Strasbourg (/ˈstræzbɜrɡ/, French pronunciation: ​[stʁaz.buʁ, stʁas.buʁ]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace were historically Alemannic-speaking, hence the city's Germanic name.[5] In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 759,868 inhabitants in 2010, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.[6]

 

Strasbourg is the seat of several European institutions, such as the Council of Europe (with its European Court of Human Rights, its European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Audiovisual Observatory) and the Eurocorps, as well as the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman of the European Union. The city is also the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the International Institute of Human Rights.[7]

 

Strasbourg's historic city centre, the Grande Île (Grand Island), was classified a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1988, the first time such an honour was placed on an entire city centre. Strasbourg is immersed in the Franco-German culture and although violently disputed throughout history, has been a bridge of unity between France and Germany for centuries, especially through the University of Strasbourg, currently the second largest in France, and the coexistence of Catholic and Protestant culture. The largest Islamic place of worship in France, the Strasbourg Grand Mosque, was inaugurated by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls on 27 September 2012.[8]

 

Economically, Strasbourg is an important centre of manufacturing and engineering, as well as a hub of road, rail, and river transportation. The port of Strasbourg is the second largest on the Rhine after Duisburg, Germany.

 

Etymology and Names

The city's Gallicized name (Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German: Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is of Germanic origin and means "Town (at the crossing) of roads". The modern Stras- is cognate to the German Straße and English street, all of which are derived from Latin strata ("paved road"), while -bourg is cognate to the German Burg and English borough, all of which are derived from Proto-Germanic *burgz ("hill fort, fortress").

 

Geography

 

Strasbourg seen from Spot Satellite

Strasbourg is situated on the eastern border of France with Germany. This border is formed by the River Rhine, which also forms the eastern border of the modern city, facing across the river to the German town Kehl. The historic core of Strasbourg however lies on the Grande Île in the River Ill, which here flows parallel to, and roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from, the Rhine. The natural courses of the two rivers eventually join some distance downstream of Strasbourg, although several artificial waterways now connect them within the city.

 

The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, at between 132 metres (433 ft) and 151 metres (495 ft) above sea level, with the upland areas of the Vosges Mountains some 20 km (12 mi) to the west and the Black Forest 25 km (16 mi) to the east. This section of the Rhine valley is a major axis of north-south travel, with river traffic on the Rhine itself, and major roads and railways paralleling it on both banks.

 

The city is some 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Paris. The mouth of the Rhine lies approximately 450 kilometres (280 mi) to the north, or 650 kilometres (400 mi) as the river flows, whilst the head of navigation in Basel is some 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the south, or 150 kilometres (93 mi) by river.

 

Climate

 

In spite of its position far inland, Strasbourg's climate is classified as Oceanic (Köppen climate classification Cfb), with warm, relatively sunny summers and cold, overcast winters. Precipitation is elevated from mid-spring to the end of summer, but remains largely constant throughout the year, totaling 631.4 mm (24.9 in) annually. On average, snow falls 30 days per year.

 

The highest temperature ever recorded was 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in August 2003, during the 2003 European heat wave. The lowest temperature ever recorded was −23.4 °C (−10.1 °F) in December 1938.

 

Strasbourg's location in the Rhine valley, sheltered from the dominant winds by the Vosges and Black Forest mountains, results in poor natural ventilation, making Strasbourg one of the most atmospherically polluted cities of France.[10][11] Nonetheless, the progressive disappearance of heavy industry on both banks of the Rhine, as well as effective measures of traffic regulation in and around the city have reduced air pollution.

 

Prehistory

The first traces of human occupation in the environs of Strasbourg go back many thousands of years.[16] Neolithic, bronze age and iron age artifacts have been uncovered by archeological excavations. It was permanently settled by proto-Celts around 1300 BC. Towards the end of the third century BC, it developed into a Celtic township with a market called "Argentorate". Drainage works converted the stilthouses to houses built on dry land.[17]

 

From Romans

The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin.[18]) The name "Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated its 2,000th birthday in 1988. "Argentorate" as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement preceded it before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire and rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD: in 70, 97, 235, 355, in the last quarter of the fourth century, and in the early years of the fifth century. It was under Trajan and after the fire of 97 that Argentoratum received its most extended and fortified shape. From the year 90 on, the Legio VIII Augusta was permanently stationed in the Roman camp of Argentoratum. It then included a cavalry section and covered an area of approximately 20 hectares. Other Roman legions temporarily stationed in Argentoratum were the Legio XIV Gemina and the Legio XXI Rapax, the latter during the reign of Nero.

 

The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île (Cardo: current Rue du Dôme, Decumanus: current Rue des Hallebardes). The outline of the Roman "castrum" is visible in the street pattern in the Grande Ile. Many Roman artifacts have also been found along the current Route des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen. This was where the largest burial places were situated, as well as the densest concentration of civilian dwelling places and commerces next to the camp. Among the most outstanding finds in Kœnigshoffen were (found in 1911–12) the fragments of a grand Mithraeum that had been shattered by early Christians in the fourth century. From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg.

 

The Alemanni fought the Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357. They were defeated by Julian, later Emperor of Rome, and their King Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366, the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.

 

In the fifth century Strasbourg was occupied successively by Alemanni, Huns, and Franks. In the ninth century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text contains, alongside texts in Latin and Old High German (teudisca lingua), the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French. The town was also called Stratisburgum or Strateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is considered as marking the birth of the two countries of France and Germany with the division of the Carolingian Empire.[19]

 

A major commercial centre, the town came under the control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.

 

Around 1200, Gottfried von Straßburg wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, which is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages.

 

A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The deadly bubonic plague of 1348 was followed on 14 February 1349 by one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history: over a thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death, with the remainder of the Jewish population being expelled from the city.[20] Until the end of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden to remain in town after 10 pm. The time to leave the city was signalled by a municipal herald blowing the Grüselhorn (see below, Museums, Musée historique);.[21] A special tax, the Pflastergeld (pavement money), was furthermore to be paid for any horse that a Jew would ride or bring into the city while allowed to.[22]

 

Construction on Strasbourg Cathedral began in the twelfth century, and it was completed in 1439 (though, of the towers, only the north tower was built), becoming the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first European moveable type printing press in Strasbourg.

 

In July 1518, an incident known as the Dancing Plague of 1518 struck residents of Strasbourg. Around 400 people were afflicted with dancing mania and danced constantly for weeks, most of them eventually dying from heart attack, stroke or exhaustion.

 

In the 1520s during the Protestant Reformation, the city, under the political guidance of Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck and the spiritual guidance of Martin Bucer embraced the religious teachings of Martin Luther. Their adherents established a Gymnasium, headed by Johannes Sturm, made into a University in the following century. The city first followed the Tetrapolitan Confession, and then the Augsburg Confession. Protestant iconoclasm caused much destruction to churches and cloisters, notwithstanding that Luther himself opposed such a practice. Strasbourg was a centre of humanist scholarship and early book-printing in the Holy Roman Empire, and its intellectual and political influence contributed much to the establishment of Protestantism as an accepted denomination in the southwest of Germany. (John Calvin spent several years as a political refugee in the city). The Strasbourg Councillor Sturm and guildmaster Matthias represented the city at the Imperial Diet of Speyer (1529), where their protest led to the schism of the Catholic Church and the evolution of Protestantism. Together with four other free cities, Strasbourg presented the confessio tetrapolitana as its Protestant book of faith at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, where the slightly different Augsburg Confession was also handed over to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

 

After the reform of the Imperial constitution in the early sixteenth century and the establishment of Imperial Circles, Strasbourg was part of the Upper Rhenish Circle, a corporation of Imperial estates in the southwest of Holy Roman Empire, mainly responsible for maintaining troops, supervising coining, and ensuring public security.

 

After the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the first printing offices outside the inventor's hometown Mainz were established around 1460 in Strasbourg by pioneers Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein. Subsequently, the first modern newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605, when Johann Carolus received the permission by the City of Strasbourg to print and distribute a weekly journal written in German by reporters from several central European cities.

 

From Thirty Years' War to First World War

The Free City of Strasbourg remained neutral during the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648, and retained its status as a Free Imperial City. However, the city was later annexed by Louis XIV of France to extend the borders of his kingdom.

 

Louis' advisors believed that, as long as Strasbourg remained independent, it would endanger the King's newly annexed territories in Alsace, and, that to defend these large rural lands effectively, a garrison had to be placed in towns such as Strasbourg.[23] Indeed, the bridge over the Rhine at Strasbourg had been used repeatedly by Imperial (Holy Roman Empire) forces,[24] and three times during the Franco-Dutch War Strasbourg had served as a gateway for Imperial invasions into Alsace.[25] In September 1681 Louis' forces, though lacking a clear casus belli, surrounded the city with overwhelming force. After some negotiation, Louis marched into the city unopposed on 30 September 1681 and proclaimed its annexation.[26]

 

This annexation was one of the direct causes of the brief and bloody War of the Reunions whose outcome left the French in possession. The French annexation was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697). The official policy of religious intolerance which drove most Protestants from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was not applied in Strasbourg and in Alsace, because both had a special status as a province à l'instar de l'étranger effectif (a kind of foreign province of the king of France). Strasbourg Cathedral, however, was taken from the Lutherans to be returned to the Catholics as the French authorities tried to promote Catholicism wherever they could (some other historic churches remained in Protestant hands). Its language also remained overwhelmingly German: the German Lutheran university persisted until the French Revolution. Famous students included Goethe and Herder.

  

The Duke of Lorraine and Imperial troops crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1744

During a dinner in Strasbourg organized by Mayor Frédéric de Dietrich on 25 April 1792, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise". The same year François Christophe Kellermann, a child of Strasbourg was appointed the head of the Mosel Army. He led his company to victory at the battle of Valmy and saved the young French republic. He was later appointed Duke of Valmy by Napoléon in 1808.

 

During this period Jean-Baptiste Kléber, also born in Strasbourg, led the French army to win several decisive victories. A statue of Kléber now stands in the centre of the city, at Place Kléber, and he is still one of the most famous French officers. He was later appointed Marshal of France by Napoléon.

 

Strasbourg's status as a free city was revoked by the French Revolution. Enragés, most notoriously Eulogius Schneider, ruled the city with an increasingly iron hand. During this time, many churches and monasteries were either destroyed or severely damaged. The cathedral lost hundreds of its statues (later replaced by copies in the 19th century) and in April 1794, there was talk of tearing its spire down, on the grounds that it was against the principle of equality. The tower was saved, however, when in May of the same year citizens of Strasbourg crowned it with a giant tin Phrygian cap. This artifact was later kept in the historical collections of the city until it was destroyed by the Germans in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war.[27]

 

In 1805, 1806 and 1809, Napoléon Bonaparte and his first wife, Joséphine stayed in Strasbourg.[28] In 1810, his second wife Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma spent her first night on French soil in the palace. Another royal guest was King Charles X of France in 1828.[29] In 1836, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte unsuccessfully tried to lead his first Bonapartist coup in Strasbourg.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War and the Siege of Strasbourg, the city was heavily bombarded by the Prussian army. The bombardment of the city was meant to break the morale of the people of Strasbourg.[30] On 24 and 26 August 1870, the Museum of Fine Arts was destroyed by fire, as was the Municipal Library housed in the Gothic former Dominican church, with its unique collection of medieval manuscripts (most famously the Hortus deliciarum), rare Renaissance books, archeological finds and historical artifacts. The gothic cathedral was damaged as well as the medieval church of Temple Neuf, the theatre, the city hall, the court of justice and many houses. At the end of the siege 10,000 inhabitants were left without shelter; over 600 died, including 261 civilians, and 3200 were injured, including 1,100 civilians.[31]

 

In 1871, after the end of the war, the city was annexed to the newly established German Empire as part of the Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt. As part of Imperial Germany, Strasbourg was rebuilt and developed on a grand and representative scale, such as the Neue Stadt, or "new city" around the present Place de la République. Historian Rodolphe Reuss and Art historian Wilhelm von Bode were in charge of rebuilding the municipal archives, libraries and museums. The University, founded in 1567 and suppressed during the French Revolution as a stronghold of German sentiment,[citation needed] was reopened in 1872 under the name Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität.

  

Strasbourg in the 1890s.

A belt of massive fortifications was established around the city, most of which still stands today, renamed after French generals and generally classified as Monuments historiques; most notably Fort Roon (now Fort Desaix) and Fort Podbielski (now Fort Ducrot) in Mundolsheim, Fort von Moltke (now Fort Rapp) in Reichstett, Fort Bismarck (now Fort Kléber) in Wolfisheim, Fort Kronprinz (now Fort Foch) in Niederhausbergen, Fort Kronprinz von Sachsen (now Fort Joffre) in Holtzheim and Fort Großherzog von Baden (now Fort Frère) in Oberhausbergen.[32]

 

Those forts subsequently served the French army (Fort Podbielski/Ducrot for instance was integrated into the Maginot Line[33]), and were used as POW-camps in 1918 and 1945.

 

Two garrison churches were also erected for the members of the Imperial German army, the Lutheran Église Saint-Paul and the Roman Catholic Église Saint-Maurice.

 

1918 to the present

 

A lost, then restored, symbol of modernity in Strasbourg : a room in the Aubette building designed by Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

 

Following the defeat of the German empire in World War I and the abdication of the German Emperor, some revolutionary insurgents declared Alsace-Lorraine as an independent Republic, without preliminary referendum or vote. On 11 November 1918 (Armistice Day), communist insurgents proclaimed a "soviet government" in Strasbourg, following the example of Kurt Eisner in Munich as well as other German towns. French troops commanded by French general Henri Gouraud entered triumphantly in the city on 22 November. A major street of the city now bears the name of that date (Rue du 22 Novembre) which celebrates the entry of the French in the city.[34][35][36] Viewing the massive cheering crowd gathered under the balcony of Strasbourg's town hall, French President Raymond Poincaré stated that "the plebiscite is done".[37]

 

In 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles, the city was annexed by France in accordance with U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" without a referendum. The date of the assignment was retroactively established on Armistice Day. It is doubtful whether a referendum in Strasbourg would have ended in France's favour since the political parties striving for an autonomous Alsace or a connection to France accounted only for a small proportion of votes in the last Reichstag as well as in the local elections.[38] The Alsatian autonomists who were pro French had won many votes in the more rural parts of the region and other towns since the annexation of the region by Germany in 1871. The movement started with the first election for the Reichstag; those elected were called "les députés protestataires", and until the fall of Bismarck in 1890, they were the only deputies elected by the Alsatians to the German parliament demanding the return of those territories to France.[39] At the last Reichstag election in Strasbourg and its periphery, the clear winners were the Social Democrats; the city was the administrative capital of the region, was inhabited by many Germans appointed by the central government in Berlin and its flourishing economy attracted many Germans. This could explain the difference between the rural vote and the one in Strasbourg. After the war, many Germans left Strasbourg and went back to Germany; some of them were denounced by the locals or expelled by the newly appointed authorities. The Saverne Affair was vivid in the memory among the Alsatians.

 

In 1920, Strasbourg became the seat of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine, previously located in Mannheim, one of the oldest European institutions. It moved into the former Imperial Palace.

 

When the Maginot Line was built, the Sous-secteur fortifié de Strasbourg (fortified sub-sector of Strasbourg) was laid out on the city's territory as a part of the Secteur fortifié du Bas-Rhin, one of the sections of the Line. Blockhouses and casemates were built along the Grand Canal d'Alsace and the Rhine in the Robertsau forest and the port.[40]

 

Between the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the Anglo-French declaration of War against the German Reich on 3 September 1939, the entire city (a total of 120,000 people) was evacuated, like other border towns as well. Until the arrival of the Wehrmacht troops mid-June 1940, the city was, for ten months, completely empty, with the exception of the garrisoned soldiers. The Jews of Strasbourg had been evacuated to Périgueux and Limoges, the University had been evacuated to Clermont-Ferrand.

 

After the ceasefire following the Fall of France in June 1940, Alsace was annexed to Germany and a rigorous policy of Germanisation was imposed upon it by the Gauleiter Robert Heinrich Wagner. When, in July 1940, the first evacuees were allowed to return, only residents of Alsatian origin were admitted. The last Jews were deported on 15 July 1940 and the main synagogue, a huge Romanesque revival building that had been a major architectural landmark with its 54-metre-high dome since its completion in 1897, was set ablaze, then razed.[41]

 

In September 1940 the first Alsatian resistance movement led by Marcel Weinum called La main noire (The black hand) was created. It was composed by a group of 25 young men aged from 14 to 18 years old who led several attacks against the German occupation. The actions culminated with the attack of the Gauleiter Robert Wagner, the highest commander of Alsace directly under the order of Hitler. In March 1942, Marcel Weinum was prosecuted by the Gestapo and sentenced to be beheaded at the age of 18 in April 1942 in Stuttgart, Germany. His last words will be: "If I have to die, I shall die but with a pure heart". From 1943 the city was bombarded by Allied aircraft. While the First World War had not notably damaged the city, Anglo-American bombing caused extensive destruction in raids of which at least one was allegedly carried out by mistake.[42] In August 1944, several buildings in the Old Town were damaged by bombs, particularly the Palais Rohan, the Old Customs House (Ancienne Douane) and the Cathedral.[43] On 23 November 1944, the city was officially liberated by the 2nd French Armoured Division under General Leclerc. He achieved the oath that he made with his soldiers, after the decisive Capture of Kufra. With the Oath of Kuffra, they swore to keep up the fight until the French flag flew over the Cathedral of Strasbourg.

 

Many people from Strasbourg were incorporated in the German Army against their will, and were sent to the eastern front, those young men and women were called Malgré-nous. Many tried to escape from the incorporation, join the French Resistance, or desert the Wehrmacht but many couldn't because they were running the risk of having their families sent to work or concentration camps by the Germans. Many of these men, especially those who did not answer the call immediately, were pressured to "volunteer" for service with the SS, often by direct threats on their families. This threat obliged the majority of them to remain in the German army. After the war, the few that survived were often accused of being traitors or collaborationists, because this tough situation was not known in the rest of France, and they had to face the incomprehension of many. In July 1944, 1500 malgré-nous were released from Soviet captivity and sent to Algiers, where they joined the Free French Forces. Nowadays history recognizes the suffering of those people, and museums, public discussions and memorials have been built to commemorate this terrible period of history of this part of Eastern France (Alsace and Moselle). Liberation of Strasbourg took place on 23 November 1944.

 

In 1947, a fire broke out in the Musée des Beaux-Arts and devastated a significant part of the collections. This fire was an indirect consequence of the bombing raids of 1944: because of the destruction inflicted on the Palais Rohan, humidity had infiltrated the building, and moisture had to be fought. This was done with welding torches, and a bad handling of these caused the fire.[44]

 

In the 1950s and 1960s the city was enlarged by new residential areas meant to solve both the problem of housing shortage due to war damage and that of the strong growth of population due to the baby boom and immigration from North Africa: Cité Rotterdam in the North-East, Quartier de l'Esplanade in the South-East, Hautepierre in the North-West. Between 1995 and 2010, a new district has been built in the same vein, the Quartier des Poteries, south of Hautepierre.

 

In 1958, a violent hailstorm destroyed most of the historical greenhouses of the Botanical Garden and many of the stained glass windows of St. Paul's Church.

 

In 1949, the city was chosen to be the seat of the Council of Europe with its European Court of Human Rights and European Pharmacopoeia. Since 1952, the European Parliament has met in Strasbourg, which was formally designated its official 'seat' at the Edinburgh meeting of the European Council of EU heads of state and government in December 1992. (This position was reconfirmed and given treaty status in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam). However, only the (four-day) plenary sessions of the Parliament are held in Strasbourg each month, with all other business being conducted in Brussels and Luxembourg. Those sessions take place in the Immeuble Louise Weiss, inaugurated in 1999, which houses the largest parliamentary assembly room in Europe and of any democratic institution in the world. Before that, the EP sessions had to take place in the main Council of Europe building, the Palace of Europe, whose unusual inner architecture had become a familiar sight to European TV audiences.[45] In 1992, Strasbourg became the seat of the Franco-German TV channel and movie-production society Arte.

 

In 2000, a terrorist plot to blow up the cathedral was prevented thanks to the cooperation between French and German police that led to the arrest in late 2000 of a Frankfurt-based group of terrorists.

 

On 6 July 2001, during an open-air concert in the Parc de Pourtalès, a single falling Platanus tree killed thirteen people and injured 97. On 27 March 2007, the city was found guilty of neglect over the accident and fined €150,000.[46]

 

In 2006, after a long and careful restoration, the inner decoration of the Aubette, made in the 1920s by Hans Arp, Theo van Doesburg, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp and destroyed in the 1930s, was made accessible to the public again. The work of the three artists had been called "the Sistine Chapel of abstract art".

 

Architecture

 

Strasbourg, Cathedral of Our Lady

The city is chiefly known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral with its famous astronomical clock, and for its medieval cityscape of Rhineland black and white timber-framed buildings, particularly in the Petite France district or Gerberviertel ("tanners' district") alongside the Ill and in the streets and squares surrounding the cathedral, where the renowned Maison Kammerzell stands out.

 

Notable medieval streets include Rue Mercière, Rue des Dentelles, Rue du Bain aux Plantes, Rue des Juifs, Rue des Frères, Rue des Tonneliers, Rue du Maroquin, Rue des Charpentiers, Rue des Serruriers, Grand' Rue, Quai des Bateliers, Quai Saint-Nicolas and Quai Saint-Thomas. Notable medieval squares include Place de la Cathédrale, Place du Marché Gayot, Place Saint-Étienne, Place du Marché aux Cochons de Lait and Place Benjamin Zix.

 

Maison des tanneurs.

 

In addition to the cathedral, Strasbourg houses several other medieval churches that have survived the many wars and destructions that have plagued the city: the Romanesque Église Saint-Étienne, partly destroyed in 1944 by Allied bombing raids, the part Romanesque, part Gothic, very large Église Saint-Thomas with its Silbermann organ on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Albert Schweitzer played,[49] the Gothic Église protestante Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune with its crypt dating back to the seventh century and its cloister partly from the eleventh century, the Gothic Église Saint-Guillaume with its fine early-Renaissance stained glass and furniture, the Gothic Église Saint-Jean, the part Gothic, part Art Nouveau Église Sainte-Madeleine, etc. The Neo-Gothic church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Catholique (there is also an adjacent church Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Protestant) serves as a shrine for several 15th-century wood worked and painted altars coming from other, now destroyed churches and installed there for public display. Among the numerous secular medieval buildings, the monumental Ancienne Douane (old custom-house) stands out.

 

The German Renaissance has bequeathed the city some noteworthy buildings (especially the current Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie, former town hall, on Place Gutenberg), as did the French Baroque and Classicism with several hôtels particuliers (i.e. palaces), among which the Palais Rohan (1742, now housing three museums) is the most spectacular. Other buildings of its kind are the "Hôtel de Hanau" (1736, now the city hall), the Hôtel de Klinglin (1736, now residence of the préfet), the Hôtel des Deux-Ponts (1755, now residence of the military governor), the Hôtel d'Andlau-Klinglin (1725, now seat of the administration of the Port autonome de Strasbourg) etc. The largest baroque building of Strasbourg though is the 150 m (490 ft) long 1720s main building of the Hôpital civil. As for French Neo-classicism, it is the Opera House on Place Broglie that most prestigiously represents this style.

 

Strasbourg also offers high-class eclecticist buildings in its very extended German district, the Neustadt, being the main memory of Wilhelmian architecture since most of the major cities in Germany proper suffered intensive damage during World War II. Streets, boulevards and avenues are homogeneous, surprisingly high (up to seven stories) and broad examples of German urban lay-out and of this architectural style that summons and mixes up five centuries of European architecture as well as Neo-Egyptian, Neo-Greek and Neo-Babylonian styles. The former imperial palace Palais du Rhin, the most political and thus heavily criticized of all German Strasbourg buildings epitomizes the grand scale and stylistic sturdiness of this period. But the two most handsome and ornate buildings of these times are the École internationale des Pontonniers (the former Höhere Mädchenschule, girls college) with its towers, turrets and multiple round and square angles[50] and the École des Arts décoratifs with its lavishly ornate façade of painted bricks, woodwork and majolica.[51]

 

Notable streets of the German district include: Avenue de la Forêt Noire, Avenue des Vosges, Avenue d'Alsace, Avenue de la Marseillaise, Avenue de la Liberté, Boulevard de la Victoire, Rue Sellénick, Rue du Général de Castelnau, Rue du Maréchal Foch, and Rue du Maréchal Joffre. Notable squares of the German district include: Place de la République, Place de l'Université, Place Brant, and Place Arnold

 

As for modern and contemporary architecture, Strasbourg possesses some fine Art Nouveau buildings (such as the huge Palais des Fêtes and houses and villas like Villa Schutzenberger and Hôtel Brion), good examples of post-World War II functional architecture (the Cité Rotterdam, for which Le Corbusier did not succeed in the architectural contest) and, in the very extended Quartier Européen, some spectacular administrative buildings of sometimes utterly large size, among which the European Court of Human Rights building by Richard Rogers is arguably the finest. Other noticeable contemporary buildings are the new Music school Cité de la Musique et de la Danse, the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain and the Hôtel du Département facing it, as well as, in the outskirts, the tramway-station Hoenheim-Nord designed by Zaha Hadid.

  

Place Kléber

The city has many bridges, including the medieval and four-towered Ponts Couverts that, despite their name, are no longer covered. Next to the Ponts Couverts is the Barrage Vauban, a part of Vauban's 17th-century fortifications, that does include a covered bridge. Other bridges are the ornate 19th-century Pont de la Fonderie (1893, stone) and Pont d'Auvergne (1892, iron), as well as architect Marc Mimram's futuristic Passerelle over the Rhine, opened in 2004.

 

The largest square at the centre of the city of Strasbourg is the Place Kléber. Located in the heart of the city's commercial area, it was named after general Jean-Baptiste Kléber, born in Strasbourg in 1753 and assassinated in 1800 in Cairo. In the square is a statue of Kléber, under which is a vault containing his remains. On the north side of the square is the Aubette (Orderly Room), built by Jacques François Blondel, architect of the king, in 1765–1772.

 

Parks

 

The Pavillon Joséphine (rear side) in the Parc de l'Orangerie

 

The Château de Pourtalès (front side) in the park of the same name

 

Strasbourg features a number of prominent parks, of which several are of cultural and historical interest: the Parc de l'Orangerie, laid out as a French garden by André le Nôtre and remodeled as an English garden on behalf of Joséphine de Beauharnais, now displaying noteworthy French gardens, a neo-classical castle and a small zoo; the Parc de la Citadelle, built around impressive remains of the 17th-century fortress erected close to the Rhine by Vauban;[52] the Parc de Pourtalès, laid out in English style around a baroque castle (heavily restored in the 19th century) that now houses a small three-star hotel,[53] and featuring an open-air museum of international contemporary sculpture.[54] The Jardin botanique de l'Université de Strasbourg (botanical garden) was created under the German administration next to the Observatory of Strasbourg, built in 1881, and still owns some greenhouses of those times. The Parc des Contades, although the oldest park of the city, was completely remodeled after World War II. The futuristic Parc des Poteries is an example of European park-conception in the late 1990s. The Jardin des deux Rives, spread over Strasbourg and Kehl on both sides of the Rhine opened in 2004 and is the most extended (60-hectare) park of the agglomeration. The most recent park is Parc du Heyritz (8,7 ha), opened in 2014 along a canal facing the hôpital civil.

(because I have no other battling Lego figures for the Hun to fight)

Because of the great fire wall of Chinese policy, it's so hard to cross the limit to visit flickr, so I could not reply my dear friends, I'm so sorry about that and please forgive me,thank you so much and hope my friends can still hit on me！由于中国网络原因，访问flickr很困难，速度很慢，所有暂时没有办法一一回应各位好友，请朋友们见谅！还请各位好友继续关注我！

  

My pro account is out of time，thank you my friends here for supporting me what a long time！！May I have a pleasure to receive a pro gift from you？我的pro账号到期了，感谢朋友们长期以来的热心支持！！有好心人能赞助一个pro账号给我吗，在此先表感谢！！

  

If you want to use or buy this image，please contact me. 版权所有，转载请联系本人。

because You have redeemed me, I love Thee forever.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct78HXBzajQ

 

Colosseum

Following, a text, in english, from the Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia:

The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium, Italian Anfiteatro Flavio or Colosseo), is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. It is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and Roman engineering.

Occupying a site just east of the Roman Forum, its construction started between 70 and 72 AD[1] under the emperor Vespasian and was completed in 80 AD under Titus,[2] with further modifications being made during Domitian's reign (81–96).[3] The name "Amphitheatrum Flavium" derives from both Vespasian's and Titus's family name (Flavius, from the gens Flavia).

Capable of seating 50,000 spectators,[1][4][5] the Colosseum was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology. The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine.

Although in the 21st century it stays partially ruined because of damage caused by devastating earthquakes and stone-robbers, the Colosseum is an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome. It is one of Rome's most popular tourist attractions and still has close connections with the Roman Catholic Church, as each Good Friday the Pope leads a torchlit "Way of the Cross" procession that starts in the area around the Colosseum.[6]

The Colosseum is also depicted on the Italian version of the five-cent euro coin.

The Colosseum's original Latin name was Amphitheatrum Flavium, often anglicized as Flavian Amphitheater. The building was constructed by emperors of the Flavian dynasty, hence its original name, after the reign of Emperor Nero.[7] This name is still used in modern English, but generally the structure is better known as the Colosseum. In antiquity, Romans may have referred to the Colosseum by the unofficial name Amphitheatrum Caesareum; this name could have been strictly poetic.[8][9] This name was not exclusive to the Colosseum; Vespasian and Titus, builders of the Colosseum, also constructed an amphitheater of the same name in Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli).[10]

The name Colosseum has long been believed to be derived from a colossal statue of Nero nearby.[3] (the statue of Nero itself being named after one of the original ancient wonders, the Colossus of Rhodes[citation needed]. This statue was later remodeled by Nero's successors into the likeness of Helios (Sol) or Apollo, the sun god, by adding the appropriate solar crown. Nero's head was also replaced several times with the heads of succeeding emperors. Despite its pagan links, the statue remained standing well into the medieval era and was credited with magical powers. It came to be seen as an iconic symbol of the permanence of Rome.

In the 8th century, a famous epigram attributed to the Venerable Bede celebrated the symbolic significance of the statue in a prophecy that is variously quoted: Quamdiu stat Colisæus, stat et Roma; quando cadet colisæus, cadet et Roma; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus ("as long as the Colossus stands, so shall Rome; when the Colossus falls, Rome shall fall; when Rome falls, so falls the world").[11] This is often mistranslated to refer to the Colosseum rather than the Colossus (as in, for instance, Byron's poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage). However, at the time that the Pseudo-Bede wrote, the masculine noun coliseus was applied to the statue rather than to what was still known as the Flavian amphitheatre.

The Colossus did eventually fall, possibly being pulled down to reuse its bronze. By the year 1000 the name "Colosseum" had been coined to refer to the amphitheatre. The statue itself was largely forgotten and only its base survives, situated between the Colosseum and the nearby Temple of Venus and Roma.[12]

The name further evolved to Coliseum during the Middle Ages. In Italy, the amphitheatre is still known as il Colosseo, and other Romance languages have come to use similar forms such as le Colisée (French), el Coliseo (Spanish) and o Coliseu (Portuguese).

Construction of the Colosseum began under the rule of the Emperor Vespasian[3] in around 70–72AD. The site chosen was a flat area on the floor of a low valley between the Caelian, Esquiline and Palatine Hills, through which a canalised stream ran. By the 2nd century BC the area was densely inhabited. It was devastated by the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, following which Nero seized much of the area to add to his personal domain. He built the grandiose Domus Aurea on the site, in front of which he created an artificial lake surrounded by pavilions, gardens and porticoes. The existing Aqua Claudia aqueduct was extended to supply water to the area and the gigantic bronze Colossus of Nero was set up nearby at the entrance to the Domus Aurea.[12]

Although the Colossus was preserved, much of the Domus Aurea was torn down. The lake was filled in and the land reused as the location for the new Flavian Amphitheatre. Gladiatorial schools and other support buildings were constructed nearby within the former grounds of the Domus Aurea. According to a reconstructed inscription found on the site, "the emperor Vespasian ordered this new amphitheatre to be erected from his general's share of the booty." This is thought to refer to the vast quantity of treasure seized by the Romans following their victory in the Great Jewish Revolt in 70AD. The Colosseum can be thus interpreted as a great triumphal monument built in the Roman tradition of celebrating great victories[12], placating the Roman people instead of returning soldiers. Vespasian's decision to build the Colosseum on the site of Nero's lake can also be seen as a populist gesture of returning to the people an area of the city which Nero had appropriated for his own use. In contrast to many other amphitheatres, which were located on the outskirts of a city, the Colosseum was constructed in the city centre; in effect, placing it both literally and symbolically at the heart of Rome.

The Colosseum had been completed up to the third story by the time of Vespasian's death in 79. The top level was finished and the building inaugurated by his son, Titus, in 80.[3] Dio Cassius recounts that over 9,000 wild animals were killed during the inaugural games of the amphitheatre. The building was remodelled further under Vespasian's younger son, the newly designated Emperor Domitian, who constructed the hypogeum, a series of underground tunnels used to house animals and slaves. He also added a gallery to the top of the Colosseum to increase its seating capacity.

In 217, the Colosseum was badly damaged by a major fire (caused by lightning, according to Dio Cassius[13]) which destroyed the wooden upper levels of the amphitheatre's interior. It was not fully repaired until about 240 and underwent further repairs in 250 or 252 and again in 320. An inscription records the restoration of various parts of the Colosseum under Theodosius II and Valentinian III (reigned 425–455), possibly to repair damage caused by a major earthquake in 443; more work followed in 484[14] and 508. The arena continued to be used for contests well into the 6th century, with gladiatorial fights last mentioned around 435. Animal hunts continued until at least 523, when Anicius Maximus celebrated his consulship with some venationes, criticised by King Theodoric the Great for their high cost.

The Colosseum underwent several radical changes of use during the medieval period. By the late 6th century a small church had been built into the structure of the amphitheatre, though this apparently did not confer any particular religious significance on the building as a whole. The arena was converted into a cemetery. The numerous vaulted spaces in the arcades under the seating were converted into housing and workshops, and are recorded as still being rented out as late as the 12th century. Around 1200 the Frangipani family took over the Colosseum and fortified it, apparently using it as a castle.

Severe damage was inflicted on the Colosseum by the great earthquake in 1349, causing the outer south side, lying on a less stable alluvional terrain, to collapse. Much of the tumbled stone was reused to build palaces, churches, hospitals and other buildings elsewhere in Rome. A religious order moved into the northern third of the Colosseum in the mid-14th century and continued to inhabit it until as late as the early 19th century. The interior of the amphitheatre was extensively stripped of stone, which was reused elsewhere, or (in the case of the marble façade) was burned to make quicklime.[12] The bronze clamps which held the stonework together were pried or hacked out of the walls, leaving numerous pockmarks which still scar the building today.

During the 16th and 17th century, Church officials sought a productive role for the vast derelict hulk of the Colosseum. Pope Sixtus V (1585–1590) planned to turn the building into a wool factory to provide employment for Rome's prostitutes, though this proposal fell through with his premature death.[15] In 1671 Cardinal Altieri authorized its use for bullfights; a public outcry caused the idea to be hastily abandoned.

In 1749, Pope Benedict XIV endorsed as official Church policy the view that the Colosseum was a sacred site where early Christians had been martyred. He forbade the use of the Colosseum as a quarry and consecrated the building to the Passion of Christ and installed Stations of the Cross, declaring it sanctified by the blood of the Christian martyrs who perished there (see Christians and the Colosseum). However there is no historical evidence to support Benedict's claim, nor is there even any evidence that anyone prior to the 16th century suggested this might be the case; the Catholic Encyclopedia concludes that there are no historical grounds for the supposition. Later popes initiated various stabilization and restoration projects, removing the extensive vegetation which had overgrown the structure and threatened to damage it further. The façade was reinforced with triangular brick wedges in 1807 and 1827, and the interior was repaired in 1831, 1846 and in the 1930s. The arena substructure was partly excavated in 1810–1814 and 1874 and was fully exposed under Benito Mussolini in the 1930s.

The Colosseum is today one of Rome's most popular tourist attractions, receiving millions of visitors annually. The effects of pollution and general deterioration over time prompted a major restoration programme carried out between 1993 and 2000, at a cost of 40 billion Italian lire ($19.3m / €20.6m at 2000 prices). In recent years it has become a symbol of the international campaign against capital punishment, which was abolished in Italy in 1948. Several anti–death penalty demonstrations took place in front of the Colosseum in 2000. Since that time, as a gesture against the death penalty, the local authorities of Rome change the color of the Colosseum's night time illumination from white to gold whenever a person condemned to the death penalty anywhere in the world gets their sentence commuted or is released,[16] or if a jurisdiction abolishes the death penalty. Most recently, the Colosseum was illuminated in gold when capital punishment was abolished in the American state of New Mexico in April 2009.

Because of the ruined state of the interior, it is impractical to use the Colosseum to host large events; only a few hundred spectators can be accommodated in temporary seating. However, much larger concerts have been held just outside, using the Colosseum as a backdrop. Performers who have played at the Colosseum in recent years have included Ray Charles (May 2002),[18] Paul McCartney (May 2003),[19] Elton John (September 2005),[20] and Billy Joel (July 2006).

Exterior

Unlike earlier Greek theatres that were built into hillsides, the Colosseum is an entirely free-standing structure. It derives its basic exterior and interior architecture from that of two Roman theatres back to back. It is elliptical in plan and is 189 meters (615 ft / 640 Roman feet) long, and 156 meters (510 ft / 528 Roman feet) wide, with a base area of 6 acres (24,000 m2). The height of the outer wall is 48 meters (157 ft / 165 Roman feet). The perimeter originally measured 545 meters (1,788 ft / 1,835 Roman feet). The central arena is an oval 87 m (287 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide, surrounded by a wall 5 m (15 ft) high, above which rose tiers of seating.

The outer wall is estimated to have required over 100,000 cubic meters (131,000 cu yd) of travertine stone which were set without mortar held together by 300 tons of iron clamps.[12] However, it has suffered extensive damage over the centuries, with large segments having collapsed following earthquakes. The north side of the perimeter wall is still standing; the distinctive triangular brick wedges at each end are modern additions, having been constructed in the early 19th century to shore up the wall. The remainder of the present-day exterior of the Colosseum is in fact the original interior wall.

The surviving part of the outer wall's monumental façade comprises three stories of superimposed arcades surmounted by a podium on which stands a tall attic, both of which are pierced by windows interspersed at regular intervals. The arcades are framed by half-columns of the Tuscan, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, while the attic is decorated with Corinthian pilasters.[21] Each of the arches in the second- and third-floor arcades framed statues, probably honoring divinities and other figures from Classical mythology.

Two hundred and forty mast corbels were positioned around the top of the attic. They originally supported a retractable awning, known as the velarium, that kept the sun and rain off spectators. This consisted of a canvas-covered, net-like structure made of ropes, with a hole in the center.[3] It covered two-thirds of the arena, and sloped down towards the center to catch the wind and provide a breeze for the audience. Sailors, specially enlisted from the Roman naval headquarters at Misenum and housed in the nearby Castra Misenatium, were used to work the velarium.[22]

The Colosseum's huge crowd capacity made it essential that the venue could be filled or evacuated quickly. Its architects adopted solutions very similar to those used in modern stadiums to deal with the same problem. The amphitheatre was ringed by eighty entrances at ground level, 76 of which were used by ordinary spectators.[3] Each entrance and exit was numbered, as was each staircase. The northern main entrance was reserved for the Roman Emperor and his aides, whilst the other three axial entrances were most likely used by the elite. All four axial entrances were richly decorated with painted stucco reliefs, of which fragments survive. Many of the original outer entrances have disappeared with the collapse of the perimeter wall, but entrances XXIII (23) to LIV (54) still survive.[12]

Spectators were given tickets in the form of numbered pottery shards, which directed them to the appropriate section and row. They accessed their seats via vomitoria (singular vomitorium), passageways that opened into a tier of seats from below or behind. These quickly dispersed people into their seats and, upon conclusion of the event or in an emergency evacuation, could permit their exit within only a few minutes. The name vomitoria derived from the Latin word for a rapid discharge, from which English derives the word vomit.

Interior

According to the Codex-Calendar of 354, the Colosseum could accommodate 87,000 people, although modern estimates put the figure at around 50,000. They were seated in a tiered arrangement that reflected the rigidly stratified nature of Roman society. Special boxes were provided at the north and south ends respectively for the Emperor and the Vestal Virgins, providing the best views of the arena. Flanking them at the same level was a broad platform or podium for the senatorial class, who were allowed to bring their own chairs. The names of some 5th century senators can still be seen carved into the stonework, presumably reserving areas for their use.

The tier above the senators, known as the maenianum primum, was occupied by the non-senatorial noble class or knights (equites). The next level up, the maenianum secundum, was originally reserved for ordinary Roman citizens (plebians) and was divided into two sections. The lower part (the immum) was for wealthy citizens, while the upper part (the summum) was for poor citizens. Specific sectors were provided for other social groups: for instance, boys with their tutors, soldiers on leave, foreign dignitaries, scribes, heralds, priests and so on. Stone (and later marble) seating was provided for the citizens and nobles, who presumably would have brought their own cushions with them. Inscriptions identified the areas reserved for specific groups.

Another level, the maenianum secundum in legneis, was added at the very top of the building during the reign of Domitian. This comprised a gallery for the common poor, slaves and women. It would have been either standing room only, or would have had very steep wooden benches. Some groups were banned altogether from the Colosseum, notably gravediggers, actors and former gladiators.

Each tier was divided into sections (maeniana) by curved passages and low walls (praecinctiones or baltei), and were subdivided into cunei, or wedges, by the steps and aisles from the vomitoria. Each row (gradus) of seats was numbered, permitting each individual seat to be exactly designated by its gradus, cuneus, and number.

The arena itself was 83 meters by 48 meters (272 ft by 157 ft / 280 by 163 Roman feet).[12] It comprised a wooden floor covered by sand (the Latin word for sand is harena or arena), covering an elaborate underground structure called the hypogeum (literally meaning "underground"). Little now remains of the original arena floor, but the hypogeum is still clearly visible. It consisted of a two-level subterranean network of tunnels and cages beneath the arena where gladiators and animals were held before contests began. Eighty vertical shafts provided instant access to the arena for caged animals and scenery pieces concealed underneath; larger hinged platforms, called hegmata, provided access for elephants and the like. It was restructured on numerous occasions; at least twelve different phases of construction can be seen.[12]

The hypogeum was connected by underground tunnels to a number of points outside the Colosseum. Animals and performers were brought through the tunnel from nearby stables, with the gladiators' barracks at the Ludus Magnus to the east also being connected by tunnels. Separate tunnels were provided for the Emperor and the Vestal Virgins to permit them to enter and exit the Colosseum without needing to pass through the crowds.[12]

Substantial quantities of machinery also existed in the hypogeum. Elevators and pulleys raised and lowered scenery and props, as well as lifting caged animals to the surface for release. There is evidence for the existence of major hydraulic mechanisms[12] and according to ancient accounts, it was possible to flood the arena rapidly, presumably via a connection to a nearby aqueduct.

The Colosseum and its activities supported a substantial industry in the area. In addition to the amphitheatre itself, many other buildings nearby were linked to the games. Immediately to the east is the remains of the Ludus Magnus, a training school for gladiators. This was connected to the Colosseum by an underground passage, to allow easy access for the gladiators. The Ludus Magnus had its own miniature training arena, which was itself a popular attraction for Roman spectators. Other training schools were in the same area, including the Ludus Matutinus (Morning School), where fighters of animals were trained, plus the Dacian and Gallic Schools.

Also nearby were the Armamentarium, comprising an armory to store weapons; the Summum Choragium, where machinery was stored; the Sanitarium, which had facilities to treat wounded gladiators; and the Spoliarium, where bodies of dead gladiators were stripped of their armor and disposed of.

Around the perimeter of the Colosseum, at a distance of 18 m (59 ft) from the perimeter, was a series of tall stone posts, with five remaining on the eastern side. Various explanations have been advanced for their presence; they may have been a religious boundary, or an outer boundary for ticket checks, or an anchor for the velarium or awning.

Right next to the Colosseum is also the Arch of Constantine.

he Colosseum was used to host gladiatorial shows as well as a variety of other events. The shows, called munera, were always given by private individuals rather than the state. They had a strong religious element but were also demonstrations of power and family prestige, and were immensely popular with the population. Another popular type of show was the animal hunt, or venatio. This utilized a great variety of wild beasts, mainly imported from Africa and the Middle East, and included creatures such as rhinoceros, hippopotamuses, elephants, giraffes, aurochs, wisents, barbary lions, panthers, leopards, bears, caspian tigers, crocodiles and ostriches. Battles and hunts were often staged amid elaborate sets with movable trees and buildings. Such events were occasionally on a huge scale; Trajan is said to have celebrated his victories in Dacia in 107 with contests involving 11,000 animals and 10,000 gladiators over the course of 123 days.

During the early days of the Colosseum, ancient writers recorded that the building was used for naumachiae (more properly known as navalia proelia) or simulated sea battles. Accounts of the inaugural games held by Titus in AD 80 describe it being filled with water for a display of specially trained swimming horses and bulls. There is also an account of a re-enactment of a famous sea battle between the Corcyrean (Corfiot) Greeks and the Corinthians. This has been the subject of some debate among historians; although providing the water would not have been a problem, it is unclear how the arena could have been waterproofed, nor would there have been enough space in the arena for the warships to move around. It has been suggested that the reports either have the location wrong, or that the Colosseum originally featured a wide floodable channel down its central axis (which would later have been replaced by the hypogeum).[12]

Sylvae or recreations of natural scenes were also held in the arena. Painters, technicians and architects would construct a simulation of a forest with real trees and bushes planted in the arena's floor. Animals would be introduced to populate the scene for the delight of the crowd. Such scenes might be used simply to display a natural environment for the urban population, or could otherwise be used as the backdrop for hunts or dramas depicting episodes from mythology. They were also occasionally used for executions in which the hero of the story — played by a condemned person — was killed in one of various gruesome but mythologically authentic ways, such as being mauled by beasts or burned to death.

The Colosseum today is now a major tourist attraction in Rome with thousands of tourists each year paying to view the interior arena, though entrance for EU citizens is partially subsidised, and under-18 and over-65 EU citizens' entrances are free.[24] There is now a museum dedicated to Eros located in the upper floor of the outer wall of the building. Part of the arena floor has been re-floored. Beneath the Colosseum, a network of subterranean passageways once used to transport wild animals and gladiators to the arena opened to the public in summer 2010.[25]

The Colosseum is also the site of Roman Catholic ceremonies in the 20th and 21st centuries. For instance, Pope Benedict XVI leads the Stations of the Cross called the Scriptural Way of the Cross (which calls for more meditation) at the Colosseum[26][27] on Good Fridays.

In the Middle Ages, the Colosseum was clearly not regarded as a sacred site. Its use as a fortress and then a quarry demonstrates how little spiritual importance was attached to it, at a time when sites associated with martyrs were highly venerated. It was not included in the itineraries compiled for the use of pilgrims nor in works such as the 12th century Mirabilia Urbis Romae ("Marvels of the City of Rome"), which claims the Circus Flaminius — but not the Colosseum — as the site of martyrdoms. Part of the structure was inhabited by a Christian order, but apparently not for any particular religious reason.

It appears to have been only in the 16th and 17th centuries that the Colosseum came to be regarded as a Christian site. Pope Pius V (1566–1572) is said to have recommended that pilgrims gather sand from the arena of the Colosseum to serve as a relic, on the grounds that it was impregnated with the blood of martyrs. This seems to have been a minority view until it was popularised nearly a century later by Fioravante Martinelli, who listed the Colosseum at the head of a list of places sacred to the martyrs in his 1653 book Roma ex ethnica sacra.

Martinelli's book evidently had an effect on public opinion; in response to Cardinal Altieri's proposal some years later to turn the Colosseum into a bullring, Carlo Tomassi published a pamphlet in protest against what he regarded as an act of desecration. The ensuing controversy persuaded Pope Clement X to close the Colosseum's external arcades and declare it a sanctuary, though quarrying continued for some time.

At the instance of St. Leonard of Port Maurice, Pope Benedict XIV (1740–1758) forbade the quarrying of the Colosseum and erected Stations of the Cross around the arena, which remained until February 1874. St. Benedict Joseph Labre spent the later years of his life within the walls of the Colosseum, living on alms, prior to his death in 1783. Several 19th century popes funded repair and restoration work on the Colosseum, and it still retains a Christian connection today. Crosses stand in several points around the arena and every Good Friday the Pope leads a Via Crucis procession to the amphitheatre.

 

Coliseu (Colosseo)

A seguir, um texto, em português, da Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre:

 

O Coliseu, também conhecido como Anfiteatro Flaviano, deve seu nome à expressão latina Colosseum (ou Coliseus, no latim tardio), devido à estátua colossal de Nero, que ficava perto a edificação. Localizado no centro de Roma, é uma excepção de entre os anfiteatros pelo seu volume e relevo arquitectónico. Originalmente capaz de albergar perto de 50 000 pessoas, e com 48 metros de altura, era usado para variados espetáculos. Foi construído a leste do fórum romano e demorou entre 8 a 10 anos a ser construído.

O Coliseu foi utilizado durante aproximadamente 500 anos, tendo sido o último registro efetuado no século VI da nossa era, bastante depois da queda de Roma em 476. O edifício deixou de ser usado para entretenimento no começo da era medieval, mas foi mais tarde usado como habitação, oficina, forte, pedreira, sede de ordens religiosas e templo cristão.

Embora esteja agora em ruínas devido a terremotos e pilhagens, o Coliseu sempre foi visto como símbolo do Império Romano, sendo um dos melhores exemplos da sua arquitectura. Actualmente é uma das maiores atrações turísticas em Roma e em 7 de julho de 2007 foi eleita umas das "Sete maravilhas do mundo moderno". Além disso, o Coliseu ainda tem ligações à igreja, com o Papa a liderar a procissão da Via Sacra até ao Coliseu todas as Sextas-feiras Santas.

O coliseu era um local onde seriam exibidos toda uma série de espectáculos, inseridos nos vários tipos de jogos realizados na urbe. Os combates entre gladiadores, chamados muneras, eram sempre pagos por pessoas individuais em busca de prestígio e poder em vez do estado. A arena (87,5 m por 55 m) possuía um piso de madeira, normalmente coberto de areia para absorver o sangue dos combates (certa vez foi colocada água na representação de uma batalha naval), sob o qual existia um nível subterrâneo com celas e jaulas que tinham acessos diretos para a arena; Alguns detalhes dessa construção, como a cobertura removível que poupava os espectadores do sol, são bastante interessantes, e mostram o refinamento atingido pelos construtores romanos. Formado por cinco anéis concêntricos de arcos e abóbadas, o Coliseu representa bem o avanço introduzido pelos romanos à engenharia de estruturas. Esses arcos são de concreto (de cimento natural) revestidos por alvenaria. Na verdade, a alvenaria era construída simultaneamente e já servia de forma para a concretagem. Outro tipo de espetáculos era a caça de animais, ou venatio, onde eram utilizados animais selvagens importados de África. Os animais mais utilizados eram os grandes felinos como leões, leopardos e panteras, mas animais como rinocerontes, hipopótamos, elefantes, girafas, crocodilos e avestruzes eram também utilizados. As caçadas, tal como as representações de batalhas famosas, eram efetuadas em elaborados cenários onde constavam árvores e edifícios amovíveis.

Estas últimas eram por vezes representadas numa escala gigante; Trajano celebrou a sua vitória em Dácia no ano 107 com concursos envolvendo 11 000 animais e 10 000 gladiadores no decorrer de 123 dias.

Segundo o documentário produzido pelo canal televisivo fechado, History Channel, o Coliseu também era utilizado para a realização de naumaquias, ou batalhas navais. O coliseu era inundado por dutos subterrâneos alimentados pelos aquedutos que traziam água de longe. Passada esta fase, foi construída uma estrutura, que é a que podemos ver hoje nas ruínas do Coliseu, com altura de um prédio de dois andares, onde no passado se concentravam os gladiadores, feras e todo o pessoal que organizava os duelos que ocorreriam na arena. A arena era como um grande palco, feito de madeira, e se chama arena, que em italiano significa areia, porque era jogada areia sob a estrutura de madeira para esconder as imperfeições. Os animais podiam ser inseridos nos duelos a qualquer momento por um esquema de elevadores que surgiam em alguns pontos da arena; o filme "Gladiador" retrata muito bem esta questão dos elevadores. Os estudiosos, há pouco tempo, descobriram uma rede de dutos inundados por baixo da arena do Coliseu. Acredita-se que o Coliseu foi construído onde, outrora, foi o lago do Palácio Dourado de Nero; O imperador Vespasiano escolheu o local da construção para que o mal causado por Nero fosse esquecido por uma construção gloriosa.

Sylvae, ou recreações de cenas naturais eram também realizadas no Coliseu. Pintores, técnicos e arquitectos construiriam simulações de florestas com árvores e arbustos reais plantados no chão da arena. Animais seriam então introduzidos para dar vida à simulação. Esses cenários podiam servir só para agrado do público ou como pano de fundo para caçadas ou dramas representando episódios da mitologia romana, tão autênticos quanto possível, ao ponto de pessoas condenadas fazerem o papel de heróis onde eram mortos de maneiras horríveis mas mitologicamente autênticas, como mutilados por animais ou queimados vivos.

Embora o Coliseu tenha funcionado até ao século VI da nossa Era, foram proibidos os jogos com mortes humanas desde 404, sendo apenas massacrados animais como elefantes, panteras ou leões.

O Coliseu era sobretudo um enorme instrumento de propaganda e difusão da filosofia de toda uma civilização, e tal como era já profetizado pelo monge e historiador inglês Beda na sua obra do século VII "De temporibus liber": "Enquanto o Coliseu se mantiver de pé, Roma permanecerá; quando o Coliseu ruir, Roma ruirá e quando Roma cair, o mundo cairá".

A construção do Coliseu foi iniciada por Vespasiano, nos anos 70 da nossa era. O edifício foi inaugurado por Tito, em 80, embora apenas tivesse sido finalizado poucos anos depois. Empresa colossal, este edifício, inicialmente, poderia sustentar no seu interior cerca de 50 000 espectadores, constando de três andares. Aquando do reinado de Alexandre Severo e Gordiano III, é ampliado com um quarto andar, podendo suster agora cerca de 90 000 espectadores. A grandiosidade deste monumento testemunha verdadeiramente o poder e esplendor de Roma na época dos Flávios.

Os jogos inaugurais do Coliseu tiveram lugar ano 80, sob o mandato de Tito, para celebrar a finalização da construção. Depois do curto reinado de Tito começar com vários meses de desastres, incluindo a erupção do Monte Vesúvio, um incêndio em Roma, e um surto de peste, o mesmo imperador inaugurou o edifício com uns jogos pródigos que duraram mais de cem dias, talvez para tentar apaziguar o público romano e os deuses. Nesses jogos de cem dias terão ocorrido combates de gladiadores, venationes (lutas de animais), execuções, batalhas navais, caçadas e outros divertimentos numa escala sem precedentes.

O Coliseu, como não se encontrava inserido numa zona de encosta, enterrado, tal como normalmente sucede com a generalidade dos teatros e anfiteatros romanos, possuía um “anel” artificial de rocha à sua volta, para garantir sustentação e, ao mesmo tempo, esta substrutura serve como ornamento ao edifício e como condicionador da entrada dos espectadores. Tal como foi referido anteriormente, possuía três pisos, sendo mais tarde adicionado um outro. É construído em mármore, pedra travertina, ladrilho e tufo (pedra calcária com grandes poros). A sua planta elíptica mede dois eixos que se estendem aproximadamente de 190 m por 155 m. A fachada compõe-se de arcadas decoradas com colunas dóricas, jónicas e coríntias, de acordo com o pavimento em que se encontravam. Esta subdivisão deve-se ao facto de ser uma construção essencialmente vertical, criando assim uma diversificação do espaço.

 

Os assentos eram em mármore e a cavea, escadaria ou arquibancada, dividia-se em três partes, correspondentes às diferentes classes sociais: o podium, para as classes altas; as maeniana, sector destinado à classe média; e os portici, ou pórticos, construídos em madeira, para a plebe e as mulheres. O pulvinar, a tribuna imperial, encontrava-se situada no podium e era balizada pelos assentos reservados aos senadores e magistrados. Rampas no interior do edifício facilitavam o acesso às várias zonas de onde podiam visualizar o espectáculo, sendo protegidos por uma barreira e por uma série de arqueiros posicionados numa passagem de madeira, para o caso de algum acidente. Por cima dos muros ainda são visíveis as mísulas, que sustentavam o velarium, enorme cobertura de lona destinada a proteger do sol os espectadores e, nos subterrâneos, ficavam as jaulas dos animais, bem como todas as celas e galerias necessárias aos serviços do anfiteatro.

O monumento permaneceu como sede principal dos espetáculos da urbe romana até ao período do imperador Honorius, no século V. Danificado por um terremoto no começo do mesmo século, foi alvo de uma extensiva restauração na época de Valentinianus III. Em meados do século XIII, a família Frangipani transformou-o em fortaleza e, ao longo dos séculos XV e XVI, foi por diversas vezes saqueado, perdendo grande parte dos materiais nobres com os quais tinha sido construído.

Os relatos romanos referem-se a cristãos sendo martirizados em locais de Roma descritos pouco pormenorizadamente (no anfiteatro, na arena...), quando Roma tinha numerosos anfiteatros e arenas. Apesar de muito provavelmente o Coliseu não ter sido utilizado para martírios, o Papa Bento XIV consagrou-o no século XVII à Paixão de Cristo e declarou-o lugar sagrado. Os trabalhos de consolidação e restauração parcial do monumento, já há muito em ruínas, foram feitos sobretudo pelos pontífices Gregório XVI e Pio IX, no século XIX.

Because I'm addicted to these pedal cars.

for most of my experimental projects, i decided to at least do a print of my coke bottles. i mean, hey, i have like 50 bottles, might as well photograph and use them. lol =)

 

this is liquid emulsion. probably my favorite print from this process. on watercolor paper.

Because that the flower reminded me of potential album art, I cropped it to a square, and used a new light leak to make this one.

Elephant

 

Loxodonta africana (African) and Elephas maximus (Asian)

 

Some Endangered

 

•Class: Mammalia (Mammals)

•Order: Proboscidea

•Family: Elephantidae

•Genera: Loxodonta (African) and Elephas (Asian)

•Species: africana and maximus

•Subspecies: L. africana africana (African bush), L. africana cyclotis (African forest); E. maximus indicus (Indian), E. maximus maximus (Ceylon), E. maximus sumatranus (Sumatran)

 

About

Have you “herd”? They’re enormous and intelligent, strong and sociable. Humans have been impressed by elephants for centuries, simply because they are so big—a male African elephant can weigh up to 7.5 tons (6.8 metric tons)! They also amaze us with their long and flexible noses, large and flapping ears, and loose, wrinkly skin. There are many stories about elephants—you’ve probably heard of Horton, Babar, and Dumbo. Elephants are one of the best-known animals in the world.

 

If all elephants seem the same to you, take a closer look. There are two elephant species that are usually recognized: the African elephant and the Asian elephant. There is some ongoing debate about how many subspecies may exist, or whether some of these might, in fact, be species in their own right. Here are a few ways to tell them apart:

 

•African elephants have large ears that are shaped like the continent of Africa, both males and females have visible tusks, their skin is very wrinkly, their back is swayed, and the end of their trunk works as if they have two fingers there to help them pick things up. African elephants are the largest mammals on land.

 

•Asian elephants have smaller ears, usually only the males have visible tusks, their skin is not as wrinkly as African elephants’, they only have one “finger” at the ends of their trunk, and their back is dome-shaped.

 

Cool ears! An elephant’s ears are a like an air conditioner. As elephants flap their ears on a hot day, the blood flowing through the many blood vessels in the ears is cooled. If they have just splashed around in a river, all the better! This ear flapping behavior cools their large bodies on warm days.

 

The skinny on skin. The term “pachyderm” is from the Greek word pachydermos, which means “thick skinned,” and this term often refers to both elephants and hippopotamuses.

 

An elephant’s skin can be up to 1 inch (2.54 centimeters) thick on some parts of its body. It’s also loose, which makes the elephant look like it’s wearing baggy pants or sagging stockings. But there’s a good reason for this—it keeps the animal cool by trapping moisture that takes longer to evaporate. And even though it’s thick, an elephant’s skin is also very sensitive to touch and sunburn. Elephants often spray themselves with water or roll in the mud or dust for protection from the sun and biting insects.

 

Really long in the tooth. Tusks are an elephant’s incisor teeth and are the only incisors an elephant has. They are used for defense, digging for water and food, and lifting things. The tusks present at birth are milk teeth, which fall out after a year when they are about 2 inches (5 centimeters) long. Permanent tusks extend beyond the lips at about two to three years and grow throughout the animal’s life.

 

The tusks are composed of ivory (dentine) beneath the outer layer of enamel, but the peculiar diamond pattern of the elephant’s tusk gives it a distinctive luster that ivory tusks of other mammals such as hippos, warthogs, walruses, and sperm whales don’t have, and African elephants are sometimes killed by poachers just for their ivory tusks.

 

Elephants also have four molars, one on the top and one on the bottom on both sides of the mouth. One molar can weigh about 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) and is the size of a brick! Each elephant can go through up to six sets of molars in its lifetime.

 

New teeth do not erupt vertically, as in most mammals, but grow in from behind, pushing the old worn-out teeth forward and out, like a production line of teeth moving along the jaw from back to front. When elephants get old, their remaining molars are sensitive and worn down, so they prefer to eat softer food. Marshes are the perfect place for soft plant food, so old elephants are often found there. Many times they stay there until they die. This practice led some people to think that elephants went to special burial grounds to die.

 

The nose knows. An elephant’s trunk is both an upper lip and a nose. There are 8 major muscles on each side of the trunk and 150,000 muscle fascicles (portions of muscles) for the entire trunk. There are no bones or cartilage in this unique appendage. An elephant’s trunk is so strong it can push down trees and so agile that it can pick up a single piece of straw. Elephants also use their trunk like we use our hands: to grab, hold, pick up, reach, touch, pull, push, and throw.

 

The trunk is still a nose, too, and has two nostrils at the end that suck air up the long nasal passages and into the lungs. Elephants also use their trunks to drink, but the water doesn’t go all the way up the nose like a straw; instead, the elephant sucks water only part way up the trunk, curls it toward its mouth, tilts its head up, and lets the water from the trunk pour in.

 

Sounds of music. Elephants make many different sounds; humans cannot hear some of these sounds, as their frequency is too low for our ears. Elephants use these sounds to communicate with each other over long distances. Have you ever had your stomach growl at an unfortunate moment? Well, stomach growls are a welcome sound in elephant society; a stomach that makes loud rumbling and growling noises seems to signal to others that everything is “okay.”

 

The largest elephant on record was an adult male African elephant. He weighed about 24,000 pounds (10,886 kilograms) and was 13 feet (3.96 meters) tall at the shoulder! Most elephants don’t get that large, but African bush elephants do grow larger than Asian elephants.

 

Habitat and Diet

Home is where the herd is. Asian elephants live in India, Nepal, and parts of Southeast Asia. Their habitat is scrub forest and rain forest, and they are often found along rivers during dry months.

 

African bush elephants are found in eastern, central and southern Africa, living in lowland and montane forests, flood plains, and all types of woodland and savanna. The smaller African forest elephants inhabit the Congo basin and western Africa in moist, semi-deciduous rain forests.

 

Elephants eat all types of vegetation, from grass and fruit to leaves and bark—about 165 to 330 pounds (75 to 150 kilograms) each day, which is about 4 to 6 percent of their body weight. They spend an average of 16 hours per day eating! Bush elephants are grazer-browsers and eat grasses, including sedges, flowering plants, leaves, shrubs, and small- to medium-size trees. Forest elephants are browser-frugivores and eat leaves, fruits, seeds, branches, and bark. Asian elephants are both browsers (feeding on shrubs and trees during the dry season and after heavy rains) and grazers (feeding on grass during the first part of the wet season). They can consume many species of plants, as well as twigs and bark. The choice of plants varies with seasons.

 

The elephants at the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park eat less than their wild counterparts—about 125 pounds (57 kilograms) of food each day—because they don’t have to burn as many calories looking for food. Still, the adult male African elephants at the Safari Park need to eat over 70,000 calories each day! Our elephants are offered hay, herbivore pellets, acacia browse, celery, cucumbers, and lettuce daily. Elephants drink 20 to 50 gallons (75 to 190 liters) of water each day.

 

Family Life

All elephants live in close social groups called herds, usually made up of related females and their offspring. The leader of the herd is known as the matriarch; she is usually the oldest and most experienced female in the group. The matriarch remembers where and how to find food and water, how to avoid predators, and the best places for shelter. She also keeps the younger elephants in line and teaches them how to behave in elephant society. In some cases the group may include one of the matriarch’s sisters and her offspring. When groups get too big, “bond groups” split off but maintain a loose association.

 

Adult males don’t usually live in a herd. Once male elephants are old enough to find their own food and protect themselves, they leave the herd and live on their own or form bachelor herds with other males. Only after they become adults do they visit herds of females, and that is only for short periods of time to breed. Bulls do not take part in caring for the young.

 

Ellie etiquette. Good manners are important in elephant society. Trunks are used in greeting: a lower-ranking animal will insert its trunk tip into the other’s mouth. A trunk may be held out to an approaching elephant as a greeting and is also used in caressing, twining, wrestling, and checking reproductive status.

 

Stranger danger. Elephant calves could be a potential meal for hyenas, lions, leopards, or crocodiles, but as long as they stay near Mom or their herd, they have little to worry about. If an elephant senses danger, it trumpets a loud alarm call to alert the others. The herd then forms a protective ring, with youngsters in the middle and the adults facing out to confront a potential predator. A healthy adult elephant’s only foe is a human poacher with a powerful rifle.

 

At birth a baby elephant, called a calf, may stand three feet (one meter) tall. A calf is usually quite hairy, with a long tail and a very short trunk, and is very dependent upon its mother and other members of the herd. The little one uses its mouth to drink its mother’s milk, so it doesn’t need a long trunk to feed. Calves stick close to Mom and nurse frequently; they gain, on average, 2 to 3 pounds (1 to 1.3 kilograms) a day in their first year! Herd mates tend to look out for the calves if they are in distress.

 

Despite all the playtime and protection, calves still have to navigate through social nuances and establish their social rank within the herd. Babies spend their days practicing making all four legs go in the same direction at the same time, perfecting their ear flaring, and mastering trunk control. Calves are clumsy at first with their trunk, but they learn to use it as they grow older. By the time they are two to three years old, they no longer need to nurse.

 

At the Zoo

Empress and Queenie were the San Diego Zoo’s first elephants, arriving here in 1923 via train from San Francisco. After being led off the train, the two Asian elephants refused to move another step, no matter how much encouragement they received. The Zoo’s founder, Harry Wegeforth, M.D., was there to greet them, and it occurred to him that they were probably used to being ridden, so he climbed up on Empress and another staff member did the same with Queenie, and off they walked from the train station to the Zoo, gathering many astonished looks along the way!

 

Peaches was the San Diego Zoo’s first African elephant—and she made sure to be a memorable one, too. When she arrived in 1953, she was three years old, smart, curious, and, as then ZOONOOZ editor Ken Stott described her, “playful as a quarter-ton kitten.” She had made the journey from Africa to San Diego with keeper Ralph “Gabe” Davis, and they got along famously—at least most of the time. When Gabe gave her breakfast, she would grumble and trumpet at him until he left her alone to eat—apparently, she was not sociable in the morning. She also showed a marked preference for men, even pushing away Zoo Executive Director Belle Benchley when she tried to say hello. Peaches did become more mellow as she grew up, but even as an adult, she still had a way of “flirting” with men while more often than not giving women a cool stare.

 

Since that time, we’ve had numerous elephants at our two facilities, and our first elephant birth occurred in 1981. In 1971, Asian elephant Carol became famous by appearing on The Tonight Show with the Zoo’s animal ambassador Joan Embery, to meet Johnny Carson and paint for him while millions watched nationwide!

 

Today, four elephants live in the Zoo’s Elephant Odyssey habitat. Its features include the state-of-the-art Elephant Care Center, which is helpful, as our herd is made up of older, non-breeding elephants at this time. Two of them—Mary and Devi—are Asian elephants and the other two—Tembo and Shaba—are African bush elephants.

 

Tembo (Swahili for elephant) has lived at the Zoo for much of her life. Before we adopted her, she was an animal actor, and appeared in the TV series Born Free as—you guessed it—a baby elephant! We think she was born around 1972, and her official birthday is the first of January. In fact, most of our elephants have the same birthday. As most were orphaned or rescued in the wild, we can only estimate their ages. So, we use the same system as racehorse owners. On New Year’s Day, they all officially become a year older!

 

At the Safari Park, a herd of seven African elephants, born in Kruger National Park in South Africa in 1991, was translocated to Swaziland in 1994. Yet just a few years later, they were scheduled to be culled due to overpopulation. Fortunately, the herd instead was brought to San Diego on a truly “jumbo” plane in August 2003. A fellow herd-mate from Africa followed in October 2009, by way of the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Florida. These elephants are one of the most genetically valuable African elephant herds in North America. Since their arrival at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, their numbers have grown. The success of this group at the Safari Park helped earn us the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ 2014 award for significantly enhancing the conservation of a species.

 

In March 2012, five of those elephants were moved to the Reid Park Zoo in Arizona to start a new herd. Today, the Safari Park is home to 13 African bush elephants: 5 adults and 8 calves of varying ages. Our newest calf, Qinisa, was born on August 28, 2012.

 

To best manage the elephants’ health at both the Zoo and the Safari Park, these behemoths are trained to present various body parts to keepers for inspection and care. Whether daintily presenting a foot, patiently standing parallel to the bars for a cleaning, or offering up their trunk for a saline flush, these animals are clearly highly cognizant and deserve the best care.

 

As a species that has spent millions of years patrolling the parched African landscape following ancient mental maps to water sources, it’s no wonder that swimming pools and mud wallows are a big hit with our elephants. On warm days, guests can be treated to views of the Park’s younger elephants cavorting about in the pool, spraying each other with trunks full of water and horsing around with their friends in the sun.

 

Elephants both in the wild and in zoos often rub their tusks against hard surfaces, which sometimes damages them. Elephant youngster Khosi, born at the Park in September 2006, wore down her tusks over time, so in 2011 our veterinary team performed a pulpotomy, which is like a root canal on a tusk, and then placed permanent stainless-steel caps on each of her tusks to prevent further wear. The procedure went well, thanks to intense planning, training and desensitizing the elephant, and collaboration among the Park’s keepers and veterinary staff.

 

At the Park, you may see some of the elephants wearing an anklet accelerometer, which is essentially a high-tech pedometer measuring step count and activity, as part of our Elephant Walking Study. Additionally, some of the elephants are trained to wear a collar around their neck that holds a GPS unit and a digital infrasonic recorder. This research will expand to the Zoo, and then to other zoos around the country to help us gather as much accurate activity and behavioral data as possible, which will ensure that elephants in zoos receive the best, most appropriate care possible.

 

Conservation

Elephants have been hunted relentlessly for their tusks (even though they’re made of dentine, the same as our teeth). Elephants are now protected, but poachers still hunt them, and they face other problems, too. Because they are so big and need so much food, they can eat themselves out of “house and home.” Elephants and people often come into conflict as elephant habitats undergo dramatic reductions in size. Asian and African forest elephants are listed as endangered, primarily due to habitat loss and fragmentation. African bush elephants are threatened, primarily due to habitat loss and being poached for their tusks.

 

We are actively promoting the conservation of elephants through a variety of methods aimed at understanding elephant behavior and their reproductive biology in their natural habitats and in zoos. We can apply the knowledge we gain studying the elephants at the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park to help sustain elephants in their native environments. In one multidisciplinary approach, our scientists record elephant auditory communication and behavior for a clearer understanding of the social dynamics of a herd and the relationship between mother and calf. In another, we’re recording and plotting calf weights as a measure of health.

 

To promote genetic diversity, we’re sharing bull elephant semen with other facilities in an effort to enhance the gene pool of managed populations. To further reproductive success, we are monitoring hormones to uncover the details of the complex estrous cycle of elephants. At the Safari Park, we are studying how many miles our elephants move each day by having select individuals wear specially designed pedometers. Eventually, results will be compared between individual animals, zoos, and even what has been documented in nature to see if zoo elephants get enough exercise.

 

Partnerships and collaborations. We continue to financially support field conservation efforts in Swaziland and are working with the Northern Rangelands Trust to preserve large tracts of land in Kenya and helping local ecologists and rangers reduce human-elephant conflict in the area. In the past, we have partnered with the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka, where Asian elephants are managed in conditions very similar to that of their wild counterparts.

 

The small country of Botswana is home to the largest contiguous wild elephant population remaining on the African continent. San Diego Zoo Global has partnered with the nonprofit Elephants Without Borders (EWB) to delve further into research to answer questions about elephants, their behavior, and the best ways to help conserve them. Blood samples from wild elephants have been taken to our labs for ongoing genetic studies; fecal samples are collected for analysis of diet and stress in elephant populations throughout their range to possibly determine health conditions and motivation for elephant travels.

 

Elephants Without Borders has been deploying satellite-monitoring collars on elephants throughout northern Botswana since 2000, having tracked over 90 individual elephants; this is one of the longest and largest elephant movement studies in Africa. Every individual pachyderm has its unique character and intriguing story to his or her own seasonal march, preferred routes, and favored places. Each new elephant fitted with a tracking device provides new information to understand the ecology of these animals. Unpredictable individual ranging behavior coupled with a dynamic, ever-changing environment in Botswana underscore the need for long-term elephant studies. The elephants are tracked from a fixed-wing plane, which allows a visual assessment of collared elephants to determine herd structure and habitat use.

 

In collaboration with San Diego Zoo Global, Elephants Without Borders has established a conservation farming project in the Chobe Enclave in Botswana. This project is developing experimental plots with various methods of keeping elephants away from crops, including farming of specific chili species that are thought to be unpalatable to elephants and may deter them from invading crop areas. Along with aerial survey wildlife counts and satellite-collared elephant data, these projects are essential for developing community-based conservation programs to reduce human-elephant conflict and make better-informed conservation decisions for all.

 

In addition, San Diego Zoo Global has developed anesthesia techniques that are used at other zoos and in the wild and is a member of the International Elephant Foundation. All of these efforts help us and other zoos continue to provide the highest level of care for our elephants and to assist elephants in the wild.

 

Life Span

Late 30s to more than 50 years in the wild and in zoos

 

Young

Gestation: 20 to 22 months

 

Number of young: 1

 

Weight at birth: 110 to 264 pounds (50 to 120 kilograms)

 

Height at birth: 26 to 42 inches (66 to 107 centimeters)

 

Maturity: 13 to 20 years old

 

Size

Height at shoulder: Females average 8 feet (2.4 meters), males average 10 to 10.5 (3 to 3.2 meters)

 

Weight: African elephant females up to 8,000 pounds (3.600 kilograms), males up to 15,000 pounds (6,800 kilograms)

 

Weight: Asian elephant females about 6,000 pounds (2,720 kilograms), males 11,000 pounds (nearly 5,000 kilograms)

 

Fun Facts

An elephant’s skin is so sensitive that it can feel a fly landing on it.

 

The low, resounding calls elephants make can be heard by another elephant up to 5 miles (8 kilometers) away.

 

Elephants have been relentlessly slaughtered for their tusks, even though the tusks are made of dentine–the same as our teeth.

 

In India’s Andaman Islands, elephants swim across the sea between the islands.

 

An elephant’s skull weighs about 115 pounds (52 kilograms); it would be even heavier without honeycomb-like spaces that reduce the skull’s weight.

 

Elephants favor either their left or right tusk. One tusk usually shows more wear than the other.

 

The modern-day elephant is the only mammal that can remain submerged far below the surface of the water while using its trunk like a snorkel.

 

Frequent bathing and showering, as well as powdering with dirt, is an important part of elephant skin care.

 

Unlike other mammals, elephants grow throughout their lifetime.

 

Are elephants afraid of mice? We’d rather say they seem annoyed by small animals and either try to frighten or flatten them.

 

Elephants do sleep for a couple of hours while lying down—our keepers have even heard them snoring.

 

A 14,000-pound (6,300-kilogram) African elephant is able to carry up to almost 20,000 pounds (9,000 kilograms).

 

Elephants at the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park eat up to 125 pounds (57 kilograms) of food each day, and they each deposit about 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of poop daily. How is this possible? It’s due to all the water they drink.

 

“An elephant never forgets?” Our keepers feel that, just like people, elephants seem to especially remember good times and bad and seem to have good memories for individual people.

 

What do you call a group of elephants? A parade.

Ganesha, also spelled Ganesh, and also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, is a widely worshipped deity in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India.

 

Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rituals and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.

 

Ganesha emerged as a distinct deity in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, during the Gupta Period, although he inherited traits from Vedic and pre-Vedic precursors. He was formally included among the five primary deities of Smartism (a Hindu denomination) in the 9th century. A sect of devotees called the Ganapatya arose, who identified Ganesha as the supreme deity. The principal scriptures dedicated to Ganesha are the Ganesha Purana, the Mudgala Purana, and the Ganapati Atharvashirsa.

 

ETYMOLOGY AND OTHER NAMES

Ganesha has been ascribed many other titles and epithets, including Ganapati and Vighneshvara. The Hindu title of respect Shri is often added before his name. One popular way Ganesha is worshipped is by chanting a Ganesha Sahasranama, a litany of "a thousand names of Ganesha". Each name in the sahasranama conveys a different meaning and symbolises a different aspect of Ganesha. At least two different versions of the Ganesha Sahasranama exist; one version is drawn from the Ganesha Purana, a Hindu scripture venerating Ganesha.

 

The name Ganesha is a Sanskrit compound, joining the words gana, meaning a group, multitude, or categorical system and isha, meaning lord or master. The word gaņa when associated with Ganesha is often taken to refer to the gaņas, a troop of semi-divine beings that form part of the retinue of Shiva. The term more generally means a category, class, community, association, or corporation. Some commentators interpret the name "Lord of the Gaņas" to mean "Lord of Hosts" or "Lord of created categories", such as the elements. Ganapati, a synonym for Ganesha, is a compound composed of gaṇa, meaning "group", and pati, meaning "ruler" or "lord". The Amarakosha, an early Sanskrit lexicon, lists eight synonyms of Ganesha : Vinayaka, Vighnarāja (equivalent to Vighnesha), Dvaimātura (one who has two mothers), Gaṇādhipa (equivalent to Ganapati and Ganesha), Ekadanta (one who has one tusk), Heramba, Lambodara (one who has a pot belly, or, literally, one who has a hanging belly), and Gajanana; having the face of an elephant).

 

Vinayaka is a common name for Ganesha that appears in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. This name is reflected in the naming of the eight famous Ganesha temples in Maharashtra known as the Ashtavinayak (aṣṭavināyaka). The names Vighnesha and Vighneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) refers to his primary function in Hindu theology as the master and remover of obstacles (vighna).

 

A prominent name for Ganesha in the Tamil language is Pillai. A. K. Narain differentiates these terms by saying that pillai means a "child" while pillaiyar means a "noble child". He adds that the words pallu, pella, and pell in the Dravidian family of languages signify "tooth or tusk", also "elephant tooth or tusk". Anita Raina Thapan notes that the root word pille in the name Pillaiyar might have originally meant "the young of the elephant", because the Pali word pillaka means "a young elephant".

 

In the Burmese language, Ganesha is known as Maha Peinne, derived from Pali Mahā Wināyaka. The widespread name of Ganesha in Thailand is Phra Phikhanet or Phra Phikhanesuan, both of which are derived from Vara Vighnesha and Vara Vighneshvara respectively, whereas the name Khanet (from Ganesha) is rather rare.

 

In Sri Lanka, in the North-Central and North Western areas with predominantly Buddhist population, Ganesha is known as Aiyanayaka Deviyo, while in other Singhala Buddhist areas he is known as Gana deviyo.

 

ICONOGRAPHY

Ganesha is a popular figure in Indian art. Unlike those of some deities, representations of Ganesha show wide variations and distinct patterns changing over time. He may be portrayed standing, dancing, heroically taking action against demons, playing with his family as a boy, sitting down or on an elevated seat, or engaging in a range of contemporary situations.

 

Ganesha images were prevalent in many parts of India by the 6th century. The 13th century statue pictured is typical of Ganesha statuary from 900–1200, after Ganesha had been well-established as an independent deity with his own sect. This example features some of Ganesha's common iconographic elements. A virtually identical statue has been dated between 973–1200 by Paul Martin-Dubost, and another similar statue is dated c. 12th century by Pratapaditya Pal. Ganesha has the head of an elephant and a big belly. This statue has four arms, which is common in depictions of Ganesha. He holds his own broken tusk in his lower-right hand and holds a delicacy, which he samples with his trunk, in his lower-left hand. The motif of Ganesha turning his trunk sharply to his left to taste a sweet in his lower-left hand is a particularly archaic feature. A more primitive statue in one of the Ellora Caves with this general form has been dated to the 7th century. Details of the other hands are difficult to make out on the statue shown. In the standard configuration, Ganesha typically holds an axe or a goad in one upper arm and a pasha (noose) in the other upper arm.

 

The influence of this old constellation of iconographic elements can still be seen in contemporary representations of Ganesha. In one modern form, the only variation from these old elements is that the lower-right hand does not hold the broken tusk but is turned towards the viewer in a gesture of protection or fearlessness (abhaya mudra). The same combination of four arms and attributes occurs in statues of Ganesha dancing, which is a very popular theme.

 

COMMON ATTRIBUTES

Ganesha has been represented with the head of an elephant since the early stages of his appearance in Indian art. Puranic myths provide many explanations for how he got his elephant head. One of his popular forms, Heramba-Ganapati, has five elephant heads, and other less-common variations in the number of heads are known. While some texts say that Ganesha was born with an elephant head, he acquires the head later in most stories. The most recurrent motif in these stories is that Ganesha was created by Parvati using clay to protect her and Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant. Details of the battle and where the replacement head came from vary from source to source. Another story says that Ganesha was created directly by Shiva's laughter. Because Shiva considered Ganesha too alluring, he gave him the head of an elephant and a protruding belly.

 

Ganesha's earliest name was Ekadanta (One Tusked), referring to his single whole tusk, the other being broken. Some of the earliest images of Ganesha show him holding his broken tusk. The importance of this distinctive feature is reflected in the Mudgala Purana, which states that the name of Ganesha's second incarnation is Ekadanta. Ganesha's protruding belly appears as a distinctive attribute in his earliest statuary, which dates to the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries). This feature is so important that, according to the Mudgala Purana, two different incarnations of Ganesha use names based on it: Lambodara (Pot Belly, or, literally, Hanging Belly) and Mahodara (Great Belly). Both names are Sanskrit compounds describing his belly. The Brahmanda Purana says that Ganesha has the name Lambodara because all the universes (i.e., cosmic eggs) of the past, present, and future are present in him. The number of Ganesha's arms varies; his best-known forms have between two and sixteen arms. Many depictions of Ganesha feature four arms, which is mentioned in Puranic sources and codified as a standard form in some iconographic texts. His earliest images had two arms. Forms with 14 and 20 arms appeared in Central India during the 9th and the 10th centuries. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms. According to the Ganesha Purana, Ganesha wrapped the serpent Vasuki around his neck. Other depictions of snakes include use as a sacred thread wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Upon Ganesha's forehead may be a third eye or the Shaivite sectarian mark , which consists of three horizontal lines. The Ganesha Purana prescribes a tilaka mark as well as a crescent moon on the forehead. A distinct form of Ganesha called Bhalachandra includes that iconographic element. Ganesha is often described as red in color. Specific colors are associated with certain forms. Many examples of color associations with specific meditation forms are prescribed in the Sritattvanidhi, a treatise on Hindu iconography. For example, white is associated with his representations as Heramba-Ganapati and Rina-Mochana-Ganapati (Ganapati Who Releases from Bondage). Ekadanta-Ganapati is visualized as blue during meditation in that form.

 

VAHANAS

The earliest Ganesha images are without a vahana (mount/vehicle). Of the eight incarnations of Ganesha described in the Mudgala Purana, Ganesha uses a mouse (shrew) in five of them, a lion in his incarnation as Vakratunda, a peacock in his incarnation as Vikata, and Shesha, the divine serpent, in his incarnation as Vighnaraja. Mohotkata uses a lion, Mayūreśvara uses a peacock, Dhumraketu uses a horse, and Gajanana uses a mouse, in the four incarnations of Ganesha listed in the Ganesha Purana. Jain depictions of Ganesha show his vahana variously as a mouse, elephant, tortoise, ram, or peacock.

 

Ganesha is often shown riding on or attended by a mouse, shrew or rat. Martin-Dubost says that the rat began to appear as the principal vehicle in sculptures of Ganesha in central and western India during the 7th century; the rat was always placed close to his feet. The mouse as a mount first appears in written sources in the Matsya Purana and later in the Brahmananda Purana and Ganesha Purana, where Ganesha uses it as his vehicle in his last incarnation. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa includes a meditation verse on Ganesha that describes the mouse appearing on his flag. The names Mūṣakavāhana (mouse-mount) and Ākhuketana (rat-banner) appear in the Ganesha Sahasranama.

 

The mouse is interpreted in several ways. According to Grimes, "Many, if not most of those who interpret Gaṇapati's mouse, do so negatively; it symbolizes tamoguṇa as well as desire". Along these lines, Michael Wilcockson says it symbolizes those who wish to overcome desires and be less selfish. Krishan notes that the rat is destructive and a menace to crops. The Sanskrit word mūṣaka (mouse) is derived from the root mūṣ (stealing, robbing). It was essential to subdue the rat as a destructive pest, a type of vighna (impediment) that needed to be overcome. According to this theory, showing Ganesha as master of the rat demonstrates his function as Vigneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) and gives evidence of his possible role as a folk grāma-devatā (village deity) who later rose to greater prominence. Martin-Dubost notes a view that the rat is a symbol suggesting that Ganesha, like the rat, penetrates even the most secret places.

 

ASSOCIATIONS

 

OBSTACLES

Ganesha is Vighneshvara or Vighnaraja or Vighnaharta (Marathi), the Lord of Obstacles, both of a material and spiritual order. He is popularly worshipped as a remover of obstacles, though traditionally he also places obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked. Paul Courtright says that "his task in the divine scheme of things, his dharma, is to place and remove obstacles. It is his particular territory, the reason for his creation."

 

Krishan notes that some of Ganesha's names reflect shadings of multiple roles that have evolved over time. Dhavalikar ascribes the quick ascension of Ganesha in the Hindu pantheon, and the emergence of the Ganapatyas, to this shift in emphasis from vighnakartā (obstacle-creator) to vighnahartā (obstacle-averter). However, both functions continue to be vital to his character.

 

BUDDHI (KNOWLEDGE)

Ganesha is considered to be the Lord of letters and learning. In Sanskrit, the word buddhi is a feminine noun that is variously translated as intelligence, wisdom, or intellect. The concept of buddhi is closely associated with the personality of Ganesha, especially in the Puranic period, when many stories stress his cleverness and love of intelligence. One of Ganesha's names in the Ganesha Purana and the Ganesha Sahasranama is Buddhipriya. This name also appears in a list of 21 names at the end of the Ganesha Sahasranama that Ganesha says are especially important. The word priya can mean "fond of", and in a marital context it can mean "lover" or "husband", so the name may mean either "Fond of Intelligence" or "Buddhi's Husband".

 

AUM

Ganesha is identified with the Hindu mantra Aum, also spelled Om. The term oṃkārasvarūpa (Aum is his form), when identified with Ganesha, refers to the notion that he personifies the primal sound. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa attests to this association. Chinmayananda translates the relevant passage as follows:

 

(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire [Agni] and air [Vāyu]. You are the sun [Sūrya] and the moon [Chandrama]. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka [earth], Antariksha-loka [space], and Swargaloka [heaven]. You are Om. (That is to say, You are all this).

 

Some devotees see similarities between the shape of Ganesha's body in iconography and the shape of Aum in the Devanāgarī and Tamil scripts.

 

FIRST CHAKRA

According to Kundalini yoga, Ganesha resides in the first chakra, called Muladhara (mūlādhāra). Mula means "original, main"; adhara means "base, foundation". The muladhara chakra is the principle on which the manifestation or outward expansion of primordial Divine Force rests. This association is also attested to in the Ganapati Atharvashirsa. Courtright translates this passage as follows: "[O Ganesha,] You continually dwell in the sacral plexus at the base of the spine [mūlādhāra cakra]." Thus, Ganesha has a permanent abode in every being at the Muladhara. Ganesha holds, supports and guides all other chakras, thereby "governing the forces that propel the wheel of life".

 

FAMILY AND CONSORTS

Though Ganesha is popularly held to be the son of Shiva and Parvati, the Puranic myths give different versions about his birth. In some he was created by Parvati, in another he was created by Shiva and Parvati, in another he appeared mysteriously and was discovered by Shiva and Parvati or he was born from the elephant headed goddess Malini after she drank Parvati's bath water that had been thrown in the river.

 

The family includes his brother the war god Kartikeya, who is also called Subramanya, Skanda, Murugan and other names. Regional differences dictate the order of their births. In northern India, Skanda is generally said to be the elder, while in the south, Ganesha is considered the first born. In northern India, Skanda was an important martial deity from about 500 BCE to about 600 CE, when worship of him declined significantly in northern India. As Skanda fell, Ganesha rose. Several stories tell of sibling rivalry between the brothers and may reflect sectarian tensions.

 

Ganesha's marital status, the subject of considerable scholarly review, varies widely in mythological stories. One pattern of myths identifies Ganesha as an unmarried brahmacari. This view is common in southern India and parts of northern India. Another pattern associates him with the concepts of Buddhi (intellect), Siddhi (spiritual power), and Riddhi (prosperity); these qualities are sometimes personified as goddesses, said to be Ganesha's wives. He also may be shown with a single consort or a nameless servant (Sanskrit: daşi). Another pattern connects Ganesha with the goddess of culture and the arts, Sarasvati or Śarda (particularly in Maharashtra). He is also associated with the goddess of luck and prosperity, Lakshmi. Another pattern, mainly prevalent in the Bengal region, links Ganesha with the banana tree, Kala Bo.

 

The Shiva Purana says that Ganesha had begotten two sons: Kşema (prosperity) and Lābha (profit). In northern Indian variants of this story, the sons are often said to be Śubha (auspiciouness) and Lābha. The 1975 Hindi film Jai Santoshi Maa shows Ganesha married to Riddhi and Siddhi and having a daughter named Santoshi Ma, the goddess of satisfaction. This story has no Puranic basis, but Anita Raina Thapan and Lawrence Cohen cite Santoshi Ma's cult as evidence of Ganesha's continuing evolution as a popular deity.

 

WOSHIP AND FESTIVALS

Ganesha is worshipped on many religious and secular occasions; especially at the beginning of ventures such as buying a vehicle or starting a business. K.N. Somayaji says, "there can hardly be a [Hindu] home [in India] which does not house an idol of Ganapati. [..] Ganapati, being the most popular deity in India, is worshipped by almost all castes and in all parts of the country". Devotees believe that if Ganesha is propitiated, he grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity.

 

Ganesha is a non-sectarian deity, and Hindus of all denominations invoke him at the beginning of prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies. Dancers and musicians, particularly in southern India, begin performances of arts such as the Bharatnatyam dance with a prayer to Ganesha. Mantras such as Om Shri Gaṇeshāya Namah (Om, salutation to the Illustrious Ganesha) are often used. One of the most famous mantras associated with Ganesha is Om Gaṃ Ganapataye Namah (Om, Gaṃ, Salutation to the Lord of Hosts).

 

Devotees offer Ganesha sweets such as modaka and small sweet balls (laddus). He is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modakapātra. Because of his identification with the color red, he is often worshipped with red sandalwood paste (raktacandana) or red flowers. Dūrvā grass (Cynodon dactylon) and other materials are also used in his worship.

 

Festivals associated with Ganesh are Ganesh Chaturthi or Vināyaka chaturthī in the śuklapakṣa (the fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of bhādrapada (August/September) and the Gaṇeśa jayanti (Gaṇeśa's birthday) celebrated on the cathurthī of the śuklapakṣa (fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of māgha (January/February)."

 

GANESH CHATURTI

An annual festival honours Ganesha for ten days, starting on Ganesha Chaturthi, which typically falls in late August or early September. The festival begins with people bringing in clay idols of Ganesha, symbolising Ganesha's visit. The festival culminates on the day of Ananta Chaturdashi, when idols (murtis) of Ganesha are immersed in the most convenient body of water. Some families have a tradition of immersion on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, or 7th day. In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak transformed this annual Ganesha festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event. He did so "to bridge the gap between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharashtra. Because of Ganesha's wide appeal as "the god for Everyman", Tilak chose him as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule. Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavilions, and he established the practice of submerging all the public images on the tenth day. Today, Hindus across India celebrate the Ganapati festival with great fervour, though it is most popular in the state of Maharashtra. The festival also assumes huge proportions in Mumbai, Pune, and in the surrounding belt of Ashtavinayaka temples.

 

TEMPLES

In Hindu temples, Ganesha is depicted in various ways: as an acolyte or subordinate deity (pãrśva-devatã); as a deity related to the principal deity (parivāra-devatã); or as the principal deity of the temple (pradhāna), treated similarly as the highest gods of the Hindu pantheon. As the god of transitions, he is placed at the doorway of many Hindu temples to keep out the unworthy, which is analogous to his role as Parvati’s doorkeeper. In addition, several shrines are dedicated to Ganesha himself, of which the Ashtavinayak (lit. "eight Ganesha (shrines)") in Maharashtra are particularly well known. Located within a 100-kilometer radius of the city of Pune, each of these eight shrines celebrates a particular form of Ganapati, complete with its own lore and legend. The eight shrines are: Morgaon, Siddhatek, Pali, Mahad, Theur, Lenyadri, Ozar and Ranjangaon.

 

There are many other important Ganesha temples at the following locations: Wai in Maharashtra; Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh; Jodhpur, Nagaur and Raipur (Pali) in Rajasthan; Baidyanath in Bihar; Baroda, Dholaka, and Valsad in Gujarat and Dhundiraj Temple in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Prominent Ganesha temples in southern India include the following: Kanipakam in Chittoor; the Jambukeśvara Temple at Tiruchirapalli; at Rameshvaram and Suchindram in Tamil Nadu; at Malliyur, Kottarakara, Pazhavangadi, Kasargod in Kerala, Hampi, and Idagunji in Karnataka; and Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh.

 

T. A. Gopinatha notes, "Every village however small has its own image of Vighneśvara (Vigneshvara) with or without a temple to house it in. At entrances of villages and forts, below pīpaḹa (Sacred fig) trees [...], in a niche [...] in temples of Viṣṇu (Vishnu) as well as Śiva (Shiva) and also in separate shrines specially constructed in Śiva temples [...]; the figure of Vighneśvara is invariably seen." Ganesha temples have also been built outside of India, including southeast Asia, Nepal (including the four Vinayaka shrines in the Kathmandu valley), and in several western countries.

 

RISE TO PROMINENCE

 

FIRST APEARANCE

Ganesha appeared in his classic form as a clearly recognizable deity with well-defined iconographic attributes in the early 4th to 5th centuries. Shanti Lal Nagar says that the earliest known iconic image of Ganesha is in the niche of the Shiva temple at Bhumra, which has been dated to the Gupta period. His independent cult appeared by about the 10th century. Narain summarizes the controversy between devotees and academics regarding the development of Ganesha as follows:

 

What is inscrutable is the somewhat dramatic appearance of Gaņeśa on the historical scene. His antecedents are not clear. His wide acceptance and popularity, which transcend sectarian and territorial limits, are indeed amazing. On the one hand there is the pious belief of the orthodox devotees in Gaņeśa's Vedic origins and in the Purāṇic explanations contained in the confusing, but nonetheless interesting, mythology. On the other hand there are doubts about the existence of the idea and the icon of this deity" before the fourth to fifth century A.D. ... [I]n my opinion, indeed there is no convincing evidence of the existence of this divinity prior to the fifth century.

 

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES

Courtright reviews various speculative theories about the early history of Ganesha, including supposed tribal traditions and animal cults, and dismisses all of them in this way:

 

In the post 600 BC period there is evidence of people and places named after the animal. The motif appears on coins and sculptures.

 

Thapan's book on the development of Ganesha devotes a chapter to speculations about the role elephants had in early India but concludes that, "although by the second century CE the elephant-headed yakṣa form exists it cannot be presumed to represent Gaṇapati-Vināyaka. There is no evidence of a deity by this name having an elephant or elephant-headed form at this early stage. Gaṇapati-Vināyaka had yet to make his debut."

 

One theory of the origin of Ganesha is that he gradually came to prominence in connection with the four Vinayakas (Vināyakas). In Hindu mythology, the Vināyakas were a group of four troublesome demons who created obstacles and difficulties but who were easily propitiated. The name Vināyaka is a common name for Ganesha both in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. Krishan is one of the academics who accepts this view, stating flatly of Ganesha, "He is a non-vedic god. His origin is to be traced to the four Vināyakas, evil spirits, of the Mānavagŗhyasūtra (7th–4th century BCE) who cause various types of evil and suffering". Depictions of elephant-headed human figures, which some identify with Ganesha, appear in Indian art and coinage as early as the 2nd century. According to Ellawala, the elephant-headed Ganesha as lord of the Ganas was known to the people of Sri Lanka in the early pre-Christian era.

 

A metal plate depiction of Ganesha had been discovered in 1993, in Iran, it dated back to 1,200 BCE. Another one was discovered much before, in Lorestan Province of Iran.

 

First Ganesha's terracotta images are from 1st century CE found in Ter, Pal, Verrapuram and Chandraketugarh. These figures are small, with elephant head, two arms, and chubby physique. The earliest Ganesha icons in stone were carved in Mathura during Kushan times (2nd-3rd centuries CE).

 

VEDIC AND EPIC LITERATURE

The title "Leader of the group" (Sanskrit: gaṇapati) occurs twice in the Rig Veda, but in neither case does it refer to the modern Ganesha. The term appears in RV 2.23.1 as a title for Brahmanaspati, according to commentators. While this verse doubtless refers to Brahmanaspati, it was later adopted for worship of Ganesha and is still used today. In rejecting any claim that this passage is evidence of Ganesha in the Rig Veda, Ludo Rocher says that it "clearly refers to Bṛhaspati—who is the deity of the hymn—and Bṛhaspati only". Equally clearly, the second passage (RV 10.112.9) refers to Indra, who is given the epithet 'gaṇapati', translated "Lord of the companies (of the Maruts)." However, Rocher notes that the more recent Ganapatya literature often quotes the Rigvedic verses to give Vedic respectability to Ganesha .

 

Two verses in texts belonging to Black Yajurveda, Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā (2.9.1) and Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (10.1), appeal to a deity as "the tusked one" (Dantiḥ), "elephant-faced" (Hastimukha), and "with a curved trunk" (Vakratuņḍa). These names are suggestive of Ganesha, and the 14th century commentator Sayana explicitly establishes this identification. The description of Dantin, possessing a twisted trunk (vakratuṇḍa) and holding a corn-sheaf, a sugar cane, and a club, is so characteristic of the Puranic Ganapati that Heras says "we cannot resist to accept his full identification with this Vedic Dantin". However, Krishan considers these hymns to be post-Vedic additions. Thapan reports that these passages are "generally considered to have been interpolated". Dhavalikar says, "the references to the elephant-headed deity in the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā have been proven to be very late interpolations, and thus are not very helpful for determining the early formation of the deity".

 

Ganesha does not appear in Indian epic literature that is dated to the Vedic period. A late interpolation to the epic poem Mahabharata says that the sage Vyasa (Vyāsa) asked Ganesha to serve as his scribe to transcribe the poem as he dictated it to him. Ganesha agreed but only on condition that Vyasa recite the poem uninterrupted, that is, without pausing. The sage agreed, but found that to get any rest he needed to recite very complex passages so Ganesha would have to ask for clarifications. The story is not accepted as part of the original text by the editors of the critical edition of the Mahabharata, in which the twenty-line story is relegated to a footnote in an appendix. The story of Ganesha acting as the scribe occurs in 37 of the 59 manuscripts consulted during preparation of the critical edition. Ganesha's association with mental agility and learning is one reason he is shown as scribe for Vyāsa's dictation of the Mahabharata in this interpolation. Richard L. Brown dates the story to the 8th century, and Moriz Winternitz concludes that it was known as early as c. 900, but it was not added to the Mahabharata some 150 years later. Winternitz also notes that a distinctive feature in South Indian manuscripts of the Mahabharata is their omission of this Ganesha legend. The term vināyaka is found in some recensions of the Śāntiparva and Anuśāsanaparva that are regarded as interpolations. A reference to Vighnakartṛīṇām ("Creator of Obstacles") in Vanaparva is also believed to be an interpolation and does not appear in the critical edition.

 

PURANIC PERIOD

Stories about Ganesha often occur in the Puranic corpus. Brown notes while the Puranas "defy precise chronological ordering", the more detailed narratives of Ganesha's life are in the late texts, c. 600–1300. Yuvraj Krishan says that the Puranic myths about the birth of Ganesha and how he acquired an elephant's head are in the later Puranas, which were composed from c. 600 onwards. He elaborates on the matter to say that references to Ganesha in the earlier Puranas, such as the Vayu and Brahmanda Puranas, are later interpolations made during the 7th to 10th centuries.

 

In his survey of Ganesha's rise to prominence in Sanskrit literature, Ludo Rocher notes that:

 

Above all, one cannot help being struck by the fact that the numerous stories surrounding Gaṇeśa concentrate on an unexpectedly limited number of incidents. These incidents are mainly three: his birth and parenthood, his elephant head, and his single tusk. Other incidents are touched on in the texts, but to a far lesser extent.

 

Ganesha's rise to prominence was codified in the 9th century, when he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism. The 9th-century philosopher Adi Shankara popularized the "worship of the five forms" (Panchayatana puja) system among orthodox Brahmins of the Smarta tradition. This worship practice invokes the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and Surya. Adi Shankara instituted the tradition primarily to unite the principal deities of these five major sects on an equal status. This formalized the role of Ganesha as a complementary deity.

 

SCRIPTURES

Once Ganesha was accepted as one of the five principal deities of Brahmanism, some Brahmins (brāhmaṇas) chose to worship Ganesha as their principal deity. They developed the Ganapatya tradition, as seen in the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana.

 

The date of composition for the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana - and their dating relative to one another - has sparked academic debate. Both works were developed over time and contain age-layered strata. Anita Thapan reviews comments about dating and provides her own judgement. "It seems likely that the core of the Ganesha Purana appeared around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries", she says, "but was later interpolated." Lawrence W. Preston considers the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana to be between 1100 and 1400, which coincides with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by the text.

 

R.C. Hazra suggests that the Mudgala Purana is older than the Ganesha Purana, which he dates between 1100 and 1400. However, Phyllis Granoff finds problems with this relative dating and concludes that the Mudgala Purana was the last of the philosophical texts concerned with Ganesha. She bases her reasoning on the fact that, among other internal evidence, the Mudgala Purana specifically mentions the Ganesha Purana as one of the four Puranas (the Brahma, the Brahmanda, the Ganesha, and the Mudgala Puranas) which deal at length with Ganesha. While the kernel of the text must be old, it was interpolated until the 17th and 18th centuries as the worship of Ganapati became more important in certain regions. Another highly regarded scripture, the Ganapati Atharvashirsa, was probably composed during the 16th or 17th centuries.

 

BEYOND INDIA AND HINDUISM

Commercial and cultural contacts extended India's influence in western and southeast Asia. Ganesha is one of a number of Hindu deities who reached foreign lands as a result.

 

Ganesha was particularly worshipped by traders and merchants, who went out of India for commercial ventures. From approximately the 10th century onwards, new networks of exchange developed including the formation of trade guilds and a resurgence of money circulation. During this time, Ganesha became the principal deity associated with traders. The earliest inscription invoking Ganesha before any other deity is associated with the merchant community.

 

Hindus migrated to Maritime Southeast Asia and took their culture, including Ganesha, with them. Statues of Ganesha are found throughout the region, often beside Shiva sanctuaries. The forms of Ganesha found in Hindu art of Java, Bali, and Borneo show specific regional influences. The spread of Hindu culture to southeast Asia established Ganesha in modified forms in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Indochina, Hinduism and Buddhism were practiced side by side, and mutual influences can be seen in the iconography of Ganesha in the region. In Thailand, Cambodia, and among the Hindu classes of the Chams in Vietnam, Ganesha was mainly thought of as a remover of obstacles. Today in Buddhist Thailand, Ganesha is regarded as a remover of obstacles, the god of success.

 

Before the arrival of Islam, Afghanistan had close cultural ties with India, and the adoration of both Hindu and Buddhist deities was practiced. Examples of sculptures from the 5th to the 7th centuries have survived, suggesting that the worship of Ganesha was then in vogue in the region.

 

Ganesha appears in Mahayana Buddhism, not only in the form of the Buddhist god Vināyaka, but also as a Hindu demon form with the same name. His image appears in Buddhist sculptures during the late Gupta period. As the Buddhist god Vināyaka, he is often shown dancing. This form, called Nṛtta Ganapati, was popular in northern India, later adopted in Nepal, and then in Tibet. In Nepal, the Hindu form of Ganesha, known as Heramba, is popular; he has five heads and rides a lion. Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent views of him. A Tibetan rendering of Ganapati is tshogs bdag. In one Tibetan form, he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākāla, (Shiva) a popular Tibetan deity. Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, and sometimes dancing. Ganesha appears in China and Japan in forms that show distinct regional character. In northern China, the earliest known stone statue of Ganesha carries an inscription dated to 531. In Japan, where Ganesha is known as Kangiten, the Ganesha cult was first mentioned in 806.

 

The canonical literature of Jainism does not mention the worship of Ganesha. However, Ganesha is worshipped by most Jains, for whom he appears to have taken over certain functions of Kubera. Jain connections with the trading community support the idea that Jainism took up Ganesha worship as a result of commercial connections. The earliest known Jain Ganesha statue dates to about the 9th century. A 15th-century Jain text lists procedures for the installation of Ganapati images. Images of Ganesha appear in the Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

 

WIKIPEDIA

odd or because pics

Because with arms this short it's difficult to have a friendly game of cards!

 

“Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.”

(Thich Nhat Hanh - Vietnamese Monk, Peace Activist and Writer, b.1926)

 

Saurabh is an architect in Delhi, he wanted his portrait by me so we met recently for lunch in Hauz khas village which is in South Delhi.

As he was living in Milano for a few years, we spoke Italian for fun, he had many expressions and most of all an amazing smile.

We went outside to the Deer Park and I took several shots.

I selected this one where everything on his face is smiling, it is the universal language in the world and a source of joy and happiness.

View On Black

 

Join the photographer at www.facebook.com/laurent.goldstein.photography

 

© All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.

Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).

The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

Looking back on this post years later, I realize it reflects a very different era of cosplay—and a very different stage of my life.

 

One thing that often gets overlooked is how much cosplay grew because of both the cosplayers who poured their creativity into costumes and the countless amateur photographers who documented conventions and shared those photos online. Before social media became what it is today, those fan photographs helped introduce thousands of people to the hobby.

 

Back in the 1990s, photography was expensive. A roll of 24-exposure film, developing costs, and prints could easily turn a day at a convention into a significant expense. Because every photo mattered, many photographers—including myself—became selective about what we photographed.

 

At the time, one frustration I had was when some crossplaying attendees (people dressing as characters of another gender) intentionally presented themselves in a way that confused photographers without saying anything. Since film wasn't free, discovering later that I had photographed something different from what I believed at the time was frustrating for me.

 

Today, cosplay culture has changed considerably. Digital photography has removed many of those limitations, and conventions have become far more diverse and welcoming. Crossplay, genderbent designs, and creative reinterpretations of characters are now widely recognized parts of the cosplay community.

 

Personally, I still prefer traditional portrayals of characters that match my own tastes, and that's simply a matter of personal preference. I also appreciate when cosplayers are open about the interpretation they're presenting, just as I try to be honest about my own interests.

 

Whether someone enjoys traditional cosplay, genderbent cosplay, crossplay, or something entirely original, everyone is free to enjoy the hobby in their own way. My own preferences haven't changed, but my appreciation for the creativity and dedication that goes into cosplay certainly has.

A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism, a monotheistic religion which originated during the 15th century in the Punjab region. The term "Sikh" has its origin in the Sanskrit words शिष्य (śiṣya; disciple, student) or शिक्ष (śikṣa; instruction). A Sikh is a disciple of a guru. According to Article I of the Sikh Rehat Maryada (the Sikh code of conduct), a Sikh is "any human being who faithfully believes in One Immortal Being; ten Gurus, from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh; Guru Granth Sahib; the teachings of the ten Gurus and the baptism bequeathed by the tenth Guru". "Sikh" properly refers to adherents of Sikhism as a religion, not an ethnic group. However, because Sikhs often share strong ethno-religious ties, many countries, such as the U.K., recognize Sikh as a designated ethnicity on their censuses. The American non-profit organization United Sikhs has fought to have Sikh included on the U.S. census as well, arguing that Sikhs "self-identify as an 'ethnic minority'" and believe "that they are more than just a religion".

 

Male Sikhs usually have "Singh" (Lion), and female Sikhs have "Kaur" (Princess) as their middle or last name. Sikhs who have undergone the khanḍe-kī-pahul (the Sikh initiation ceremony) may also be recognized by the five Ks: uncut hair (kesh); an iron or steel bracelet (kara); a kirpan (a sword tucked into a gatra strap); kachehra, a cotton undergarment, and kanga, a small wooden comb. Baptized male Sikhs must cover their hair with a turban, which is optional for baptized female Sikhs. The greater Punjab region is the historic homeland of the Sikhs, although significant communities exist around the world.

 

HISTORY

Sikh political history may be said to begin with the death of the fifth Sikh guru, Guru Arjan Dev, in 1606. Guru Nanak was a religious leader and social reformer in the 15th-century Punjab. Religious practices were formalized by Guru Gobind Singh on 30 March 1699. Singh baptized five people from a variety of social backgrounds, known as the Panj Piare (the five beloved ones) to form the Khalsa, or collective body of initiated Sikhs. Sikhism has generally had amicable relations with other religions, except for the period of Mughal rule in India (1556–1707). Several Sikh gurus were killed by the Mughals for opposing their persecution of minority religious communities including Sikhs. Sikhs subsequently militarized to oppose Mughal rule. The emergence of the Sikh Confederacy under Ranjit Singh was characterized by religious tolerance and pluralism, with Christians, Muslims and Hindus in positions of power. The confederacy is considered the zenith of political Sikhism, encompassing Kashmir, Ladakh and Peshawar. Hari Singh Nalwa, the commander-in-chief of the Sikh army in the North West Frontier, expanded the confederacy to the Khyber Pass. Its secular administration implemented military, economic and governmental reforms. The months leading up to the partition of India in 1947 were marked by conflict in the Punjab between Sikhs and Muslims. This caused the religious migration of Punjabi Sikhs and Hindus from West Punjab, mirroring a similar religious migration of Punjabi Muslims from East Punjab.

 

The 1960s saw growing animosity between Sikhs and Hindus in India, with the Sikhs demanding the creation of a Punjab state on a linguistic basis similar to other states in India. This was promised to Sikh leader Master Tara Singh by Jawaharlal Nehru, in return for Sikh political support during negotiations for Indian independence. Although the Sikhs obtained the Punjab, they lost Hindi-speaking areas to Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan. Chandigarh was made a union territory and the capital of Haryana and Punjab on 1 November 1966.

 

Tensions arose again during the late 1970s, fueled by Sikh claims of discrimination and marginalisation by the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress party and tactics adopted by the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

 

According to Katherine Frank, Indira Gandhi's assumption of emergency powers in 1975 resulted in the weakening of the "legitimate and impartial machinery of government", and her increasing "paranoia" about opposing political groups led her to institute a "despotic policy of playing castes, religions and political groups against each other for political advantage". Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale articulated Sikh demands for justice, and this triggered violence in the Punjab. The prime minister's 1984 defeat of Bhindranwale led to an attack on the Golden Temple in Operation Blue Star and to her assassination by her Sikh bodyguards. Gandhi's assassination resulted in an explosion of violence against Sikh communities and the killing of thousands of Sikhs throughout India. Khushwant Singh described the riots as a Sikh pogrom; he "felt like a refugee in my country. In fact, I felt like a Jew in Nazi Germany". Since 1984, relations between Sikhs and Hindus have moved toward a rapprochement aided by economic prosperity. However, a 2002 claim by the Hindu right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that "Sikhs are Hindus" disturbed Sikh sensibilities. The Khalistan movement campaigns for justice for the victims of the violence, and for the political and economic needs of the Punjab.

 

In 1996, United Nations Commission on Human Rights Freedom of Religion or Belief Special Rapporteur Abdelfattah Amor (Tunisia, 1993–2004) visited India to report on religious discrimination. The following year Amor concluded, "In India it appears that the situation of the Sikhs in the religious field is satisfactory, but that difficulties are arising in the political (foreign interference, terrorism, etc.), economic (in particular with regard to sharing of water supplies) and even occupational fields. Information received from nongovernment (sic) sources indicates that discrimination does exist in certain sectors of the public administration; examples include the decline in the number of Sikhs in the police force and the military, and the absence of Sikhs in personal bodyguard units since the murder of Indira Gandhi".

 

Although Sikhs comprise 10 to 15 percent of all ranks of the Indian Army and 20 percent of its officers, they make up 1.87 percent of the Indian population.

 

During the 1999 Vaisakhi, Sikhs worldwide celebrated the 300th anniversary of the creation of the Khalsa. Canada Post honoured Sikh Canadians with a commemorative stamp in conjunction with the 300th anniversary of Vaisakhi. On April 9, 1999, Indian president K.R. Narayanan issued a stamp commemorating the 300th anniversary of the Khalsa.

 

DEFINITION

According to Guru Granth Sahib:

One who calls himself a Sikh of the Guru, the True Guru, shall rise in the early morning hours and meditate on the Lord's Name. Upon arising early in the morning, the Sikh is to bathe, and cleanse himself in the pool of nectar. Following the Instructions of the Guru, the Sikh is to chant the Name of the Lord, Har. All sins, misdeeds and negativity shall be erased. Then, at the rising of the sun, the Sikh is to sing Gurbani; whether sitting down or standing up, the Sikh is to meditate on the Lord's Name. One who meditates on my Lord, Har, with every breath and every morsel of food – that Gursikh becomes pleasing to the Guru's Mind. That person, unto whom my Lord and Master is kind and compassionate – upon that Gursikh, the Guru's Teachings are bestowed. Servant Nanak begs for the dust of the feet of that Gursikh, who himself chants the Naam, and inspires others to chant it.

 

Simran of the Lord's name is a recurring theme of Guru Granth Sahib, and Sukhmani Sahib were composed to allow a devotee to recite Nam throughout the day. Rising at Amrit Velā (before sunrise) is a common Sikh practice. Sikhism considers the spiritual and secular lives to be intertwined: "In the Sikh Weltanschauung ... the temporal world is part of the Infinite and partakes of its characteristics." According to Guru Nanak, living an "active, creative, and practical life" of "truthfulness, fidelity, self-control and purity" is superior to a purely contemplative life.

 

FIVE Ks

The five Ks (panj kakaar) are five articles of faith which all baptized Sikhs (Amritdhari Sikhs) are obliged to wear. The symbols represent the ideals of Sikhism: honesty, equality, fidelity, meditating on God and never bowing to tyranny. The five symbols are:

- Kesh: Uncut hair, usually tied and wrapped in a Dastar

- Kanga: A wooden comb, usually worn under a Dastar

- Katchera: Cotton undergarments, historically appropriate in battle due to increased mobility when compared to a dhoti. Worn by both sexes, the katchera is a symbol of chastity.

- Kara: An iron bracelet, a weapon and a symbol of eternity

- Kirpan: An iron dagger in different sizes. In the UK Sikhs can wear a small dagger, but in the Punjab they might wear a traditional curved sword from one to three feet in length.

 

MUSIC & INSTRUMENTS

The Sikhs have a number of musical instruments: the rebab, dilruba, taus, jori and sarinda. Playing the sarangi was encouraged in Guru Har Gobind. The rubab was first played by Bhai Mardana as he accompanied Guru Nanak on his journeys. The jori and sarinda were designed by Guru Arjan. The taus was made by Guru Hargobind, who supposedly heard a peacock singing and wanted to create an instrument mimicking its sounds (taus is the Persian word for peacock). The dilruba was made by Guru Gobind Singh at the request of his followers, who wanted a smaller instrument than the taus. After Japji Sahib, all of the shabda in the Guru Granth Sahib were composed as ragas. This type of singing is known as Gurmat Sangeet.

 

When they marched into battle, the Sikhs would play a Ranjit Nagara (victory drum) to boost morale. Nagaras (usually two to three feet in diameter, although some were up to five feet in diameter) are played with two sticks. The beat of the large drums, and the raising of the Nishan Sahib, meant that the singhs were on their way.

 

DISTRIBUTION

Numbering about 27 million worldwide, Sikhs make up 0.39 percent of the world population; approximately 83 percent live in India. About 76 percent of all Sikhs live in the north Indian State of Punjab, where they form a majority (about two-thirds) of the population. Substantial communities of Sikhs (more than 200,000) live in the Indian states or union territories of Haryana (more than 1.1 million), Rajasthan, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.

 

Sikh migration from British India began in earnest during the second half of the 19th century, when the British completed their annexation of the Punjab. The British Raj recruited Sikhs for the Indian Civil Service (particularly the British Indian Army), which led to Sikh migration throughout India and the British Empire. During the Raj, semiskilled Sikh artisans were transported from the Punjab to British East Africa to help build railroads. Sikhs emigrated from India and Pakistan after World War II, most going to the United Kingdom but many to North America. Some Sikhs who had settled in eastern Africa were expelled by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in 1972. Economics is a major factor in Sikh migration, and significant communities exist in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Malaysia, East Africa, Australia and Thailand.

 

Although the rate of Sikh migration from the Punjab has remained high, traditional patterns of Sikh migration favouring English-speaking countries (particularly the United Kingdom) have changed during the past decade due to stricter immigration laws. Moliner (2006) wrote that as a consequence of Sikh migration to the UK "becom[ing] virtually impossible since the late 1970s", migration patterns evolved to continental Europe. Italy is a rapidly growing destination for Sikh migration, with Reggio Emilia and Vicenza having significant Sikh population clusters. Italian Sikhs are generally involved in agriculture, agricultural processing, the manufacture of machine tools and horticulture.

 

Primarily for socio-economic reasons, Indian Sikhs have the lowest adjusted growth rate of any major religious group in India, at 16.9 percent per decade (estimated from 1991 to 2001). Johnson and Barrett (2004) estimate that the global Sikh population increases annually by 392,633 (1.7 percent per year, based on 2004 figures); this percentage includes births, deaths and conversions.

 

REPRESENTATION

Sikhs have been represented in Indian politics by former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and the deputy chairman of the Indian Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is also a Sikh. Past Sikh politicians in India include former president Giani Zail Singh, Sardar Swaran Singh (India's first foreign minister), Speaker of Parliament Gurdial Singh Dhillon and former Chief Minister of Punjab Pratap Singh Kairon.

 

Politicians from the Sikh diaspora include the first Asian American member of the United States Congress, Dalip Singh Saund, British MPs Piara Khabra, Parmjit Dhanda and Paul Uppal, the first couple to sit together in a Commonwealth parliament (Gurmant Grewal and Nina Grewal, who requested a Canadian government apology for the Komagata Maru incident), former Canadian Shadow Social Development Minister Ruby Dhalla, Canadian Minister of State for Sport Baljit Singh Gosal and Legislative Assembly of Ontario members Vic Dhillon and Jagmeet Singh. Ujjal Dosanjh was the New Democratic Party Premier of British Columbia from July 2004 to February 2005, and was later a Liberal frontbench MP in Ottawa. In Malaysia, two Sikhs were elected MPs in the 2008 general elections: Karpal Singh (Bukit Gelugor) and his son, Gobind Singh Deo (Puchong). Two Sikhs were elected assemblymen: Jagdeep Singh Deo (Datuk Keramat) and Keshvinder Singh (Malim Nawar).

 

Sikhs comprise 10 to 15 percent of all ranks in the Indian Army and 20 percent of its officers, while making up 1.87 percent of the Indian population. The Sikh Regiment is one of the most-decorated regiments in the army, with 73 Battle Honours, 14 Victoria Crosses, 21 first-class Indian Orders of Merit (equivalent to the Victoria Cross), 15 Theatre Honours, five COAS Unit Citations, two Param Vir Chakras, 14 Maha Vir Chakras, five Kirti Chakras, 67 Vir Chakras and 1,596 other awards. The highest-ranking general in the history of the Indian Air Force is a Punjabi Sikh, Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh. Plans by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence for a Sikh infantry regiment were scrapped in June 2007.

 

Historically, most Indians have been farmers and 66 percent of the Indian population are engaged in agriculture. Indian Sikhs are employed in agriculture to a lesser extent; India's 2001 census found 39 percent of the working population of the Punjab employed in this sector. The success of the 1960s Green Revolution, in which India went from "famine to plenty, from humiliation to dignity", was based in the Punjab (which became known as "the breadbasket of India"). The Punjab is the wealthiest Indian state per capita, with the average Punjabi income three times the national average. The Green Revolution centred on Indian farmers adopting more intensive and mechanised agricultural methods, aided by the electrification of the Punjab, cooperative credit, consolidation of small holdings and the existing, British Raj-developed canal system. According to Swedish political scientist Ishtiaq Ahmad, a factor in the success of the Indian green revolution was the "Sikh cultivator, often the Jat, whose courage, perseverance, spirit of enterprise and muscle prowess proved crucial". However, not all aspects of the green revolution were beneficial. Indian physicist Vandana Shiva wrote that the green revolution made the "negative and destructive impacts of science [i.e. the green revolution] on nature and society" invisible, and was a catalyst for Punjabi Sikh and Hindu tensions despite a growth in material wealth.

 

Punjabi Sikhs are engaged in a number of professions which include science, engineering and medicine. Notable examples are nuclear scientist Piara Singh Gill (who worked on the Manhattan Project), fibre-optics pioneer Narinder Singh Kapany and physicist, science writer and broadcaster Simon Singh.

 

In business, the UK-based clothing retailers New Look and the Thai-based Jaspal were founded by Sikhs. India's largest pharmaceutical company, Ranbaxy Laboratories, is headed by Sikhs. UK Sikhs have the highest percentage of home ownership (82 percent) of any religious community. UK Sikhs are the second-wealthiest (after the Jewish community) religious group in the UK, with a median total household wealth of £229,000. In Singapore Kartar Singh Thakral expanded his family's trading business, Thakral Holdings, into total assets of almost $1.4 billion and is Singapore's 25th-richest person. Sikh Bob Singh Dhillon is the first Indo-Canadian billionaire. The Sikh diaspora has been most successful in North America, especially in California’s fertile Central Valley. American Sikh farmers such as Harbhajan Singh Samra and Didar Singh Bains dominate California agriculture, with Samra specialising in okra and Bains in peaches.

 

Sikh intellectuals, sportsmen and artists include writer Khushwant Singh, England cricketer Monty Panesar, former 400m runner Milkha Singh, Indian wrestler and actor Dara Singh, former Indian hockey team captains Ajitpal Singh and Balbir Singh Sr., former Indian cricket captain Bishen Singh Bedi, Harbhajan Singh (India's most successful off spin cricket bowler), Bollywood actress Neetu Singh, Sunny Leone, actors Parminder Nagra, Neha Dhupia, Gul Panag, Mona Singh, Namrata Singh Gujral, Archie Panjabi and director Gurinder Chadha.

 

Sikhs have migrated worldwide, with a variety of occupations. The Sikh Gurus preached ethnic and social harmony, and Sikhs comprise a number of ethnic groups. Those with over 1,000 members include the Ahluwalia, Arain, Arora, Bhatra, Bairagi, Bania, Basith, Bawaria, Bazigar, Bhabra, Chamar, Chhimba, Darzi, Dhobi, Gujar, Jatt, Jhinwar, Kahar, Kalal, Kamboj, Khatri, Kumhar, Labana, Lohar, Mahtam, Mazhabi, Megh, Mirasi, Mochi, Nai, Rajput, Ramgarhia, Saini, Sarera, Sikligar, Sunar, Sudh, Tarkhan and Zargar.

 

An order of Punjabi Sikhs, the Nihang or the Akalis, was formed during Ranjit Singh's time. Under their leader, Akali Phula Singh, they won many battles for the Sikh Confederacy during the early 19th century.

 

IN THE INDIAN & BRITISH ARMIES

Sikhs supported the British during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. By the beginning of World War I, Sikhs in the British Indian Army totaled over 100,000 (20 percent of the force). Until 1945 fourteen Victoria Crosses were awarded to Sikhs, a per-capita regimental record. In 2002 the names of all Sikh VC and George Cross recipients were inscribed on the monument of the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill, next to Buckingham Palace. Chanan Singh Dhillon was instrumental in campaigning for the memorial.

 

During World War I, Sikh battalions fought in Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Gallipoli and France. Six battalions of the Sikh Regiment were raised during World War II, serving in the Second Battle of El Alamein, the Burma and Italian campaigns and in Iraq and receiving 27 battle honours. Around the world, Sikhs are commemorated in Commonwealth cemeteries.

 

In the last two world wars 83,005 turban wearing Sikh soldiers were killed and 109,045 were wounded. They all died or were wounded for the freedom of Britain and the world, and during shell fire, with no other protection but the turban, the symbol of their faith.

—General Sir Frank Messervy

 

British people are highly indebted and obliged to Sikhs for a long time. I know that within this century we needed their help twice [in two world wars] and they did help us very well. As a result of their timely help, we are today able to live with honour, dignity, and independence. In the war, they fought and died for us, wearing the turbans.

—Sir Winston Churchill

 

IN THE WEST

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Sikhs began to emigrate to East Africa, the Far East, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. In 1907 the Khalsa Diwan Society was established in Vancouver, and four years later the first gurdwara was established in London. In 1912 the first gurdwara in the United States was founded in Stockton, California.

 

Since Sikhs (like Middle Eastern men) wear turbans, some in Western countries have been mistaken for Muslim or Arabic men since the September 11 attacks and the Iraq War. Several days after the 9/11 attacks Sikh Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered by Frank Roque, who thought Sodhi was connected with al-Qaeda. CNN suggested an increase in hate crimes against Sikh men in the United States and the UK after the 9/11 attacks.

 

Since Sikhism has never actively sought converts, the Sikhs have remained a relatively homogeneous ethnic group. The Kundalini Yoga-based activities of Harbhajan Singh Yogi in his 3HO (Happy, Healthy, Holy) organisation claim to have inspired a moderate growth in non-Indian adherents of Sikhism. In 1998 an estimated 7,800 3HO Sikhs, known colloquially as ‘gora’ (ਗੋਰਾ) or ‘white’ Sikhs, were mainly centred around Española, New Mexico and Los Angeles, California. Sikhs and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund overturned a 1925 Oregon law banning the wearing of turbans by teachers and government officials.

 

In an attempt to foster Sikh leaders in the Western world, youth initiatives by a number of organisations have begun. The Sikh Youth Alliance of North America sponsors an annual Sikh Youth Symposium, a public-speaking and debate competition held in gurdwaras throughout the U.S. and Canada.

 

ART & CULTURE

Sikh art and culture are nearly synonymous with that of the Punjab, and Sikhs are easily recognised by their distinctive turban (Dastar). The Punjab has been called India’s melting pot, due to the confluence of invading cultures (Greek, Mughal and Persian) from the rivers from which the region gets its name. Sikh culture is therefore a synthesis of cultures. Sikhism has forged a unique architecture, which S. S. Bhatti described as "inspired by Guru Nanak’s creative mysticism" and "is a mute harbinger of holistic humanism based on pragmatic spirituality".

 

During the Mughal and Afghan persecution of the Sikhs during the 17th and 18th centuries, the latter were concerned with preserving their religion and gave little thought to art and culture. With the rise of Ranjit Singh and the Sikh Raj in Lahore and Delhi, there was a change in the landscape of art and culture in the Punjab; Hindus and Sikhs could build decorated shrines without the fear of destruction or looting.

 

The Sikh Confederacy was the catalyst for a uniquely Sikh form of expression, with Ranjit Singh commissioning forts, palaces, bungas (residential places) and colleges in a Sikh style. Sikh architecture is characterised by gilded fluted domes, cupolas, kiosks, stone lanterns, ornate balusters and square roofs. A pinnacle of Sikh style is Harmandir Sahib (also known as the Golden Temple) in Amritsar.

 

Sikh culture is influenced by militaristic motifs (with the Khanda the most obvious), and most Sikh artifacts - except for the relics of the Gurus - have a military theme. This theme is evident in the Sikh festivals of Hola Mohalla and Vaisakhi, which feature marching and displays of valor.

 

Although the art and culture of the Sikh diaspora have merged with that of other Indo-immigrant groups into categories like "British Asian", "Indo-Canadian" and "Desi-Culture", a minor cultural phenomenon which can be described as "political Sikh" has arisen. The art of diaspora Sikhs like Amarjeet Kaur Nandhra and Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh (the "Singh Twins") is influenced by their Sikhism and current affairs in the Punjab.

Bhangra and Giddha are two forms of Punjabi folk dancing which have been adapted and pioneered by Sikhs. Punjabi Sikhs have championed these forms of expression worldwide, resulting in Sikh culture becoming linked to Bhangra (although "Bhangra is not a Sikh institution but a Punjabi one").

 

PAINTING

Sikh painting is a direct offshoot of the Kangra school of painting. In 1810, Ranjeet Singh (1780–1839) occupied Kangra Fort and appointed Sardar Desa Singh Majithia his governor of the Punjab hills. In 1813 the Sikh army occupied Guler State, and Raja Bhup Singh became a vassal of the Sikhs. With the Sikh kingdom of Lahore becoming the paramount power, some of the Pahari painters from Guler migrated to Lahore for the patronage of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh and his Sardars.

 

The Sikh school adapted Kangra painting to Sikh needs and ideals. Its main subjects are the ten Sikh gurus and stories from Guru Nanak's Janamsakhis. The tenth Guru, Gobind Singh, left a deep impression on the followers of the new faith because of his courage and sacrifices. Hunting scenes and portraits are also common in Sikh painting.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Because Im about to pounce!

Because everything is better with bunnies, flowers, and lots of pink :)

Start of the Harvey Bear Trailhead, San Martin, CA

 

View Large because this one really is prettier that way

Little Burrito is back to being a full-time house puppy because he doesn't understand that to some of the wildlife around here he is a potential meal. I have gotten lax about supervising his outdoor time, and he has gotten bolder about dashing off into the brush. This morning I happened to look out the kitchen window and saw a coyote casually standing in the yard. Took me a minute to register what I was seeing -- it didn't look like any of the neighborhood dogs:-))

 

When the coyote realized he or she had been seen, he turned and ran down the driveway, off into the same area of brush Burrito likes to explore. It's not the "hungry time" of year so I suspect the coyote considers Burrito to be an easy catch and was just checking to see if he was going to get lucky. I really don't want that to happen so his outdoor activities are now sadly restricted.

 

Burrito's t-shirt is on inside out with the label showing because it has a skull and crossbones on the back which is not the sort of image I want him to display. It's a nice shirt and fits him well, and I doubt he knows it's on inside-out unless the Ixies have been teasing him again:-))

{01.11.10}

sooc.

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

 

Happy November flickr! :)

I hate Mondays.

 

I'm tired, again.

I hate school.

I have a shit school, and it's expensive shit.

Because we must not forget.

Law clerks and female Senators and Congresswomen line the Capitol steps to say good-bye any pay respects

+2 in comments

 

{15/52}

 

Part of a series of 4 images.

 

It's been a while since I've done any self portraits, let alone a whole series of them. I actually enjoyed doing this because it was a good emotional outlet for everything I've had to deal with this week.

 

I kind of got carried away and took over 900 photos for this series. I made them into a stop motion after realizing that they flowed nice together (plus I liked the movement of the car lights bokeh and the clouds in the background). Check it out here! www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSNYUV4BUcE&list=UUcQ6bOg-nUT...

Because of the wind from the sea, this tree is growing into the direction the wind is blowing.

because it's raining today and the movie's so good.

      

www.benjaminbrueckner.com

           

.

Because CDKEY prices are changing every day! Please ask me the specific price!

Because it is annoying and doesn't help matters. Also my memory loss was different from normal forgetfulness. 9 other things not to say here

www.brainline.org/content/2012/10/9-things-not-to-say-to-...

 

I had a TBI in 1999. It took me 4 years to be able to sit and read a book after the injury. I could read, but not well and it gave me a headache to try and follow it. I met a new friend who was a special ed teacher and she helped me a lot with my reading. I got lost a lot. I lost everything and still spend a big part of my days looking for things. In the early days I had symptoms that were like Alzheimers and really bad headaches. I couldn't remember what just happened but could describe what I wore to school in second grade. I had nightmares. It was like I had to traipse through my little girl memories to find my way back. I made a living typing fast and accurately before, now I type very slow and have to use spell check. My right hand is slower and so I transpose letters because my left hand can still type fast. I needed 12 hours of sleep for years, guess that was brain healing. Photography, flickr, gardening, sewing, therapy and a wonderful husband have gotten me back on track. But I will never be the same, and that is fine. I have learned a lot along the way.

Because of recent news relating to the development [re-development] of Cherrywood in the South of County Dublin I decided to see if I had any relevant photograph but the earliest usable photographs were taken in July 2013. I do know that I did photograph the area in 2010 and possibly in 2009 but I cannot locate the original photographs.

 

This photograph was taken in 2013 but nothing really changed between 2010 and 2013,

 

Back in 2010 I made the following comment online:

 

“The New Luas Extension Has Been Criticised By Commuters Who Cannot Park.”

 

“When it comes to transport in Dublin there have been two success stories in recent years. The DublinBike scheme is one and the other is the Luas tram system. Last Monday was a beautiful sunny day and after photographing the Dublin Marathon I decided that it would be a good idea to get the Luas to Cherrywood to see if I could take a few photographs. It was explained to me, by a gentleman that I met on the tram, that the land is now tied up in NAMA and as a result it cannot be developed as a park and ride facility. Commuters were turned away from the new Cherrywood terminus on opening day as there were no parking facilities available.”

 

“Cherrywood is one of Dublin's newest suburbs and as can be seen from my photographs it is partly developed and there are some very large empty spaces and believe it or not there is a shortage of parking spaces. Some time ago a decision was made to extend the Sandyford (Green) Luas line to Cherrywood and construction started in February 2007 and the line became operational this month (October 2010) There are now two Luas stops in Cherrywood: Cherrywood and the terminus, Brides Glen.”

 

I would suggest that the tram stop at Laughanstown could be described as being in the area.

 

FRIDAY 10 FEB 2016:

 

Hines Ireland has officially started work on the first key phase of construction at Cherrywood in South County Dublin. If all goes well up to 30,000 people will live at Cherrywood by early in the next decade meaning that it will be as large as Bray and even larger than a town such as Athlone.

  

Brian Moran said, “The upfront delivery of the roads, cycle and pedestrian network and three wonderful parks is a pivotal moment for the Cherrywood project. These will be the green lungs for this modern new town and this not only strikes the right environmental note for Cherrywood to come but it also underpins our commitment to expedite the delivery of the 4,000 modern new homes within the Hines land holding."

 

"We are acutely aware of the enormous public demand for new housing stock and the submission of planning for the new €875 million Cherrywood Town Centre in the coming months will include 1300 new smart design apartments as part of this highly ambitious plan.”

 

In 2014, Hines acquired Cherrywood in South Dublin. The two components of this investment include an existing 52,000-square-meter office park and a 390-acre master-planned development site. The Cherrywood site has been acquired with approval for the construction of a new, retail-led mixed-use town center; up to 3,800 apartments and houses; and zoning capacity to expand the second largest office park in Dublin to three times its current size.

 

Mr. Moran is the Senior Managing Director responsible for developing Hines’ Ireland projects. He established the Hines platform in Ireland which currently has more than €1.2 billion of retail, office and residential assets under management, in addition to a major development pipeline which includes an additional €500 million of retail development and over 4,000 residential units. He rejoined the firm in 2011 having previously worked with Hines in Russia in the 1990's.

The new "Arlington Oak" at the grave of President John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, in the United States.

 

John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, November 22, 1963. Initial press reports indicated that President Kennedy would be buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts, where his son Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (who had died on August 9, 1963, two days after his premature birth) was buried. But the site for the President's grave was quickly changed to the hillside just below Arlington House. The site was chosen because the President and his friend, architect John Carl Warnecke, happened to visit the site in March 1963 and the President had admired the peaceful atmosphere of the location. The initial suggestion to bury President Kennedy at Arlington appears to have been made by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy agreed to the change. Although Kennedy's sisters and many of his long-time associates from Massachusetts were opposed to burial at Arlington, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy visited the site with McNamara on Saturday, November 23, and concluded that Mrs. Kennedy's wishes should be honored.

 

On Sunday, November 24, 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy requested an eternal flame for her husband's grave. The original site of Kennedy's grave was set in a plot of grass roughly 5 yards (4.6 m) on each side about halfway up the hill on which Arlington House stands.

 

The President's funeral was held on Monday, November 25. On the evening of November 26, the grave was surrounded by a white picket fence. The fencing covered an expanded area 30 feet (9.1 m) long by 20 feet (6.1 m) wide. The enlarged site was due to the wish of Mrs. Kennedy to inter her two deceased children next to their father. (In addition to Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, Mrs. Kennedy had given birth to an unnamed stillborn daughter in 1956.) Mrs. Kennedy's mother, Janet Auchincloss, oversaw the disinterment of the daughter in Newport, Rhode Island, while Cardinal Richard Cushing (a long-time friend of the family) supervised the disinterment of Patrick Kennedy in Massachusetts. The two children were buried next to their father on December 5, 1963. A small white cross was placed at the head of the daughter's grave, and a small white headstone placed at the head of Patrick Kennedy's grave.

 

Warnecke, Mrs. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy visited Arlington on Wednesday, November 28, 1963, to discuss themes and plans for a permanent memorial. The following day, Warnecke was chosen by Mrs. Kennedy to design the president's tomb. The U.S. government formally set aside a 3 acres (1.2 ha) site surrounding the President's grave on December 5, 1963.

 

The final design was unveiled publicly at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., on November 13, 1964. A large oval granite walkway led to the site. The walkway's huge size partly helped to lessen the grade the public had to climb to reach the grave, and partly helped to accommodate the huge lines of people anticipated.

 

Warnecke envisioned a small elliptical plaza (120 feet (37 m) long and 50 feet (15 m) wide) made of marble set at the top of and inside the oval. The northeastern side of the elliptical plaza would be enclosed by a low wall inscribed with quotes from Kennedy's speeches. Marble steps led up from the plaza to a rectangular terrace 66 feet (20 m) long and 42 feet (13 m) wide. Centered in the terrace is a rectangular plot of grass 30 feet (9.1 m) long and 18 feet (5.5 m) wide, raised slightly above the ground level, which would accommodate the graves. Flat black slate grave markers (3 feet (0.91 m) by 4.53 feet (1.38 m)) marked each grave, listing the name and date of birth and death in raised lettering. The headstones would be set flush with the earth.

 

The plan was for work to begin in the fall of 1965 and be completed by the fall of 1966. The design required that the bodies of President Kennedy and his children be moved downhill about 20 feet (6.1 m). A 150-year-old oak tree, which was off-center in the circular pathway, was retained. The Kennedy family offered to pay for cost of teh grave site, but the U.S. government refused and asked them to pay only the $200,000-$300,000 cost of the grave itself. Most of the cost was attributed to the need to reinforce and strengthen the site to accommodate the weight of large crowds.

 

Aberthaw Construction built the grave site, Ammann & Whitney provided structural engineering services. The white marble for the plaza, terrace, and steps came from Proctor, Vermont, and the granite for the approaches came from Deer Isle, Maine.

 

In the fall of 1966 the decision was made to replace the grassy terrace with rough-hewn reddish-gold granite fieldstone set in a flagstone pattern. The fieldstones used had been taken more than 150 years ago from a quarry on Cape Cod near where President Kennedy used to spend his summers. The bronze brazier shape for the eternal flame was also replaced. Instead, a 5 feet (1.5 m) wide beige circular fieldstone (found on Cape Cod in 1965) was set nearly flush with the earth and used as a bracket for the flame.

 

Mrs. Kennedy, with assistance of Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorenson, selected the inscriptions for the wall by November 1965, all of which came from Kennedy's inaugural address (although some were shortened for artistic reasons). John E. Benson inscribed the quotations onto the seven granite blocks.

 

The permanent John F. Kennedy grave site opened with little announcement or fanfare on March 15, 1967. The reburial of the bodies occurred on the evening of March 14, after Arlington National Cemetery had closed. The transfer was witnessed by newly elected Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston. Consecration of the new burial site occurred at 7:00 AM on March 15, 1967, in a driving rain. The ceremony, which took 20 minutes, was attended by President Lyndon B. Johnson, Mrs. Kennedy, and members of the Kennedy family. Cardinal Cushing presided over the consecration. The final cost of the entire project was $2.2 million.

 

The "Arlington Oak" which stood off-center within the Kennedy memorial gravesite area was uprooted and killed on August 27, 2011, during Hurricane Irene. The gravesite was closed to the public for two days to remove the tree and stump, but reopened on August 30.

 

On Arbor Day (April 27) 2012, a sapling grown from an acorn of the Arlington Oak was planted at the same site. Two other Arlington Oak saplings were planted nearby, while a fourth was planted in Section 26 near the Old Amphitheater and a fifth in Section 36 near Custis Walk.

 

You can tell the "new Arlington Oak" because it was tied with a yellow ribbon.

Because size matters.

I have visited Belfast a number of times but I have never had the opportunity to explore the city in detail until this weekend.

When I booked a room in the Ibis Hotel I did not realize that because of the Royal Wedding Friday was a bank holiday in Northern Ireland. Fortunately this did not have much of a negative impact on my activities and, in fact, it might have been to my advantage because the streets were less crowded.

 

At first glance Belfast (city centre) appeared to me to be more prosperous than Dublin but this impression may have been due to the fact that civic buildings and facilities are better maintained. The buildings and structures of Belfast comprise many styles of architecture ranging from Edwardian through to state-of-the-art modern buildings like the Waterfront Hall. The city's beautiful Edwardian buildings are notable for their display of large numbers of sculptures. Many of Belfast's Victorian landmarks, including the main Lanyon Building at Queens University in 1849, were designed by Sir Charles Lanyon.

 

After two days I began to notice that all was not as it appeared - there were many empty buildings and failed businesses in or near the centre. The city appears to have a number of problems which could impact on the tourist industry, the major one being the amount of on-street consumption of alcohol and judging by the notices posted around the city and in railway stations the authorities are well aware of the issue. On-street smoking by staff outside business premises is unattractive (we do have this problem in Dublin but not to the same extent).

 

Note: Northern Ireland uses sterling - the British pound. However, if you are visiting Northern Ireland, you need to be aware that while they accept Bank of England notes, they also have their own. Although these notes are legal tender in the rest of the United Kingdom, they are usually refused in shops and other places where money changes hands; you may have to go to a bank to "convert" them into Bank of England notes. During my visit I received nothing but Ulster Bank or Bank Of Ireland notes and based on previous experience I can tell you that they will be refused if you try to use them in England ( I don't know about Scotland or Wales ). To be fair to all involved they did replace the local currency with standard sterling notes when requested to do so. I must admit that I was a bit surprised by the universal reluctance to accept Euro … in the Central Railway Station despite the fact that the shop had a notice showing "Today's Euro Exchange Rate" they refused to accept payment in Euro (note: they do accept Euro payments on the Enterprise Express).

Had to attend a meeting in Daventry today, on the way home I decided to visit a random church, I chose this one purely because I spotted it from across the fields. It has a strange collection of bits and bobs (worth a Google), the chancel was just boarded up! you could still get there, just via another door. There was an amazing oak effigy in there of Sir Thomas le Latymer. Met a lovely lady in there who was on flower duty. Amongst other things she told me a few Braybrooke facts, one was that the wooden effigy is a place of pilgrimage!! Then she told me how they used to do total submersion baptisms in the River Jordan (just outside the church) Then she went on to mention the tale that featured Braybrooke Castle (also just over the road) and a ghost called Isabelle!! I had a quick Google and found this:

In England during the fifteenth century (those were troubled times), there was a civil war in progress (The war of the Roses). After which, Edward IV needed and was grateful for any support which he could muster from the Barons. Such a person was John, Lord Seagrave and he stood tall in the King's favour. When Lord Seagrave passed through a town or a village he was cheered by the Yorkist followers and spurned by the Lancastrians.Burton and Barton were Yorkist places, this was because no one dare cross the powerful Lord Seagrave. The two villages Gave him a huge welcome on his return from the wars tributes of huge feasts and arches of white roses (the symbol of the Yorkists)to honour his triumph.

One man who did not take part in the war was Lord Latimer of Braybrook, for he stayed at his home which was the castle at Braybrook peacefully with his two children Isabel and Robert, his wife having died many years previously. Upon return from Cambridge for the vacation, Robert brought back a friend, Hugh Neville, and soon Hugh and Isabel were in love.

The Manor House at Burton was owned by Lord Latimer,and, whilst he was staying there with friends, Lord Seagraves entourage passed through Burton from London. With the Manor House facing the road along which the entourage was to pass, the lovers, Hugh and Isabel Stood under the white rose decorated porch, the beautiful Isabel stood amidst the decoration with an expectant look on her face.

The cheering grew ever louder as Lord Seagrave passed by the Manor House. Looking toward the group on the porch,he raised his hat.Isabel blushed because she know that John Seagrave was staring at her.The image of Isabel on the porch in all her beauty did not leave John Seagrave's mind that day and he could not forget her, this made him morose because he knew only too well that there would be a great deal of difficulty in arranging a union between himself and the beautiful Isabel.

Throwing caution to the wind, the following day he sent forth Sir Henry Clopton with a message for Lord Latimer. The message was an invitation to Lord Latimer to dine at Barton Castle. Should he accept, he would pehaps discuss the subject of a marriage between himself and Isabel. Lord Latimer gave his answer in no uncertain terms...He

would never accept the hospitality of Seagrave!

Lord Seagrave was seathing with anger upon hearing the response to his invitation and he was determined to gain his revenge upon Lord Latimer for such an insult. Lord Latimer himself became fearful of Isabel's kidnap as rumours spread of Lord Seagrave's great anger, and as a precaution, he returned to the castle at Braybrook and made sure that Isabel was accompanied every inch of the way.

Barton Seagrave had a huge, strong fortress surrounded by a deep moat and the surrounding countryside was wild and woody, a far cry from the Barton Seagrave of today. Due to his standing as a favorite of the King, The owner of the castle was in effect a law unto himself. A few weeks passed with no movement nor provocation on the part of Lord Seagrave and thus Latimer relaxed enough to perhaps brush aside all the speculation, perhaps he was being too cautious, perhaps he should afterall return to Burton Manor...upon consideration, he did.

Upon Latimer and Isabel's return, they settled back into Burton Manor, unfortunately, upon retiring to bed that first night, he heard screams coming from Isabel's bedroom...rushing to Isabel's quarters Hugh Neville found only an open window revealing the devastating scene of Isabel herself being kidnapped by a man on horseback.

Neville abandoned any caution he had and mounted his horse and persued them into the night. There was a storm that night and the rain was fierce and accompanied by the loud clapping of thunder...on and on he rode never quite catching them, he would only catch glimpses of them in the distance, until both Isabel and the unknown horseman dissapeared over the drawbridge and into the fortress at Barton Seagrave. Neville continued undaunted perhaps onward until he was brought from his horse by an arrow which was fired from one of the turrets striking him in the arm. He was rescued and brought back to Burton by the sad Lord Latimer and his son Robert.

The only person at that time with whom it should be said had any power over Seagrave

was that of the King, and Latimer spared no time in petitioning the King for the restoration of his precious daughter Isabel, but Seagrave was able to influence the King in such a way as to steer the King into not complying with Latimer's wishes. Latimer, failing this even resorted to trying to persuade neighbours into helping him in his plight,

but no one dared cross the powerful Lord Seagrave, this left poor Isabel at the mercy of

her captor.

During her captivity, Isabel was only fed bread and water and her health soon began to falter, luckily for her, the warder in charge of her was endowed with a little compassion and gave her a little extra food and somehow was able to allow her to communicate with her family, for he could not bear to see her in such a sorry state. After time, the warder realised that there was little or no hope for Isabel for he knew that there would be no chance for release for her and she could not survive living in such an awful place...his compassion for her grew such that he decided to help her escape the clutches of Lord Seagrave.

Choosing the right time, he waited for one particular night when Lord Seagrave had gone to the village of Pychley, the warder took hold of poor Isabel and carried her to the

drawbridge of the fortress and into the arms of Hugh Neville and her brother Robert.

after a joyful reunion they quickly whisked Isabelle onto the back of Robert's horse and

they rode with great haste toward the direction of Braybrook Castle hoping to use the

track leading through Kettering which crossed the river Ise. Upon approaching the ford at a place which now houses the A6 road which allows traffic to pass between Kettering

and Burton Latimer the waters being swollen after many days of torrential rain they

forged onward and urged their horses through the river.

Coming upon them rapidly was the dreaded figure of Lord Seagrave, they tried in vain to not be recognised, but to no avail...and Lord Seagrave met them half way across the ford. Lord Seagrave let loose his sword and with a fearsome blow slashed at Robert and killed him instantly. Hugh would not lose Isabel again...he would fight...the two men prepared to fight each other.

Isabel was so weak due to her captivity and was terrified...and in her panicked state fell from her horse into the swollen waters and was drowned before her beloved Hugh could save her. In desperation, Hugh began slashing at Lord Seagrave's horse and managed to dismount him, but Seagrave struck at Hugh and for a long time they fought in the mist and the darkness in the middle of the river. Hugh was still in a weakened state as his arm had not healed from the arrow which struck him from Seagrave's stronghold, Seagrave struck and slashed Neville's leg which sent him down into the waters where Seagrave ran him through with his sword...leaving his body to the mercy of the unforgiving waters which now enveloped and engulfed his lifeless form.

Enraged, Seagrave sped back to the castle, found the warden who had helped Isabel escape and had him hung, his body displayed upon the battlements and three other conspirers were buried within the walls of the castle, but Seagrave feared that Latimer might inform the King of his misdoings and have him punished, but alas, poor Lord Latimer, upon hearing of the events which had transpired died of a broken heart...

 

So The Legend Goes...

 

For three nights John Seagrave could not sleep, when at last he did, he was awoken to the sound of clashing helmets, the ghostly apparitions of Hugh and Robert stood pointing accusing fingers at him...then upon their vanishing, a hand was said to clasp a burning sword was thrust through the wall of his chamber, the light from this burning sword shed flickering light upon his ceiling illuminating the spectral head of the warder...The severed head let out a terrifying scream and dropped to the floor...

The sword Vanished and all was silence...

Still shaking, Seagrave then saw the ghostly figure of the beautiful Isabel who uttered the words " Oh Seagrave be warned, I shall appear before you at the ford, where I fell and drowned, If thou cross at night beware that death is approaching. When thou art dead I shall return to the ford every fortieth year, for the space of three hundred years. I shall come till thy castle is destroyed and grass covers thy halls. I come as a warning to repent thee of thy evil ways..." So saying, the apparition of Isabel dissapeared.

 

For some time, the rememberence of that grizzly night kept John Seagrave in check, but on one fated night upon returning from a caroose at Rockingham he approached Kettering. Upon crossing the river he remembered Isabel's curse. Surely enough, Isabel appeared, her shadowed ghostly figure spoke to Seagrave, uttering the words "Seagrave take heed" So shocked was John Seagrave from this point that he gave one half of his property to his son and the other to the church, then from that point he went into reclusion within a monastery.

Grass now grows where once stood the halls of Seagrave Castle and the three hundred year curse passed in 1771...

 

...Isabel walks the ford no more...

 

This page from a website developed by: gary catlin

I recently purchased a Tiffen ND Filter because of the amount of amazing reviews, i had always been curious how this would effect the pictures of water then I read a quote simplifying the function of the filter as "its like sunglasses for your camera"

 

So, this is my first attempt at long exposure.If your reading this and are interested in long exposure shots please do yourself a huge favour and look up Joel Tjintjelaar.

 

You will not be disappointed in this master of Long exposure and Nik software.

 

Just because It's a 3-day long weekend .

Just because I get to spend more time with my family.

Just Because we have been getting some much needed rain.

Just Because The weather broke from a long Summer of 100 plus daily temps.

Just because I had baked cakes for several people this past week.

Just Because I had some left over Icing.

Just because I have had baking withdrawals ( not wanting to over heat the house in these Temps)

Just because my hubby loves Chocolate.

Just because we felt like eating them.

Just because every time I got into my baking stuff these cute little Fall Leaves -sprinkles dared me to use them.

I decided to make some simple Chocolate cupcakes with a light mint Buttercream.

Boy they were Delicious:))

Polaroid OneStep 600 Express

i haven't been taking many pictures lately. i haven't been inspired and i'm feeling a bit low. i decided to do this type of photo simply because of the title, it's true. i've kind of based it on post secret, i might do more in this style. like a whole post-it note set.

 

i took this at 1:30am, i was led in bed feeling sorry for myself, thinking what could i do to make myself feel a bit better. and then i saw my camera on my chest of drawers. i started to think of picture ideas and this one came to mind. i was going to wait until morning to take it but i couldn't sleep.

 

i feel better now :)

This market opened in November 2008 and has now become a must see feature of Pattaya. It covers an area of about 100,000 square metres. It is divided into areas each with its own unique representation of the four areas of Thailand, Northern, Central, North Eastern and Southern. Because each area offers its own blend of culture, food and traditions. When it first opened entrance to the market was free. However some one must have thought it would be a good idea to start charging 200 Baht to get in. This to me seems weird paying to get into a place that then wants you to purchase items from the market. You could also look at it another way. It is said that the whole market cost over 350 million Baht and does offer a pleasant and relaxing day out. I guess at 200 Baht it will be a long time before they get the opening and building costs back.

The car park at this very popular sightseeing venue is usually very full with coaches, taxis and private cars. Usually taxi drivers get parked. I went on a large motorbike once I hired from Beach road in Pattaya and the security guards and parking attendants swarmed round me and my friend as soon as we arrived. A large motorbike is not usually seen around Thailand unless driven by a Farang ( foreigner ). We had a parking spot within seconds of arriving and the bike was guarded while we toured the market, for a small fee I might add! I have been many times to this floating market I love the atmosphere here. The choice of food, drinks, and the usual bric a brac and the not so usual. When I have been in taxis we have never had a problem getting parked.

As you walk through the car park area, across the road is another tourist attraction, Jurassic Garden Dinosaur Adventure, I visited this on the 11th July 2011. Along with the floating market again. Entering the floating market on my latest visit on the 27th June 2014 nothing had changed much from my last visit. Walking around on the wooden planked walkways brought back many memories. I love this floating market it feels good here. The friendliness of the shop keepers and the people that visit here all help to make it a great day trip.

The choice of goods here is vast, on one stall I visited a Thai man happily carved soap sculptures out of coloured soap they looked so delicate the way he carved flowers out of them. I have bought these before else where. They don’t last forever being made out of soap but expect about 5 or 6 years you can see them every day until they just decay I think is the right word. If it’s not the right word lets just say they don’t look the same after that time! One new addition is a mime man on one of the bridges here. You have to put money in a tip box for him to do anything. If you enjoy him just standing there, then don’t tip him, he wont move!

Near to here a rope bridge has been added it swings about over the water and feels totally unsafe, as most rope bridges are. But many people tried the walk over it, even myself taking photos and shooting videos of the trip across. Another new addition, which I had not seen before in any floating market, was Koi fish being fed milk from mini babies bottles. I use to keep Koi fish and so I know they are easy to train when they know food is about. I use to hand feed some of mine, but you always get the odd few that stay timid most of their life. These however fought and jostled for their feed. At 50 Baht it was worth the show to watch them fight over who would get to the bottle first. The water around this floating market looks very muddy and dirty but believe me in hot sunlight, the fish love this kind of water the best. As long as you don’t swim in the water you will be ok!

At the rear of the market it looks like space is being cleared to expand this already large market. It would be great if they did, you could definitely spend all day here then. One coffee shop I tried overlooking this sold some very good coffee, freshly made. It was not expensive, which surprised me. The trip this time was unique it was so quiet here. A sign of the times I guess, recession hits everywhere.

More than 80 paddle boats are on here to ferry visitors around the market waterways and along the many Thai style teak wood buildings, linked by a network of canals, bridges and several different sized islands with exotic plants and trees planted. The boat trip will slowly show you the richness of the surrounding architectural and cultural river side living. Water vendors moving with their paddle boats from dock to dock and offering their unique range of freshly cooked delicious traditional Thai dishes. Many of them are moored around this market and you can stand and watch them prepare great tasting Thai food along with food from all over the world on some.

Pattaya floating market provides several daily cultural shows which are native to the four regions of the country, like Thai classical dance, martial art demonstrations, as well as water boxing where the fighters perform on a horizontal slippery pole above the water. Painters show their wonderful works on items such as umbrellas and portrait painters produce stunning paintings of still life, portraits and views around the world. An agricultural rice field demonstration has now been added and authentic House-boats for home stay, and ten mud-houses just right beside the rice field zone enable you to enjoy an overnight stay here.

Because CDKEY prices are changing every day! Please ask me the specific price!

Because .. we're all the same and we're all different ..

because nothing is more hipster than making a food based on an anco album

hipsterfood.tumblr.com

I have no other outlet for this essay, so if you're just here to see the photograph, then that's just dandy, but if you have the time to read my essay, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

Because We Can

 

There are few genuine human rights - rights which we should fight for, die for if necessary. These include the right to life and political participation, right to subsistence and rights to peace and clean environment. 1 There are rights which we can expect, which our local government has provided us. Then there are the “rights” Which many of us expect because society implies that that they are essential, often incorrectly, sometimes illegally and almost always inappropriately.

 

We live in a state of entitlement at the moment. I suspect this is something which may apply generally to the world, especially the western “civilised” world but, as it is the place I know best, I know it applies to England. There is a new motto on the lips of almost everybody in this fair country - “because we can”. People no longer choose to think about the moral, ethical or financial factors involved in their decisions. If I want to do something, I feel entitled to it, and therefore I will do it.

 

This attitude, this state of entitlement, has become particularly obvious in the last few days - the cry of “because we can” has been heard over the airwaves, seen on screen, written in text, tweeted, facebooked, and I’m sure, even google plussed, not just by the easily targetable social groups that some areas of the media and society have chosen to blame. Now we have entered the post-event analysis of causes, the common theme is commentators using the riots as evidence of their own specific issues; “the riots are clear confirmation of my long-held view that {insert pre-existing world view here}” 2 This is endemic in our country, and is ruining the nation and the state that we live in.

 

The much maligned annual educational statistics offer a prime example. “It is estimated that at least 1 in 4 of our economically active adults is functionally innumerate ... 22% of 16–19-year-olds are functionally innumerate” 3 "After 11 years of formal education, employers say they get kids coming to them who can't read, who can't write, who can't communicate, and don't have that work ethic."4 Is it the fault of the educators? Is it even the fault of the government? Or is this entitlement state also to blame? How many teachers out there have had students demanding that “they get them an A*”, as if the responsibility is that of the educator, not the educated? Work hard, and life will be your reward. If I had any belief that extending maths teaching from 5 to 16 to 5 to 18 would improve the aforementioned statistics, I would support this idea, but I know that just extending the course will do precisely nothing to extend the education. These children are being educated - there is no question that the education is there and is being provided. But if I teach the concept of differential equations to students who have spent their educated lives opting out with low attendance, submitting no homework, poor behaviour in class, they will not learn - they resist the teaching available. By the time they are 16, they would have had numerous maths teachers with many styles so no one teacher can be blamed. They will be just as unable to solve these equations as the child who has spent 2 terms learning how a compass point can be used to make patterns in a pencil tin lid. There is a huge portion of society out there that believes that leaving school before one has achieved any qualifications is justifiable, because the state will look after them - the benefits system will provide. Why shouldn’t we avoid all education? Because we can. Because it’s not my responsibility, and it’s my right to.

 

The situation is the same with smoking. Smoking is a legal right. Smoking is permissible in public in almost all countries. There are certain rules and regulations that have been introduced by various societies to try to curb the socially negative aspects of smoking, and taxes rise and rise on cigarettes to try to curb the purchase. Yet this is a habit which has not been suggested to have a link to various disease, but proven beyond almost all margins of statistical doubt to have both clinically and statistically significant links to disease, not even recently, but for over 60 years 5,6. It would be virtually impossible not to have been “educated” on the dangers of smoking, but it is easy to ignore this education, because we can. I condemn smoking, just as I am condemn the concept of “I smoke because I can, but I’m also going to demand free treatment because I can”. This tends to both follow and precede the need for lengthy, expensive and potentially preventable treatment for disease.

 

The same can also be said for alcohol. There are increasing numbers of the very young suffering illnesses related to long term alcohol abuse. They drank because they could. Because they did not understand that just because you can go out and get smashed and drink until you pass out, it doesn’t mean you should. Alcohol misuse appears to be the cause in around half of all violent crimes (1.2 million per annum) 7 There is a genuine issue with the state of entitlement when being allowed to drink means Friday night isn’t fun without a visit to A&E, or causing one. A recent study showed that 35% of the admissions to hospital (excluding long term care and pregnancy (although I suspect there is a significant proportion of them too)) is related to alcohol. This increases to 70% of admissions to A&E between the hours of midnight and 5am 8. The same report estimates the cost of alcohol to the NHS at £1.6 billion, although more recent estimates have been as high as £2.7 billion per annum.

 

I am a dentist when I am not writing and, while I shall not stand and bang my own drum too long, I see too many patients who believe that the upkeep of their teeth is my responsibility. The twice yearly (if they’re well behaved) cleaning of their teeth in my chair is the only time they are cleaned. Yet when it is suggested that their own participation in their own hygiene would improve matters they become indignant. Because they can.

 

There are socio-economic links here as well, primarily around the politics of cuts, welfare and benefits. While I have a basic knowledge of the issues surrounding who is claiming benefits, who can be and who shouldn’t be, I feel that I would expose myself potentially by expressing too strong a view on these issues. Suffice to say, the cry of “because we can” rings on the lips of many who perhaps are not using the system quite as it was intended.

 

In the news over the last few days, it may have been noticed that amid the turbulent markets, the surprise news that Apple is now the most valuable company in the world, starvation and famine in Somalia, that the National bank of Greece was the best performing bank and continuing uprising for democracy in Syria, there was a small incident of civil unrest in England. As I write this there are estimates of tens of millions pounds of damage, 5 dead, countless injured, some severely, more than 1000 people arrested 9. There was an initial peaceful protest over human and civil rights relating to a shooting. This quickly led to mass unrest, arson, looting and thuggery. The images that have been seen repeatedly are vile, disgusting and show some of the worst in human nature. An explicit discussion of the incident is not necessary here - there are hundreds of better sources for that information than me. What links in with this is the general attitude of the thugs, the criminals, the arsonists, the looters; why act the way you have? Because we can.

 

There are recordings of 14 year olds claiming that they were “retaking their taxes”, 18 year olds saying that if you can, why wouldn’t you steal hundreds of pounds worth of electronics and fashion goods. Be aware, these are not essential supplies that are being looted - this is luxury goods, which people feel entitled to, because they are available. If one can simply smash a window and grab one, why pay? If one can beat a 68 year old man to the brink of death, why not? Run 3 young boys over, killing them? Why not? Shall we burn down a 150 year old family business? Of course! And why? Because we can. These are not people with a message, a cause, moral reasoning for what they are doing. That much was obvious when they attacked the media. If you look at almost every past disturbance with a real cause behind it, the rioters, rebels, insurgents, call them what you will, will protect the media, because they know that is the best way of getting their message spread. When you attack the messenger, you clearly have no message.

 

So who should be responsible for curbing these behaviours? Who should back up the rights with responsibilities? Who should teach society (and it’s not just the young) that there are repercussions to every action? Parents need to teach their children that poor, antisocial behaviour is not tolerated? If your child comes home with a new 50” HDTV, they should be punished, not cherished for providing your house with another distraction from the poor behaviour. But there’s the rub. What if the parents do not know? What if they joined their children in looting and violence? If they have never learnt to control their children? If their parents, or their parents before them failed to impart these life lessons? We may be onto our nth generation of ASBO parents - their ignorance is not a whole excuse, but they cannot expect to teach something that they do not know themselves.

 

As a society we need to do something about this, not leave it solely to the parents. Teachers can help, but only with the respect and trust of both the students and the parents. If a child is punished for something at school, be it late or poor attendance, or physical and verbal abuse of both students and staff, shockingly becoming more prevalent, then the punishment needs to be supported, if not backed up at school. Too many parents, instead of supporting these issues, challenge and appeal against any and all forms of punishment, citing that “little timmy wouldn’t possibly sexually harass their teacher, it’s just not in his nature”. Except that it is, and he does it, because he can, because he will get away with it. Teachers are not blameless either - many incidents go totally unreported, simply because it’s easier not to bother with the hassle that will come from it. This then spreads up the line. The same can be said for extracurricular law makers - police will tolerate surprising levels of antisocial behaviour, because it is easier to ignore it - an arrest means paperwork, time off the street, lower police presence, and more antisocial behaviour. It is simply an excuse. I do not have the answers. I wish I did, but as a society we can work together to solve this.

 

So why should we try to resolve these issues? Why should we try to curb antisocial behaviour, binge drinking, rioting? Why should we stop people harming our communities and people within our community? Why should we care? Because we can.

 

Ben Matthews.

 

1. United Nations, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

2. T. Harford, @timHarford twitter feed, 10 August 2011

3. C. Vorderman (Chair) “A world-class mathematics education for all our young people” August 2011

4. David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, speaking on the BBC, July 2011

5. Doll, R. and A.B. Hill, Smoking and carcinoma of the lung. Preliminary report.British Medical Journal, 1950: p. ii:739-48

6. Wynder EL, G.E.A., Tobacco smoking as a possible etiologic factor in bronchogenic carcinoma. JAMA, 1950. 143: p. 329-36

7. Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England, March 2004

8. Strategy Unit Alcohol Harm Reduction Project – Interim Analytical Report – September 2003

9. BBC news website, 11 August 2011.

I know...this is utterly ridiculous. But you see they wanted to enter this contest thing about brides with swords. Who knew....so we shot last night after a very very long day of Burning Man preparations and resurrecting other people's dead projects...

 

Anyways....this is Susan (aka Punkabella) and that is her sword that her new husband had custom made for their wedding.

 

I like swords.