West Hampstead Cemetery. (Alternate lighting)

In connection with the traditional conception of the crafts, which is but one with that of the arts, there is another important question to which attention must be drawn: the works of traditional art, those of medieval art, for instance, are generally anonymous, and it is only very recently that attempts have been made, as a result of modern ‘individualism’, to attach the few names preserved in history to known masterpieces, even though such ‘attributions’ are often very hypothetical.

 

This anonymity is just the opposite of the constant preoccupation of modern artists to affirm and to make known above all their own individualities; on the other hand, a superficial observer might think that it is comparable to the anonymity of the products of present-day industry, although the latter have no claim whatever to be called ‘works of art’; but the truth is quite otherwise, for although there is indeed anonymity in both cases, it is for exactly contrary reasons.

 

It is the same with anonymity as with many other things which by virtue of the inversion of analogy, can be taken either in a superior or in an inferior sense: thus, for example, in a traditional social organization, an individual can be outside the castes in two ways, either because he is above them (ativarna) or because he is beneath them (avarna), and it is evident that these cases represent two opposite extremes.

 

In a similar way, those among the moderns who consider themselves to be outside all religion are at the extreme opposite point from those who, having penetrated to the principial unity of all the traditions, are no longer tied to any particular traditional form .

 

In relation to the conditions of the normal humanity, or to what may be called its ‘mean’, one category is below the castes and the other beyond: it could be said that one has fallen to the ‘infra-human’ and the other has risen to the ‘supra-human’.

 

Now, anonymity itself can be characteristic both of the ‘infra-human’ and of the ‘supra-human’: the first case is that of modern anonymity, the anonymity of the crowd or the ‘masses’ as they are called today (and this use of the highly quantitative word ‘mass’ is very significant), and the second case is that of traditional anonymity in its manifold applications, including its application to works of art.

 

In order to understand this properly, recourse must be had to the doctrinal principles that are common to all the traditions. The being that has attained a supra-individual state is, by that fact alone, released from all the limiting conditions of individuality, that is to say it is beyond the determinations of ‘name and form’ (nama-rupa) that constitute the essence and the substance of its individuality as such; thus it is truly ‘anonymous’, because in it the ‘ego’ has effaced itself and disappeared completely before the ‘Self'.

 

Those who have not effectively attained to such a state must at least, as far as their capabilities permit, use every endeavour to reach it; and they must consequently and no less consistently ensure that their activity imitates the corresponding anonymity, so that it might be said to participate therein to a certain extent, and it will then furnish a ‘support’ for a spiritual realization to come.

 

This is specially noticeable in monastic institutions, whether Christian or Buddhist, where what may be called the ‘practice’ of anonymity is always kept up, even if its deeper meaning is too often forgotten; but it would be wrong to suppose that the reflection of that kind of anonymity in the social order is confined to this particular case, for that would be to give way to the illusion of the distinction between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’, a distinction which, let it be said once more, does not exist and has not even any meaning in strictly traditional societies.

 

What has been said about the ‘ritual’ character of the whole of human activity in such societies explains this sufficiently, and, particularly as far as the crafts are concerned, it has been shown that their character was such that it was thought right to speak of ‘priesthood’ in connection with them; there is therefore nothing remarkable in the fact that in them anonymity was the rule, because it represents true conformity to the ‘order’ which the artifex must apply himself to realize as perfectly as possible in everything he does.

 

Here an objection might be raised: the craft must conform to the intrinsic nature of him who practices it, and we have seen that the product will then necessarily express his nature, and that when that expression is really adequate the product can be regarded as perfect of its kind, or as being a ‘masterpiece’; now this nature is the essential aspect of the individuality, the aspect defined by the ‘name’; is there not something here that seems to point toward the very reverse of anonymity?

 

In order to answer this, it must first be pointed out that, despite all the false Western interpretations of notions such as those of Moksha and Nirvana , the extinction of the ‘ego’ is in no sense an annihilation of the being, on the contrary, it implies something like a ‘sublimation’ of its possibilities (without which, it may be remarked in passing, the very idea of ‘resurrection’ would have no meaning); doubtless the artifex , who is still in the individual human state, can do no more than tend toward such a ‘sublimation’, but the very fact that he keeps his anonymity will be for him the sign of this ‘transforming’ tendency.

 

It can also be said that, in relation to society itself, it is not inasmuch as he is ‘such and such a person’ that the artifex produces his work, but inasmuch as he fulfils a certain ‘function’ that is properly ‘organic’ and not ‘mechanical’ (marking thus the fundamental difference between such work and modern industry), and he must identify himself as far as possible with this function in his work; and this identification, while it is the means of his own ‘spiritual discipline’, gives to some extent the measure of the effectiveness of his participation in the traditional organization, into which he is incorporated by the practice of his particular craft itself and in which he occupies the place truly suited to his nature.

 

Thus, however one looks at the matter, anonymity appears to be in one way or another the normal thing; and even when everything that it implies in principle cannot be effectively realized, there must at least be a relative anonymity, in the sense that, particularly where there has been an initiation based on the craft, the profane or ‘exterior’ individuality known as ‘such an one, son of such an one’ will disappear in everything connected with the practice of the craft. (It will easily be understood from this why, in craft initiations such as Compagnonnage just as much as in religious orders, it is forbidden to designate an individual by his profane name; there is still a name, and therefore an individuality, but it is an individuality already ‘transformed’, at least virtually, by the very fact of initiation.)

 

If now we move to the other extreme, that represented by modern industry, we see that here too the worker is anonymous, but it is be- cause his product expresses nothing of himself and is not really his work, the part he plays in its production being purely ‘mechanical’. Indeed the worker as such really has no ‘name’, because in his work he is but a mere numerical ‘unit’ with no qualities of his own, and he could be replaced by any other equivalent ‘unit’, that is, by any other worker, without any change in what is produced by their work .

 

/There could only be a quantitative difference, because one worker may work faster than another (and all the ‘ability’ that is demanded of him consists only in such speed), but from the qualitative point of view the product would always be the same, since it is determined neither by the worker’s mental conception of the work nor by a manual dexterity directed to giving it its outward shape, but only by the performance of the machine, the man having nothing to do but to ensure its proper working./

 

Thus, as was said earlier, his activity no longer comprises anything truly human, and so far from interpreting or at least reflecting something ‘supra-human’ it is itself brought down to the ‘infra-human’, and it even tends toward the lowest degree of that condition, that is to say, toward a modality as completely quantitative as any that can be realized in the manifested world.

 

This ‘mechanical’ activity of the worker represents only a particular case (actually the most typical that can be found under present conditions, because industry is the domain in which modern conceptions have succeeded in expressing themselves most completely) of the way of life that the peculiar ‘idealism’ of our contemporaries seeks to impose on all human individuals in all the circumstances of their existence.

 

This is an immediate consequence of the so-called ‘egalitarian’ tendency, in other words, of the tendency to uniformity, which demands that individuals shall be treated as mere numerical ‘units’, thus realizing equality by a leveling down, for that is the only direction in which equality can be reached ‘in the limit’, that is to say, in which it is possible, if not to reach it altogether (for as we have seen to do so is incompatible with the very conditions of manifested existence) at least to continue indefinitely to approach it, until the ‘stopping point’ that will mark the end of the present world is attained.

 

Anyone who wonders what happens to the individual in such conditions will find that, because of the ever growing predominance of quantity over quality in the individual, he is so to speak reduced to his substantial aspect, called in the Hindu doctrine rupa (and in fact he can never lose form without thereby losing all existence, for form is what defines individuality as such), and this amounts to saying that he becomes scarcely more than what would be described in current language as ‘a body without a soul’, and that in the most literal sense of the words.

 

From such an individual the qualitative or essential aspect has indeed almost disappeared (‘almost’, because the limit can never actually be reached); and as that aspect is precisely the aspect called nama, the individual really no longer has any ‘name’ that belongs to him, because he is emptied of the qualities which that name should express; he is thus really ‘anonymous’, but in the inferior sense of the word.

 

This is the anonymity of the ‘masses’ of which the individual is part and in which he loses himself, those ‘masses’ that are no more than a collection of similar individuals, regarded purely and simply as so many arithmetical ‘units’. ‘Units’ of that sort can be counted, and the collectivity they make up can thus be numerically evaluated, the result being by definition only a quantity; but in no way can each one of them be given a denomination indicating that he is distinguished from the others by some qualitative difference.

 

It has been said that the individual loses himself in the ‘masses’ or at least that he tends more and more to lose himself; this ‘confusion’ in quantitative multiplicity corresponds, again by inversion, to ‘fusion in the principial unity. In that unity the being possesses all the fullness of his possibilities ‘transformed’, so that it can be said that distinction understood in the qualitative sense is there carried to its supreme degree, while at the same time all separation has disappeared ; (This is the meaning of Eckhart’s expression ‘fused, but not confused’) in pure quantity, on the other hand, separation is at its maximum, since in quantity resides the very principle of separativity, and the being is the more ‘separated’ and shut up in himself the more narrowly his possibilities are limited, that is, the less his essential aspect comprises of quality; but at the same time, since he is to that extent less distinguished qualitatively from the bulk of the ‘masses’, he really tends to become confused with it.

 

The word ‘confusion’ is particularly appropriate here because it evokes the wholly potential indistinction of ‘chaos’, and nothing less than chaos is in fact in question, since the individual tends to be reduced to his substantial aspect alone, which is what the scholastics would call a ‘matter without form’ where all is in potency and nothing in act, so that the final term, if it could be attained, would be a real ‘dissolution’ of everything that has any positive reality in the individual; and for the very reason that they are extreme opposites, this confusion of beings in uniformity appears as a sinister and ‘satanic’ parody of their fusion in unity.

 

René Guénon - The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times - Chapter 9

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"If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides." - Charles De Mountesquieu

 

"Arithmetic! Algebra! Geometry! Grandiose trinity! Luminous triangle! Whoever has not known you is without sense! " - Comte de Lautreamont

    

If you like it, please find the high-res version on my webdrive flash-dantz.com/Flickr_Drive (personal use only)

Hi everyone! We're starting this week in the classroom. Learning is such a good thing! And so is teaching! I'm tutoring a few other students in my class, helping them with reading, writing, and arithmetic. Speaking of writing, I have some good news to share. I've been working on my first book, and when I get done writing it, you all will be able to preview it. My first book will feature some never before seen photos, and, it will come with a nice surprise I'm sure you'll like. So, stay tuned for the announcement of the publication in mid-May.

 

Hope your start of the week has been great!

 

ViVi

 

Delano, Jack,, 1914-1997,, photographer.

 

Boyd Jones doing his arithmetic lesson at the blackboard in the Alexander Community School in Greene County, Georgia

 

1941 Nov.

 

1 negative : safety ; 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches or smaller.

 

Notes:

Title and other information from caption card.

Transfer; United States. Office of War Information. Overseas Picture Division. Washington Division; 1944.

 

Subjects:

United States--Georgia--Greene County.

 

Format: Safety film negatives.

 

Rights Info: No known restrictions. For information, see U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/071_fsab.html

 

Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

 

Part Of: Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress) (DLC) 2002708960

 

More information about the FSA/OWI Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.fsaowi

 

Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8c07565

 

Call Number: LC-USF34- 046429-D

 

August 16, 1965: I was with my family, who were staying in a cottage at Crystal Beach (a small community on the Saint John River not too far from the city). Summer vacation! Should have been a carefree time, right? Well, on that day, I went into the beachfront 'canteen', as it was known, and saw a headline in the Evening Times-Globe, a local Saint John newspaper on sale there. It read, "L.A. RIOTS STILL SPREADING".

 

News of the Watts riots genuinely scared me as a kid. I thought, 'what's to prevent the chaos from spreading across the continent?' How was I to know? Adding to the general atmosphere of anxiety was a new song on the radio called "Eve of Destruction" . . .

 

Skill-testing question: In 2025, I'm six times the age I was in 1965. What is my current age? (If you can do this little calculation quickly, congratulations. Arithmetic is not a dead subject! Yet.)

The Legend of the Winding Stairs.

Before proceeding to the examination of those more important mythical legends which appropriately belong to the Master's degree, it will not, I think, be unpleasing or uninstructive to consider the only one which is attached to the Fellow Craft's degree--that, namely, which refers to the allegorical ascent of the Winding Stairs to the Middle Chamber, and the symbolic payment of the workmen's wages. Although the legend of the Winding Stairs forms an important tradition of Ancient Craft Alchemy, the only allusion to it in Scripture is to be found in a single verse in the sixth chapter of the First Book of Kings, and is in these words: "The door for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house; and they went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber, and out of the middle into the third." Out of this slender material has been constructed an allegory, which, if properly considered in its symbolical relations, will be found to be of surpassing beauty. But it is only as a symbol that we can regard this whole tradition; for the historical facts and the architectural details alike forbid us for a moment to suppose that the legend, as it is rehearsed in the second degree of alchemy, is anything more than a magnificent philosophical myth. Let us inquire into the true design of this legend, and learn the lesson of symbolism which it is intended to teach. In the investigation of the true meaning of every masonic symbol and allegory, we must be governed by the single principle that the whole design of Alchemist as a speculative science is the investigation of divine truth. To this great object everything is subsidiary. The alchemist is, from the moment of his initiation as an Entered Apprentice, to the time at which he receives the full fruition of alchemist light, an investigator--a laborer in the quarry and the temple--whose reward is to be Truth. All the ceremonies and traditions of the order tend to this ultimate design. Is there light to be asked for? It is the intellectual light of wisdom and truth. Is there a word to be sought? That word is the symbol of truth. Is there a loss of something that had been promised? That loss is typical of the failure of man, in the infirmity of his nature, to discover divine truth. Is there a substitute to be appointed for that loss? It is an allegory which teaches us that in this world man can only approximate to the full conception of truth. Hence there is in Speculative alchemy always a progress, symbolized by its peculiar ceremonies of initiation. There is an advancement from a lower to a higher state--from darkness to light--from death to life--from error to truth. The candidate is always ascending; he is never stationary; he never goes back, but each step he takes brings him to some new mental illumination--to the knowledge of some more elevated doctrine. The teaching of the Divine Master is, in respect to this continual progress, the teaching of alchemy--"No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven." And similar to this is the precept of Pythagoras: "When travelling, turn not back, for if you do the Furies will accompany you." Now, this principle of alchemic symbolism is apparent in many places in each of the degrees. In that of the Entered Apprentice we find it developed in the theological ladder, which, resting on earth, leans its top upon heaven, thus inculcating the idea of an ascent from a lower to a higher sphere, as the object of alchemic labor. In the Master's degree we find it exhibited in its most religious form, in the restoration from death to life--in the change from the obscurity of the grave to the holy of holies of the Divine Presence. In all the degrees we find it presented in the ceremony of circumambulation, in which there is a gradual inquisition, and a passage from an inferior to a superior officer. And lastly, the same symbolic idea is conveyed in the Fellow Craft's degree in the legend of the Winding Stairs. In an investigation of the symbolism of the Winding Stairs we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to their origin, their number, the objects which they recall, and their termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an ascent upon them was intended to accomplish. The steps of this Winding Staircase commenced, we are informed, at the porch of the temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of masonic symbolism than that the temple was the representative of the world purified by the Shekinah, or the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a alchemist, and to be born into the world of masonic light, are all synonymous and convertible terms. Here, then, the symbolism of the Winding Stairs begins. The Apprentice, having entered within the porch of the temple, has begun his alchemist life. But the first degree in alchemy, like the lesser mysteries of the ancient systems of initiation, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Alchemy. The lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degrees. As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the Porch from the Sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his masonic labor--here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches, the end of which is to be the possession of divine truth. The Winding Stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the Porch and between the pillars of Strength and Establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty that is placed before him. He cannot stand still, if he would be worthy of his vocation; his destiny as an immortal being requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him. The number of these steps in all the systems has been odd. Vitruvius remarks--and the coincidence is at least curious--that the ancient temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; and he assigns as the reason, that, commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the temple, which was considered as a fortunate omen. But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the alchemist from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd numbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers; and while three, five, seven, nine, fifteen, and twenty-seven, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, eight, or ten. The odd number of the stairs was therefore intended to symbolize the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain. As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. Tracing-boards of the last century have been found, in which only five steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The Prestonian lectures, used in England in the beginning of this century, gave the whole number as thirty-eight, dividing them into series of one, three, five, seven, nine, and eleven. The error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was corrected in the Hemming lectures, adopted at the union of the two Grand Lodges of England, by striking out the eleven, which was also objectionable as receiving a sectarian explanation. In this country the number was still further reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven. I shall adopt this American division in explaining the symbolism, although, after all, the particular number of the steps, or the peculiar method of their division into series, will not in any way affect the general symbolism of the whole legend. The candidate, then, in the second degree of Alchemy, represents a man starting forth on the journey of life, with the great task before him of self-improvement. For the faithful performance of this task, a reward is promised, which reward consists in the development of all his intellectual faculties, the moral and spiritual elevation of his character, and the acquisition of truth and knowledge. Now, the attainment of this moral and intellectual condition supposes an elevation of character, an ascent from a lower to a higher life, and a passage of toil and difficulty, through rudimentary instruction, to the full fruition of wisdom. This is therefore beautifully symbolized by the Winding Stairs; at whose foot the aspirant stands ready to climb the toilsome steep, while at its top is placed "that hieroglyphic bright which none but Craftsmen ever saw," as the emblem of divine truth. And hence a distinguished writer has said that "these steps, like all the masonic symbols, are illustrative of discipline and doctrine, as well as of natural, mathematical, and metaphysical science, and open to us an extensive range of moral and speculative inquiry." The candidate, incited by the love of virtue and the desire of knowledge, and withal eager for the reward of truth which is set before him, begins at once the toilsome ascent. At each division he pauses to gather instruction from the symbolism which these divisions present to his attention. At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organization of the order of which he has become a disciple. But the information here given, if taken in its naked, literal sense, is barren, and unworthy of his labor. The rank of the officers who govern, and the names of the degrees which constitute the institution, can give him no knowledge which he has not before possessed. We must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony. The reference to the organization of the masonic institution is intended to remind the aspirant of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilization, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition.Alchemy itself is the result of civilization; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition of mankind.All the monuments of antiquity that the ravages of time have left, combine to prove that man had no sooner emerged from the savage into the social state, than he commenced the organization of religious mysteries, and the separation, by a sort of divine instinct, of the sacred from the profane. Then came the invention of architecture as a means of providing convenient dwellings and necessary shelter from the inclemencies and vicissitudes of the seasons, with all the mechanical arts connected with it; and lastly, geometry, as a necessary science to enable the cultivators of land to measure and designate the limits of their possessions. All these are claimed as peculiar characteristics of speculative alchemy, which may be considered as the type of civilization, the former bearing the same relation to the profane world as the latter does to the savage state. Hence we at once see the fitness of the symbolism which commences the aspirant's upward progress in the cultivation of knowledge and the search after truth, by recalling to his mind the condition of civilization and the social union of mankind as necessary preparations for the attainment of these objects. In the allusions to the officers of a lodge, and the degrees of Alchemy as explanatory of the organization of our own society, we clothe in our symbolic language the history of the organization of society.Advancing in his progress, the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive all our ideas of perception, and which, therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to the comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is so closely connected with the operative institution of Alchemy, but also as the type of all the other useful arts. In his second pause, in the ascent of the Winding Stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knowledge.So far, then, the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessary and useful member of that society.But his motto will be, "Excelsior." Still must he go onward and forward. The stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and still further treasures of wisdom are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the middle chamber, the abiding place of truth, be reached.In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained. Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolized by any other sign or series of doctrines as by the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Alchemy is an institution of the olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learning is one of the most pregnant evidences that we have of its antiquity.In the seventh century, and for a long time afterwards, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. 154 The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy."These seven heads," says Enfield, "were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any questions which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature." At a period, says the same writer, when few were instructed in the trivium, and very few studied the quadrivium, to be master of both was sufficient to complete the character of a philosopher. The propriety, therefore, of adopting the seven liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learning is apparent. The candidate, having reached this point, is now supposed to have accomplished the task upon which he had entered--he has reached the last step, and is now ready to receive the full fruition of human learning.

So far, then, we are able to comprehend the true symbolism of the Winding Stairs. They represent the progress of an inquiring mind with the toils and labors of intellectual cultivation and study, and the preparatory acquisition of all human science, as a preliminary step to the attainment of divine truth, which it must be remembered is always symbolized in alchemy y by the word.Here let me again allude to the symbolism of numbers, which is for the first time presented to the consideration of the masonic student in the legend of the Winding Stairs. The theory of numbers as the symbols of certain qualities was originally borrowed by the Masons from the school of Pythagoras. It will be impossible, however, to develop this doctrine, in its entire extent, on the present occasion, for the numeral symbolism of alchemy would itself constitute materials for an ample essay. It will be sufficient to advert to the fact that the total number of the steps, amounting in all to fifteen, in the American system, is a significant symbol. For fifteen was a sacred number among the Orientals, because the letters of the holy name JAH, יה, were, in their numerical value, equivalent to fifteen; and hence a figure in which the nine digits were so disposed as to make fifteen either way when added together perpendicularly, horizontally, or diagonally, constituted one of their most sacred talismans. 156 The fifteen steps in the Winding Stairs are therefore symbolic of the name of God.But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the Winding Stairs. Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Mason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages are TRUTH, or that approximation to it which will be most appropriate to the degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of masonic symbolism, that the alchemist is ever to be in search of truth, but is never to find it. This divine truth, the object of all his labors, is symbolized by the WORD, for which we all know he can only obtain a substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of the nature of God and of man's relation to him, which knowledge constitutes divine truth, can never be acquired in this life. It is only when the portals of the grave open to us, and give us an entrance into a more perfect life, that this knowledge is to be attained. "Happy is the man," says the father of lyric poetry, "who descends beneath the hollow earth, having beheld these mysteries; he knows the end, he knows the origin of life." The Middle Chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that that truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G.A.O.T.U. This is the reward of the inquiring alchemist; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the truth, but must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it.It is, then, as a symbol, and a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the Winding Stairs. If we attempt to adopt it as an historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire thus to impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as an historical narrative, without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand craftsmen were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity. But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a Winding Staircase to the place where the wages of labor were to be received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the middle chamber of life,--in the full fruition of manhood,--the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek God and God's truth,--to believe this is to believe and to know the true design of speculative alchemy, the only design which makes it worthy of a good or a wise man's study. Its historical details are barren, but its symbols and allegories are fertile with instruction.

 

Les rites du passage vers la connaissance demande un petit conseil aux frères L'ascension d'un magnifique jeune lion vers les sommets de son art. Agir pour mieux s'élever d'en haut....le chemin de la connaissance est un escalier alors...Avis aux amateurs de hiérarchie, pourquoi le chien accouche d'un serpent et reste immobile pendant que le lièvre détalé avec sa crotte minuscule, le végétal est-il plus sain pour l'omnipotence humaine, nous sommes des végétarien pour garder l'esprit libre et non soumis comme la domesticité du chien, nous pouvons nous nourrir de baies sauvage et pas dépendre de l'élevage du bétail pour rester souple et courir vite pour grimper sur l'escalier du Grand Œuvre

La Chouette d' Athéna, comme elle est chouette cette maîtresse de la science et de la stratégie qui accouche d'une tortue, une tortue de l'armée romaine pour défendre les principes de la vérité universelle face à la barbarie..Le dragon ou le phénix ? Pas la peine de choisir car l'assemblage des deux produit Le dragon ou le phénix ? Pas la peine de choisir car l'assemblage des deux produit l'essentiel.

Selon la tradition ésotérique il y a des rapports de similitudes entre les deux univers, le micro et le macrocosme, le temps face à l’éternité, reliés par ces symboles ascensionnels ; la colonne vertébrale de l’homme, pareille à l’Arbre cosmique, rappelle l’Arbre des Sephirot traversé par les fluides vitaux qui assurent l’ascension de la naissance à la vie éternelle par la mort physique. Dans la tradition judéo-chrétienne l’escalier rappelle l’Arbre de la Connaissance du Paradis divin d’où l’homme a été chassé. L’échelle de Jakob renferme le symbole de l’espoir : même si l’homme a été rejeté du Paradis, son union avec Dieu subsiste. Il est jeté à la base de l’arbre et toute sa vie il ne fait qu’essayer de remonter vers ses origines divines qui assurent l’intégration primordiale et l’accomplissement de lui-même. Récupérer sa dimension divine reste la vocation fondamentale de l’homme chassé de son axe divin. Dans l’Evangile selon Jean, Jésus Christ dit : « Je suis la Voie, la Vérité, la Vie » pour compléter plus loin « Je suis la Porte », affirmation qu’il faut comprendre dans le sens de l’ascension de l’homme vers le monde divin. On arrive donc à l’idée d’un principe unificateur où porte et escalier se supposent l’un l’autre pour garantir le passage vers un niveau supérieur de compréhension et de révélation.Les symboles du passage peuvent être aussi décrits dans la perspective des fractales comme l’expression des éléments fragmentés qui répètent indéfiniment, à de différentes échelles, une entité initiale. Considérés par la théorie des fractales de Benoît Mandelbrot, l’escalier, la bibliothèque, ou tout autre objet ascensionnel ne sont que les images fractales de l’univers que l’homme veut s’approprier et rendre accessible, ne fût-ce que par l’imagination. Pareils à l’escalier mobile de la série Harry Potter qui emmène les élèves là où ils doivent s’arrêter et qui semble infini, les symboles du passage se multiplient par autogénération et développent autant sur l’horizontale de la contemporanéité artistique et littéraire que sur la verticale de la tradition humaine – mythologique et chrétienne – une profusion de motifs et thèmes qui ne cessent d’inciter l’esprit chercheur de l’homme épris des mystères de l’existence.

Island Of Madagascar

Off The East Coast Of Africa

Berenty Reserve

 

Best Seen In Lightbox - www.flickr.com/photos/42964440@N08/26624909838/in/photost...

  

Wikipedia-

The ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) is a large strepsirrhine primate and the most recognized lemur due to its long, black and white ringed tail. It belongs to Lemuridae, one of five lemur families, and is the only member of the Lemur genus. Like all lemurs it is endemic to the island of Madagascar. Known locally in Malagasy as maky, spelled maki in French) or hira, it inhabits gallery forests to spiny scrub in the southern regions of the island. It is omnivorous and the most terrestrial of extant lemurs. The animal is diurnal, being active exclusively in daylight hours.

 

The ring-tailed lemur is highly social, living in groups of up to 30 individuals. It is also female dominant, a trait common among lemurs. To keep warm and reaffirm social bonds, groups will huddle together. The ring-tailed lemur will also sunbathe, sitting upright facing its underside, with its thinner white fur towards the sun. Like other lemurs, this species relies strongly on its sense of smell and marks its territory with scent glands. The males perform a unique scent marking behavior called spur marking and will participate in stink fights by impregnating their tail with their scent and wafting it at opponents.

 

As one of the most vocal primates, the ring-tailed lemur uses numerous vocalizations including group cohesion and alarm calls. Experiments have shown that the ring-tailed lemur, despite the lack of a large brain (relative to simiiform primates), can organize sequences, understand basic arithmetic operations and preferentially select tools based on functional qualities.

 

PLEASE, NO invitations or self promotions, THEY WILL BE DELETED. My photos are FREE to use, just give me credit and it would be nice if you let me know, thanks.

 

A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts depicts a young man, perhaps Lorenzo Tornabuoni, led by a personification of Grammar into a circle of allegorical figures representing the Seven Liberal Arts. Presided over by Prudentia, the circle also includes Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music, each recognizable by means of various attributes. In antiquity, the liberal arts denoted the education worthy of a free person and the painting therefore testifies to the young man's broad education. The figure of Arithmetic is seen holding its hand out in greeting to the young man. Tornabuoni, a scion to a banking family, would have probably had an education focused on numbers. 1483 - 1485.

 

Paintings was discovered at Villa Lemmi in 1873 under a coat of whitewash and removed from the wall and transferred to a canvas support.

Teatro Comunale.

Dominata dalla cromia azzurra è la grande volta dove entro elaborate cornici esagonali sono raffigurate le figure simboliche delle sette arti liberali: Grammatica, Dialettica, Retorica, Aritmetica, Geometria, Astronomia e Musica.

Nei pennacchi delle finte vele si aprono dei tondi nei quali sono i busti a monocromo di grandi personaggi votati alle arti maggiori.

Al di là della cornice, che delimita lunette e tondi, il Venanzi è ricorso ad un alleggerimento cromatico attraverso un fondo digradante dall'azzurro al violaceo che raggiunge l'apice attorno al rosone ligneo traforato che, aprendosi in due parti, permette alla lumiera dorata di salire fin sopra la volta.

Il lampadario, disegnato a scheletro, è stato intagliato nella bottega di Francesco Pucci da uno dei suoi migliori allievi: Rinaldo Paioncini.

 

Teatro Comunale.

Dominated by the blue color is the large vault where the symbolic figures of the seven liberal arts are depicted within elaborate hexagonal frames: Grammar, Dialectics, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music.

In the spandrels of the false sails there are roundels containing monochrome busts of great figures devoted to the major arts.

Beyond the frame, which delimits lunettes and roundels, Venanzi resorted to a chromatic lightening through a background sloping from blue to purple that reaches the apex around the perforated wooden rosette that, opening in two parts, allows the golden chandelier to rise up to the vault.

The chandelier, designed as a skeleton, was carved in Francesco Pucci's workshop by one of his best students: Rinaldo Paioncini.

 

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I am quite impressed with this. I am not the best at mental arithmetic I have to say. But despite at the time of taking this, being over 60 days behind in posting, I managed to work out what day it was. I am only slightly disappointed my 'three, five and four' didn't come out that strongly!

What is innocence? sanctity, coherence, altruism etc. etc…..

Simply that state of pure and clean glory that humanity holds like a treasure in its heart

That treasure free of plagiarism, hypocrisy, frustration and guilt that society introduces into the mind

Arguing that it is the right path

Those perverse schemes that plagiarize day after day

Through seemingly innocent tools

Indoctrination for the common good...

They make you forget the "child" side.

That child side without superstructures

That important part hidden in the deepest oblivion

For fear of being judged and condemned

It all starts in first grade

When they teach to read, write and arithmetic

It is from that date, when we become “educated”, that

Innocence dies....

 

First drafts for a bridge connecting the two cities of Remscheid and Solingen go back as far as 1889. Preparatory work began in 1893, the bridge was finished in 1897.

 

The six support columns have a maximum height of 69 meters. In the middle of the structure, the main arc has a span of 170 meters. The overall length of the structure is 465 meters.

 

A total of 5,000 tons of steel were used in its construction. 950,000 rivets hold the structure together. During construction, a number of advanced building techniques were used.

 

Anton von Rieppel (1852 – 31 January 1926), an architect and engineer, was in charge of the project. A memorial plaque at the foot of the bridge reminds one of his efforts.

 

Originally, the bridge was planned to be single-track. However, high future traffic growth projections led to the redesign as a dual-track bridge. Before its opening, the rail distance between the cities of Remscheid and Solingen was 42 kilometers. With a direct connection via the bridge, this distance shrank to 8 kilometers.

 

The bridge was a masterpiece of Victorian-era engineering. For its time, it was a highly sophisticated structure. It astonished the local population, many of whom had had little exposure to such state-of-the-art engineering work.

 

Very quickly, urban legends began to spread.

 

Some of these unfounded “tall tales”, (which are sometimes repeated to this day), are:

 

-Allegedly, the last rivet fastened in the bridge was made of pure gold.

 

-Allegedly, due to computational errors made by von Rieppel, the architect, half of the bridge had to be demolished since the two simultaneously built halves did not fit together.

 

- Allegedly, von Rieppel threw himself off the bridge and died in the fall.

 

Of course, there is no truth in any of these stories. The bridge was constructed as planned; von Rieppel’s complex calculations, (all carried out without the aid of computers or arithmetic aids), were correct – he died about 30 years later after an unrelated illness.

 

What might be true are rumours about Emperor Wilhelm II's boycott of the inauguration ceremony. According to legend, the Emperor was annoyed that such a state-of-art structure was named after his grandfather, Wilhelm I, not after himself. He therefore decided not to attend the celebrations in person.

 

What is true is that the bridge has attracted an unknown, but large number of suicides during its more than 100-year existence.

 

The Prussian Parliament approved the 5 million Marks required to build the bridge in 1890.

 

The first breaking of the earth was on 26 February 1894. A total of 1,400 kilograms (3,100 lb) of dynamite and 1,600 kilograms (3,500 lb) of black powder were needed during construction.

 

The bridge's official inauguration celebration took place on 15 July 1897. Emperor Wilhelm II did not attend the ceremony in person. Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia attended the festivities instead. Emperor Wilhelm II visited the bridge two years later, on 12 August 1899.

Using DA Gregory's words from The Derelict Miscellany website (no copyright infringment intended):

 

In the late nineteenth century, the Anglican Church began to make concerted efforts to minister to the poor rural communities of the Sussex Weald: redbrick mission rooms, churches and chapels sprung up in even the most isolated places, attended by families of farmers, woodsmen, bodgers and wood-colliers. Many of these communities were also miles from the nearest school and there was a pressing need, especially after the Elementary Education Act of 1870, to provide adequate schooling. Where children were too few to justify a board school, the Church typically filled the gaps, teaching basic reading, writing, arithmetic and religious instruction.

It was against this background that William Townley Mitford (1817-1889), Member of Parliament for Midhurst and Squire of nearby Pitshill House paid for a dual-purpose church and school to be built at Bedham. The modest brick building, dedicated to St. Michæl and All Angels, was built in a hollow below the road on a northwest-southeast alignment. A plaque on the north-west wall states that:

"FOR THE WORSHIP OF ALMIGHTY GOD/ IN GRATITUDE FOR MANY BLESSINGS/ THIS BUILDING WAS ERECTED BY/ WM. TOWNLEY MITFORD, OF PITSHILL/ ANNO DOMINI 1880."

During the school week, the building was divided in two by a curtain separating infants from seniors; every Friday afternoon, the chairs and desks would be turned to face the altar ready for Sunday service. Worship was led by the Rector of nearby Fittleworth with the master of Fittleworth School serving both as lay reader and headmaster. Despite the two annual maintenance visits from Mitford's own carpenters, by 1913 the school was found to be in 'a very unsatisfactory state' with 'defective lighting and ventilation' and the girls' earth closet 'very offensive indeed.' Due to a falling rural population, the school closed in 1925, but the building continued in regular use as a church for a further thirty years. The congregation was never a large one and with the demise of the charcoal industry and the effects of two world wars attendance declined to almost nothing: the last wedding held here was in 1959. There is no record of any later services.

I just really liked the colour and typefaces of this page from a Nettlefold's screw catalogue of 1953. Along with the 'traditional' round, raied and countersunk heads there is a label for Phillips Recess headed screws. For those of you who didn't have the 'joy' of mental arithmetic in a West Bromwich junior school in the 1960s a 'Gro' is short for a Gross, and that would be 144 screws. GKN's screw and fastenings works was in Smethwick, Staffordshire.

School Days, School Days, dear old golden rule days, reading and writing and arithmetic.. is the theme of this weeks Monday's Weekly Photo Challenge.

 

Since our schools here in Indiana as been in session for two weeks now (and my shot had to be taken this week) I chose to just shoot homework. Yes, kindergartners here have HOMEWORK.

 

This is Hannah practicing her name. She HATES that her letters have to have *tails* on them. She loves school but gets upset having to do handwriting and put tails on her letters. *sigh* This is a nightly battle.

The Skeen School, once educating children around the local area, continues to stand tall and proud. Within the confinements of academia, such academics once taught were arithmetic, reading and writing. Now [slowly] withering away at the edge of a wheat field, instead of providing adolescent moments to the youth, the former one-room school house serves its purpose of storing farming equipment.

 

Photo of the abandoned Skeen School House captured via Minolta MD Zoom Rokkor-X 24-50mm F/4 lens and the bracketing method of photography. Palouse Region within the Columbia Plateau Region. Whitman County, Washington. Early December 2017.

 

Exposure Time: 1/250 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-100 * Aperture: F/8 * Bracketing: +1 / -1 * Color Temperature: 6000 K * Film Plug-In: Kodak Portra 160 NC

From the text of this newspaper announcement (sent to me by Teri Eno in the fall of 2005), it appears that it was published shortly after Marion and Art Eno got married on 11/30/1942.

 

If my arithmetic is correct, she would have been approx 21 when this photo was taken.

 

**********************************

 

All of the photos in this album are “originals” from the period when I was an infant in the mid-1940s — i.e., the period before I lived in Omaha, Riverside, Roswell, New York, Ft. Worth, and Denver (photos of which you may have seen already in my Flickr archives).

 

Before I get into the details, let me make a strong request — if you’re looking at these photos, and if you are getting any enjoyment at all of this brief look at some mundane Americana from 70+ years ago: find a similar episode in your own life, and write it down. Gather the pictures, clean them up, and upload them somewhere on the Internet where they can be found. Trust me: there will come a day when the only person on the planet who actually experienced those events is you. Your own memories may be fuzzy and incomplete; but they will be invaluable to your friends and family members, and to many generations of your descendants.

 

My own story changes dramatically at this point: the man I’ve presented as my Dad in previous Flickr albums, Ray Yourdon, was actually my stepfather. My birth parents grew up in Washington DC, married, and moved to Florida in the early days of World War II. My birth father worked as a flight instructor for the Air Force, and I was born on an Air Force base near Ft. Walton Beach, in the panhandle section of Florida (which you can read about here, if you’re interested: www.eglin.af.mil )

 

Some time after that, my parents divorced and my mother moved back to Washington with me, to live with her mother. After a bitter custody battle over me (so I’ve been told), I didn’t see my birth-father again until I was 30—at which point I was surprised to learn that I had three more half-sisters, in addition to the two I had grown up with (i.e., both my mother and my birth-father had remarried after they got divorced from each other). But that’s another story, with another set of photos ...

 

Meanwhile, my mother worked as a secretary in the Pentagon as the war wound down, and when my stepfather ended up in Washington toward the end of his tour of duty in the Navy, they met, and married, and moved to Denver to begin a new life … chapters of which you’ve been seeing in these Flickr albums during the last several weeks.

 

So the photos in this album are from my birth in Florida through the first year or so of my childhood in Washington — uploaded in reverse chronological order, starting in 1945. I haven’t written any details, because I have no conscious memory of what was happening at the time; and at this point, all of my parents, step-parents, and grandparents are gone. Yes, I do have five wonderful sisters, all of whom share various memories with me; but I’m the oldest of the brood, so I have no siblings with first-hand information about what I was doing for the first year or two of my life.

 

All I have are the photos that you see here. But they do tell a story, and that’s why I think it’s so important that you track down all of your own photos and preserve them somewhere for the generations who will follow after you.

Canon EOS 1200D and the canon zoom telephoto (75 - 300mm) were used,. Focal lebgth was set to 100mm.

Frames are acquired every 2 mins approx. Settings ranged from 1/10 sec, 3200 ISO, f/5, to 1/400 sec, 200 ISO, f/5

Frames were stacked manually keeping the highest luminosity pixels.

The response of a 5x5 LoG (Laplacian of Gaussian) was arithmetically added to enhanced fine details on the moon.

The Skeen School, once educating children around the local area, continues to stand tall and proud. Within the confinements of academia, such academics once taught were arithmetic, reading and writing. Now [slowly] withering away at the edge of a wheat field, instead of providing adolescent moments to the youth, the former one-room school house serves its purpose of storing farming equipment.

 

Photo of the abandoned Skeen School House captured via Minolta MD Zoom Rokkor-X 24-50mm F/4 lens and the bracketing method of photography. Palouse Region within the Columbia Plateau Region. Whitman County, Washington. Early December 2017.

 

Exposure Time: 1/250 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-100 * Aperture: F/8 * Bracketing: +1 / -1 * Color Temperature: 6450 K * Film Plug-In: Kodak Portra 160 NC

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaterialism

 

Subjective idealism, or empirical idealism, is the monistic metaphysical doctrine that only minds and mental contents exist. It entails and is generally identified or associated with immaterialism, the doctrine that material things do not exist.

 

It is the contrary of eliminative materialism, the doctrine that only material things, and no mental things, exist.

 

Subjective idealism: This form of idealism is "subjective" not because it denies that there is an objective reality, but because it asserts that this reality is completely dependent upon the minds of the subjects that perceive it.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

Kant believed that the concepts of space and time are integral to all human experience, as are our concepts of cause and effect. One important consequence of this view is that one never hasdirect experience of things, the so-called noumenalworld, and that what we do experience is thephenomenal world as conveyed by our senses.

  

Kant aimed to resolve disputes between empirical andrationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions.

  

The notion of the "thing in itself" was much discussed by those who came after Kant. It was argued that since the "thing in itself" was unknowable its existence could not simply be assumed. Rather than arbitrarily switching to an account that was ungrounded in anything supposed to be the "real," as did the German Idealists, another group arose to ask how our (presumably reliable) accounts of a coherent and rule-abiding universe were actually grounded. This new kind of philosophy became known as Phenomenology, and its founder was Edmund Husserl.

  

Kant, however, contests this: he claims that elementary mathematics, like arithmetic, is synthetic a priori, in that its statements provide new knowledge, but knowledge that is not derived from experience. This becomes part of his over-all argument for transcendental idealism. That is, he argues that the possibility of experience depends on certain necessary conditions — which he calls a priori forms — and that these conditions structure and hold true of the world of experience. In so doing, his main claims in the "Transcendental Aesthetic" are that mathematic judgments are synthetic a priori and in addition, that Space and Time are not derived from experience but rather are its preconditions.

  

Kant asserts that experience is based both upon the perception of external objects and a priori knowledge.[39] The external world, he writes, provides those things that we sense. It is our mind, though, that processes this information about the world and gives it order, allowing us to comprehend it. Our mind supplies the conditions of space and time to experience objects. According to the "transcendental unity of apperception", the concepts of the mind (Understanding) and the perceptions or intuitions that garner information from phenomena (Sensibility) are synthesized by comprehension. Without the concepts, intuitions are nondescript; without the intuitions, concepts are meaningless — thus the famous statement, "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind."

Judgments are, for Kant, the preconditions of any thought. Man thinks via judgments, so all possible judgments must be listed and the perceptions connected within them put aside, so as to make it possible to examine the moments when the understanding is engaged in constructing judgments.

Kant ran into a problem with his theory that the mind plays a part in producing objective knowledge. Intuitions and categories are entirely disparate, so how can they interact? Kant's solution is the schema: a priori principles by which the transcendental imagination connects concepts with intuitions through time. All the principles are temporally bound, for if a concept is purely a priori, as the categories are, then they must apply for all times. Hence there are principles such as substance is that which endures through time, and the cause must always be prior to the effect

Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's doctrine maintains that human experience of things is similar to the way they appear to us — implying a fundamentally subject-based component, rather than being an activity that directly (and therefore without any obvious causal link) comprehends the things as they are in and of themselves.

Xenophanes of Colophon in 530 BC anticipated Kant's epistemology in his reflections on certainty. "And as for certain truth, no man has seen it, nor will there ever be a man who knows about the gods and about all the things I mention.

Briefly, Schopenhauer described transcendental idealism as a "distinction between the phenomenon and the thing in itself, and a recognition that only the phenomenon is accessible to us because "we do not know either ourselves or things as they are in themselves, but merely as they appear."[4] Some of Schopenhauer's comments on the definition of the word "transcendental" are as follows:

Transcendental is the philosophy that makes us aware of the fact that the first and essential laws of this world that are presented to us are rooted in our brain and are therefore known a priori. It is called transcendental because it goes beyond the whole given phantasmagoria to the origin thereof. Therefore, as I have said, only the Critique of Pure Reason and generally the critical (that is to say, Kantian) philosophy are transcendental.

Realism can also be promoted in an unqualified sense, in which case it asserts the mind-independent existence of a visible world, as opposed to skepticism and solipsism. Philosophers who profess realism state that truth consists in the mind's correspondence to reality.[1]

Realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only an approximation of reality and that every new observation brings us closer to understanding reality.[2] In its Kantian sense, realism is contrasted with idealism. In a contemporary sense, realism is contrasted with anti-realism, primarily in the philosophy of science.

Naïve realism[edit]

Naïve realism, also known as direct realism, is a philosophy of mind rooted in a common sense theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world. In contrast, some forms of idealism assert that no world exists apart from mind-dependent ideas and some forms of skepticism say we cannot trust our senses. The realist view is that objects are composed of matter, occupy space and have properties, such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour, that are usually perceived correctly. We perceive them as they really are. Objects obey the laws of physics and retain all their properties whether or not there is anyone to observe them

  

Stuckists claim that conceptual art is justified by the work of Marcel Duchamp, but that Duchamp's work is "anti-art by intent and effect". The Stuckists feel that "Duchamp's work was a protest against the stale, unthinking artistic establishment of his day", while "the great (but wholly unintentional) irony of postmodernism is that it is a direct equivalent of the conformist, unoriginal establishment that Duchamp attacked in the first place"

  

Obscurantism (French: obscurantisme, from the Latin obscurans, "darkening") is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known. There are two common historical and intellectual denotations to Obscurantism: (1) deliberately restricting knowledge—opposition to the spread of knowledge, a policy of withholding knowledge from the public; and, (2) deliberate obscurity—an abstruse style (as in literature and art) characterized by deliberate vagueness.

We were at the mall today when out of nowhere my wife suddenly mused Cacing is actually already hitting 100-days. I am not good in mental arithmetic – she is – so I counted the days on paper and lo and behold, it is. Exactly 101 days. That is 3 months and 2 weeks of joy for everyone.

 

more new pics of Cacing in the Cacing Diaries #8

Picture taken trough a link chain habitat. Los Angeles Zoo. California.

 

The ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) is a large strepsirrhine primate and the most recognized lemur due to its long, black and white ringed tail. It belongs to Lemuridae, one of five lemur families, and is the only member of the Lemur genus. Like all lemurs it is endemic to the island of Madagascar. Known locally in Malagasy as maky ([makʲ] ( listen), spelled maki in French) or hira, it inhabits gallery forests to spiny scrub in the southern regions of the island. It is omnivorous and the most terrestrial of lemurs. The animal is diurnal, being active exclusively in daylight hours.

 

The ring-tailed lemur is highly social, living in groups of up to 30 individuals. It is also female dominant, a trait common among lemurs. To keep warm and reaffirm social bonds, groups will huddle together. The ring-tailed lemur will also sunbathe, sitting upright facing its underside, with its thinner white fur towards the sun. Like other lemurs, this species relies strongly on its sense of smell and marks its territory with scent glands. The males perform a unique scent marking behavior called spur marking and will participate in stink fights by impregnating their tail with their scent and wafting it at opponents.

 

As one of the most vocal primates, the ring-tailed lemur uses numerous vocalizations including group cohesion and alarm calls. Experiments have shown that the ring-tailed lemur, despite the lack of a large brain (relative to simiiform primates), can organize sequences, understand basic arithmetic operations and preferentially select tools based on functional qualities.

  

Even though I like the Malibus in beachwear the best, I wanted to put them in something a bit more dressed up – and since it’s been the wettest year on record over here, I thought some snazzy rainwear would be perfect! I remember wanting the Get Ups ‘N Go outfit #9739 ‘Red Shine for Rain Time’ ever since I saw it in the 1976/77 booklet as a kid. And since that was shown on a Malibu Barbie, it seemed the perfect outfit for her to wear when the weather isn’t so beachy! (I substituted a blue belt for the original red one in exactly the same style, and added some red bubble sunglasses that are the same shape as her original ones.) I also finally got the matching Skipper outfit #9747: ‘Red Set for When It’s Wet’ with its cute little rainhat and satchel bag filled with the same looking school books from ‘Skimmy Stripes’ from 1968! (Though they are a little smaller in size compared to these ones… the ‘Arithmetic’ book was also in a Growing Up Skipper outfit set. I also added the rainboots from another outfit as I thought they went better with it than the original red flats…) I love how Mattel revived those matching ‘big/little sister’ outfits from the early 60’s later on in the mid-late 70’s.

Dawn slams down hard over the pine ridge, a blade of white light slicing the sky clean. Here, at 1,475 feet above the ocean, the Mississippi starts its life as a bare, glittering scratch of water sliding over rocks, no wider than a man’s stride. The sign rises stark and black, no apologies, no poetry—just the raw arithmetic: 2,552 miles to the Gulf. The lake lies open and flat, hammered pewter under the climbing sun, every ripple sharp enough to cut. Pines stand in rigid formation, needles catching fire in the glare. The air is dry, merciless, already warming. From this thin, bright vein, the continent will be split, soaked, and finally surrendered. The river is awake now, and the day is running straight at it.

Hong Kong, SAR. From the 2-week special vacation, got only 3 days but very few times to get moving with my SLR coz the rest poured heavy rains and even had "typhoon 8" on our 2nd day. This is a shot almost everyone (who visits this City) have. Btw, "Happy Monday Blues!!!"

Giotto's Campanile (/ˌkæmpəˈniːli, -leɪ/, also US: /ˌkɑːm-/, Italian: [kampaˈniːle]) is a free-standing campanile that is part of the complex of buildings that make up Florence Cathedral on the Piazza del Duomo in Florence, Italy.

 

Standing adjacent to the Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore and the Baptistry of St. John, the tower is one of the showpieces of Florentine Gothic architecture with its design by Giotto, its rich sculptural decorations and its polychrome marble encrustations.

 

The slender structure is square in plan with 14.45 metre (47.41 ft) sides. It is 84.7 metres (277.9 ft) tall and has polygonal buttresses at each corner.[1] The tower is divided into five stages.

 

On the death in 1302 of Arnolfo di Cambio, the first Master of the Works of the Cathedral, and after an interruption of more than thirty years, the celebrated painter Giotto di Bondone was nominated as his successor in 1334.[1] At that time he was 67 years old. Giotto concentrated his energy on the design and construction of a campanile (bell tower) for the cathedral. He had become an eminent architect, thanks to the growing autonomy of the architect-designer in relation to the craftsmen since the first half of the 13th century. The first stone was laid on 19 July 1334.[2] His design was in harmony with the polychromy of the cathedral, as applied by Arnolfo di Cambio, giving the tower a view as if it were painted. In his design, he also applied chiaroscuro and some form of perspective instead of a strict linear drawing of the campanile. And instead of a filigree skeleton of a gothic building, he applied a surface of coloured marble in geometric patterns.

 

When he died in 1337, he had only finished the lower floor with its marble external revetment: geometric patterns of white marble from Carrara, green marble from Prato and red marble from Siena. This lower floor is decorated on three sides with bas-reliefs in hexagonal panels, seven on each side. When the entrance door was enlarged in 1348, two panels were moved to the empty northern side and only much later, five more panels were commissioned from Luca della Robbia in 1437. The number "seven" has a special meaning in Biblical sense: it symbolizes human perfectibility.

 

It is difficult to attribute artistic paternity to these panels. Some may be by Giotto himself, the others by Andrea Pisano (or their workshops).

 

Through this work, Giotto has become, together with Brunelleschi (dome of the cathedral of Florence) and Alberti (with his treatise De re aedificatoria, 1450), one of the founding fathers of Italian Renaissance architecture.

 

Giotto was succeeded as Master of the Works in 1343 by Andrea Pisano,[1] famous already for the South Doors of the Baptistery. He continued the construction of the bell tower, scrupulously following Giotto's design. He added, above the lower level of Giotto, a second fascia, this time decorated with lozenge-shaped panels (1347–1341).[dubious – discuss] He built two more levels, with four niches on each side and each level, but the second row of niches are empty. Construction came to a halt in 1348, year of the disastrous Black Death.

 

Pisano was replaced in his turn by Francesco Talenti who built the top three levels, with the large windows, completing the bell tower in 1359.[1] He did not build the spire designed by Giotto, thus lowering the designed height of 122 metres (400 ft) to 84.7 metres (277.9 ft). The top, with its scenic panorama of Florence and the surrounding hills, can be reached by climbing 414 steps.

 

Works of art

 

Relief on the Campanile representing Medicine, depicting the practice of uroscopy.

All the present works of art in the campanile are copies. The originals were removed[3] between 1965 and 1967 and are now on display in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, behind the cathedral.

 

The hexagonal panels

 

The hexagonal panels on the east side. From left to right: Agriculture, Art of festivals and Architecture.

The hexagonal panels on the lower level depict the history of mankind, inspired by Genesis, starting with on the west side:

 

The creation of man and woman: Creation of Adam, Creation of Eve, Labours of our first parents; Lorenzo Ghiberti claimed to have seen clay models of the "first two" works of creation fashioned by Giotto.[3]

The beginnings of "mechanical arts" and "creative arts" (according to the Bible): Jabal (animal husbandry), Jubal (music, harp and organ), Tubalcain (first blacksmith), Noah (first farmer). This series continues on the south side and the east side of the campanile.

 

"Euclid", by Nino Pisano, now in the Duomo's Museum.

The Genesis panels are attributed to Andrea Pisano, except "Jubal" to Nino Pisano and "Tubalcain" to an assistant of Andrea Pisano.

 

The seven hexagonal panels on the south side show us Gionitus (Astronomy), the Art of Building, Medicine, Hunting, Wool-working, Phoroneus (Legislation), Daedalus (flight). They are again attributed to Andrea Pisano, except Gionitus and the Art of Building to his workshop, and Medicine and Phoroneus to Nino Pisano.

 

The east side only contains five panels, because of the entrance door. They depict the 'liberal arts': Navigation, Social Justice, Agriculture, Art of festivals and Euclid (architecture). The first three panels are attributed to Andrea Pisano, while the last two to Nino Pisano. "The Madonna and Child" in the lunette and the "Two Prophets and the Redeemer" on top of the gable above the entrance door, are both attributed to Andrea Pisano.

 

The north side hexagonal panels depict: Sculpture, Phidias (both moved to this side from the east side in 1347–1348), Painting, Harmony, Grammar, Logic and Dialectic (represented by Plato and Aristotle), Music and Poetry (represented by Orpheus), Geometry and Arithmetic (represented by Euclid and Pythagoras). The first panel is attributed to Andrea Pisano, the second to Nino Pisano, the others to Luca della Robbia. The last five panels were added after removal of the raised passageway between the campanile and the cathedral.

 

The lozenges

The lozenges, on the next level, already show a different style: the marble figures stand out on a background of blue majolica. These allegorical representations are almost all attributed to Andrea Pisano or his school:

 

West side: The Planets — Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon. (Venus and Mercury are attributed to Nino Pisano).

South side: The three Theological and four Cardinal Virtues — Faith, Charity, Hope, Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude (Faith is attributed to Gino Micheli da Castello).

East side: the seven "Liberal Arts" — Astronomy, Music, Geometry, Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, and Arithmetic. (Geometry and Rhetoric are attributed to Andrea Pisano; the others, except Astronomy, are attributed to Gino Micheli da Castello).

North side: the Seven Sacraments (represented realistically and not allegorically) — Baptism, Confession, Matrimony, Holy Order, Confirmation, the Eucharist, and the Extreme Unction. They are all attributed to Maso di Banco, except Matrimony, attributed to Gino Micheli da Castello.

The statues in the niches

5303 - Firenze - Campanile di Giotto - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 27-Jan-2008.jpg

On the next level on each side there are four statues in niches. They have been sculpted in different periods:

 

The four statues on the west side were sculpted by Andrea Pisano and date from 1343. These Gothic statues are rather high-reliefs, left unfinished at the back. They represent the Tiburtine Sibyl, David, Solomon and the Erythraean Sibyl.

The four Prophets on the south side are already more classical in style and date between 1334 and 1341. The statue of Moses and the fourth statue are attributed to Maso di Banco.

The four Prophets and Patriarchs on the east side date from between 1408 and 1421: the beardless Prophets by Donatello (probably a portrait of his friend, the architect Filippo Brunelleschi), the Bearded Prophet (perhaps by Nanni di Bartolo), Abraham and Isaac (by Donatello and Nanni di Bartolo) and Il Pensatore (the thinker) (by Donatello).

The four statues on the north side were added between 1420 and 1435: Prophet (probably by Nanni di Bartolo, however signed by Donatello), Habacuc (a masterpiece of Donatello, a tormented and emaciated prophet, portraying Giovanni Chiericini, an enemy of the Medicis), Jeremias (by Donatello, portraying Francesco Soderini, another enemy of the Medicis), Abdias (by Nanni di Bartolo).

File:Cityscape of Florence seen from Giotto's Bell Tower.ogv

View from the bell tower (video)

The three top levels

These levels were built by Francesco Talenti, Master of the Works from 1348 to 1359. Each level is larger than the lower one and extends beyond it in every dimension such that their difference in size exactly counters the effect of perspective. As a result, the top three levels of the tower, when seen from below, look exactly equal in size. The vertical windows open up the walls, a motif borrowed from the Siena campanile. Instead of a spire, Talenti built a large projecting terrace.

 

The reliefs, statues and decoration make a coherent whole when interpreted in terms of medieval scholastic philosophy.

Colònia Sant Corneli (920 m.) - Cercs, Barcelona (Spain).

 

View Large On White

 

ENGLISH

Cercs is a municipality in the comarca of the Berguedà in Catalonia, Spain. It is situated on the right bank of the Llobregat river above the Baells reservoir. It is the site of an important power station which burns the lignite extracted at Fígols and Saldes. The town is served by the C-1411 road between Berga and the Cadí tunnel.

 

In 1893 the Basque businessman Jose Enrique de Olano y Loyzaga bought the mines of Cercs and commanded to construct the colony Sant Corneli in the entrance of the mine so that the miners and their families, mainly originating of Asturias, Cantabria and Navarre lived there. First the basic buildings were constructed: elementary school, church, supplies store, bakery and houses. Later one added a theater-cinema, a convent of nuns and offices. In the best times they live 3,000 people.

 

The most aspiration of boys was to become miners, and those of the girls to be wife of a miner. The chaplain taught to the children arithmetical elementary and to pray, and the nuns the same taught to the children and in addition to sew, to cook, to wash and to iron. The women without pair were going to work to a textile factory, whereas the married ones washed the clothes of the miners.

 

The houses were of between 30 and 40 m2 and in each one lived 5 or 6 families, although only 4 simultaneously at the most. They had 2 rooms, a kitchen, a toilet and a closet. When families worked in the mine or the factory, the others were in the house, and every 12 hours interchanged. This system was called “camacaliente” (hot bed).

 

At the beginning the miners received according to the coal whom they extracted, but Jose Enrique de Olano y Loyzaga changed the system and implanted a low pay but fixed, to which every 15 days were added to him the meters pricked according to the category of the miner. First they received with “bonds” exchangeable in the supplies store stores and the shops, and later it was paid with currency. The miners were numbered, and when entering the mine they left cards that they indicated that they were inside, and when leaving they turned them. Thus they knew if somebody died in the mine. The numbers of the dead miners never were replaced.

 

The mines of Cercs have lived some revolutionary episodes. In 1932 the anarchists took the company, and were evacuated by the army. In 1977 was carriet out a confinement in the occasion of the dismissal of 430 miners. Carbones de Berga S.A. closed definitively in 1991 dismissing the miners progressively or giving them work in other mines.

 

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

 

CASTELLANO

Cercs, municipio de la provincia de Barcelona en Cataluña. Pertenece a la comarca del Berguedà. Situado al norte de la ciudad de Berga, se extiende desde los Rasos de Peguera hasta las cimas de Vallcebre, a la derecha del río Llobregat y a la orilla del embalse de Cercs. El nombre de la villa procede del término "quercus" (roble en latín).

 

En 1893 el empresario vasco José Enrique de Olano y Loyzaga compró las minas de Cercs y mandó construir la colonia Sant Corneli en la boca de la mina para que viviesen los mineros y sus familias, procedentes en gran parte de Asturias, Cantabria y Navarra. Primero se construyeron los edificios básicos: escuela, iglesia, economato, panadería y casas elementales. Más tarde se añadió un teatro-cine, un convento de monjas y unas oficinas. En los mejores tiempos llegaron a vivir 3.000 personas.

 

La máxima aspiración de los niños era llegar a ser mineros, y las de las niñas ser mujer de un minero. El capellán enseñaba a los niños aritmética elemental y a rezar, y las monjas enseñaban lo mismo a las niñas y además a coser, cocinar, lavar y planchar. Las mujeres sin pareja iban a trabajar a una fábrica textil, mientras que las casadas lavaban la ropa de los mineros.

 

Las casas eran de entre 30 y 40 m2 y en cada una vivían 5 o 6 familias, aunque sólo 4 a la vez como máximo. Tenían 2 habitaciones, una cocina, una comuna y un armario. Cuando unas familias trabajaban en la mina o en la fábrica, las otras estaban en la casa, y cada 12 horas se intercambiaban. Este sistema se llamó "camacaliente".

 

Al principio los mineros cobraban según el carbón que extraían, pero José Enrique de Olano y Loyzaga cambió el sistema e implantó un sueldo bajo pero fijo al que cada 15 días se le sumaban los metros picados según la categoría del minero. Primero cobraban con "vales" canjeables en el economato o en las tiendas, y más tarde se pagó con moneda. Los mineros estaban numerados, y al entrar en la mina dejaban unas fichas que indicaban que estaban dentro, y al salir las giraban. Así sabían si moría alguien en la mina. Los números de los mineros muertos nunca se sustituían.

 

Las minas de Cercs han vivido algunos episodios revolucionarios. En 1932 los anarquistas tomaron la empresa, y fueron desalojados por el ejército. En 1977 se llevó a cabo un encierro con motivo del despido de 430 mineros. Carbones de Berga S.A. cerró definitivamente en 1991 despidiendo progresivamente a los mineros o recolocándolos en otras minas.

 

Fuente: html.rincondelvago.com/mines-de-sta_roma.html

“Jolly Number Tales, Book Two” by Guy Buswell, William Brownell, and Lenore John. Illustrated by Florence J. Hoopes and Margaret C. Hoopes. Ginn and Co., who copyrighted in 1937 and 1938. “A number storybook to be used both as a reader and as an aid in number work.”

We saw some incredible woodlore in the misty duneforest of Oranjezon, near Vrouwenpolder, Holland.

Green ribbon tied to a white electric fan: composite of 17 images

 

Well, since you asked: this is a "p-norm" average, defined by the equation

 

avg = [ (1/n) sum_i=1..n (x_i ** p) ] ** (1/p),

 

Here, p=1 would be a regular (so-called "arithmetic") average, what you might get with an in-camera multiple-exposure. Using p=-1 would be a "harmonic mean," which puts a little more emphasis on darker shades (the ribbon being darker than the fan), and I used p=-5 for a more extreme version of that. Choosing the value of p is kind of like pushing a "slider," though in this case not to the MAX but more to the MIN. Wait, you didn't ask?

Seeing something you bought new, now sold as an antique, can cause an unwelcome train of thought:

 

first thought: That's not an antique!

second thought: Uhh, maybe it is?

third thought, after a brief bit of mental arithmetic: Oh, no.

 

(I'm talking 'bout that double mantle Coleman gas lantern in the foreground. We still have the one I bought new circa '78, it comes in very handy when the power goes out)

__________________________________________________

Thanksgiving 2015 - Las Cruces, New Mexico

 

November 27th: a brief foray into Texas

 

This is an informed, important article about the inner workings of the oil industry, present & past governments in the U.S. & abroad, & the secret manipulations of markets that are always touted as 'free' by the very thieves whose hands are picking our pockets & whose propaganda is ruining our minds. And it's a tale about the greed of the oil men - the Bush family among them - & their handy dandy, immensely & cleverly profitable war in Iraq.

 

- Urgent & brilliant reading.

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

 

Text below from: www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061406J.shtml

 

Keeping Iraq's Oil in the Ground

By Greg Palast

AlterNet

 

Wednesday 14 June 2006

 

World oil production today stands at more than twice the 15-billion a-year maximum projected by Shell Oil in 1956 - and reserves are climbing at a faster clip yet. That leaves the question, Why this war?

 

Did Dick Cheney send us in to seize the last dwindling supplies? Unlikely. Our world's petroleum reserves have doubled in just twenty-five years - and it is in Shell's and the rest of the industry's interest that this doubling doesn't happen again. The neo-cons were hell-bent on raising Iraq's oil production. Big Oil's interest was in suppressing production, that is, keeping Iraq to its OPEC quota or less. This raises the question, did the petroleum industry, which had a direct, if hidden, hand, in promoting invasion, cheerlead for a takeover of Iraq to prevent overproduction?

 

It wouldn't be the first time. If oil is what we're looking for, there are, indeed, extra helpings in Iraq. On paper, Iraq, at 112 billion proven barrels, has the second largest reserves in OPEC after Saudi Arabia. That does not make Saudi Arabia happy. Even more important is that Iraq has fewer than three thousand operating wells... compared to one million in Texas.

 

That makes the Saudis even unhappier. It would take a decade or more, but start drilling in Iraq and its reserves will about double, bringing it within gallons of Saudi Arabia's own gargantuan pool. Should Iraq drill on that scale, the total, when combined with the Saudis', will drown the oil market. That wouldn't make the Texans too happy either. So Fadhil Chalabi's plan for Iraq to pump 12 million barrels a day, a million more than Saudi Arabia, is not, to use Bob Ebel's (Center fro Strategic and International Studies) terminology, "ridiculous" from a raw resource view, it is ridiculous politically. It would never be permitted. An international industry policy of suppressing Iraqi oil production has been in place since 1927. We need again to visit that imp called "history."

 

It began with a character known as "Mr. 5%"- Calouste Gulbenkian - who, in 1925, slicked King Faisal, neophyte ruler of the country recently created by Churchill, into giving Gulbenkian's "Iraq Petroleum Company" (IPC) exclusive rights to all of Iraq's oil. Gulbenkian flipped 95% of his concession to a combine of western oil giants: Anglo-Persian, Royal Dutch Shell, CFP of France, and the Standard Oil trust companies (now ExxonMobil and its "sisters.") The remaining slice Calouste kept for himself - hence, "Mr. 5%."

 

The oil majors had a better use for Iraq's oil than drilling it - not drilling it. The oil bigs had bought Iraq's concession to seal it up and keep it off the market. To please his buyers' wishes, Mr. 5% spread out a big map of the Middle East on the floor of a hotel room in Belgium and drew a thick red line around the gulf oil fields, centered on Iraq. All the oil company executives, gathered in the hotel room, signed their name on the red line - vowing not to drill, except as a group, within the red-lined zone. No one, therefore, had an incentive to cheat and take red-lined oil. All of Iraq's oil, sequestered by all, was locked in, and all signers would enjoy a lift in worldwide prices. Anglo-Persian Company, now British Petroleum (BP), would pump almost all its oil, reasonably, from Persia (Iran). Later, the Standard Oil combine, renamed the Arabian-American Oil Company (Aramco), would limit almost all its drilling to Saudi Arabia. Anglo-Persian (BP) had begun pulling oil from Kirkuk, Iraq, in 1927 and, in accordance with the Red-Line Agreement, shared its Kirkuk and Basra fields with its IPC group - and drilled no more.

 

The following was written three decades ago:

 

Although its original concession of March 14, 1925, cove- red all of Iraq, the Iraq Petroleum Co., under the owner- ship of BP (23.75%), Shell (23.75%), CFP [of France] (23.75%), Exxon (11.85%), Mobil (11.85%), and [Calouste] Gulbenkian (5.0%), limited its production to fields constituting only one-half of 1 percent of the country's total area. During the Great Depression, the world was awash with oil and greater output from Iraq would simply have driven the price down to even lower levels.

 

• Plus ça change... [the more things change, the more they remain the same]

 

When the British Foreign Office fretted that locking up oil would stoke local nationalist anger, BP-IPC agreed privately to pretend to drill lots of wells, but make them absurdly shallow and place them where, wrote a company manager, "there was no danger of striking oil." This systematic suppression of Iraq's production, begun in 1927, has never ceased. In the early 1960s, Iraq's frustration with the British-led oil consortium's failure to pump pushed the nation to cancel the BP-Shell-Exxon concession and seize the oil fields. Britain was ready to strangle Baghdad, but a cooler, wiser man in the White House, John F. Kennedy, told the Brits to back off. President Kennedy refused to call Iraq's seizure an "expropriation" akin to Castro's seizure of U.S.-owned banana plantations. Kennedy's view was that Anglo-American companies had it coming to them because they had refused to honor their legal commitment to drill.

 

But the freedom Kennedy offered the Iraqis to drill their own oil to the maximum was swiftly taken away from them by their Arab brethren.

 

The OPEC cartel, controlled by Saudi Arabia, capped Iraq's production at a sum equal to Iran's, though the Iranian reserves are far smaller than Iraq's. The excuse for this quota equality between Iraq and Iran was to prevent war between them. It didn't. To keep Iraq's Ba'athists from complaining about the limits, Saudi Arabia simply bought off the leaders by funding Saddam's war against Iran and giving the dictator $7 billion for his "Islamic bomb" program.

 

In 1974, a U.S. politician broke the omerta over the suppression of Iraq's oil production. It was during the Arab oil embargo that Senator Edmund Muskie revealed a secret intelligence report of "fantastic" reserves of oil in Iraq undeveloped because U.S. oil companies refused to add pipeline capacity. Muskie, who'd just lost a bid for the Presidency, was dubbed a "loser" and ignored. The Iranian bombing of the Basra fields (1980-88) put a new kink in Iraq's oil production. Iraq's frustration under production limits explodes periodically.

 

In August 1990, Kuwait's craven siphoning of borderland oil fields jointly owned with Iraq gave Saddam the excuse to take Kuwait's share. Here was Saddam's opportunity to increase Iraq's OPEC quota by taking Kuwait's (most assuredly not approved by the U.S.). Saddam's plan backfired. The Basra oil fields not crippled by Iran were demolished in 1991 by American B-52s. Saddam's petro-military overreach into Kuwait gave the West the authority for a more direct oil suppression method called the "Sanctions" program, later changed to "Oil for Food." Now we get to the real reason for the U.N. embargo on Iraqi oil exports. According to the official U.S. position:

 

Sanctions were critical to preventing Iraq from acquiring equipment that could be used to reconstitute banned weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.

 

How odd. If cutting Saddam's allowance was the purpose, then sanctions, limiting oil exports, was a very suspect method indeed. The nature of the oil market (a cartel) is such that the elimination of two million barrels a day increased Saddam's revenue. One might conclude that sanctions were less about WMD and more about EPS (earnings per share) of oil sellers.

 

In other words, there is nothing new under the desert sun. Today's fight over how much of Iraq's oil to produce (or suppress) simply extends into this century the last century's pump-or-control battles. In sum, Big Oil, whether in European or Arab-OPEC dress, has done its damned best to keep Iraq's oil buried deep in the ground to keep prices high in the air. Iraq has 74 known fields and only 15 in production; 526 known "structures" (oil-speak for "pools of oil"), only 125 drilled.

 

And they won't be drilled, not unless Iraq says, "Mother, may I?" to Saudi Arabia, or, as the James Baker/Council on Foreign Relations paper says, "Saudi Arabia may punish Iraq." And believe me, Iraq wouldn't want that. The decision to expand production has, for now, been kept out of Iraqi's hands by the latest method of suppressing Iraq's oil flow - the 2003 invasion and resistance to invasion. And it has been darn effective. Iraq's output in 2003, 2004 and 2005 was less than produced under the restrictive Oil-for-Food Program. Whether by design or happenstance, this decline in output has resulted in tripling the profits of the five U.S. oil majors to $89 billion for a single year, 2005, compared to pre-invasion 2002. That suggests an interesting arithmetic equation. Big Oil's profits are up $89 billion a year in the same period the oil industry boosted contributions to Mr. Bush's reelection campaign to roughly $40 million.

 

That would make our president "Mr. 0.05%."

 

• A History of Oil in Iraq

 

Suppressing It, Not Pumping It

 

1925-28 "Mr. 5%" sells his monopoly on Iraq's oil to British Petroleum and Exxon, who sign a "Red-Line Agreement" vowing not to compete by drilling independently in Iraq.

 

1948 Red-Line Agreement ended, replaced by oil combines' "dog in the manger" strategy - taking control of fields, then capping production-drilling shallow holes where "there was no danger of striking oil."

 

1961 OPEC, founded the year before, places quotas on Iraq's exports equal to Iran's, locking in suppression policy.

 

1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Iran destroys Basra fields. Iraq cannot meet OPEC quota. 1991 Desert Storm. Anglo-American bombings cut production.

 

1991-2003 United Nations Oil embargo (zero legal exports) followed by Oil-for-Food Program limiting Iraqi sales to 2 million barrels a day.

 

2003-? "Insurgents" sabotage Iraq's pipelines and infrastructure.

 

2004 Options for Iraqi OilThe secret plan adopted by U.S. State Department overturns Pentagon proposal to massively in crease oil production. State Department plan, adopted by government of occupied Iraq, limits state oil company to OPEC quotas.

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This article is excerpted from Greg Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse (Dutton Adult, 2006).

 

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As usual in my political posts, updates will be added below as appropriate.

 

The width of the black strip was supposed to predict the kind of winter we were going to have. ( old folk tale ) We used to see how many we could find with wide bands. That was a predictor of how much snow and cold we would have. ( snow days were always something to look forward to ) Instead of reading, writing, and arithmetic, we'd be sledding.

We did thing as kids that the current generation of brainwashed kiddies would probably never consider.

Toronto

www.instagram.com/teachr1/

Fonzie and Finn have a little conversation. I have no idea what it was about, since I am far from fluent in Cat, but it seemed amicable.

 

[Production note: Cropping these four images to my liking and THEN re-sizing them individually so they fit together like this was kind of a pain in the arithmetic.]

Day 8. Q. why is it called arithmetic? A. because i hate it.

#comics

Selkent route 122: Plumstead, Bus Garage - Crystal Palace, Bus Station

Plumstead Road / Woolwich Public Market (Z)

 

Did you know this is the only London bus in our current fleet which has a fleet code consisting of the first five arithmetic values corresponding to the positive integers of the natural number sequence?

 

©London Bus Breh 2014.

How could this genius have quickly died? Like all authentic geniuses, earthly life has no real flavor, the real world seemed too insignificant for an unequal struggle with the astral cares of a body associated with the nourishment of the mind. This explains too well the representation of the digestive systems and a body diminished by its impulses connected with the members of its body, as for example with the members of an elitist circle, these members must pass into a principle of uniqueness: the monad.

 

Basquiat is unfortunately described as a suffering being, the incomprehension of his commentators is sad because it is superficial and without spiritual foundations. The analysis of the tortured artist is only a projection of phantasms without any mystical analysis.

 

"There is a graphomaniac quality to almost all of Basquiat’s work. He liked to scribble, to amend, to footnote, to second-guess and to correct himself. Words jumped out at him, from the back of cereal boxes or subway ads, and he stayed alert to their subversive properties, their double and hidden meaning. His notebooks, recently published in an exquisite facsimile by Princeton, are full of stray phrases, odd combinations. When he began painting, working up to it by way of hand-coloured collaged postcards, it was objects he went for first, drawing and writing on refrigerators, clothes, cabinets and doors, regardless of whether they belonged to him or not…

…A Basquiat alphabet: alchemy, an evil cat, black soap, corpus, cotton, crime, crimée, crown, famous, hotel, king, left paw, liberty, loin, milk, negro, nothing to be gained here, Olympics, Parker, police, PRKR, sangre, soap, sugar, teeth.

These were words he used often, names he returned to turning language into a spell to repel ghosts. The evident use of codes and symbols inspires a sort of interpretation-mania on the part of curators. But surely part of the point of the crossed-out lines and erasing hurricanes of colour is that Basquiat is attesting to the mutability of language, the way it twists and turns according to the power status of the speaker. Crimée is not the same as criminal, negro alters in different mouths, cotton might stand literally for slavery but also for fixed hierarchies of meaning and the way people get caged inside them." At The Guardian, Olivia Laing, the eminently readable author of To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring, and The Lonely City, on artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

 

Can we find this analysis a little literalistic or superficial? Hughes Songe offers you another reading option:

Basquiat's painting can be seen in Genesis (3:24), when God drives Adam out of Paradise, he establishes two cherubs with a sword leading to the Tree of Life. Revelation I, 16 describes a two-edged sword coming out of the Word's mouth: "He had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth came a two-edged and sharp sword; his face was as bright as the sun in its strength. »

 

We can also pursue Genesis as two knight men who draw a symbolic battle, the one on the left comes from the East, so he is already initiated and probably in connection with the astral as indicated by his crown of christic thorns or as the statue of liberty, his sword is a blade, or a soul, that is to say that he carries the light. The right-wing knight comes from the West and reminds us that the Western Knights Templar were initiated in Jerusalem. The Knight Kadosh is the synthesis of the two men who clash to become immortal. Venerable Master of Ceremonies, invites them to meet on the square in front of a temple and at the Areopagus Gate the Knights of the Sun who are seeking admission to the thirty-third degree. The first recorded representation of the degree "Knight Kadosh" can be linked to the Council of Eastern and Western Emperors in 1758.

 

Here is a possible reading grid to understand this painting by JM Basquiat. Perhaps we need to come up with ethnocentric analyses on voodoo or Amerindian rites or worse on the life of a neurotic, even drugged person, all this is told by the guides to reassure us better to be in the norm.

A genius is necessarily not readable in a grid formatted for art journalists?

 

The numbers on the painting could be understood? Is this just a hypothetical version for those who believe in a higher life?

 

1

It is necessary to be aligned to connect with the astral, blue is its color, a blue square is under the sword to find its verticality. the Sufi's fight is not a horizontal fight against the other, for a material conquest, but an inner vertical fight, for a spiritual quest; which leads to the one of them, for the benefit of the other. In esotericism, some groups use a sword without a point as a symbol of balance. The orange sun of the background illuminates and burns, the light of the Spiritual Principle is the purifying fire materialized by the lightning, archetype of the sword. The flash is lightning... so the Truth lightens the error by cutting through the darkness of ignorance. The Knight Kadosch will understand that this sword can only be for him the sword of the Spirit, this force that will allow him to separate Good from Evil, Justice from injustice and to make sure that the Light of Truth guides all his actions. It is this unifying force, this One that is consubstantial to us and that we finally manage to make shine. Only a complete universe, responsible before our conscience and rich in knowledge and love, will we be able to act and perform our role as soldiers of the universal and the Heavenly.

 

2 The sword of the Western Redhorse is tilted at 33 degrees to indicate his request, he is not in balance and may be wearing a slipper. The sword is the divine word, it is the Word and it is the greatest gift since to have the sword is to have the Word of Life which is the instrument of justice which comes to skin the bottom of the painting. The scythe of death is just above....

 

3 The sword is the symbol of the Logos, the Word, having a double edge, therefore the double power, the knight no longer needs a mouth to express himself because he uses telepathy.

 

4 He has a big mouth that comes to him from the bottom world, his words are too human to access the planes of higher consciousness.

 

5 The corpus of Knight Kadosh is squared as the symbol of the Earth, it is also squared to be perfect. His heart became his soul.

 

6 The Western Knight still has a scale of 7 steps to climb before freeing himself from the slavery of his own inner body.

 

7 he must move on a chessboard or mosaic paving stone to balance his thoughts

 

8 the arrows symbolize the action of Time, they are in

opposition to mean that Real Time no longer exists, we are already in eternity (ether n T)

 

9 a black phallic symbol can indicate a first act of the transmutation work, followed by white, red and finally yellow (4 essential colours of the painting with astral blue)

 

10. The Great Architect of the United to Heaven (Universal) has left his compass and put his square upside down, for the true World lives hidden beneath the Earth. To the Glory of the coronation the Grand Knight Kadosch to his investiture of the duties, charges and dignitaries related to this quality and confers on him the faculty to enjoy all the rights and prerogatives attached to this rank. (He successively strikes the right shoulder and then the left shoulder of each new Knight with the blade of his sword) Knights, rise up and receive, in the name of all the Kadosch Knights, the fraternal embrace. (The standard bearer puts the standard back in its place and the Master of Ceremonies decorates the new Knights with the attributes of their rank. (The Commander takes his place in his throne and then, addressing the new Knights: Knights, you are now armed for your battle. Your weapon is not the dagger of the Sicarius, nor the knife of the executioner, nor the stylus of the calumniator, because the means of your action are located on a higher plane. Your weapon is the flaming sword of Michael Saint, the inflexible spear of George Saint, the Caduceus of Mercury. What you touch with its tip must be ennobled and placed at your side in the service of the cause for which you are fighting.

 

11 you have to climb the first 13 ranks to reach the 33rd, no step on the ladder is the same, the human experience is carried out in two different and, in many ways, incompatible ways. Here they are represented by the two amounts of this mystical scale. On the one hand, the disciplines of intelligence, science and technology that assume and affirm determinism. Venerable Master of Ceremonies, have two of our recipients symbolically walk through them (the Master of Ceremonies makes the recipients read, step by step, the names of the sciences inscribed therein: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy)

 

12 A for Alchemy or Amorous and Astral ( SPIRITU ASTRA ERA), it is still a ladder to climb towards the High Grades. The symbol of the scale must be linked to the meaning of the weapons that Knight Kadosch has at his disposal to carry out his fight successfully. The scale that will allow her to access the highest level of metaphysical knowledge and in this sense, she becomes almost mystical. The aim here and now is to ensure that the binary that manages its destiny, which is the main characteristic of daily existence, is resolved, integrated into the unitary principle, into the Creative Principle. This can only be considered as something ineffable, only conceivable on a level that exceeds us, on a supra-human level. It is in fact the concept of the original Light, the very Light that prevails in all our endeavors on the initiatory path since we once knocked at the temple door and gives meaning to this quest. The scale nowadays is therefore double, stable, composed of two uprights and seven steps on each side. It is possible to climb it indifferently from one side or the other, but the process, in the initiatory progression towards the Principle, resembles the ascending path, that of Love, the ultimate goal of our process. Look up there it reads A a a a.......

 

13 Knight Kadosh has achieved his decorporation and now he is levitating above his ghost feet (white). We can also say that there is shade because an obstacle stands in the way and prevents the passage of light. The first awareness of the dark side is the shadow that each person takes with them. No matter how much we run, this shadow follows us everywhere. The only way to remove them is by light: the sun must reach us in such a way, for example when they are plumb, and the shadow must then remain under our feet.

 

14 The Western Knight: Knight, for a long time with different degrees ( 11th, 13th, 15th, 17th, 18th, 21st, 22nd, 25th, 28th and 30th) who refer to this distinction. It is linked to the lower ranks and to Earth's gravitation, it rotates on itself and around the golden background that symbolizes humanity's central star: the sun.

We can also note that the background is golden like an integral transmutation, becoming this light is the quest of Knight Kadosh, he no longer needs the apron of learning...

 

The ceremony is coming to an end, Knights of the South Camp, I invite you to recognize now for Grand Chosen Knights Kadosch, the Knights present between the two camps... Knights of the North Camp, I invite you to recognize from now on Grand Chosen Kadosch Knights, the Knights present between the two camps. Since this action seems to be the finality of the journey of a mystic, in general, and that of the Knight Kadosch, in particular; why does it take, then today, the form of combat, for the one who has reached the end of his individual initiation, and fight for Life what is more?

 

While trying to provide an answer to this question, we will try to bring the struggle of the Kadosch Knight closer to that of the Sufi mystic, as a "wali" knight, that is to say, Saint, adept of the futuwa, this spiritual knighthood of the Muslim world.

 

"Knight, my Brother, You are armed now for the fight of Life"

 

Certainly; each term has its importance, in this affirmative sentence, and undoubtedly contributes to give it its power, depth and dynamism. However, the adverb "now" is, in my opinion, the key to its front door. Because not only does it indicate a real limit in space; (where? At the 30th degree of the pyramid of the Rite, the end of the ascending realization, of the adept,) and in time (when? At the end of the consecration ceremony, of the knight), but thus placed just after the adjective "armed", it implicitly means that before having reached the 30th degree, and before having been dubbed there; the adept is not really armed to lead a fight, and even less to fight the fight of life.

And yet; the adept has carried many different weapons and fought many battles during his evolution on the scale of the Rite. Indeed, from the 11th degree; Sublime Chivalry Chosen, Excellent Emereck, "True Man in All Circumstances", armed with the sword of justice, by King Solomon, whose motto is "to win or die." he had engaged, in a singular struggle, his life to death, for a noble and just cause. It is precisely for a just purpose that, with the sword in one hand, the trowel in the other; Knight of the East and of the Sword, he was called upon to build the Temple with one hand and to defend it with the other. His motto was "freedom to pass", which is why he had to fight to cross the Gandhara bridge and thus pass from the material world to the spiritual world. His struggle, although physical, was ultimately of spiritual significance. Armed with his sword; Knight of the East and West, conscious of the need to fight the misdeeds of intolerance, prejudice and fanaticism; Kadosch was the pilgrim Knight, working to be recognized as the son of the Light. He fought to reconcile extreme opposites; East and West, shadow and light and thus try to overcome duality. Although his only material weapon was his pilgrim's staff, symbol of the axis mundi and the inner struggles, he took the oath, as a Knight Rose Cross (return to the point), on the sword of justice, promising to defend the weak and relieve the afflicted. He proposed as his goal to "fight pride, selfishness and ambition, to make devotion and Charity prevail in their place". In the defense of the True, the Good and the Righteous, prowess, generosity, such was his chivalrous ideal. If it is true that the struggles that Kadosch has fought so far are a necessary condition, although insufficient to lead the struggle of life, the accomplishment of this journey, made in the practice of Chivalric Virtues, fully contributes to his qualification and to that aptitude, which the Most Powerful Grand Master recognizes in him, and this by considering him worthy to fight, finally, in the ranks of the Militia of the Temple.

 

If any fight involves a certain preparation, and a certain skill, it requires, however, weapons.

 

"You're armed now."

 

The weapon, for the fight of Life, of the Knight Kadosch, who adorns his ribbon, is certainly not the dagger with which Johabert, thirsty for revenge and blood, killed Abairam, Hiram's murderer, by beheading him.His weapon being of a different type, his fight will necessarily be of a different nature because, led on other levels.

 

"In the name of God, Saint Michael and Saint George, I make you a knight"

 

Thus, three types of weapons are suggested: the Caduceus of Mercury, the sword of Saint Michael, and the spear of Saint George. On the other hand, the main weapon of the Grand Knight Kadosch is clearly designated to him and presented by the Mighty Grand Master as soon as he descends the Mystical Scale:

 

"Behold, behold, the Caduceus of Mercury, everything you touch with the tip of this weapon shall be transformed into pure gold.

 

Is it three in one? For his weapon will be at the same time, his "magic wand that will conjure up the spell of matter, his flaming sword that will transform the events, his Kherub's sword that will reopen the gates of Paradise to him." The injunction given by the Most Powerful Grand Master to the Knight Kadosch, who has just been consecrated, "works. Go to the mode. The road is clear," he said, leaving no doubt as to where his fight would take place. His action, as a collaborator of the Great Architect of the Universe "my rights consist in not submitting myself to the decrees of Divine law but, to collaborate in them" has no meaning unless it is carried out in the world of manifestation.

His action will be carried out, in accordance with the motto of our Order "ORDO AB CHAO DEUS MEUMQUE JUS", an Order that he first began to carry out in himself, because it is necessary to "Defeat our passion" by rectifying himself, by freeing himself, after having won the fight against his ego, this Holy War that the Sufi calls: the Great Jihad.On this level, the two Knights are fighting the same battle, because the Sufi's fight is not a horizontal fight against the other, for a material conquest, but an inner vertical fight, for a spiritual quest; which leads to the one of them, for the benefit of the other. It is this passage from the heroic to the mystical epic that constitutes, for the Sufi knight, the passage from the small jihad to the great jihad, the true "holy war".

 

"All heroes have always fought the snake to defeat it and force it to serve." Then with his flaming sword, like the Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the Celestial Militia, he defeated the dragon to control and control it. And if he spares his life, it is because he knows that if he dies, he will no longer be of any use. It is therefore better to convert it. Thus, victorious over Saton, the adversary; his fight, far from being destructive, is constructive, full of promise and Life. It is in this sense that we can say that the Sword of the Knight Kadosch is the weapon of his holy war, waged against the errors of the corporeal dimension and leading to his reconciliation with the spiritual dimension. It is through this Flaming Sword that the Venerable Master creates, constitutes and receives the Neophyte Apprentice. It is through it that the symbolic passage from the profane to the initiated to chivalry or by analogy to alchemy takes place. His weapon is indeed transformative of its essential nature Now armed with his weapons of Light, the caduceus of Mercury, the flaming sword of Saint Michael and the inflexible spear of Saint George, who left alone in the world, without fear or reproach, the Knight of the White and Black Eagle, remembers that the last journey of any initiation ceremony is always a projection into the future of the initiate's journey. The time has therefore come for him to finally put into action the sentence of the Secret Master's last trip: "What chivalry asks you to do is to promote justice". It is therefore here in the manifested world that he must participate effectively in the restoration of the Order, in his soul and conscience, in accordance with the Divine Plans perceived at the top of the Mystical Scale, and this "NON NOBIS, DOMINE, NON NOBIS, SED NOMINI TUO DA GLORIAM".

 

If the Knight Kadosch, Being of Light, thus armed, now has the right to initiative to act and fight, it is because he has succeeded in climbing the seven steps of the Mystical Ladder, and purified by Sophie's tire, he has received the supreme initiation. It is because he has conquered, as a result, this freedom of the creature so sought "for those who have overcome the obstacles", the one that is conquered "beyond the limits of the realms of forms".

  

The Western Knight masters this degree of proximity to the principle, "Nec plus Ultra", separated, he received his mission order, and took, when he turned around at this summit, "the commitment not to suffer the events, but to transform them.

 

While the Eastern Knight, inspired by Sufi gnoseology, who arrives at this "station of the heart", who becomes protected from God "Wali" and who receives from his Master the secrets of esoteric Knowledge "Gnosis" and the investiture of the "Baraka", submits himself entirely to God.

 

Their weapons, although both of divine nature: the Caduceus of Mercury for one, the "Baraka" for the other, do not, however, have the same scope. For the "Baraka" received by Knight Wali, as "protected and "friend of God", appears as a reward for "effort given", given to those who have committed themselves to the path of the "Hakika", the Truth, by submitting to the Divine Law. Mediator between God and men, in the service of his fellow men, the Wali, is ready to help the weak and heal the sick by the powers of the "Baraka" of which he is invested, however, his remedy, even if it is effective, will only act on the surface, just on the wound of the wounded, or on the evil from which the sick suffer. While the Caduceus of Mercury of the Knight Kadosch, the intercessor, acts in depth by rectifying and transforming the material. Everything he touches with the tip of his fingers will turn into pure gold. It is by transmutation that he operates on matter by spiritualizing it. His purpose is not limited to healing the patient's wounds or ridding him of his pain, but to make him a doctor, so that he can in turn heal and heal all those who suffer from the evils caused by darkness in order to free them from all oppression and injustice.

 

Thus he will be entitled to think, like Albert Camus, "I understood that it was not enough to denounce injustice, you had to give your life to fight it".

 

To fight to conquer Freedom for others, it seems to me, is one of the senses of the Fight for the Life of the Knight Kadosch, a fight he must lead armed with his Caduceus of Mercury, that is, his own spiritual power, resulting from the synthesis of his past experiences and victories.

 

"In order to allow the infinite irradiation of the pure Being, the true sovereign, to manifest itself"

 

If there is no doubt, that being continuously at the service of others, in a relationship of otherness, by surpassing the ego, constitutes both the fundamental bases of the knightly ideal of the Kadosch knight and those of the Sufi knight; this spirituality, despite these obvious similarities, and although it leads to the same Principle, differs in certain respects.

 

The Sufi Knight, who bases his spirituality on his Islamic faith, by placing his destiny entirely in the hands of God, sees his actions guided by a transcendent determinism, and therefore his freedom of action in the world being limited, he directs his struggle essentially against his inner enemies and particularly against "El Nefs", his ego. In his spiritual quest, it is God's love that makes him love man. While the knight Kadosch, who takes his destiny in hand, who bases his spirituality on his alchemical faith and on that which he has in the perfectibility of man, positions himself as a collaborator of the Great Architect of the Universe. And from the moment his action necessarily turned towards the outside, his mission, as a Universal Man, is to transmit his knowledge. And his struggle, armed with his Caduceus of Mercury, who is none other than himself, will be to devote his entire Life to perfecting the world, in accordance with the plans of the Principle.

 

In this perspective, it is precisely the love of man that makes him love God.

 

Certainly Love and self-giving are the common vectors that motivate the struggles of the two spiritual knights, but if the knightly behaviour of one is aimed at the future opening of the gates of heavenly paradise for oneself; the goal of the other is the happiness, here and now, of all humanity, in the perspective of the coming of the Holy Kingdom.

 

Basquiat is now armed for the fight of Life

Not long after I got my first real job and could afford to do it, I went into a local shoe store to buy a pair of new boots, to finally bury the old ones. There was an old skinny man who worked there, six feet tall and weighing little, a very witty man, with a dry sense of humour. I told him what I wanted and he nodded sagely. He said to me slowly and sorta understatedly, "Yes, sir: those old ones don't owe you anything anymore."

 

And so, this morning, my wife and I agreed this tea strainer -- now succeeded by a new one ordered from across the world -- owed us nothing anymore.

 

Well, thought I, it owed nothing except a nice picture to remember it by.

 

It is in the garbage now.

 

A friend asked me how many cups of tea went through it so I did some rough estimations and arithmetic. A conservatively estimated average number of cups a day in the earlier years is probably fifteen or even twenty. But in more recent years it would be somewhat lower than that. Let's say on average a dozen cups a day -- that would make about four thousand a year, for forty years. (I think the strainer is that old. Maybe we've had it even longer than that.)

 

Those rough numbers suggest about 160,000 cups. No wonder it's pock-marked around the edges.

Technical: 'Seadragon in blue + green by Su_G': showing metric rulers + strange prices

 

YAY! Metric rulers are here!!

 

Metric rulers = rulers using base-10 arithmetic (versus base-12 arithmetic which relates to Imperial measures)

 

Strange prices = not as you could select from the Fabric Selector and some appear to be hard-wired when they should change with customer selections.

 

See 'Seadragon in blue + green by Su_G' as fabric @ Spoonflower - and choose your own measurement!

 

[Technical_Seadragon in blue + green by Su_G_showing metric ruler + strange prices]