View allAll Photos Tagged Unity
A shot taken during a wedding at a couple of angels.
Nikon D70s 1/500, f4.8, Tamron 28-75 @ 32 mm, iso 400
Unity, By Simon Donovan and Ben Olmstead, Tucson, AZ
"For the Grant Road Improvement Project Phase 2, Simon Donovan & Ben Olmstead were selected to complete artwork for the project. The sculpture they created is called Unity and is comprised of five figures, three female, two male. Each one is approximately 10 feet tall. They stand in a circle facing outward, holding hands and leaning far forward. They would tumble forward if not for the cooperation, trust, and collective effort that is required in forming an unbroken ring. Thus the title "Unity".
"The sculpture is made of hundreds of parallel, vertically aligned stainless steel plates, each held 1 inch apart. The result is a study of figures with a shifting perception of form as one moves around the sculpture. Additionally, it will be illuminated with amber colored LED lights at night."
A 130-year-old edition of Unity, the newspaper of the Western Unitarian Conference, which had been included in the 1884 time capsule.
Photographs © 2014 Sonja L. Cohen. From Christopher L. Walton’s article “UUA holds farewell ceremony for 25 Beacon St.” (uuworld.org, 3.3.14)
(Photo is the property of the Unitarian Universalist Association.)
AIR CDRE (RETD) ISHFAQ ILAHI CHOUDHURY
As we say goodbye to the year 2012, we might take time out to reflect on our achievements and failures in the year gone by, examine our prospects for the future and the challenges that lie ahead. Religious extremism leading to terrorist activities is one such area that needs to be reviewed. While many South Asian countries are deeply embroiled in the fight against terrorism, Bangladesh had generally been free from terrorist attacks since 2005. As we tended to relax, two incidents in 2012 brought our focus back to the terrorism issue. The first was the burning and looting of the houses and temples of the Buddhist communities in Cox’s Bazar area on 29-30 September. The second was the arrest on 17 October of a young Bangladeshi man caught while planning to bomb the Federal Reserve Building in New York, USA. As the year was coming to a close, the violence unleashed across the country by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a right-wing Islamist party, sent us a clear signal of the growing strength of Islamist politics.
s we say goodbye to the year 2012, we might take time out to reflect on our achievements and failures in the year gone by, examine our prospects for the future and the challenges that lie ahead. Religious extremism leading to terrorist activities is one such area that needs to be reviewed. While many South Asian countries are deeply embroiled in the fight against terrorism, Bangladesh had generally been free from terrorist attacks since 2005. As we tended to relax, two incidents in 2012 brought our focus back to the terrorism issue. The first was the burning and looting of the houses and temples of the Buddhist communities in Cox’s Bazar area on 29-30 September. The second was the arrest on 17 October of a young Bangladeshi man caught while planning to bomb the Federal Reserve Building in New York, USA. As the year was coming to a close, the violence unleashed across the country by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a right-wing Islamist party, sent us a clear signal of the growing strength of Islamist politics.
These are happening at a time when an avowed secular party, the Awami League (AL), is in power. AL won the 2008 election with a commitment to amend the constitution to restore its secular character. It also promised stern action against all forms of religious extremism and terrorism. Four years down the line, much of those promises remain unfulfilled. Constitutional reform was half-done; Islam remained a state religion. Religious parties are more organised today than ever before. Their student fronts are active in most educational institutions. While Islamists are active on political fronts, more radical amongst them are organising themselves for terrorist activities as and when opportunities appear.
Rise of Islamic extremism in Bangladesh
On 16 December 1971, we hoped that Bangladesh would emerge as a modern democratic state. The spirit of the nation was epitomised in the Constitution (1972) that adopted secularism as a state principle and prohibited the political use of religion. The Constitution barred the state from declaring any religion as state religion. However, it all changed after the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and many top-ranking political leaders in 1975. Those who seized power at the time found the Islamists as their political ally and started islamising the society and the state. Islamist political parties, such as JI, started building their party structures. The power elites established thousands of madrassas that produced religiously indoctrinated youths who would be the front-line activists of the Islamist parties. Poor, jobless students from the madrassas became easy target of the recruiters of militant Islamist organisations. By late 1990s we had militant organisations such as Jamiatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) and Harkatul Jihad Al-Islami (HUJI) that took roots in Bangladesh.
Starting from 1999 to 2005, the militants bombed temples, churches, political rallies, cultural functions, cinema halls etc. The government and the opposition kept on blaming each other for those attacks. Even when grenades attack was made on the AL rally in Dhaka on 22 August 2004 killing 22 people and injuring the AL Chief Sheikh Hasina, the government blamed it on the opposition. The series bombing on 17 August 2005 finally compelled the government to come out of the denial mode and stand up to the terrorist threat. In 2006-07, we saw a series of arrests, prosecution and handing down of sentences, including death sentences, on some of the terror leaders. Since then there has been no major terror attack in Bangladesh, but that the terrorists are active is evident from the frequent arrests of activists and seizure of large cache of arms and explosives from their hideouts.
Bulk of the Islamic militants arrested so far had come from poor rural communities. Many were from the Quomi Madrassa background. However, recent years saw a new breed of extremists called the Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT). HuT members are drawn from children of urban, upper income parentage, educated in the mainstream or English medium schools and colleges. HuT is targeting the cream of our youth, the nation’s future, and therefore, poses a clear danger. It is feared that HuT has penetrated among schools and universities, professionals – engineers, doctors, government officials and even among the security apparatus. Although the party was banned in 2009, its clandestine activities continue in the country. On the political front, JI continued to grow in strength in Bangladesh. The party is small in size, but highly disciplined, well-organised and has a well-defined hierarchy. Jamaat’s aim is to establish a pure Islamic state based on Sharia. The party had opposed the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971 and actively collaborated in the genocide. Some of the top leaderships are now facing war-crime trial. The party, therefore, is on a back foot now, but given the fact that a new election is around the corner, its rank and file might align with the major opposition party to make a bid for power. JI’s student wing, Islami Chattra Shibir (Islamic Students Front), is now a potent student organisation, from schools to universities. The other Islamist party of importance is Islami Oikyo Jote (Islamic Unity Front), a collection of small Islamic parties. Like JI, IOJ also wants to establish an Islamic state in Bangladesh, but there are differences in outlook. IOJ members are exclusively from Quomi madrassa background and more traditional. IOJ has been in the forefront, along with JI, in the movement to declare Ahmedia community as non-Muslims. Present government’s attempt to register Quomi Madrassas and reform their curriculum was thwarted by IOJ’s agitation. None of the Islamist political parties gave open support to the militant activities, however, many of the JMB and HUJI activists had previously been members of Islamist political parties. The Islamist parties have multifarious social, economic and financial investments. Some of the largest banks, insurance, hospitals, diagnostic centres, schools, universities, coaching centres, and travel agencies are operated undercover by the Islamist parties. The Islamist parties have been gaining in strength in Bangladesh at the expense of the two major political parties – BNP and AL. Both parties at one time or other have been courting these parties in order to gain short term advantage over the other.
Countering the extremists
Bangladesh government has taken a number steps to check extremism and militancy. Notable among those are: Anti-Terrorism Act 2009 and Money Laundering Prevention Act 2009 as amended in 2011. The two acts provide for deterrent punishment to offenders in case they engage in acts of terror or launder money to support terrorism. Based on a series of dialogues, workshops and seminars, participated by academics, researchers, politicians, parliamentarians, civil and military officials, a national strategy to combat terrorism in the country has been proposed.Bangladesh has banned a total of six terrorist organizations, including JMB, HUJI and HuT. A number of Islamic NGOs have been banned who had terror links, including Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (Kuwait), Rabita Al Alam Al Islami (Saudi Arabia), and International Islamic relief Organization (Saudi Arabia), Muslim Aid (UK). More than 1,300 militants were arrested; most of them belonging to JMB, HUJI-B or HuT. 29 terrorist kingpins have been sentenced to death and many more sentenced to long imprisonment or are awaiting trial.While our police action has been commendable, we did not do enough on the social front. We need to address urgently the problem of poverty, ignorance, and backwardness. Democratisation of the society is an insurance against extremist ideology. We need to improve governance and provide access to justice for the poor and downtrodden. We need to impart modern education to our youth that prepare them to face the challenges of a fast changing world. A thorough overhaul of madrassa education in our country is long overdue. We need an education system that produce people with high ethical and technical standards, a system that encourages freethinking rather than rote learning. Emergence of HuT points out a lack of pride and a sense of disillusionment among the children of affluent class. This is because English medium schools, where most of the rich parents send their children, follow a curriculum that has no relevance to our culture, history or traditions. Therefore, English medium school syllabus too needs a thorough review.Government must legislate not to allow use of religion to gain political mileage. We need to check creeping ‘Sudiaization’ of Islam. Along with the money from the ME donors, comes the ideological package of Wahhabi Islam which is alien to South Asia. One of the prices we pay for the remittance from our labour force in the ME is the influx of Saudi brand of Islam. How do we de-radicalise these migrant workers is a big challenge for us. Meanwhile, hundreds of extremists who are arrested or under trial must be segregated from other prisoners. At present, these extremists are finding a captive audience 24 hours at their disposal, busy recruiting new ones from among the prisoners. We need to isolate the extremists and start a de-radicalisation program so that when they return to the society they become useful citizen.Our effort to counter religious extremism must be supplemented by regional and global effort. We need to have close cooperation and coordination between the governments of the region. Border monitoring, passport control, anti-money laundering measures, exchange of information on the movement of suspects, arrest and deportation of fugitives are some of the areas where regional countries could cooperate. Checking of arms smuggling across the porous border is another area where regional cooperation is the answer. In short, a total, comprehensive strategy has to be adopted for fighting religious extremism. If Bangladesh is to emerge as a modern, democratic state, the menace of extremism must be eliminated.
I think this speaks for itself.
Soon to be released as Unity Core, a command line interface distribution 115MB in size using 10MB of total memory. But will it install? We've custom written an installer in bash based on Mandriva's installer so that you can boot to a cli live disk and install it. Available at a Unity Linux website near you soon.
Unity, Valiant. These were the first Valiant books I ever bought back when they came out. Fortunately now the pre-unity books are much cheaper than they were back in the 90s.
FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, PA - Employees from the Pennsylvania National Guard and Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs gathered for Unity Day, an annual celebration of diversity, Aug. 27, 2015. Remarks on diversity and inclusion were presented by Jose Molina, executive director of the Governor's Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs. A variety of cultural displays, music and ethnic foods were the highlights of the event. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. Ted Nichols/Released)
FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, PA - Employees from the Pennsylvania National Guard and Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs gathered for Unity Day, an annual celebration of diversity, Sept. 5, 2013. The event had a variety of cultural demonstrations, displays and food. (Photo by Tom Cherry/Released)
Ubuntu Unity desktop with a background called Graffiti. 14.04 Trusty Tahr running on a Medion E1317T.
Unity windows take advantage of most of the special effects provided by Compiz and other window managers on Linux. This is an example of the Windows XP control panel being all wobbly while moving.
WCU students gathered on Monday afternoon for their annual Martin Luther King Jr. Unity March. Photo by Travis Wright.
FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, PA - Employees from the Pennsylvania National Guard and Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs gathered for Unity Day, an annual celebration of diversity, Sept. 5, 2013. The event had a variety of cultural demonstrations, displays and food. (Photo by Tom Cherry/Released)
So here are some concepts for a series with three parts—the second, and main, part will be our stewardship campaign. This was a tough one for me... whether I should just keep the icon the same and change the logotype or change the icon each time.
This are def. stage 1 concepts, so I can change anything at this point. The prayer hands are a little weird to me, but was hard for me to get 1 color hands to work in this space otherwise.
Unity Recovery Services Volvo Rotator Underlift at Avro Ex Recovery Show. Chateau Impney, Droitwicth
TGIF everybody!
This was one of my favorites from this Engagement shoot. I like how the pathway behind their hands' adds a nice Depth of field. Megan and Brian were very happy with this shot!
Nikon D3
Lens: 70-200mm f2.8 VR
May 12, 2019 - Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple located at 875 Lake Street, Oak Park, Illinois. "Commissioned by the congregation of Oak Park Unity Church in 1905, Wright’s Unity Temple is the greatest public building of the architect’s Chicago years. Wright’s family on his mother’s side were Welsh Unitarians, and his uncle Jenkin Lloyd Jones was a distinguished Unitarian preacher with a parish on Chicago’s south side where Wright and his wife Catherine were married. Wright identified with the rational humanism of Unitarianism, particularly as influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalism, uniting all beings as one with the divine presence.
Wright’s father had been a Universalist preacher. With their emphasis on a loving God, Universalists were early advocates of abolitionism and were the first church to ordain women. In 1886 Universalist Augusta Chapin became minister of the Oak Park Unity Church, attracting new members to the congregation including Frank Lloyd Wright’s mother Anna. Unitarian Universalist minister Rodney Johonnot succeeded Chapin when she joined the Parliament of World Religions in 1893. A lawyer and graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Johonnot was known for his liberal views, even more extreme than those of Jenkin Lloyd Jones with whom he sometimes took issue.
When Unity Church burned to the ground in June 1905, Wright was awarded the commission, and in 1906 Johonnot published a booklet titled, A New Edifice for Unity Church. He wanted a modern building that would embody the principles of “unity, truth, beauty, simplicity, freedom and reason.”
Wright was a perfect match to these requirements. The design he submitted to the congregation broke with almost every existing convention for traditional Western ecclesiastic architecture. On the novel choice of construction material Wright states, “There was only one material to choose—as church funds were $45,000. Concrete was cheap.” Wright’s bold concept for the building enabled a series of concrete forms to be repeated multiple times.
In harmony with Wright’s philosophy of organic architecture, the concrete was left uncovered by plaster, brick, or stone. Wright’s sensitive handling of materials was a defining feature of his architecture from early in his career. “Bring out the nature of the materials,” Wright insisted in his seminal essay In the Cause of Architecture, “let their nature intimately into your scheme. Reveal the nature of wood, plaster, brick, or stone in your designs, they are all by nature friendly and beautiful. No treatment can be really a matter of fine art when those natural characteristics are, or their nature is, outraged or neglected.”
Unity Temple was a significant commission in Wright’s Oak Park Studio. Charles E. White, who worked as a draftsman for Wright from 1903 to 1906, details the collaborative effort of the Studio to secure the commission, “the chief thing at Wright’s is of course Unity Church, the sketches of which are at last accepted. We have all pleaded and argued with the committee, until we are well nigh worn out. All hands are working on the drawings."
In harmony with Wright’s philosophy of organic architecture, the concrete was left uncovered by plaster, brick, or stone. Wright’s sensitive handling of materials was a defining feature of his architecture from early in his career. “Bring out the nature of the materials,” Wright insisted in his seminal essay In the Cause of Architecture, “let their nature intimately into your scheme. Reveal the nature of wood, plaster, brick, or stone in your designs, they are all by nature friendly and beautiful. No treatment can be really a matter of fine art when those natural characteristics are, or their nature is, outraged or neglected.”
Unity Temple was a significant commission in Wright’s Oak Park Studio. Charles E. White, who worked as a draftsman for Wright from 1903 to 1906, details the collaborative effort of the Studio to secure the commission, “the chief thing at Wright’s is of course Unity Church, the sketches of which are at last accepted. We have all pleaded and argued with the committee, until we are well nigh worn out. All hands are working on the drawings.”
Approached from Lake Street, Unity Temple is a massive and monolithic cube of concrete, sheltered beneath an expansive flat roof. The introspective nature of the building is in part a response to its corner site situated along a busy thoroughfare. No entrance is apparent and the building appears impenetrable, save for a band of high clerestory windows recessed behind decorative piers and shadowed by overhanging eaves.
Entry to the building is via a low hall that connects Unity Temple and Unity House. Above the bank of doors leading into the hall, an inscription in bronze declares, “For the worship of God and the service of man.” The low, dimly lit hall that unites the buildings is a transitional space. To the south it opens directly onto Unity House. Designed for “the service of man,” this secular space includes a central meeting hall, flanking balconies for use as open classrooms, and other special purpose rooms for daily operation. Like Wright’s residential architecture, this congregational parish house is centered on a fireplace hearth.
Situated across the hall from Unity House is the temple. In contrast to the open entrance into Unity House, access to the sanctuary is complex. Wright masterfully manipulates the sequence of entrance; guiding the visitor through low dark passages he termed “cloisters,” before they ascend into the open, brightly lit sanctuary.
The sanctuary is the heart and anchor of the building. At once grand yet intimate, the sanctuary is a masterful composition in light and space. Its elegant articulation and warm colors stand in bold contrast to the grey concrete exterior. Devoid of overt religious iconography, its precise geometric proportions declare a harmonious whole.
The uppermost portion of the sanctuary appears light and transparent. A continuous band of clerestory windows of Wright’s signature leaded glass encircle the flat, coffered ceiling. Set in a concrete grid are twenty-five square skylights of amber tinted leaded glass The effect, Wright states, was intended “to get a sense of a happy cloudless day into the room… daylight sifting through between the intersecting concrete beams, filtering through amber glass ceiling lights. Thus managed, the light would, rain or shine, have the warmth of sunlight.”
While Wright’s innovative use of concrete was chosen for its economy, the completed building ultimately cost nearly twice the contracted price due to complications encountered during construction. In September of 1909, the new building was dedicated. Because its unique design bore little resemblance to the other churches along Lake Street, it was decided to rename it Unity Temple.
The congregation’s board of trustees issued a statement thanking Wright. “We extend to the architect, Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright, our most hearty congratulations upon the wonderful achievement embodied in the new edifice and further extend to him our most sincere thanks for the great service which, through the building, he has rendered to the parish and to the community. We believe the building will long endure as a monument to his artistic genius and that, so long as it endures, it will stand forth as a masterpiece of art and architecture.” Their words were prophetic."
Previous text from the following website: flwright.org/researchexplore/unitytemple
Along the Sufi path, I realized the harmonious unity of all existence,
inner refinement as well as a widening of a deeper perception and vision.
In meditation much was unveiled to me, which compelled me to search
for the complimentary aspects of this vision.
This exhibition may be the first step along the path.
Ya Hadret Mawlay … meditation in divine presence, and searching for the path.
Amr Fekry