullu.com
Fluidr PHOTOS www.fluidr.com/photos/wittysam
Flickr PHOTOSTREAM www.flickr.com/photos/wittysam/
Facebook PROFILE 1 www.facebook.com/sundeephimachal
Facebook PROFILE 2 www.facebook.com/sundeepkullu
SDBK PAGE 1 www.facebook.com/SundeepBhardwaj
BREATHTAKING PLANET EARTH www.facebook.com/bpearth
HIMACHAL PAGE 2 www.facebook.com/Himachal.Pradesh.In
KULLU MANALI PAGE 3 www.facebook.com/KulluManaliHimachalPradesh
SDBKWP PAGE 4 www.facebook.com/SDBWP
SDBL FAWP PAGE 5 www.facebook.com/SDBK.FAWP
MY RECENT entries to various PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITIONS & latest AWARDS won. ENTRIES IN NATIONAL GEOPGRAPHIC 2012-13 PHOTO COMPETITION
ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/users/1...
ENTRY 1 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
ENTRY 2 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
ENTRY 3 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
ENTRY 4 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
ENTRY 5 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
ENTRY 6 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
ENTRY 7 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
ENTRY 8 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
ENTRY 9 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
ENTRY 10 Full Size- ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries...
Latest TCR AWARDS
Thanks to TCR The Critique Room Judges Panel. Thanks for this recognition as winner of TCR WATER THEME Photography Competition . Will be following more wonderfull stories at your end in the
website. All the participants did a great Job and i enjoyed other photographers compositions as well.Cheers
www.sundeepkullu.com/tcr-photography-award.html
TCR thecritiqueroom.weebly.com/winner.html
thecritiqueroom.weebly.com/contest.html
Text above is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_... and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from Wikipedia, a non-profit organization and the leading user
-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer).Donate to Wikimedia. donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Fundraiser...
Contacts:-
Primary :
wittysam@gmail.com ( E-mail/Skype/Whatsapp/Google+/LinkedIn/Fring/Yoono/Twitter/Gmail/Instagram/http://sundeepkullu.com & Photography & Videography and Quote for Assignments related)
World Roaming +974 55344547 (Facebook2 Mobile/Viber/Facetime/WhatsApp/Tango)
India New Delhi & Himachal Roaming +91 8527745789 (Google Plus)
sb@sundeepkullu.com ( Facebook & Personal Mail )
Secondary :
eurekasun@yahoo.com ( Flickr & Yahoo Messenger )
admin@phototube.co ( phototube.co related )
enquiries@himachalculturalvillage.com ( himachalculturalvillage.com related )
SunDeep Bhardwaj Kullu
MBA-Sales & Mktg.(Symbiosis,Pune)
B.Pub.Admn.(H.P.University,Summer Hills, Shimla)
BHM (GCC-Bangalore)
***Publishing Photostories clicked in the most exotic places on earth in 70+ countries that I visited in last decade. For all stories of 70+ Countries go to my oficial website
sundeepkullu.com ™©®
Slide Shows | Full Screen Mode | Adobe Flash or Mobile
www.flickr.com/photos/wittysam/sets/72157624062762956/
www.flickr.com/photos/wittysam/sets/72157624062638852/show/
Available on Viber / WhatsApp / Skype / Tango / Facetime / Facebook / Google Talk / Yahoo Messenger mostly.
Email & Mobilke No's to add to above social services with email & mobile nos. wittysam@gmail.com , sb@sundeepkullu.com ,
+91 8527745789 India and World roaming
+974 55344547 World roaming
KINDLY NOTE***The Stock samples of SDBWP SunDeep Bhardwaj World Photography in flickr Photostream cannot be Copied,Distributed,Published or Used in any form,full or in part,or in any kind
of media without prior permission from Sundeep Bhardwaj the owner of these images.Utilization in other websites,intenet media,pages,blogs etc without written consent is PROHIBITED.
The images are also available for licence through GETTY IMAGES or directly by contacting me.
Add me as a friend on my facebook profile 2 as my facebook profile 1 is allmost full with 4000 plus friends here - www.facebook.com/sundeephimachal
Still on my World tour entering 6th year of World travel to 70+Countries 555+Destinations across 6 Continents and multiple years of Travel Photography I am busy designing my first Travel
Photostories Book named "111 MIRACULOUS WONDERS OF WORLD YOU MUST SEE WHEN YOU ALIVE" and corresponding "111 WOW" iPhone Application soon by the end of this year 2012
Photostories on iPhone iPad iPod PC Blackberry Nokia Samsung or any Smart Phone here www.flickr.com/photos/wittysam
Mobile Blog : sundeepkullu.wordpress.com
Flickr Interesting Thumbnail View : www.flickr.com/search/?q=wittysam&s=int&ss=2&...;
Recently Explored Dozens ALGERIA SWITZERLAND RAWANDA BRAZIL INDIA NORWAY SWEDEN GERMANY TIBET BELGIUM AUSTRALIA CHINA
May 2011-May 2012 Explored 16 Destinations ( In first half of 2012)
*INDIA- Mayad Valley, Lahaul , Rohtang Pass, Manikaran, Jispa, Sissu, Gondla, Deepak Taal, Baralachha Pass, Zing Zing Bar, Deepak Taal , Suraj Taal, Kasol, Kullu-Manali, Bhunter, Keyong
*AUSTRALIA-Melbourne-Great Ocean Road-Twelve Apostles this week
*BELGIUM Brussels
*DENMARK-Copenhagen, VIETNAM Hanoi-Halong Bay
*MALAYSIA-Kuala Lumpur-Kanting Falls-Batu Caves-Petronas Twin Towers
*CANADA-Quebec-Ontario-Montreal
*SOUTH AFRICA Johnnesburg-The Cradle of Mankind-Stolkfontien Caves and Lion & Rino Park
*INDIA-Kashmir-Gulmarg-Srinagar-HIMACHAL-Kullu-Manali-Shimla-Lahaul-Spiti -Dharamshala-Kinnaur-Udaipur-Leh-Laddakh-*KERALA-Athirappily & Vazhachal Falls
*GERMANY-BAVERIA-Black Forest-Oberbayern-Garmich Patenkirchen-Eibsee Lake-Zugspitze
*UK-SCOTLAND Glencoe-Fort William-Castle around Scotland-Lochness-ENGLAND-London-Manchester-Glasgow
*ITALY-Rome-UNESCO Heritage Sites around Rome
*VATICAN CITY-Samallest Country in the World
*CHINA-Shanghai-Zhejiang-Hangzhou-The West Lake-Chongquing-Mount Emei Scenic Area, including Leshan Giant Buddha Scenic Area-Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries-Lushan-Buddha JAPAN Horyuji
Temple 1300 years old Japan's most sacred place & UNESCO site
*UAE-Al Ain-Abu Dhabi-Dubai-Burj Al Arab-Al Khaleefa Tallest building in the World,
*SWEDEN-Stocholm-National Parks
*NORWAY-Oslo
*RAWANDA-Kigali
Earlier in 2011 EGYPT SCOTLAND TIBET JORDAN INDIA
70 COUNTRIES SINCE PAST DECADE & WORLD TOUR SINCE 2007
These are reduced sized pictures.Orignal pictures shot in 5,616 × 3,744 (21.1 megapixels) using Canon EOS 5D Mark II FULL FRAME DSLR CAMERA or 3872 x 2592 (10.2 million effective pixels)
using NIKON D60 DSLR or 4,288 × 2,848 (12.3 effective megapixels) USING NIKON D90 DSLR's.For full size images contact me.
Contacts:-
Primary :
wittysam@gmail.com ( E-mail Viber/Whatsapp/Tango/Skype/Google+/LinkedIn/Fring/Yoono/Twitter/Gmail/Instagram/http://sundeepkullu.com & Photography & Videography and Quote for Assignments related)
World Roaming +974 55344547 (Facebook Mobile/Viber/Facetime/WhatsApp)
India New Delhi & Himachal Roaming +91 8527745789 (Google Plus)
sb@sundeepkullu.com ( Facebook & Personal Mail )
Rarely Used Secondary :
eurekasun@yahoo.com ( Flickr & Yahoo Messenger )
admin@phototube.co ( phototube.co related )
enquiries@himachalculturalvillage.com ( himachalculturalvillage.com related )
SunDeep Bhardwaj Kullu
MBA-Sales & Mktg.(Symbiosis,Pune)
B.Pub.Admn.(H.P.University,Summer Hills, Shimla)
BHM (GCC-Bangalore)
***Publishing Photostories clicked in the most exotic places on earth in 12 countries that I visited in this year. For all stories of 70+ Countries go to my oficial website
sundeepkullu.com ™©®
Slide Shows | Full Screen Mode | Adobe Flash or Mobile
www.flickr.com/photos/wittysam/sets/72157624062762956/
www.flickr.com/photos/wittysam/sets/72157624062638852/show/
Available on Skype / Facetime / Viber / WhatsApp / Facebook / Google Talk / Yahoo Messenger mostly.
Facebook/Facetime/Skype/WhatsApp/Viber/Twitter/ with wittysam@gmail.com , sb@sundeepkullu.com ,
+91 8527745789 India and World roaming
+974 55344547 World roaming
KINDLY NOTE***The Stock samples of SDBWP SunDeep Bhardwaj World Photography in flickr Photostream cannot be Copied,Distributed,Published or Used in any form,full or in part,or in any kind
of media without prior permission from Sundeep Bhardwaj the owner of these images.Utilization in other websites,intenet media,pages,blogs etc without written consent is PROHIBITED.
Add me as a friend on my facebook profile 2 as my facebook profile 1 is allmost full with allmost 5000 friends here - www.facebook.com/sundeephimachal
Thanks and regards sundeepkullu.com Sundeep™ Bhardwaj World Photography SDBWP™
The NRC signs a Memorandum of Understanding with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society establishing an agreement to benefit and support science, technology, engineering, mathematics education and career opportunities.
Photographed from left to right: Vanice Perin, NRC Native American Advisory Committee Chairman; Alice Erickson, NRC project manager; Candace Spore, NRC summer student; Lori Suto-Goldsby, NRC associate director, Civil Rights and Diversity Directorate; Sarah EchoHawk, Chief Executive Officer of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES); Jerome Murphy, NRC associate director, Small Business and Outreach; and Marcellus Proctor, AISES Board Member.
Full Circle of Support – Educate, Employ, and Serve Goal: To increase partnerships among federal agencies, American Indian and Alaska Native communities, and Non-Governmental Organizations around Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and career opportunities.
Visit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's website at www.nrc.gov/.
Visit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's website at www.nrc.gov/.
For those who wish to leave a comment or feedback please send via email to opa.resource@nrc.gov.
Photo Usage Guidelines: www.flickr.com/people/nrcgov/
Privacy Policy: www.nrc.gov/site-help/privacy.html.
Leipziger Buchmesse 2017 / Leipzig Book Fair 2017
2017-03-24 (Friday)
2017_002
2017#289 / 2017#290
Elisa_010901 (Elisa) ____ as Harley Quinn from Batman
Rebecca-1110 (Rebecca) ____ as Ratana from ____
Thank you for any group invites which I'd be glad to accept. However, if I can't check the content of such groups ("This group is not available to you") I'd rather not add any of my photos. Thank you for your understanding.
An attendee at the opening of the White Rabbit gallery REFORMATION exhibition opening tries to get a better view of how the 'drawing machine' works. Sorry no artist information at the moment but will update after getting back to the exhibition. Soon!
Fujifilm X Pro1 - XF18mm F2.8 R
100th at F2.2 1600 iso
Leipziger Buchmesse 2016 / Leipzig Book Fair 2016
2016-03-19 (Saturday)
2016_032
2016#241
Kieren / Heavenguard (Julia) 510354 as Mictlantecuhtli [behind the obsidian mirror] from (own series)
Thank you for any group invites which I'd be glad to accept. However, if I can't check the content of such groups ("This group is not available to you") I'd rather not add any of my photos. Thanks for your understanding.
© All rights reserved.
Someone said: "Landscape photography, like pornography, attempts to seduce the beholder by presenting an image divorced from its actual physical context ... " ...Context?.....What context?........the weather? ;~)>
The thought I've had is that beautiful photographic images of pristine-looking nature often collude with our compartmentalized denial fantasies............. about the minute by minute ongoing damage and destruction to our mother earth........ Even well meaning eco-tourists (such as me) exact significant costs.....
Just as pornographic images arouse sexual energy without love, connectedness and intimacy, landscape images can create the illusion of feelings and connections with our planet that only exist in "virtual reality"......
This phenomenon reminds me of the "tree museum" Joanie Mitchel talks about in her song "Yellow Taxi":
"They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
No, no, no, don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parkin' lot"
The dillema is........... ....how to create non-objectifying, non-narcotizing, non-compartmentalizing art that puts us in touch with the world around us, such as it is.......while inspiring alternative visions of what could be......
The New Mexico Photography Field School Landscape Photography Class.
I am grateful to our teacher Craig Varjabedian and his workshop assistant Jay Packer. They were wonderfully skilled guides in helping me to orient myself to the basics of landscape photography. Their understanding and grasp of the technical, aesthetic and ineffable mysteries of photography are simply awesome and a delight. www.photofieldschool.com/craig.html
I took this photo at Ghost Ranch where Georgia O'keefe lived and painted. It is said that she claimed that if she painted a nearby mountain enough times god had told her that it would be hers. She is buried there. This is a spiritually and artistically inspiring and powerful place.
Ghost Ranch was part of a land grant to Pedro Martin Serrano from the King of Spain in 1766. The grant was called Piedra Lumbre (shining rock). The name "Ghost Ranch", or the local name Rancho de los Brujos, was derived from the many tales of ghosts and legends of hangings in the Ranch's history.
"When I got to New Mexico, that was mine."
In this way Georgia O'Keeffe described her instant love for Northern New Mexico, a love that lasted the rest of her life. The time was 1917, the event was a trip O'Keeffe and her sister Claudia took to New Mexico and Colorado from their home in Canyon, Texas. Yet it was 12 years before O'Keeffe returned to New Mexico and even longer before she found her way into the beautiful valley that would eventually become her summer home.
In 1929 O'Keeffe went to Taos at the invitation of friends Dorothy Brett and Mabel Dodge Luhan. There she heard of Ghost Ranch and once even caught a tantalizing glimpse of it from a high plain. In 1934 she finally found the ranch but was dismayed to learn that it was a dude ranch owned by Arthur Pack. However, a place was available for her that night in Ghost House and she spent the entire summer at the ranch.
That established a pattern she would follow for years, summers at Ghost Ranch exploring on foot and on canvas the beauty of the place, winters in New York. Because she was basically a "loner," she soon sought Ghost Ranch housing that was somewhat isolated from the headquarters area. Pack offered to rent her his own residence called Rancho de los Burros; this suited her very well. One spring she arrived unexpectedly and found someone else in the house. She demanded to know what those people were doing in her house. When Pack pointed out that it wasn't her house, she insisted that he sell it to her. Thus she became the owner of a very small piece of Ghost Ranch land: a house and 7 acres. (In later years she told a ranch employee doing roadwork near her home, "I wanted enough land to keep a horse - all Arthur would sell me was enough for my sewer!")
But Rancho de los Burros was a summer place and also a desert one. O'Keeffe wanted a garden and a winter home. Eventually, she bought 3 acres in the village of Abiquiu. She spent 3 years remodeling and rebuilding the crumbling adobes before the place was fit for human habitation. After her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, died, O'Keeffe left New York to make Abiquiu her permanent home.
In 1955 Arthur and Phoebe Pack gave Ghost Ranch to the Presbyterian Church. O'Keeffe was aghast. The Packs should have sold her the ranch, she thought, and besides, she never cared much for Presbyterians anyway. Her precious privacy would be gone. However, from the very beginning of this new relationship the Presbyterians respected and tried to preserve the privacy of their famous neighbor. Visitors were told, as they are today, that Rancho de los Burros was on private land with no public access. Gradually her fears were allayed and the relationship grew warmer. Office personnel sometimes did secretarial work for her; Ghost Ranch folks replaced the pump on her well. O'Keeffe became friendly enough with long-time ranch director Jim Hall and his wife Ruth to have Christmas dinner with them.
She made a money gift toward construction of the Hall's retirement home on the ranch. When fire destroyed the headquarters building in 1983, O'Keeffe immediately made a gift of $50,000 and lent her name to a Challenge Fund for the Phoenix campaign which resulted in replacing the headquarters building and adding a Social Center and the Ruth Hall Museum.
During the last few years of her life O'Keeffe was unable to come to Ghost Ranch from Abiquiu. Eventually she moved to Santa Fe where she died in her 99th year, reclusive to the end. "I find people very difficult," she once said.
Ghost Ranch gave her the freedom to paint what she saw and felt. Knowledgeable visitors can look around and identify many of the scenes she painted. Red and gray hills like those across from the roadside park south of the ranch headquarters were frequent subjects. Kitchen Mesa at the upper end of the valley is an example of the red and yellow cliffs she painted many times. Pedernal, the flat-topped mountain to the south, was probably her favorite subject. "It's my private mountain," she frequently said. "God told me if I painted it often enough I could have it." And of course, the Ghost Ranch logo, used on everything from stationery to T-shirts, was adapted from an O'Keeffe drawing.
ABOUT: Craig Varjabedian is a fine-art photographer of the lands and peoples of the American West and Southwest and is Director of the Field School. He was born in Canada and began photographing at the age of thirteen. He has subsequently sustained an artistic career spanning over thirty years, which began in earnest in 1971 and involved studies with Phil Davis at the University of Michigan and Paul Caponigro in Santa Fe. Varjabedian’s first one-man show was at the Albuquerque Museum in 1994. Since that time he has been widely exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States. Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the McCune Charitable Foundation have been awarded to Varjabedian over the course of his photographic career in recognition of his powerful imagery. His pursuit of an intensely personal vision has culminated in images of moments made extraordinary by light and life. He approaches his subjects receptively, preferring to utilize an intuitive approach rather than arranging forms and recording surface details. In the final analysis, Varjabedian’s photographs allow viewers to share in the authentic experience of an artistic process which celebrates luminous and heartfelt experience.
Upcoming books of his photographs include Four & Twenty Photographs: Stories from Behind the Lens (Spring 2007) and a book on Ghost Ranch (Spring 2008), both with Santa Fe author Robin Jones, which will be available from the University of New Mexico Press. The late Beaumont Newhall, preeminent photographic historian, wrote, “The remarkable photographs by Craig Varjabedian are not only beautiful but also extremely valuable documents of architecture, culture, and lifestyle of Northern New Mexico.”
The Memorandum of Understanding renews and expands collaboration on global scientific and technological solutions over the next five years. The extended agreement reaffirms both agencies’ commitment to jointly address critical development and humanitarian challenges affecting the United States and developing countries through the generation and use of scientific research, innovations, and technologies and advances further interagency collaboration under the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE). Specifically, the partnership will draw on NASA's Earth science research and space technology development to help inform USAID’s global programming.
Exploring mountains and wilderness provides me a liberating sense of freedom - midwest Norway mountains
Understanding the role of food proteins in the development of type 1 diabetes. Read the article:
www.nutritionaldoublethink.com/blog/cows-milk-sugar-overl...
Immune system graphic created by Christine Dobrowolski using funny red bacteria by gmad, pancreas by maritacovarrubias and petrified smiley face silhouette by GDJ, CC0 1.0.
A quote of Albert Einstein declaring that he did not use his rational mind to discover the Laws of the Universe he published.
my first form of liquid painting was on abstract spiritual forms in motion.
i finished that series in 1999 after a show in which no one seemed to be intrigued by the essential qualities of what our eyes show to us.
i switched over to REAL representational art.
but i kept the NOT GALLERY aspect of my work pretty strong -- using way more black, only tints and shades and full chroma colors. i painted my feelings with the colors i chose.
and "my feelings" weren't intended to be my own.
i love classical ideology.
form and beauty and also our modern understanding that the 1 percent is fetish and nazi/fascist by its nature.
so i'm not into perfection as much as the idea of things that are just obviously better or trying or engaged or activated.
arguments about perfection are weird.
why do people like to fight so much?
my eyes tend to see all things as rather ordinary and i want to show off the simple things i find, to revel in their nature and then to figure out an expression that suits the two -- the object itself and my attitudinal relationship with it. for me, more than ambiguous emotional terms, i favor HEAT and MOTION as the aspects of light that i choose to focus on.
because my life is so interlapped with photography, i am both a camera and a painter, a robot and a brain, a drone and brighter magick user.
i can't help this double nature and like prince said, you'd better know your dark side and your bright side and if they can get along and you end up bright, that is the path of the philosopher guide.
so if that's you, now is the time!
RISE up among the people.
use your intelligent power to untangle the ropes of darkness!
but i digress.
so through and along my urban and townsy journeys -- santa barbara, seattle, san francisco, santa fe, san diego, amsterdam, manhattan -- i eventually found my way to flowers.
they grow in the front yards of the people's homes wherever i walk, or in buckets at a florist shop along the street or a grocery store. the beauty of flowers is everywhere.
and flowers are a reminder that everything dies. but it can be beautiful.
and we cut flowers for their beauty.
for me, roses are wanton.
they are my third form/series of liquid paintings.
the second one, and the most explored/exploded, is the exploding rainbow dahlia.
and where roses are wanton and vain-glorious (really, i had no idea!), the dahlia is like a swiss community with its order and its architectural phenomenon.
my exposure to dahlias was limited before i arrived in san francisco. i had painted orchids, peonies, chinese rose, birds of paradise, cala lilies, california golden poppies, and tulips.
but dahlias and the rainbow seemed like they were made for each other. that those TWO THINGS were US. that we, as people were just like dahlias in the way we ordered and constructed our lives. the dahlia with its form for capturing and storing light and moisture, and the exploding rainbow with its blatant and broken spectrum of blasting color.
so i floated those dahlias in space where a million things were happening all at once. everything as one moved into a constellation. i added multiple sided die and glinty bits of ambiguous crow candy for the eye.
vanity and selfism, the star charisma of the rose's nature -- that of desire and death masked as finality -- was just another form of circustry in this new unexploited world of die and glinty, treasury bits spinning and rolling and falling through space, into space, as space. hitting and colliding, forcing loss and explosion and aiding decay.
and there was a war in these pieces which forced them into a liquidity.
that war was between the clarity of stasis and our fascination with movement.
the impressionists, aided ENTIRELY BY THE USE OF THE CAMERA, had learned that aperture values that the camera's limited technology could exploit at the time had shown new essentials.
aperture values taught the impressionists that they could DELETE things from the environment to increase the imaginative suggestibility of the viewers mind.
for example, if i have my focus on the nostrils of a racing horse and progressively blur and fade out the clarity as the horse goes away through foreshortening, the horse's nose will seem MUCH closer to the viewer and more three dimensional than it would if the receding part of the horse were in perfect detailed clarity.
people like manet realized even further, using the same deletion technique of the intelligence, that a glove could literally look MORE glove-like with just three strokes of a brush. indeed, that the SUGGESTION of a glove was infinitely more powerful and perfect to the impression of the piece than an actual glove ever could be.
so in my liquid painting, i envisioned a human circus as exploding rainbow dahlias. our vanity and self-love; our beauty and our grace; and our aging and exploding.
all with dreams of promise, jewelry in the sky, and an unending ability to NEVER grasp much of anything.
and we are constantly coming in and out of focus in our own lives, a living constellatory fascination with ourselves and others creating patterns and habits and occupations.
and that rabbit hole lasted for several years.
it started in 2010/11 as a discovery process and eventually ended up producing over 6,000 images of that world. enough to create an app that could endlessly recreate the world imagined.
and the goal was to document every conceivable color pattern that the human eye could see.
and i think it worked.
it also led to the conclusion of the PIXELWITHIN theory.
which i have elaborated over on torbakhopper's news outlet, lol. the merkaba is a beautiful thing!!
so now the rose.
sometimes slutty, sometimes regaling and proud. sometimes curvy, sometimes more than curvy or with torn edges and hot little shadows.
england had a war over roses.
just like the u.s. had a war over rubber. just kidding. it was all about democracy and partiotism.
and roses are more likely to cause trouble than dahlias.
dahlias are all about the community as a metaphor.
there is a fundamental "coming together" about dahlias.
whereas, honestly, roses are all about falling apart.
this large group of examples are all different now. just like the other forms of liquid painting, CHANGE is a part of the game.
MODERATOR: Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us this afternoon. Today we have with us two senior State Department officials to discuss the situation in Venezuela. We have with us [Senior State Department Official One] and [Senior State Department Official Two]. Hereafter for the rest of the call, they will be Senior State Department Official One and Senior State Department Official Two. This call is on background, so for all attribution we will refer to them as Senior State Department Officials.
So without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to Senior State Department Official Number One for some opening remarks before we get to your questions. Go ahead, Senior Official One.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thank you very much, [Moderator], and thanks to everyone for being on the line. Good afternoon. Let me start off just with a couple of quick things and then we can go to questions.
Yesterday was obviously a very, very busy day on Venezuela. First we had the press conference by Vice President Maduro in which there were a lot of allegations made about the United States and two of our officials were expelled, or PNG’d; and then just hours later, Vice President Maduro, of course, announced President Chavez’s death. The White House has put out a statement on the death of President Chavez. We, of course, have also responded to inquiries.
It’s a very difficult time for Venezuela right now. We are aware of that, and we have conveyed our belief that as they look forward beyond the death of President Chavez there will be elections upcoming according to the Venezuelan constitution, and we are hopeful that those elections will go forward according to their constitution, according to the regional documents, the Inter-American documents on democratic practices that we’ve all signed up to, in the coming days and months.
Let me also just say a word about one other thing that we have obviously been paying some attention to over the last 24 hours, which is the security situation in Venezuela, both for our official Americans and for American citizens more generally. The situation is really very calm. We have had conversations with all of the Venezuelan various security services – police, military – and they have been very responsive to us. We have no concerns about our own security at this point. We did put out – our Embassy did put out a Warden Message last night for Americans, the kind of thing that we do pretty regularly when we think there are reasons for Americans to be cautious. So we put that out yesterday.
My understanding is that because of the national days of mourning, the schools are closed today. Our Embassy did not process visas this morning because they felt that it was better if they did not. So people who had not gotten the word that we were not going to do our visa appointments today were turned away this morning, but there were no problems with that. So I just want to make mention of the fact that we are very conscious of security issues but that everything seems to be going very well for now.
With that, I think I’ll stop unless Official Number Two has anything to add.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Nope, I don’t. Let’s go ahead.
MODERATOR: Operator, let’s go ahead to our Q&A session. Go ahead and get our first question.
OPERATOR: Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press * then 1 on your phone (inaudible). If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the numbers. Once again, any questions, please press * then 1 at this time.
And our first question will come from the line of Elise Labott with CNN. Please, go ahead.
QUESTION: Thanks for doing this. Can you talk a little bit more about – I mean, this – the White House statement was kind of a little bit curt, didn’t necessarily offer condolences. We understand that Senior Official One put out a statement. If you could release that to the rest of the – of us, that would be great. It just seems as if you’re unsure how to respond in terms of showing condolences. The rhetoric coming not only from some of the Republicans on the Hill, talking about the fact that it’s good that he’s dead. I’m wondering, given what’s going on on both sides, what you see the prospect is for improved relations between the U.S. and Venezuela as you move forward.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thanks, Elise. Let me start out by saying that I can’t really explain or otherwise characterize rhetoric that may be coming out from members of Congress or others. Let me say that I think it’s really important that I make clear that we definitely wanted to – we definitely understand that Venezuela is going through this incredibly difficult period. Their leader has died. We – and I don’t see any problem with making that available – and in the guidance that we’ve used have made clear that we expressed our sympathy to his family and to the Venezuelan people. I think frankly, the way I was raised, when someone dies, you always express condolences. So we’ve done that.
But it’s obviously been a pretty complicated relationship, and this announcement was preceded by a 90-minute press conference in which we were accused of some pretty awful things that were pretty outrageous. But I think that reflects to some extent just how difficult it’s been to try and have the positive relationship with Venezuela that we’d like. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of conflict over President Chavez’s death. He was the leader of Venezuela. There are a lot of people who are feeling the effects of that death, taking it quite personally. There is a family involved here. We sympathize with that.
Looking forward and how the relationship will go in the future, I think we’ve also been pretty clear that we would like a productive, more functional relationship with the Venezuelan Government. And we remain, perhaps because we’re Americans, optimistic that that can be the case. But we’ll have to see how that progresses going forward. Obviously, yesterday’s first press conference, if you will, the first address, was not encouraging in that respect. It disappointed us.
OPERATOR: And next in queue we’ll go to the line of Luis Alonso. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: Hello, everybody. Many thanks for doing this call. I have two quick questions. The first one is if the United States will reciprocate the expulsion of the two military officers in Caracas, will ask Venezuela to do something similar? And the second question is, after these accusations yesterday by Vice President Maduro, do you plan to have any direct contact with him like the November contact that there was? Is there any prospect, any plan for talks in the near future? Thank you.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thanks, Luis. I think on the question of reciprocal action for the expulsion of our two officials, that’s something that we’re obviously reviewing right now and we’ll see where we go from here. It’s obviously always our right to take that action, and so we’re not ruling anything out at this point.
On the issue of contact with Vice President Maduro, [Senior State Department Official has] not had contact with him since November, but contact between others [in the State Department] have continued, not in a while now. We’ll see whether those can continue at this point.
Official Number Two, did you want to add anything to that?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: No, I think that’s right.
OPERATOR: And next we’ll go the line of Jo Biddle, AFP. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: Hello, my question was actually just answered, which was about the rhetoric and whether there’d be any reciprocal actions by the United States on – after the expulsion of these two Air Force officers. But perhaps going forward, maybe you could talk a little bit more about how you think you might be able to build your relationship with Venezuela perhaps once we get past the elections and where you would like to see that going in the future.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thank you. I think that we’ve – we’ve said from the beginning that we think the best way to move ahead in this relationship is twofold. One is to have conversations on things where I think there may be mutual interest in moving ahead, and there are clearly some areas in which we think that could be possible – counternarcotics, counterterrorism, economic or commercial issues including energy.
But the second part of this is – and we’ve always been clear on this as well, I think – that we are going to continue to speak out when we believe there are issues of democratic principle that need to be talked about, that need to be highlighted. Obviously, Venezuela will also speak out and speak its own mind on – the Venezuelan Government will speak its own mind on issues they think that they have to speak out about.
So I think that’s part of this equation, but there clearly are issues in which we have mutual interest, and I think that’s the way you start this. You start by talking about the things that matter to both of us and seeing if we can make progress on those issues on those functional areas, and then you move on to trying to build on that as you build confidence. So for us, it’s a step-by-step process during which we will continue to speak out and to defend democratic principles if that is the appropriate thing to do.
OPERATOR: And next in queue we’ll go directly to the line of Brad Clapper with Associated Press. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: Hi, yes. Thank you for doing the call. I just wanted to ask for your reaction to the late-night tweet by Venezuelan State Television saying that Defense Minister Molero was pledging military support for Maduro’s candidacy. Is that something that worries you, and do you see already these democratic principles that you have said you would speak out in favor of already being challenged?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thanks, Brad. I actually had not seen that tweet, but I do think that it’s important that the elections be free and fair, that they be – that the democratic principles enshrined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter and other documents be respected. It seems to me that if government entities guaranteeing a free and fair election, then that’s one thing; if they are acting on behalf of an individual candidate, that would probably cause us some concern.
It’s important that, to the greatest extent possible, everybody have a level playing field and a clear field, whether that’s candidates or voters or political groups, to express themselves, to have a vote that is secret and counted and not influenced by those outside the electoral process. So we’ll obviously be taking a look at all of these things as we go forward.
Official Number Two?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: The only thing I’d say in addition to that is, and this is not – Official Number One’s comments about how we respond to this, I think, is right on. This is no different from positions that have been taken by the armed forces in the past, including things – saying things like we’re married to the revolution, et cetera. And the fundamental point here is about – and the separation of powers and ensuring that institutions in the democratic structure have the independence that they need to function as designed.
OPERATOR: And next, we’ll go to the line of Lucia Leal with EFE News Service. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for making this call. I was wondering if you could comment on the specific process announced by Vice President Maduro up until the elections next month, because some analysts are saying that the constitution provides for Mr. Cabello and not him to head the interim government. So I just wanted to know what your views are on that. Thank you.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thanks, Lucia. We’ve obviously seen lots of comments by analysts. It’s not going to be our place to interpret the Venezuelan constitution for Venezuelans, so I really – I’m not going to make a comment on whether that interpretation is accurate or not.
From what I understand – and then I’m going to turn it over to Official Number Two, who is a much better expert on the process going forward – but from what I understand, there – like any constitution, there are rules that are laid out, and then interpretations of the same. We’ve also seen reports that elections need to be held in 30 days, which is an incredibly short timeframe. Or there have been comments that elections need to be called within 30 days.
So all of this will have to be worked out going forward. I think the most important thing is that the rules be applicable across the board to everybody, and that there be an opportunity for Venezuelans to organize and to vote and to be independent in that vote. But beyond that, I’m not going to interpret Venezuela’s constitution.
[Senior State Department Official Two]?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah. I mean, this is right. I mean, it’s a constitution like many constitutions. It’s subject to differential interpretations. For their part, the Venezuelans and the Venezuelan Supreme Court in the past – and they had the tradition of judicial review – the Venezuelan Supreme Court ruled that Maduro didn’t need to be inaugurated because there was a continuity of government. And as – the whole theory behind two-thirds of that article is that you would need to move the acting presidency to the president of the National Assembly because there was no inauguration.
So the point is, is that the judicial branch has kind of looked at this already. For our part, what’s important now is less that issue and more the conditions under which the election, which must be held, which Chavez, before he went to – back to Cuba said would be held, that that election take place in conditions that are demonstrably free and fair and that conform to the rules that the hemisphere had set up for itself with respect to democratic practice.
OPERATOR: And next we’ll go to the line of Karen DeYoung with The Washington Post. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: My question’s been asked and answered. Thank you.
OPERATOR: You’re welcome. Thank you. Next we’ll go to the line of Juan Lopez, CNN Espanol. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: Thank you. So what happens now? Will the U.S. send a delegation for Friday? Who will be in that delegation? How do you take it from here? And how do you deal? You’re saying you want – there’s a moment of pause and waiting to see what could happen in the relationship, but for example, Cabello is – he’s still on the kingpin list. And how does that affect any possible change for the future?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thanks, Juan Carlos. I’m going to start – let me start at the beginning, I think, if I can remember all the questions. You’ll let me know if I’ve missed some.
The question of what happens next, obviously, things are still pretty much in flux. It’s sort of early days. Whether a delegation will be sent for the funeral and ceremony that’s going to be held at the end of the week, I think on that all I would say is that’s a White House decision but I do expect that there will be a delegation. So, basically, stay tuned for that. I don’t want to preempt the White House on that.
In terms of moving forward, obviously we began a dialogue very initially with Vice President Maduro, and then with others beyond that, because we felt it was important to see if we could kind of reconstruct this relationship, starting with the issues where we have mutual interests. That’s been a little bit of a rocky road, obviously. And I think all of us know that electoral campaigns may not always be the best time to make – to break new ground on policy.
So we will continue to desire that positive relationship, to be open to having those conversations to try and move that ahead, while recognizing that it may take a little while before the Venezuelan Government that emerges from the elections that will be coming up is ready to have that conversation a bit more regularly and a bit more seriously.
But I think we’ve set out sort of a roadmap, if you will, of the way we’d like to do this, a sort of step-by-step process. And to some extent, it’s up to the Venezuelans to whether they want to head down that path and explore whether it’ll work.
Official Number Two, what am I missing of those questions? I can’t recall.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah. What – there was another question at the end there. Can you repeat that question?
Apparently not. Locked out.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: There was a question about Cabello, I think, at the end.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Well, the only – I mean, I heard – it may have gone to the constitution question, but one just point of fact is the questioner suggested that Cabello was on the kingpin list, which is not accurate. I mean, there are eight Venezuelans who are on the kingpin list, but he is not currently one of them.
MODERATOR: And next, we’ll go to the line of Lori Montenegro with Telemundo Network. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: Yes, good afternoon. Senator Marco Rubio, in his statement, was encouraging the Administration and others in what he called the democratic community to be aware and be vigilant of the security situation in Venezuela during the coming weeks and months. Is there – do you have any indication of – that there should be concern about the security situation in Venezuela and how that could affect security in the rest of the region?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thank you. I started with security in part to try and get at this issue, but I appreciate sort of coming back to it.
We have no indication right now that there is any threat to our personnel or Americans in Venezuela. Now obviously, after you have the kind of broadside, if you will, that Vice President Maduro launched against the United States yesterday, we obviously have security concerns, and we will remain very vigilant and review security issues regularly within our Embassy and here in Washington. And we’ll put out any additional notices to the public that we think necessary.
But at this point, I have to say, cooperation with the Venezuelan security services has been excellent, and we have no reason to think that there is any unusual threat against Americans or our personnel. And as far as I know, so far today, things have been very quiet and very peaceful, although obviously I think there are people out in the street in mourning, et cetera. So, so far, I think things have been quite quiet.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: If I could just add, just briefly here, is the only other thing is that all that is so, and we need to concern ourselves with the security of American citizens and of our mission. But let’s be clear; I mean, Venezuela is one of the most violent countries in the world with 20,000 murders, 19,000 murders annually being registered, a rate which is five times what it was in 1999. It’s inherently a violent place.
But there’s a distinction there between that sort of violence and then violence which might be – and it would appear that the comment of the senator was directed about sort of political violence. And Senior Official One’s comments were on point in that regard.
MODERATOR: And next we’ll go to the line of Ginger Thompson, New York Times. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: Hi, you all, and thanks for doing the call. I’m wondering if, [Senior State Department Official One], you could give us a few more details about what has happened specifically in the relationship between your – the time of that phone call with Vice President Maduro to yesterday’s press conference. I mean, there was the phone call. Have there been regular diplomatic communications between the two governments? Were there meetings planned? How did things begin to sort of unravel, if you will – not that they were ever fully together?
SENIOR STATE DEPATMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah. I think, Ginger, what you’re asking for is a more logical progression than actually exists. (Laughter.) The phone calls took place at the end of November. There were some – a couple of follow-up meetings after that phone call. We laid out, if you will, what we thought was kind of a good plan and where we could start. And to be honest, we did not get much response. We didn’t really begin the substantive portion of those conversations. We were still kind of meeting to meet and laying out what we would talk about.
So we really hadn’t gotten very far and were not sure whether the Government of Venezuela wanted to continue down that road when yesterday occurred. I could not tell you that there was a lot of preparation or anticipation of what happened yesterday, or something that’s built up or that tensions were growing, and that’s why yesterday occurred. In fact, I don’t think that’s the case.
I think yesterday was a part of an election campaign, and therefore not necessarily directly related to the process we’ve had of trying to improve the relationship. But it is directly related, from our perspective, obviously, that is to say regardless of reasons for it, there were some outrageous charges leveled against the United States publicly yesterday. And that’s really unfortunate and we rejected those.
But I can’t tell you that those two events are linked – the process that we’ve had to try and improve to have a conversation on the functional issues, as I call them, and what happened yesterday.
OPERATOR: The next in queue, we’ll go directly to the line of Jay Newton-Small with Time Magazine. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: Hi. Yes, I wanted to know whether you see relations improving in the short or in the medium term now that Chavez is gone. Was he the biggest hurdle in this relationship, or are there other hurdles?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thanks. I’m going to start this one off and then I’m going to ask Official Two to continue a little bit.
I think one of the things that happens over 14 years in a government like Venezuela’s is it really did revolve around one man. So while I hesitate to say that a change in an individual or the passing of an individual completely changes the relationship, I do think your question, in a way, comes from an acknowledgement that he played an outsized role in that government, and therefore his absence can have an outsized implication, if you will.
But it’s very hard for me to tell. Obviously, there’s an election that’s going to take place in the coming weeks or months. And that campaign itself may raise issues; it may be a difficult campaign for many. We will no doubt continue to hear things about the United States that will not help improve this relationship. But it’s very hard for us to know right now whether the current government, as they preside over elections, or the government that comes out of those elections will, in fact, either accelerate or continue or stop the momentum towards a better relationship. [Senior State Department Official Two], you want to jump in?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: The only thing I would add there is if you go back over time and look at how Hugo Chavez managed things politically in his country, one of the consistent elements was using us as a foil, using us as sort of a straw man that could be attacked.
And the regrettable part about this is that, notwithstanding his political needs, there are issues on which we’re really compelled to cooperate or at least talk to one another because there’s – they’re generally issues of mutual interest, where our interests coincide.
The speech yesterday, the first speech yesterday by Maduro, was very consistent with the way that this government has traditionally addressed these matters. And in that respect, it wasn’t very encouraging. On the other hand, it’s our obligation to see if there’s any space to work these things, and I think that if there’s space to do so on their side, then we’ll find out. But we can’t make these decisions for them, only they can.
MODERATOR: Operator, we’ve only got time for two more questions.
OPERATOR: Very good. We’ll go directly to the line of Keith Johnson with the Wall Street Journal. Please, go ahead.
QUESTION: Okay. Thanks a lot for doing this call. The main question I had, just to broaden things out a little bit, I mean in recent years, despite all of the provocations – and [Senior State Department Official Two], you just mentioned his use of the U.S. as a foil constantly, but the U.S. had consistently sort of refused to take that bait. And I wonder, dealing with this post-Chavez transition and all the uncertainty there, if this is going to have any impact on the broader western hemisphere agenda that you’ve laid out, whether it’s energy cooperation, Connect 2020, democracy institutions, social inclusion. I mean, does this change your broader goals for relations with Latin America? Does this create any sort of openings or should it basically not alter the path you guys have already laid out?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah. Let me start that one. I guess my own view is that, at least initially, I don't see this changing that much. What we said from the beginning was we’ve laid out, obviously, the issues that we think are important to move ahead on, includes defense of democracy, economic opportunity and social inclusion, moving on energy, including clean energy, citizen security issues, which obviously, as Official Number Two pointed out, are critical in Venezuela. But I don't see the overall goals in the hemisphere changing or being affected all that radically by these events.
That said, the other thing that we’ve done procedurally, if you will, since the beginning of the Obama Administration, the first term, is we’ve sought partnerships with countries that wish to partner with us, where we have things in common that we want to achieve. And we’ve tried to continue to say we want to have a positive relationship, even with countries that seem not to demonstrate much will to do so, to leave that door open, to make sure that they recognize that we’re ready to do so should things change.
Now, that’s what we’re hoping for Venezuela, that whether before, during President Chavez’s years, or now, that they’re ready to actually have that relationship that’s more productive around stuff that I think matters a lot to Venezuelans, not just to Americans, whether it’s working on citizen security issues, whether it’s talking about counternarcotics and the way it’s impacting both of our countries. I mean, this is the kind of discussion we want to have.
I don't know whether more space has opened up to have that discussion now. I do know that, as Official Number Two pointed out earlier, if you look at what’s affecting Venezuelans day to day, whether it’s the highest inflation rate in the hemisphere, or whether it’s number of homicides and other crimes, or whether we’re talking about shortages of foodstuffs on the shelves, Venezuelans are not, I don’t think, in a very good place right now. There’s a lot of things that they are demanding of their leaders that I’m not sure are being met. That’s not something that the United States can necessarily do for Venezuela. Those are things the Venezuelans have to decide to prioritize and their leaders have to decide to respond to.
But surely these are conversations throughout the hemisphere on common issues that Venezuela would benefit from greater engagement in, and that’s what we would hope. So I don't see changes in our policy, but I would love and be very encouraged if we found Venezuela joining those conversations more actively.
OPERATOR: And our final question at this time will come from the line of Margaret Warner, PBS NewsHour. Please go ahead.
QUESTION: Hi. Thank you for doing this. Just back to the concerns about the coming election and your wish that it be – hope that it be free and fair, what is it in the conduct, if anything, of past elections, like the one in October, that would raise concerns on that score?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Well, thank you, Margaret. I think that we’ve been pretty clear that one of the ways that you ensure that elections really do qualify as free and fair is you invite in observers, international election observers. Election observers in this hemisphere have a particularly long and distinguished history. Election observers have been deployed most recently to Ecuador. Former President of Costa Rica Oscar Arias is heading an election observation mission right now in Paraguay to prepare for their elections.
Venezuela has not invited the OAS to observe its elections in at least certainly the October elections. I’m not sure much before that. [Senior State Department Official Two] may recall. But that would be one thing where the absence, frankly, often concerns us and the presence would be extremely helpful we think. There are lots of groups that do election observation, the OAS being one. The EU is another that does a good job. So it can be any of a number of organizations, but they haven’t been allowed to do so.
But we also think it’s really important that the playing field be as level as it can. The opposition, obviously, is looking to try and get its message across, just as the government is doing, but the government has resources that are used in that process. And it’s important that fairness and some kind of equal shot be given to all the participants. And so we think that would be pretty important. That hasn’t always been the case.
Most people that we talk to in Venezuela – and I think – let me mention about election observation – it is perhaps even more critical not just that international observers observe an election but that domestic observation groups in Venezuela be allowed to observe any and all electoral processes that they can. And I think that’s going to be critical moving forward, and that always – hasn’t always been as transparent as it should be.
On the day of election, in general terms, election observers in Venezuela have felt that things go pretty well. But it’s often in the preparations of elections that kind of the fairness and the evenness of the space gets laid, and I think that’s what we’ll be looking for as things move ahead.
[Senior State Department Official Two].
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: I think that that’s exactly right. I don't have anything to add to that.
MODERATOR: Thank you all for joining us this afternoon. That’s the conclusion of our call.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Thank you all very much.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Thanks.
PRN: 2013/0252
Women and children from Mugeyo, a small village north east of Kigali, in Gasabo district take part in a survey aimed at understanding the links between agriculture and nutrition and determine the specific causes of stunting in children under two.
In Rwanda, agricultural production and GDP have increased yet 43 per cent of children under five suffer chronic malnutrition, and stunting in some areas is as high as 60 per cent. www.ciatnews.cgiar.org/?p=7981
Credit: ©2014CIAT/StephanieMalyon
Please credit accordingly and leave a comment when you use a CIAT photo.
For more info: ciat-comunicaciones@cgiar.org
Women and children from Mugeyo, a small village north east of Kigali, in Gasabo district take part in a survey aimed at understanding the links between agriculture and nutrition and determine the specific causes of stunting in children under two.
In Rwanda, agricultural production and GDP have increased yet 43 per cent of children under five suffer chronic malnutrition, and stunting in some areas is as high as 60 per cent. www.ciatnews.cgiar.org/?p=7981
Credit: ©2014CIAT/StefanieNeno
Please credit accordingly and leave a comment when you use a CIAT photo.
For more info: ciat-comunicaciones@cgiar.org
Leica M6 TTL 0,72 Elmarit-M 1:2,8/21 mm ASPH.Nikon coolscan 5000ed. Developer Ilford ID-11 1+1.Ilford Delta 100 asa. ONLY PERSONAL COMMENTS. NO LOGOS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING.
🔴Leica my point of view.
Wetzlar, Deutschland.
Leica-CL 1974 Rangefinder,Serial Number 1395533
Leica-M 6 TTL 0.72 1998 Rangefinder Serial Number 2466527
Leica-M6 TTL 0.85 2001 Rangefinder Serial Number 2755204.
CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait - "Are you thinking about killing yourself?"
That question was asked time and time again as Soldiers from the 143d Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) immersed themselves in an Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training course conducted Jan. 5-6 at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. Created by LivingWorks Education, ASIST has trained more than a million people worldwide on how to feel more comfortable, confident and competent in helping to prevent the immediate risk of suicide.
Sergeant First Class Michael Miller, a chaplain assistant for the 371st Special Troops Battalion, and Maj. Jim Lewis, a chaplain with the 371st Sustainment Brigade, led the two-day course that consisted of interactive lectures, dramatic videos, small group discussions and one-on-one role play scenarios. Miller and Lewis received formal training from LivingWorks Education to organize, manage and instruct the ASIST program.
Students learned how to use LivingWorks' research-driven methods to connect, understand and assist a person expressing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Miller and Lewis showed students how they may apply "suicide first aid" in numerous situations from conversing with a battle buddy in an office to talking to a stranger standing on a ledge.
Miller and Lewis hope the ASIST program will continue to grow at Camp Arifjan after they redeploy later this year.
Photo by Sgt. John L. Carkeet IV, 143d ESC Public Affairs
CONNECTION: The moment two souls bond through acknowledgement, appreciation, or understanding. — Maria C Dawson
Antenna's on NASA's Parker Solar Probe are deployed for testing at the Astrotech processing facility in Titusville, Florida, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, April 19, 2018. The Parker Solar Probe will launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida no earlier than Aug. 4, 2018. The mission will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.
Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
I was in the mood to try and draw Unisphere. So I tried. And I made this little poster in the NY World's Fair's quintessential orange and blue color scheme.
Not only have I learned to accept the Darkness....I have learned to control some of its creatures!
I love the darkness...move over Ktn-Dragon....You have a Dawggie neighbor...with minions!
these are dark days.....a time to reflect
As I walk on through this wicked world,
Searching for light in the darkness of insanity,
I ask myself, Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain, and hatred, and misery?
And each time I feel like this inside,
There's one thing I wanna know,
What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?,
What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?
And as I walked on through troubled times,
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes,
So where are the strong?,
And who are the trusted?,
And where is the harmony?,
Sweet harmony
'Cause each time I feel it slipping away, just makes me wanna cry,
What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?,
What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?
So where are the strong?,
And who are the trusted?,
And where is the harmony?,
Sweet harmony
'Cause each time I feel it slipping away, just makes me wanna cry,
What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?,
What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?,
What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?
- Nick Lowe -
CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait - "Are you thinking about killing yourself?"
That question was asked time and time again as Soldiers from the 143d Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) immersed themselves in an Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training course conducted Jan. 5-6 at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. Created by LivingWorks Education, ASIST has trained more than a million people worldwide on how to feel more comfortable, confident and competent in helping to prevent the immediate risk of suicide.
Sergeant First Class Michael Miller, a chaplain assistant for the 371st Special Troops Battalion, and Maj. Jim Lewis, a chaplain with the 371st Sustainment Brigade, led the two-day course that consisted of interactive lectures, dramatic videos, small group discussions and one-on-one role play scenarios. Miller and Lewis received formal training from LivingWorks Education to organize, manage and instruct the ASIST program.
Students learned how to use LivingWorks' research-driven methods to connect, understand and assist a person expressing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Miller and Lewis showed students how they may apply "suicide first aid" in numerous situations from conversing with a battle buddy in an office to talking to a stranger standing on a ledge.
Miller and Lewis hope the ASIST program will continue to grow at Camp Arifjan after they redeploy later this year.
Photo by Sgt. John L. Carkeet IV, 143d ESC Public Affairs
Harmful Algal Bloom in Western Basin of Lake Erie: September 20, 2017
(Photo Credit: Aerial Associates Photography, Inc. by Zachary Haslick)
Pilots from Aerodata have been flying over Lake Erie this summer to map out the general scope of Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB) throughout the western basin. In addition to these amazing photos, during the flyovers, additional images are taken by a hyperspectral imager (mounted on the back of the aircraft) to improve our understanding of how to map and detect HABs. The lead PI for this project is Dr. Andrea VanderWoude.
For additional info on our HABs research, including hyperspectral work, visit our website, here: www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/HABs_and_Hypoxia
The exhibition "Understanding AI" shows how neural networks are structured and offers visitors the opportunity to train neural networks themselveswith via interactive stations.
Credit: vog.photo
Women and children from Mugeyo, a small village north east of Kigali, in Gasabo district take part in a survey aimed at understanding the links between agriculture and nutrition and determine the specific causes of stunting in children under two.
In Rwanda, agricultural production and GDP have increased yet 43 per cent of children under five suffer chronic malnutrition, and stunting in some areas is as high as 60 per cent. www.ciatnews.cgiar.org/?p=7981
Credit: ©2014CIAT/StefanieNeno
Please credit accordingly and leave a comment when you use a CIAT photo.
For more info: ciat-comunicaciones@cgiar.org