View allAll Photos Tagged constraining
The turtleneck was purchased two falls ago at Kohl's; the skirt at a thrift store earlier this year, as I recall. It is very tight, even with the corset, and constrains my stride almost like a hobble skirt. Combined with the spike heels, it turns my walk into a lady-like mince.
Accessories are the red rose headband, black-and-white jewelry, black belt, light hose, and the aforementioned blue patent pumps with spike heels. Props are a book and a handbag.
Information from:
Atlanta (pronounced /ətˈlæntə/ or /ætˈlæntə/) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia.
As of 2008, Atlanta is the thirty-third largest city in the United States, with an estimated population of 537,958. Its metropolitan area, officially named the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA (commonly referred to as Metropolitan Atlanta) is the ninth largest metropolitan area in the country, inhabited by approximately 5.5 million people. Like most areas in the Sun Belt, the Atlanta region has seen explosive growth in the past decade, adding more than 1.13 million residents between 2000 and 2008. It is the fastest growing area of the United States behind the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.[3]
Considered a top business city and transportation hub,[4][5] Atlanta is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T Mobility, and Delta Air Lines. Atlanta has the country's fourth largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies inside city limits (although UPS, Home Depot, and Newell Rubbermaid are not in the city limits) and more than 75 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the metro area. Also the Atlanta metro area has the 11th largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies headquarters. [6] Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is located seven miles south of downtown Atlanta, is the world's busiest airport and the only major airport to serve the city.[7][8]
Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County and the fifth location for the seat of government of the state of Georgia. A small portion of the city of Atlanta corporate limits extends into DeKalb County. Residents of the city are known as Atlantans.[9]
History
Main articles: History of Atlanta and Atlanta in the Civil War
The land constituting the city of Atlanta was once a Native American village called Standing Peachtree. The land that became the Atlanta area was taken from the Cherokee and Creeks by white settlers in 1822, with the first area settlement being Decatur.
On December 21, 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwestern United States.[10] Following the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation between 1838 and 1839 the newly depopulated area was opened for the construction of a railroad. The area around the eastern terminus to the line began to develop first, and so the settlement was named "Terminus" in 1837. It was nicknamed Thrasherville after John Thrasher, who built homes and a general store there.[11] By 1842, the settlement had six buildings and 30 residents and the town was renamed "Marthasville".[12] The Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thomson, suggested that the area be renamed "Atlantica-Pacifica" after the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which was quickly shortened to "Atlanta".[12] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[13] By 1854, another railroad connected Atlanta to LaGrange, and the town grew to 9,554 by 1860.[14][15]
During the American Civil War, Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion. The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William T. Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible Confederate assets destroyed. The next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. He then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his march south, though he spared the city's churches and hospitals.[16]
The rebuilding of the city was gradual. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the Freedmen's Bureau worked in tandem with a number of freedmen's aid organizations, especially the American Missionary Association. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital.[17] The Confederate Soldiers' Home was built to house disabled and elderly Georgia veterans from 1901 to 1941.[18] Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", one built on a modern economy, less reliant on agriculture. However, as Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 left at least 27 dead[19] and over 70 injured.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the movie based on Atlanta-born Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of the same name. Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and legendary producer David O. Selznick attended the gala, which was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, now destroyed. Leslie Howard had returned to England for the war.[20] The reception was held at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, which is still standing.
During World War II, manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population and economy. Shortly after the war, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded in Atlanta.[21]
In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta began to express themselves in acts of violence. On October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed; the synagogue's rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was an outspoken advocate of integration.[22] A group of anti-Semitic white supremacists calling themselves the "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility.
In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, as Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities played major roles in the movement's leadership. Two of the most important civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had their national headquarters in Atlanta. Despite some racial protests during the Civil Rights era, Atlanta's political and business leaders labored to foster Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools.[23]
African-American Atlantans demonstrated growing political influence with election of the first African-American mayor in 1973. They became a majority in the city during the late 20th century but suburbanization, rising prices, a booming economy and new migrants have decreased their percentage in the city from a high of 69 percent in 1980 to about 54 percent in 2004. The addition of new immigrants such as Latinos and Asians is also altering city demographics, along with an influx of white residents.[24]
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Atlanta became the third American city to host the Summer Olympics. The games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[25]
Contemporary Atlanta is sometimes considered to be an archetype for cities experiencing rapid growth and urban sprawl.[26][27] Unlike most major cities, metropolitan Atlanta does not have any natural boundaries, such as an ocean, lakes, or mountains, that might constrain growth.
The city has recently been commended by bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency for its eco-friendly policies.[28] In 2009, Atlanta's Virginia-Highland became the first carbon-neutral zone in the United States. Verus Carbon Neutral developed the partnership that links 17 merchants of the historic Corner Virginia-Highland shopping and dining neighborhood retail district, through the Chicago Climate Exchange, to directly fund the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project (thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia).
The Dubai Frame (Arabic: برواز دبي) is an architectural landmark in Zabeel Park, Dubai. It has been described by The Guardian newspaper as "the biggest picture frame on the planet,” however is also controversial as the "biggest stolen building of all time.”
The project was conceived by Fernando Donis, and selected as the winner of a design competition by the Government of Dubai. It is alleged that the designer had his intellectual property stolen and was denied credit for the design. It holds the record for the largest frame in the world.
The design was selected as the winner of the 2009 ThyssenKrupp Elevator International Award from 926 proposals. Participants from all over the world were invited to submit an emblem that would promote “the new face for Dubai". It is near the Star Gate of Zabeel Park and stands at 150.24 m (493 ft) and 95.53 m wide.
The ThyssenKrupp Elevator Architecture Award is an international architecture competition first held in 1988 and sponsored by one of the world's leading elevator companies. An international panel of judges selected the winning idea from among 926 design proposals to create a Tall Emblem Structure for Dubai. The original jury consisted of 11 international architects — a former and current chairman of the International Union of Architects (UIA) and the regional chairman of ThyssenKrupp Elevator. Dubai Municipality’s director general and H.H. Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum were listed as ‘honorary’ jurors.[
Donis' design was ultimately selected, for which he won an AED 367329.70 ($100,000) prize. According to Donis, when designing the structure he saw Dubai as a city full of emblems and rather than adding another one, they proposed to frame them all: to frame the city. Instead of building a massive structure, the purpose of the proposal was to build a void of 150 meters by 105 meters to continuously frame the development of the past, current and future Dubai. To become the structure that celebrates yet constrains the city.
Design.
The Dubai Frame is created out of glass, steel, aluminum, and reinforced concrete. It is positioned in such a way that representative landmarks of modern Dubai can be seen on one side, while from the other side, visitors can also view older parts of the city.
The Frame opened in January 2018.
Information from:
Atlanta (pronounced /ətˈlæntə/ or /ætˈlæntə/) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia.
As of 2008, Atlanta is the thirty-third largest city in the United States, with an estimated population of 537,958. Its metropolitan area, officially named the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA (commonly referred to as Metropolitan Atlanta) is the ninth largest metropolitan area in the country, inhabited by approximately 5.5 million people. Like most areas in the Sun Belt, the Atlanta region has seen explosive growth in the past decade, adding more than 1.13 million residents between 2000 and 2008. It is the fastest growing area of the United States behind the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.[3]
Considered a top business city and transportation hub,[4][5] Atlanta is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T Mobility, and Delta Air Lines. Atlanta has the country's fourth largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies inside city limits (although UPS, Home Depot, and Newell Rubbermaid are not in the city limits) and more than 75 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the metro area. Also the Atlanta metro area has the 11th largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies headquarters. [6] Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is located seven miles south of downtown Atlanta, is the world's busiest airport and the only major airport to serve the city.[7][8]
Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County and the fifth location for the seat of government of the state of Georgia. A small portion of the city of Atlanta corporate limits extends into DeKalb County. Residents of the city are known as Atlantans.[9]
History
Main articles: History of Atlanta and Atlanta in the Civil War
The land constituting the city of Atlanta was once a Native American village called Standing Peachtree. The land that became the Atlanta area was taken from the Cherokee and Creeks by white settlers in 1822, with the first area settlement being Decatur.
On December 21, 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwestern United States.[10] Following the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation between 1838 and 1839 the newly depopulated area was opened for the construction of a railroad. The area around the eastern terminus to the line began to develop first, and so the settlement was named "Terminus" in 1837. It was nicknamed Thrasherville after John Thrasher, who built homes and a general store there.[11] By 1842, the settlement had six buildings and 30 residents and the town was renamed "Marthasville".[12] The Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thomson, suggested that the area be renamed "Atlantica-Pacifica" after the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which was quickly shortened to "Atlanta".[12] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[13] By 1854, another railroad connected Atlanta to LaGrange, and the town grew to 9,554 by 1860.[14][15]
During the American Civil War, Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion. The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William T. Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible Confederate assets destroyed. The next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. He then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his march south, though he spared the city's churches and hospitals.[16]
The rebuilding of the city was gradual. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the Freedmen's Bureau worked in tandem with a number of freedmen's aid organizations, especially the American Missionary Association. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital.[17] The Confederate Soldiers' Home was built to house disabled and elderly Georgia veterans from 1901 to 1941.[18] Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", one built on a modern economy, less reliant on agriculture. However, as Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 left at least 27 dead[19] and over 70 injured.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the movie based on Atlanta-born Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of the same name. Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and legendary producer David O. Selznick attended the gala, which was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, now destroyed. Leslie Howard had returned to England for the war.[20] The reception was held at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, which is still standing.
During World War II, manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population and economy. Shortly after the war, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded in Atlanta.[21]
In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta began to express themselves in acts of violence. On October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed; the synagogue's rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was an outspoken advocate of integration.[22] A group of anti-Semitic white supremacists calling themselves the "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility.
In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, as Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities played major roles in the movement's leadership. Two of the most important civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had their national headquarters in Atlanta. Despite some racial protests during the Civil Rights era, Atlanta's political and business leaders labored to foster Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools.[23]
African-American Atlantans demonstrated growing political influence with election of the first African-American mayor in 1973. They became a majority in the city during the late 20th century but suburbanization, rising prices, a booming economy and new migrants have decreased their percentage in the city from a high of 69 percent in 1980 to about 54 percent in 2004. The addition of new immigrants such as Latinos and Asians is also altering city demographics, along with an influx of white residents.[24]
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Atlanta became the third American city to host the Summer Olympics. The games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[25]
Contemporary Atlanta is sometimes considered to be an archetype for cities experiencing rapid growth and urban sprawl.[26][27] Unlike most major cities, metropolitan Atlanta does not have any natural boundaries, such as an ocean, lakes, or mountains, that might constrain growth.
The city has recently been commended by bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency for its eco-friendly policies.[28] In 2009, Atlanta's Virginia-Highland became the first carbon-neutral zone in the United States. Verus Carbon Neutral developed the partnership that links 17 merchants of the historic Corner Virginia-Highland shopping and dining neighborhood retail district, through the Chicago Climate Exchange, to directly fund the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project (thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia).
Masonic Tracing Board Decoded & Explained: youtu.be/9exPJ6LAjA8
Elmvale Masonic Temple 77 Queen Street West Elmvale Ontario.
www.niagaramasons.com/Info%20Stuff/The%20Winding%20Stairc...
Museum of Freemasonry - Masonic Library
Lecture: The Legend Of The Winding Stairs
In an investigation of the symbolism of the winding stairs, we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to there origin, there number, the objects which they recall, and there termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an assent upon them was intended to accomplish.
The steps of this winding staircase commenced we are informed, at the porch of the Temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of Masonic symbolism than that the Temple was the representative of the world purified by the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the Temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the Temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a mason, and to be born into the world of Masonic light, are all synonymous terms. Here, then, the symbolism of the winding stairs begins.
The Apprentice having entered within the porch of the temple, has begun his Masonic life. But the first degree in masonry, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Masonry. the lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degrees.
As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the porch from the sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his Masonic labour here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches the end of which is to be in the possession of divine truth. The winding stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the porch and between the pillars of strength and establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty placed before him. He cannot stand still; his destiny requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him
The numbers of these steps in all the systems is odd. The coincidence is at least curious that the ancient temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; so that commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the temple, which was considered as a fortunate omen. But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the masons from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd numbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the Masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers, and while three, five, seven, and nine, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, or eight. The odd number of stairs was therefore intended to symbolise the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain.
As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. The Tracing-boards of the nineteenth century have been found, in which only five steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The prestonian lectures, used at the beginning of the century gave the whole number of thirty-eight. the error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was later corrected. At the union of the two Grand Lodges of England the number was reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven.
At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organisation of the order of which he has become a member. But the information here given, is barren, and unworthy of his labour. The rank of the officers, and the required number can give no knowledge which he has not before possessed. We must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony.
The reference to the organisation of the Masonic institution is intended to remind us of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilisation, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition. Masonry itself is the result of civilisation; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition to mankind.
All the monuments of antiquity prove that as man emerged from the savage to the social state then came the invention of architecture. As architecture developed as a means of providing convenient dwellings and necessary shelter from the harshness of the seasons, with the mechanical arts connected with it, for as we began to erect solid and more stately edifices of stone, they imitated the parts which necessity had introduced into the primitive huts. and adapted them to there temples, which, although at first simple and rude, were in the course of time, and by the ingenuity of succeeding architects, wrought and improved to such a degree of perfection on different models, that each was by way of eminence, denominated an order of architecture.
Advancing in his progress the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive al our ideas of perception, and which, therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is closely connected with operative instruction of Masonry, but also as the type of all the other useful arts. In his second pause, in the ascent of the winding stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knowledge
So far, then the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessarry and useful member of society. Still must he go onward and forward. the stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and further wisdoms are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the middle chamber the abiding-place of truth, be reached.
In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained. Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolesed by any other sign or series of doctrines as by the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Masony is an institution of olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learningis one of the most pregnant evidences that we have of its antiquity.
In the seventh century, and for a long time afterwards, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. These seven arts were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any question which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature.
But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the winding stairs. Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Mason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages are truth, or the approximation to which it will be most appropriate to the degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of Masonic symbolism that the Mason is ever to be in search of truth, but is never to find it. This divine truth, the object of all his labours, is symbolised by the Word, for which we all know he can only obtain a substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of nature, of God, and of man's relation to them, which knowledge constitutes divine truth, can never be acquired in this life. Only at the end of this life shall he know the origin of life.
The middle chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the Word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G.G.O.T.U. This is the reward of the inquiring Mason; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the truth, but he must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it.
It is then, as a symbol, and as a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the winding stairs. if we attempt to adopt it as a historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire to thus impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as a historical narrative without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand craftsman were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the Temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity. But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a winding staircase to the place where the wages of labour were received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the middle chamber of life, in the full fruition of manhood, the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek truth and knowledge; to believe this, is to believe and to know the true design of Speculative Masonry, the only design which makes it worthy of a good and wise man's study.
2nd degree fellowcraft tracing board illustration.
On our way to the Sanctum Sanctorum, the newly made Mason undertakes a passage through what is commonly called the Middle Chamber. The reference into the middle way is through the temple of Solomon, and the pathway to the Holy of Holies, the adytum in which the Holy Ark of the covenant resides at the the Kodesh Hakodashim, or the place in which deity dwells. In that journey through the middle space, the Second degree brother is introduced to some of the more seemingly secular influenced aspects of the fraternity that begin to take on a double, or symbolic, meaning. On their surface, the basic notions of these things are obvious, but not until you start to look at them closely, at their deeper meanings, that we start to see their relationships to other more esoteric ideas. This is similar to religious traditions where withing one religious text there can be multiple layers of meaning, and multiple ways of interpretation which can lead to an allegorical, a moral, or a mystical meaning.
Indeed, as the degree is symbolically in King Solomon’s Temple, so to can it be seen as a symbolic metaphor to our own internal path, what Joseph Campbell calls the hero quest, and where you “leave the world that you you’re in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height.”[1]
This is not to assume that the Masonic degrees have a similar relevancy to sacred or Masonic symbols, tracing board, second degree, 2 degreespiritual texts, though some could argue that their significance is almost as powerful to some observants. It is a system of morality that strives to make good men better, which runs nearly in parallel with the many Volumes of the Sacred Law which seeks similar outcomes to achieve as it outlines and instructs its path to elevation. Whether its salvation or spiritual awakening the holy books seek to instruct its adherents to live better lives through their faith, the same that Freemasonry strives to through its practice – to make those good men better. In that process of making the good man a candidate for the degrees is made an entered apprentice, symbolically as he ascends Jacob’s ladder. Once at the top, he is presented a series of three groups of symbols which are set before him to become a Second Degree mason so as they may observe and contemplate them in their path of progression, their hero’s quest, to the third degree.
The story of the degree, from Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor*, picks up after the passage between the twin pillars of the degree with the conductor delivering this instruction:
Brother, we will pursue our journey. The next thing that attracts our attention is the winding stairs which lead to the Middle Chamber of King Solomon’s Temple, consisting of three, five, and seven steps.
The first three allude to the three principal stages of human life, namely, youth, manhood, and old age. In youth, as Entered Apprentices, we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge; in manhood, as Fellow Crafts, we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves; so that in old age, as Master Masons, we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality.
They also allude to the three principal supports in Masonry, namely, Wisdom, Strength. and Beauty; for it is necessary that there should be wisdom to contrive, strength to support, and beauty to adorn all great and important undertakings.
They further allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.
Let’s pause here and consider what some of the deeper meanings of these first steps infer. The first segment is fairly straight forward; with narrative telling us that the three steps allude to the three stages of human life – Youth, Manhood, and Old Age.
Youth is defined as:
Young persons, collectively.
A young person; especially, a young man.
The quality or state of being young; youthfulness; juvenility.
The part of life that succeeds to childhood; the period of existence preceding maturity or age; the whole early part of life, from childhood, or, sometimes, from infancy, to manhood.
from ThinkExist.com
This is a pretty straight forward idea, especially as it says to us that “we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge”, but how does this apply to an older initiate, someone who is no longer in his youth. Is it a wistful thought to what was achieved when younger and in still in school? Taken on a deeper level, it could allude to the idea of the degree itself, the First degree being synonymous to mean that in the first, the candidate comes to the lodge as a youth (despite his chronological or physical age) with a clean slate of perception and a clean pallet of interpretation. In a sense, he comes as blank slate to its teachings or to the ideas before him. The degree being his introduction from exterior life to interior life which ushers him both into the fraternity and into the concept of the undertaking. Pike, in the first degree lecture in Morals and Dogma, calls this the focusing of the aspirants “unregulated force” – the channel by which they constrain their previously raw, infantile state, into that of a focused and youthful aspirant no matter their age.
Next, the candidate enters into his Manhood, more literally the 2nd degree, of which the ceremony says of it “we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves” which is a really active process to live by. We, in essence, are to achieve much by way of our doing, essentially, the work of our daily life towards our deity in worship and practice, our community in which we live and reside, but more specifically as we apply it to ourselves in continuing to apply what we’ve learned in our youth to this state of existence.
The Free Dictionary defines Manhood as:
1. The state or time of being an adult male human.
2. The composite of qualities, such as courage, determination, and vigor, often thought to be appropriate to a man.
3. Adult males considered as a group; men.
4. The state of being human.
In the third entry, we can take much from it beyond it simply being our middle state of being. It is in fact our ability to BE in the first place, our SELF in daily practice. Interesting as this is, the second degree in which our further education takes place is not only about the practice of our youth but also our ability to learn and apply that education to our life.
Campbell says of the age progression that “As a child, you are brought up in a world of discipline, of obedience, and you are dependant on others. All this has to be transcended when you come to maturity, so that you can live not in dependency but with self-responsible authority.”[2] This is, in essence, the heart of the three degree progression and the fundamental of the three steps – he becoming a man (or woman, respecting your discipline)!
Old age is a bit more of a troubling and complex issue. So often in modern society we look at old age as a point of retirement where work and physical activity dramatically changes or diminishes. In this description, the idea of old age holds true in that the degree says of old age that in it “we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality”
There are several interesting meanings we can take from this especially that it is in the degrees that these physical changes are metaphorically said to take place which can become a literal interpretation, and that once attained the Master Mason can live through them – literally to reflect on the life well spent. What’s troubling here is that the major portion of the work of the lodge is spent in the third degree and a caution must be considered so as to not see the work of the Master Mason as just one of reflection and of casual rest lest no work, as described in Manhood, be completed.
Old Age is essentially defined as ones age nearing or passing the average life span of human beings, and thus at the end of the human life cycle. In the U.S. this is considered to be 78 years old giving a distinct impression as to when one should then become a True Master. It really is at a twilight of life period, one of great age and maturity where little change and much reflection takes place. This gives us an interesting perspective on the meaning as it implies a near end of physical life period of time which squares with the degrees lesson as the period of reflection of a life well spent. We become the Master of our all, ready to pass our knowledge on to the next generation.
With this vantage, we can take pause to deeply consider that our daily working of the degrees, intrinsically, could (or should) be conducted in the 2nd state, our manhood in which we conversely learn and grow.
Cirlot, in his Dictionary of Symbols, makes an interesting point in that the idea of progression in the stages of age is not unique to Masonry. Besides the stages themselves, the number three (3) is a representation of synthesis and unites the “solution of conflict posed by dualism.” In other words, the third object brings about balance for the first two opposing states. Think of the balance of three dots, one stacked above two.
From this point, the degree breaks off to correlate these first steps with the three principal pillars of the lodge as Wisdom, Strength and Beauty which also has an interesting Kabalistic point of reference in the three pillars that make up the structure of the tree of life. Keep in mind, the orientation assumes the viewer reverse the structure to mirror ones own standing rather than simply reflect the observer.
Wisdom, the left hand pillar of mercy, is an active pillar and representativeof alchemical fire, which is the principal of spirituality, often called the pillar of Jachin. It is a masculine pillar, and relates to our mental energy, our loving kindness, and our creative inspiration as we traverse it up the Kabbalaistic tree through the Sephirot.
Strength is the right hand pillar and takes the form of severity, shaped into the alchemical symbol of water. It can represent darkness, but it is a passive symbol that is feminine in nature and called the pillar of Boaz. Upon it we find the points of our thoughts and ideas, our feelings and emotions, and the physicality of our physical experience, our sensations, each an aspect of its Cabalistic progression.
Beauty, then, takes on the role of synthesis of the two, the pillar of mildness; it is upon this pillar that the novitiate is transformed through his progressive states as he progresses. The central pillar of Beauty is representative of Jehovah, the Tetragrammaton which represents deity itself"mercurial transformation" upon which our crown of being resides balanced through feeling and emotion from our foundation of justice and mercy, all of which springs from our link to the everyday world.
These aspects of the Kabbalah are not specific attributes of the study in the blue lodge, rather elements of deeper esoteric study, found more specifically in the degrees of the Scottish Rite. Because of the pillars, and their deeper symbolic meaning, it does, however, necessitate looking at them deeper to see the relationship between them as the blue lodge degrees seem to have parallels in the study of the Kabbalah – a happy accident at some time past or with purpose to link the ideas together. Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty are specific aspects of the lower three degrees and emphasized here in the first three steps into the middle chamber, necessitating their deeper esoteric study to fully grasp their broader importance.
As the degree instructs – Wisdom is to contrive, Strength is to support, and Beauty is to adorn all great and important undertakings – which are the fundamentals of the three pillars in the Kabbalaistic study.
Conversely, as the degree states, these three pillars “allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.” and can be interpreted as such in both a micro (in lodge) fashion and in a broader macro tradition of Masonry itself – in this Kabbalaistic formulation. When the alchemical aspects of wisdom and strength are combined we can see the 6 pointed star appears, the symbol of transformation, often depicted in the conjoining of the square and compass in which Masons are instructed to square their actions and circumscribe their passions, which also corresponds to the link between the Saints Johns – the Baptist as the principal of alchemical water, and the Evangelist as the symbol of alchemical fire, both of whom have much deeper esoteric connections in Masonry. Also, the figures of the lodge leadership have a deeper connection as you begin to look at their alchemical connections too, when you look at their relationship to the Sun and moon, and the aspirant candidate as the solution of conflict, as Cirlot described, and as defined in the first degree – the three sphere aspect to balance the two of conflict.
From these short first few tentative steps, we can see that there is a wealth of Masonic symbols at hand, but we are only one third into our progression. Our next step takes us deeper into the middle chamber to its central position where we encounter an interesting juxtaposition of the physical world to our very human aspect of being through our senses.
For now, reflect a time on these first three steps and consider what comes next upon the path.
happy independence day! 4th of July
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Gotha 146 was a fast reconnaissance aircraft that was used throughout WWII by the German Luftwaffe, and one of the results of a mutual technology exchange program with Japan.
The Go 146 was actually a license-built, modified variant of the excellent Mitsubishi Ki-46. The latter type's career started in late 1937: the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force issued a specification to Mitsubishi for a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi Ki-15.
The specification demanded an endurance of six hours and sufficient speed to evade interception by any fighter in existence or development, but otherwise did not constrain the design by a team led by Tomio Kubo.
The resulting design was a twin-engined, low-winged monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It had a small diameter oval fuselage with the pilot and observer situated in individual cockpits separated by a large fuel tank. The engines, two Mitsubishi Ha-26 radials, were housed in close fitting cowlings to reduce drag and improve pilot view.
The first prototype aircraft, flew in November 1939 from the Mitsubishi factory at Kakamigahara, Gifu.Tests showed that the Ki-46 was underpowered, and slower than required, only reaching 540 km/h (336 mph) rather than the specified 600 km/h (373 mph). Otherwise, the aircraft tests were successful. As the type was still faster than the Army's latest fighter, the Nakajima Ki-43, as well as the Navy's new A6M2,an initial production batch was ordered.
To solve the performance problems, Mitsubishi fitted Ha-102 engines, which were Ha-26s fitted with a two-stage supercharger, while increasing fuel capacity and reducing empty weight to give the Ki-46-II. This machine was also demonstrated to German officials, who became immediately aware of its potential.
Knowing that the German Luftwaffe lacked this fast type of aircraft (German reconnaissance aircraft of that time were either slow artillery observation types, or variants of bombers or heavy fighters), the RLM immediately asked for a batch of airframe kits in order to adapt it to the European theatre and test its capabilities.
The result was a delivery of seven engine-less airframe kits that arrived in Germany in early 1940. In the meantime, with the help of blueprints and other documentations, an alternative engine installation had been devised - the German aircraft was to be powered by liquid-cooled DB 601 engines, which delivered more power than the Ha-102 and offered improved aerodynamics, despite the necessity to add radiators under the outer wings.Effectively, many stock parts from the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter were incorporated, so that development time was very short.
In May 1940 the first batch of the Gotha 146 (which had officially been described as a further development of a four seat, twin-engine transport aircraft from the 1930s) was ready, and they were immediately transferred to the Western Front and based in France.
Allocated to the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the Go 146 A-0 machines carried out various reconnaissance tasks over the North Sea, Great Britain and France, and they were also used for camouflage trials: each of the five aircraft sported a different paint scheme, raging from uniform, all-over grey to disruptive geometrical patterns, reminiscent of Dazzle camouflage!
The Go 146 was popular among its crews, since it was fast, agile and easy to fly. During the test phase in summer 1940 the Go 146 proved to be slightly faster than its Japanese Ki-46 ancestor, and with a top speed of more than 375 mph (600 km/h) it was hard to intercept by any British or French fighter. The results were so convincing that serial production was ordered, and from October 1940 on the Go 146 A-1 was produced in limited numbers, and the type was steadily developed further, including the change of the nose section that came withe the Ki-46III and augmented engines.
Specifications:
Crew: two (pilot and observer)
Length: 11.00 m (36 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in)
Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 8¾ in)
Wing area: 32.0 m² (344 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,263 kg (7,194 lb)
Loaded weight: 5,050 kg (11,133 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 5,800 kg (12,787 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Daimler-Benz DB 601B-1 liquid-cooled inverted V-12, 809 kW (1,100 hp) each
Performance:
Maximum speed: 625 km/h (345 knots, 388 mph) at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
Cruise speed: 400 km/h (217 knots, 249 mph)
Range: 2,474 km (1,337 nmi, 1,537 mi)
Service ceiling: 10,720 m (35,200 ft)
Wing loading: 157.8 kg/m² (32.3 lb/ft²)
Climb to 8,000 m (26,250 ft): 17 min 58 sec
Armament:
1x 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun in the observer's cabin, facing rearwards
The kit and its assembly:
This sounds like a weird idea, but the Luftwaffe had seriously been interested in the Ki-46, even though no aircraft ever made it to Europe. On the other side, several German aircraft were delivered to Japan (including the Bf 109E, Ju 87 and Me 210) for trials, so reversing this procedure makes sense.
Anyway, a German version would certainly not have been powered by radials, since this type of engine was not very popular in Europe and rather seen as a "slow" option for bombers. So the idea was born to convert a stock Ki-46 II into a prototype with German liquid-cooled engines - and it was easier to realize than expected!
The basis is the Airfix Dinah, a vintage and very simple kit. Fit is basically good, but the clear parts were (in my case) somewhat damaged around the edges of both canopies. Engines and landing gear are also basic - so I used different wheels, and the radials were replaced, anyway.
I used DB 601 engines, taken from an Airfix Bf 110 C kit, which also donated the radiators.
The latter were easy to place outside or the engine nacelles, the engines took some effort. The DB 601's height is perfect for the nacelles, just the width had to be enlarged in order to fit the original, circular shape of the radials' attachment points.
The remedy was simple: two long cuts in the upper cowling made the new engines flexible and wide enough to press them onto the nacelles' front ends! Some putty was necessary to hide gaps and smooth out the intersection, but the result looks very natural!
Otherwise not much was changed. The cockpits and the pilots were taken OOB, I just added a typical ring antenna under the fuselage and an additional pitot under the nose.
Painting and markings:
The fun part, even though it took a while to find something... different. The typical RLM 70/71/65 splinter scheme with a low waterline for prototypes or bombers of the BoB era was a valid option, but soooo boring.
While looking for inspiration I stumbled across some experimental schemes that had been tested on Bf109E fighters from JG53 - and that's what I finally settled upon.
What the Go 146 now carries is effectively a mix of two schemes: the stylish, geometric pattern was taken from one Bf 109, the colors (RLM 61/02/71/65) from another. Everything was painted with brushes and without masks, some light panel shading, black ink and grinded graphite were used for weathering.
The markings are minimal, typical for German reconnaissance aircraft of the time and based upon Bf 110 of the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the decals come from various aftermarket sheets and the code was puzzled together from single letter decals (TL Modellbau). A coat of acrylic matt varnish finally sealed the kit.
An exotic whif, and despite the weird basic idea I made it even more spectacular through the strange paint scheme which reminds of similar experiments by the US Navy. Odd thing is that I had the idea for a German Ki-46 on the agenda for quite a while, but this was/is to become a beefed-up Ki-46III for the late WWII period.
Building this kit's ancestor now, even before the Ki-46III conversion even started, is a little odd - but confirms the feasibility of an engine change and adds another contribution to the 2015 "Battle of Britain" Group Build at whatifmodelers.com.
By Peter Watts. Just finished this great book. Somehow, each and every time I read sf, I realise I should have started on this genre much, much early on, instead of reading "classic literature". Sigh. This book was filled with so many mind-blowing ideas and so much new information. ["Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad". That line by Aldous Huxley is my favorite. It was also fun to read about the Deinococcus bacteria and the Chinese Room argument. ] Book is under a CC license available here: www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm.
[Edit May, 2022] just stumbled across this amazing short video, I couldn't have imagined it any better! vimeo.com/467342474
Some parts I liked n noted down:
--
"This is what fascinates me most in existence: the peculiar necessity of imagining what is, in fact, real."
The new Millennium changed all that. We've surpassed ourselves now, we're exploring terrain beyond the limits of merely human understanding. Sometimes its contours, even in conventional space, are just too intricate for our brains to track; other times its very axes extend into dimensions inconceivable to minds built to fuck and fight on some prehistoric grassland. So many things constrain us, from so many directions. The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain-stem imperative of self-interest. Subtle and elegant equations predict the behavior of the quantum world, but none can explain it. After four thousand years we can't even prove that reality exists beyond the mind of the first-person dreamer.
"He never uses the past tense," I murmered.
"Huh? Oh, that." Pag nodded. "They never experience the past tense. It's just another thread to them. They don't remember stuff, they relive it."
If the unknown was hostile, we were probably doomed no matter what we did. The Unknown was technologically advanced—and there were some who claimed that that made them hostile by definition. Technology Implies Belligerence, they said.
What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots? But the subject wasn't merely Human history, or the unfair advantage that tools gave to any given side; the oppressed snatch up advanced weaponry as readily as the oppressor, given half a chance. No, the real issue was how those tools got there in the first place. The real issue was what tools are for.
"Thing about game theory is, it assumes rational self-interest among the players. And people just aren't rational."
"The glass ceiling is in you. The glass ceiling is conscience."
"But they don't know about us, not in advance. Dandelion seed doesn't know what it's up against before it sprouts. Maybe nothing. Maybe some spastic weed that goes over like straw in the wind. Or maybe something that kicks its ass halfway to the Magellanic Clouds. It doesn't know, and there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all survival strategy. Something that aces against one player blows goats against a different one. So the best you can do is mix up your strategies based on the odds. It's a weighted dice roll and it gives you the best mean payoff over the whole game, but you're bound to crap out and choose the wrong strategy at least some of the time. Price of doing business. And that means— that means—that weak players not only can win against stronger ones, but they're statistically bound to in some cases."
"We all come into the story halfway through, we all catch up as best we can, and we're all gonna die before it ends."
"Can you think of any reason why something with such different needs would attack us?"
"That depends," she said, "on whether the fact that we are different is reason enough."
I saw playground battlefields reflected in her topology. I remembered my own, and wondered if there were any other kind.
Then again, that only proved the point. Humans didn't really fight over skin tone or ideology; those were just handy cues for kin-selection purposes. Ultimately it always came down to bloodlines and limited resources.
...she hated him because he hadn't had the good grace to grow unnecessary?
As far as Earth was concerned, everyone on Theseus was an alter.
"Believe it or not, Cyggers, people sometimes choose to ignore even good memories. Like, say, if they enjoyed something they didn't think they should. Or—" she kissed my forehead— "if they don't think they deserve to be happy."
"You're saying the brain's got some kind of existence gauge?"
"Brain's got all kinds of gauges. You can know you're blind even when you're not; you can know you can see, even when you're blind. And yeah, you can know you don't exist even when you do. It's a long list, commissar. Cotard's, Anton's, Damascus Disease. Just for starters."
No matter that the four who'd died had been guilty of multiple counts of rape, torture, and homicide; that's just what people did in wartime. It's what they'd always done. There was nothing polite about war, no honorable code beyond the chain of command and the circling of wagons. Deal with indiscretions if you must; punish the guilty if you have to, for appearance if nothing else. But for God's sake close the doors first. Never give your enemy the satisfaction of seeing discord in the ranks, show them nothing but unity and flinty-eyed resolve. There may be murderers and rapists in our midst, but by God they're our murderers and rapists.
There was more, a whole catalog of finely-tuned dysfunctions that Rorschach had not yet inflicted on us. Somnambulism. Agnosias. Hemineglect. ConSensus served up a freak show to make any mind reel at its own fragility: a woman dying of thirst within easy reach of water, not because she couldn't see the faucet but because she couldn't recognize it. A man for whom the left side of the universe did not exist, who could neither perceive nor conceive of the left side of his body, of a room, of a line of text. A man for whom the very concept of leftness had become literally unthinkable.
Sometimes we could conceive of things and still not see them, although they stood right before us. Skyscrapers appeared out of thin air, the person talking to us changed into someone else during a momentary distraction— and we didn't notice. It wasn't magic. It was barely even misdirection. They called it inattentional blindness, and it had been well-known for a century or more: a tendency for the eye to simply not notice things that evolutionary experience classed as unlikely.
Some of the simpler tics make it through: Sascha's good-natured belligerence, Sarasti's aversion to the past tense. Cunningham lost most of his gender pronouns to an unforeseen glitch during the work on his temporal lobe. But it went beyond that. The whole lot of them threw English and Hindi and Hadzane into every second sentence; no real scientist would allow their thoughts to be hamstrung by the conceptual limitations of a single language. Other times they acted almost as synthesists in their own right, conversing in grunts and gestures that would be meaningless to any baseline. It's not so much that the bleeding edge lacks social skills; it's just that once you get past a certain point, formal speech is too damn slow.
"You don't want me happy," I said pleasantly. "You want me customized."
"Empathy's not so much about imagining how the other guy feels. It's more about imagining how you'd feel in the same place, right?"
"Both of you would've helped me out that day. And maybe he would've got there with good ol'-fashioned empathy while you had to cobble together some kind of improvised flowchart out of surplus parts, but that just makes your accomplishment all the greater..."
"Life isn't either/or. It's a matter of degree."
"What I'm asking is, are they natural? Could they be constructs?"
"Is a termite mound a construct? Beaver dam? Space ship? Of course. Were they built by naturally-evolved organisms, acting naturally? They were. So tell me how anything in the whole deep multiverse can ever be anything but natural?"
"Why should man expect his prayer for mercy to be heard by What is above him when he shows no mercy to what is under him? "
Cunningham explained anyway: "A lot of biology doesn't use genes. Sunflowers look the way they do because of purely physical buckling stress. You get Fibonacci sequences and Golden ratios everywhere in nature, and there's no gene that codes for them; it's all just mechanical interactions. Take a developing embryo—the genes say start growing or stop growing, but the number of digits and vertebrae result from the mechanics of cells bumping against other cells. Those mitotic spindles I mentioned? Absolutely essential for replication in every eukaryotic cell, and they accrete like crystals without any genetic involvement. You'd be surprised how much of life is like that."
"But you still need genes," Bates protested, walking around to join us.
"Genes just establish the starting conditions to enable the process. The structure that proliferates afterwards doesn't need specific instructions. It's classic emergent complexity. We've known about it for over a century." Another drag on the stick. "Or even longer. Darwin cited honeycomb way back in the eighteen hundreds."
"You think you'd be able to fight the strings? You think you'd even feel them? I could apply a transcranial magnet to your head right now and you'd raise your middle finger or wiggle your toes or kick Siri here in the sack and then swear on your sainted mother's grave that you only did it because you wanted to. You'd dance like a puppet and all the time swear you were doing it of your own free will, and that's just me, that's just some borderline OCD with a couple of magnets and an MRI helmet." He waved at the vast unknowable void beyond the bulkhead. Shreds of mangled cigarette floated sideways in front of him. "Do you want to guess what that can do? ..."
"...Brains are survival engines, not truth detectors. If self-deception promotes fitness, the brain lies. Stops noticing— irrelevant things. Truth never matters. Only fitness. By now you don't experience the world as it exists at all. You experience a simulation built from assumptions. Shortcuts. Lies. Whole species is agnosiac by default. Rorschach does nothing to you that you don't already do to yourselves."
Do you want to know what consciousness is for? Do you want to know the only real purpose it serves? Training wheels. You can't see both aspects of the Necker Cube at once, so it lets you focus on one and dismiss the other. That's a pretty half-assed way to parse reality. You're always better off looking at more than one side of anything. Go on, try. Defocus. It's the next logical step.
Oh, but you can't. There's something in the way.
And it's fighting back.
"So sentience has gotta be good for something, then. Because it's expensive, and if it sucks up energy without doing anything useful then evolution's gonna weed it out just like that."
"Maybe it did." He paused long enough to chew food or suck smoke. "Chimpanzees are smarter than Orangutans, did you know that? Higher encephalisation quotient. Yet they can't always recognize themselves in a mirror. Orangs can."
"...wait, you're saying the world's corporate elite are nonsentient?"
Wegner thought it was an executive summary. Penrose heard it in the singing of caged electrons. Nirretranders said it was a fraud; Kazim called it leakage from a parallel universe. Metzinger wouldn't even admit it existed. The AIs claimed to have worked it out, then announced they couldn't explain it to us. Gödel was right after all: no system can fully understand itself.
"We could engineer ourselves back into nonsentience, perhaps. Might improve our odds in the long run." She looked at me, a rueful sort of half-smile at the corner of her mouth. "But I guess that wouldn't be much of a win, would it? What's the difference between being dead, and just not knowing you're alive?"
You rationalize, Keeton. You defend. You reject unpalatable truths, and if you can't reject them outright you trivialize them. Incremental evidence is never enough for you. You hear rumors of Holocaust; you dismiss them. You see evidence of genocide; you insist it can't be so bad. Temperatures rise, glaciers melt—species die—and you blame sunspots and volcanoes. Everyone is like this, but you most of all. You and your Chinese Room. You turn incomprehension into mathematics, you reject the truth without even knowing what it is."
...one of Blindsight's take-home messages is that life is a matter of degree—the distinction between living and non-living systems has always been an iffy one.
While a number of people have pointed out the various costs and drawbacks of sentience, few if any have taken the next step and wondered out loud if the whole damn thing isn't more trouble than it's worth. Of course it is, people assume; otherwise natural selection would have weeded it out long ago. And they're probably right. I hope they are. Blindsight is a thought experiment, a game of Just suppose and What if. Nothing more.
On the other hand, the dodos and the Steller sea cows could have used exactly the same argument to prove their own superiority, a thousand years ago: if we're so unfit, why haven't we gone extinct? Why? Because natural selection takes time, and luck plays a role. The biggest boys on the block at any given time aren't necessarily the fittest, or the most efficient, and the game isn't over. The game is never over; there's no finish line this side of heat death. And so, neither can there be any winners. There are only those who haven't yet lost.
--
The full end notes here: www.rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Blindsight_Endnote...
--
Got done with Echopraxia too last month, and some interesting bits here:
--
It is almost impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil.
-Anatole France
Ultimately, all science is mere correlation. For that matter, in the time before science people turned to religion to understand the physical universe; and while the thought of deities hurling lightning bolts may seem fanciful to modern minds, it was then (as science claims to be now) the best explanation available to limited human understanding.
The fundamental difference between Science and Scripture is not, therefore, that scientific insights are necessarily more realistic than those based upon Faith. The difference is no more and no less than predictive power. Scientific insights have proven to be better predictors than Spiritual ones, at least in worldly matters; they prevail not because they are true, but simply because they work.
“ALL ANIMALS ARE UNDER STRINGENT SELECTION PRESSURE TO BE AS STUPID AS THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH.
-PETE RICHERSON AND ROBERT BOYD
Brüks was an old man, a field man from a day when people could tell what they were looking at by--well, by looking at it. Check the chin shields. Count the fin rays, the hooks on the scolex. Use your eyes, dammit. At least if you screw up you've only got yourself to blame, not some dumb-ass machine that can't tell the difference between cytochrome oxidase and a Shakespearean sonnet.
At least these deaths served a purpose, some constructive end transcending the disease or predation that nature would have inflicted. Life was a struggle to exist at the expense of other life. Biology was a struggle to understand life. And this particular bit of biology, this study of which he was author, principal, and sole investigator--this was a struggle to use biology to help the very populations he was sampling. These deaths were the closest that Darwin's universe would ever come to altruism.
Nature, though. Nature always welcomed him. She passed no judgments, didn't care about right or wrong, guilt or innocence. She only cared about what worked and what didn't. She welcomed everyone with the same egalitarian indifference. You just had to play by her rules, and expect no mercy if things didn't go your way.
"Transcendence is out of reach. For our brains, anyway."
Lianna shrugged. "Change your brain."
"Then it's not your brain anymore. It's something else. You're something else."
"That's kinda the point. Transcendence is transformation."
He shook his head, unconvinced. "Sounds more like suicide to me."
Even in sleep, Dan Brüks didn’t take anything on faith.
"I COULD BE BOUNDED IN A NUTSHELL, AND COUNT MYSELF A KING OF INFINITE SPACE—WERE IT NOT THAT I HAVE BAD DREAMS." -W.S
A trip to the sun. A chance to glimpse the traces of an alien intelligence—whatever alien meant in a world where members of his own species stitched themselves together into colony minds, or summoned their own worst nightmares back from the Pleistocene to run the stock market. The face of the unknown. What scientist would choose to sleep through that?
A tapeworm may not be as smart as its host but that doesn’t stop it from scamming shelter and nourishment and a place to breed. Good parasites are invisible; the best are indispensable. Gut bacteria, chloroplasts, mitochondria: all parasites, once. All invisible in the shadow of vaster beings. Now their hosts can’t live without them.
All those gut feelings, right or wrong, that had kept the breed alive on the Pleistocene savannah—and they were wrong, so much of the time. False negatives, false positives, the moral algebra of fat men pushed in front of onrushing trolleys. The strident emotional belief that children made you happy, even when all the data pointed to misery. The high-amplitude fear of sharks and dark-skinned snipers who would never kill you; indifference to all the toxins and pesticides that could. The mind was so rotten with misrepresentation that in some cases it literally had to be damaged before it could make a truly rational decision—and should some brain-lesioned mother abandon her baby in a burning house in order to save two strangers from the same fire, the rest of the world would be more likely to call her a monster than laud the rationality of her lifeboat ethics. Hell, rationality itself—the exalted Human ability to reason—hadn’t evolved in the pursuit of truth but simply to win arguments, to gain control: to bend others, by means logical or sophistic, to your will. Truth had never been a priority. If believing a lie kept the genes proliferating, the system would believe that lie with all its heart.
“Dan, you gotta let go of this whole self thing. Identity changes by the second, you turn into someone else every time a new thought rewires your brain. You’re already a different person than you were ten minutes ago.”
THE INTUITIVE MIND IS A SACRED GIFT AND THE RATIONAL MIND IS A FAITHFUL SERVANT. WE HAVE CREATED A SOCIETY THAT HONORS THE SERVANT AND HAS FORGOTTEN THE GIFT.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain, and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger, and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy, he thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and a tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations—and after a while everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there weren’t any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do. And from those humble beginnings we learned to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favors the paranoid. Even here in the twenty-first century you can make people more honest just by scribbling a pair of eyes on the wall with a Sharpie. Even now, we are wired to believe that unseen things are watching us.
“Do you measure Earth’s gravity every time you step outside? Do you reinvent quantum circuits from scratch whenever you boot up, just in case the other guys missed something?” She gave him a moment to answer. “Science depends on faith,” she continued, when he didn’t. “Faith that the rules haven’t changed, faith that the other guys got the measurements right. All science ever did was measure a teensy sliver of the universe and assume that everything else behaved the same way. But the whole exercise falls apart if the universe doesn’t follow consistent laws. How do you test if that’s true?”
Digital physics had reigned supreme since before he’d been born, and its dictums were as incontrovertible as they were absurd. Numbers didn’t just describe reality; numbers were reality, discrete step functions smoothing up across the Planck length into an illusion of substance. Roaches still quibbled over details, doubtless long since resolved by precocious children who never bothered to write home: was the universe a hologram or a simulation? Was its boundary a program or merely an interface—and if the latter, what sat on the other side, watching it run?
All I know is, he sounded just like every hapless Yahweh junkie who ever looked around at all the horror and injustice in the world and mumbled some shit about how It’s not the place of the clay to question the potter.
“Isn’t that the way, though? Isn’t that how it’s always been? Just obey the guys in the funny hats and if it’s a win it’s all praise be to Allah but if your ass gets kicked it’s your fault. You read scripture the wrong way. You weren’t worthy. You didn’t have enough faith.”
ANY SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY IS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM NATURE.
—STELLA ROSSITER
TO TRAVEL HOPEFULLY IS A BETTER THING THAN TO ARRIVE.
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The premise of Ezequiel Morsella’s PRISM model is that consciousness originally evolved for the delightfully mundane purpose of mediating conflicting motor commands to the skeletal muscles. (I have to point out that exactly the same sort of conflict—the impulse to withdraw one’s hand from a painful stimulus, versus the knowledge that you’ll die if you act on that impulse—was exactly how the Bene Gesserit assessed whether Paul Atriedes qualified as “Human” during their gom jabbar test in Frank Herbert’s Dune.)
Most people seem to think that organisms develop adaptive traits in response to environmental change. This is bullshit. The environment changes and those who already happen to have newly- adaptive traits don’t get wiped out. A deteriorating Daniel Brüks muses on an especially neat case in point, the curious fact that the building blocks of advanced neural architecture already exist in single-celled animals lacking even the most rudimentary nervous systems.
You are a hive mind, always have been: a single coherent consciousness spread across two cerebral hemispheres, each of which—when isolated—can run its own stand-alone, conscious entity with its own thoughts, aesthetics, even religious beliefs.75 The reverse also happens. A hemisphere forced to run solo when its partner is anaesthetised (preparatory to surgery, for instance) will manifest a different personality than the brain as a whole—but when those two hemispheres reconnect, that solo identity gets swallowed up by whatever dual-core persona runs on the whole organ. [Reminded me of Neuromancer and Wintermute!]
Although free will (rather, its lack) is one of Echopraxia’s central themes (the neurological condition of echopraxia is to autonomy as blindsight is to consciousness), I don’t have much to say about it because the arguments seem so clear-cut as to be almost uninteresting. Neurons do not fire spontaneously, only in response to external stimuli; therefore brains cannot act spontaneously, only in response to external stimuli. No need to wade through all those studies that show the brain acting before the conscious mind “decides” to. Forget the revisionist interpretations that downgrade the definition from free will to will that’s merely unpredictable enough to confuse predators. It’s simpler than that: the switch cannot flip itself. QED.
We climbed this hill. Each step up we could see farther, so of course we kept going. Now we’re at the top. Science has been at the top for a few centuries now. And we look out across the plain and we see this other tribe dancing around above the clouds, even higher than we are. Maybe it’s a mirage, maybe it’s a trick. Or maybe they just climbed a higher peak we can’t see because the clouds are blocking the view. So we head off to find out—but every step takes us downhill. No matter what direction we head, we can’t move off our peak without losing our vantage point. So we climb back up again. We’re trapped on a local maximum.
But what if there is a higher peak out there, way across the plain? The only way to get there is bite the bullet, come down off our foothill and trudge along the riverbed until we finally start going uphill again. And it’s only then you realize: Hey, this mountain reaches way higher than that foothill we were on before, and we can see so much better from up here.
But you can’t get there unless you leave behind all the tools that made you so successful in the first place. You have to take that first step downhill.
—Dr. Lianna Lutterodt, “Faith and the Fitness Landscape” In Conversation, 2091
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First flight of the Gopro Monopod. It didn't go well. The big problem with using a monopod on the back of the kite is that there's almost nothing constraining rotation. I had to bring it back down and re-tie the guy lines to the camera itself to keep it aimed straight.
The turtleneck was purchased two falls ago at Kohl's; the skirt at a thrift store earlier this year, as I recall. It is very tight, even with the corset, and constrains my stride almost like a hobble skirt. Combined with the spike heels, it turns my walk into a lady-like mince.
Accessories are the red rose headband, black-and-white jewelry, black belt, light hose, and the aforementioned blue patent pumps with spike heels. Props are a book and a handbag.
Two random somewhat experimental pages from the last few days. Very busy but somehow need a little sketch-time in my day…even though I am in a very uncoordinated mood- funny how somedays eye and hand are not in sync very well….and I seem in the mood to talk to myself.
A couple of frames to constrain my sketching to single page and not extend over the spiral binding….enjoying the change!
Information from:
Atlanta (pronounced /ətˈlæntə/ or /ætˈlæntə/) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia.
As of 2008, Atlanta is the thirty-third largest city in the United States, with an estimated population of 537,958. Its metropolitan area, officially named the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA (commonly referred to as Metropolitan Atlanta) is the ninth largest metropolitan area in the country, inhabited by approximately 5.5 million people. Like most areas in the Sun Belt, the Atlanta region has seen explosive growth in the past decade, adding more than 1.13 million residents between 2000 and 2008. It is the fastest growing area of the United States behind the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.[3]
Considered a top business city and transportation hub,[4][5] Atlanta is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T Mobility, and Delta Air Lines. Atlanta has the country's fourth largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies inside city limits (although UPS, Home Depot, and Newell Rubbermaid are not in the city limits) and more than 75 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the metro area. Also the Atlanta metro area has the 11th largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies headquarters. [6] Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is located seven miles south of downtown Atlanta, is the world's busiest airport and the only major airport to serve the city.[7][8]
Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County and the fifth location for the seat of government of the state of Georgia. A small portion of the city of Atlanta corporate limits extends into DeKalb County. Residents of the city are known as Atlantans.[9]
History
Main articles: History of Atlanta and Atlanta in the Civil War
The land constituting the city of Atlanta was once a Native American village called Standing Peachtree. The land that became the Atlanta area was taken from the Cherokee and Creeks by white settlers in 1822, with the first area settlement being Decatur.
On December 21, 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwestern United States.[10] Following the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation between 1838 and 1839 the newly depopulated area was opened for the construction of a railroad. The area around the eastern terminus to the line began to develop first, and so the settlement was named "Terminus" in 1837. It was nicknamed Thrasherville after John Thrasher, who built homes and a general store there.[11] By 1842, the settlement had six buildings and 30 residents and the town was renamed "Marthasville".[12] The Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thomson, suggested that the area be renamed "Atlantica-Pacifica" after the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which was quickly shortened to "Atlanta".[12] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[13] By 1854, another railroad connected Atlanta to LaGrange, and the town grew to 9,554 by 1860.[14][15]
During the American Civil War, Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion. The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William T. Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible Confederate assets destroyed. The next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. He then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his march south, though he spared the city's churches and hospitals.[16]
The rebuilding of the city was gradual. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the Freedmen's Bureau worked in tandem with a number of freedmen's aid organizations, especially the American Missionary Association. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital.[17] The Confederate Soldiers' Home was built to house disabled and elderly Georgia veterans from 1901 to 1941.[18] Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", one built on a modern economy, less reliant on agriculture. However, as Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 left at least 27 dead[19] and over 70 injured.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the movie based on Atlanta-born Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of the same name. Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and legendary producer David O. Selznick attended the gala, which was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, now destroyed. Leslie Howard had returned to England for the war.[20] The reception was held at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, which is still standing.
During World War II, manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population and economy. Shortly after the war, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded in Atlanta.[21]
In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta began to express themselves in acts of violence. On October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed; the synagogue's rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was an outspoken advocate of integration.[22] A group of anti-Semitic white supremacists calling themselves the "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility.
In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, as Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities played major roles in the movement's leadership. Two of the most important civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had their national headquarters in Atlanta. Despite some racial protests during the Civil Rights era, Atlanta's political and business leaders labored to foster Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools.[23]
African-American Atlantans demonstrated growing political influence with election of the first African-American mayor in 1973. They became a majority in the city during the late 20th century but suburbanization, rising prices, a booming economy and new migrants have decreased their percentage in the city from a high of 69 percent in 1980 to about 54 percent in 2004. The addition of new immigrants such as Latinos and Asians is also altering city demographics, along with an influx of white residents.[24]
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Atlanta became the third American city to host the Summer Olympics. The games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[25]
Contemporary Atlanta is sometimes considered to be an archetype for cities experiencing rapid growth and urban sprawl.[26][27] Unlike most major cities, metropolitan Atlanta does not have any natural boundaries, such as an ocean, lakes, or mountains, that might constrain growth.
The city has recently been commended by bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency for its eco-friendly policies.[28] In 2009, Atlanta's Virginia-Highland became the first carbon-neutral zone in the United States. Verus Carbon Neutral developed the partnership that links 17 merchants of the historic Corner Virginia-Highland shopping and dining neighborhood retail district, through the Chicago Climate Exchange, to directly fund the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project (thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia).
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Gotha 146 was a fast reconnaissance aircraft that was used throughout WWII by the German Luftwaffe, and one of the results of a mutual technology exchange program with Japan.
The Go 146 was actually a license-built, modified variant of the excellent Mitsubishi Ki-46. The latter type's career started in late 1937: the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force issued a specification to Mitsubishi for a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi Ki-15.
The specification demanded an endurance of six hours and sufficient speed to evade interception by any fighter in existence or development, but otherwise did not constrain the design by a team led by Tomio Kubo.
The resulting design was a twin-engined, low-winged monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It had a small diameter oval fuselage with the pilot and observer situated in individual cockpits separated by a large fuel tank. The engines, two Mitsubishi Ha-26 radials, were housed in close fitting cowlings to reduce drag and improve pilot view.
The first prototype aircraft, flew in November 1939 from the Mitsubishi factory at Kakamigahara, Gifu.Tests showed that the Ki-46 was underpowered, and slower than required, only reaching 540 km/h (336 mph) rather than the specified 600 km/h (373 mph). Otherwise, the aircraft tests were successful. As the type was still faster than the Army's latest fighter, the Nakajima Ki-43, as well as the Navy's new A6M2,an initial production batch was ordered.
To solve the performance problems, Mitsubishi fitted Ha-102 engines, which were Ha-26s fitted with a two-stage supercharger, while increasing fuel capacity and reducing empty weight to give the Ki-46-II. This machine was also demonstrated to German officials, who became immediately aware of its potential.
Knowing that the German Luftwaffe lacked this fast type of aircraft (German reconnaissance aircraft of that time were either slow artillery observation types, or variants of bombers or heavy fighters), the RLM immediately asked for a batch of airframe kits in order to adapt it to the European theatre and test its capabilities.
The result was a delivery of seven engine-less airframe kits that arrived in Germany in early 1940. In the meantime, with the help of blueprints and other documentations, an alternative engine installation had been devised - the German aircraft was to be powered by liquid-cooled DB 601 engines, which delivered more power than the Ha-102 and offered improved aerodynamics, despite the necessity to add radiators under the outer wings.Effectively, many stock parts from the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter were incorporated, so that development time was very short.
In May 1940 the first batch of the Gotha 146 (which had officially been described as a further development of a four seat, twin-engine transport aircraft from the 1930s) was ready, and they were immediately transferred to the Western Front and based in France.
Allocated to the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the Go 146 A-0 machines carried out various reconnaissance tasks over the North Sea, Great Britain and France, and they were also used for camouflage trials: each of the five aircraft sported a different paint scheme, raging from uniform, all-over grey to disruptive geometrical patterns, reminiscent of Dazzle camouflage!
The Go 146 was popular among its crews, since it was fast, agile and easy to fly. During the test phase in summer 1940 the Go 146 proved to be slightly faster than its Japanese Ki-46 ancestor, and with a top speed of more than 375 mph (600 km/h) it was hard to intercept by any British or French fighter. The results were so convincing that serial production was ordered, and from October 1940 on the Go 146 A-1 was produced in limited numbers, and the type was steadily developed further, including the change of the nose section that came withe the Ki-46III and augmented engines.
Specifications:
Crew: two (pilot and observer)
Length: 11.00 m (36 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in)
Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 8¾ in)
Wing area: 32.0 m² (344 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,263 kg (7,194 lb)
Loaded weight: 5,050 kg (11,133 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 5,800 kg (12,787 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Daimler-Benz DB 601B-1 liquid-cooled inverted V-12, 809 kW (1,100 hp) each
Performance:
Maximum speed: 625 km/h (345 knots, 388 mph) at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
Cruise speed: 400 km/h (217 knots, 249 mph)
Range: 2,474 km (1,337 nmi, 1,537 mi)
Service ceiling: 10,720 m (35,200 ft)
Wing loading: 157.8 kg/m² (32.3 lb/ft²)
Climb to 8,000 m (26,250 ft): 17 min 58 sec
Armament:
1x 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun in the observer's cabin, facing rearwards
The kit and its assembly:
This sounds like a weird idea, but the Luftwaffe had seriously been interested in the Ki-46, even though no aircraft ever made it to Europe. On the other side, several German aircraft were delivered to Japan (including the Bf 109E, Ju 87 and Me 210) for trials, so reversing this procedure makes sense.
Anyway, a German version would certainly not have been powered by radials, since this type of engine was not very popular in Europe and rather seen as a "slow" option for bombers. So the idea was born to convert a stock Ki-46 II into a prototype with German liquid-cooled engines - and it was easier to realize than expected!
The basis is the Airfix Dinah, a vintage and very simple kit. Fit is basically good, but the clear parts were (in my case) somewhat damaged around the edges of both canopies. Engines and landing gear are also basic - so I used different wheels, and the radials were replaced, anyway.
I used DB 601 engines, taken from an Airfix Bf 110 C kit, which also donated the radiators.
The latter were easy to place outside or the engine nacelles, the engines took some effort. The DB 601's height is perfect for the nacelles, just the width had to be enlarged in order to fit the original, circular shape of the radials' attachment points.
The remedy was simple: two long cuts in the upper cowling made the new engines flexible and wide enough to press them onto the nacelles' front ends! Some putty was necessary to hide gaps and smooth out the intersection, but the result looks very natural!
Otherwise not much was changed. The cockpits and the pilots were taken OOB, I just added a typical ring antenna under the fuselage and an additional pitot under the nose.
Painting and markings:
The fun part, even though it took a while to find something... different. The typical RLM 70/71/65 splinter scheme with a low waterline for prototypes or bombers of the BoB era was a valid option, but soooo boring.
While looking for inspiration I stumbled across some experimental schemes that had been tested on Bf109E fighters from JG53 - and that's what I finally settled upon.
What the Go 146 now carries is effectively a mix of two schemes: the stylish, geometric pattern was taken from one Bf 109, the colors (RLM 61/02/71/65) from another. Everything was painted with brushes and without masks, some light panel shading, black ink and grinded graphite were used for weathering.
The markings are minimal, typical for German reconnaissance aircraft of the time and based upon Bf 110 of the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the decals come from various aftermarket sheets and the code was puzzled together from single letter decals (TL Modellbau). A coat of acrylic matt varnish finally sealed the kit.
An exotic whif, and despite the weird basic idea I made it even more spectacular through the strange paint scheme which reminds of similar experiments by the US Navy. Odd thing is that I had the idea for a German Ki-46 on the agenda for quite a while, but this was/is to become a beefed-up Ki-46III for the late WWII period.
Building this kit's ancestor now, even before the Ki-46III conversion even started, is a little odd - but confirms the feasibility of an engine change and adds another contribution to the 2015 "Battle of Britain" Group Build at whatifmodelers.com.
www.niagaramasons.com/Info%20Stuff/The%20Winding%20Stairc...
Museum of Freemasonry - Masonic Library - Note my reflection!
Lecture: The Legend Of The Winding Stairs
In an investigation of the symbolism of the winding stairs, we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to there origin, there number, the objects which they recall, and there termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an assent upon them was intended to accomplish.
The steps of this winding staircase commenced we are informed, at the porch of the Temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of Masonic symbolism than that the Temple was the representative of the world purified by the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the Temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the Temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a mason, and to be born into the world of Masonic light, are all synonymous terms. Here, then, the symbolism of the winding stairs begins.
The Apprentice having entered within the porch of the temple, has begun his Masonic life. But the first degree in masonry, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Masonry. the lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degrees.
As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the porch from the sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his Masonic labour here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches the end of which is to be in the possession of divine truth. The winding stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the porch and between the pillars of strength and establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty placed before him. He cannot stand still; his destiny requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him
The numbers of these steps in all the systems is odd. The coincidence is at least curious that the ancient temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; so that commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the temple, which was considered as a fortunate omen. But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the masons from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd numbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the Masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers, and while three, five, seven, and nine, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, or eight. The odd number of stairs was therefore intended to symbolise the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain.
As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. The Tracing-boards of the nineteenth century have been found, in which only five steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The prestonian lectures, used at the beginning of the century gave the whole number of thirty-eight. the error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was later corrected. At the union of the two Grand Lodges of England the number was reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven.
At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organisation of the order of which he has become a member. But the information here given, is barren, and unworthy of his labour. The rank of the officers, and the required number can give no knowledge which he has not before possessed. We must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony.
The reference to the organisation of the Masonic institution is intended to remind us of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilisation, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition. Masonry itself is the result of civilisation; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition to mankind.
All the monuments of antiquity prove that as man emerged from the savage to the social state then came the invention of architecture. As architecture developed as a means of providing convenient dwellings and necessary shelter from the harshness of the seasons, with the mechanical arts connected with it, for as we began to erect solid and more stately edifices of stone, they imitated the parts which necessity had introduced into the primitive huts. and adapted them to there temples, which, although at first simple and rude, were in the course of time, and by the ingenuity of succeeding architects, wrought and improved to such a degree of perfection on different models, that each was by way of eminence, denominated an order of architecture.
Advancing in his progress the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive al our ideas of perception, and which, therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is closely connected with operative instruction of Masonry, but also as the type of all the other useful arts. In his second pause, in the ascent of the winding stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knowledge
So far, then the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessarry and useful member of society. Still must he go onward and forward. the stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and further wisdoms are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the middle chamber the abiding-place of truth, be reached.
In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained. Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolesed by any other sign or series of doctrines as by the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Masony is an institution of olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learningis one of the most pregnant evidences that we have of its antiquity.
In the seventh century, and for a long time afterwards, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. These seven arts were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any question which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature.
But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the winding stairs. Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Mason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages are truth, or the approximation to which it will be most appropriate to the degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of Masonic symbolism that the Mason is ever to be in search of truth, but is never to find it. This divine truth, the object of all his labours, is symbolised by the Word, for which we all know he can only obtain a substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of nature, of God, and of man's relation to them, which knowledge constitutes divine truth, can never be acquired in this life. Only at the end of this life shall he know the origin of life.
The middle chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the Word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G.G.O.T.U. This is the reward of the inquiring Mason; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the truth, but he must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it.
It is then, as a symbol, and as a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the winding stairs. if we attempt to adopt it as a historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire to thus impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as a historical narrative without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand craftsman were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the Temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity. But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a winding staircase to the place where the wages of labour were received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the middle chamber of life, in the full fruition of manhood, the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek truth and knowledge; to believe this, is to believe and to know the true design of Speculative Masonry, the only design which makes it worthy of a good and wise man's study.
2nd degree fellowcraft tracing board illustration.
On our way to the Sanctum Sanctorum, the newly made Mason undertakes a passage through what is commonly called the Middle Chamber. The reference into the middle way is through the temple of Solomon, and the pathway to the Holy of Holies, the adytum in which the Holy Ark of the covenant resides at the the Kodesh Hakodashim, or the place in which deity dwells. In that journey through the middle space, the Second degree brother is introduced to some of the more seemingly secular influenced aspects of the fraternity that begin to take on a double, or symbolic, meaning. On their surface, the basic notions of these things are obvious, but not until you start to look at them closely, at their deeper meanings, that we start to see their relationships to other more esoteric ideas. This is similar to religious traditions where withing one religious text there can be multiple layers of meaning, and multiple ways of interpretation which can lead to an allegorical, a moral, or a mystical meaning.
Indeed, as the degree is symbolically in King Solomon’s Temple, so to can it be seen as a symbolic metaphor to our own internal path, what Joseph Campbell calls the hero quest, and where you “leave the world that you you’re in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height.”[1]
This is not to assume that the Masonic degrees have a similar relevancy to sacred or Masonic symbols, tracing board, second degree, 2 degreespiritual texts, though some could argue that their significance is almost as powerful to some observants. It is a system of morality that strives to make good men better, which runs nearly in parallel with the many Volumes of the Sacred Law which seeks similar outcomes to achieve as it outlines and instructs its path to elevation. Whether its salvation or spiritual awakening the holy books seek to instruct its adherents to live better lives through their faith, the same that Freemasonry strives to through its practice – to make those good men better. In that process of making the good man a candidate for the degrees is made an entered apprentice, symbolically as he ascends Jacob’s ladder. Once at the top, he is presented a series of three groups of symbols which are set before him to become a Second Degree mason so as they may observe and contemplate them in their path of progression, their hero’s quest, to the third degree.
The story of the degree, from Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor*, picks up after the passage between the twin pillars of the degree with the conductor delivering this instruction:
Brother, we will pursue our journey. The next thing that attracts our attention is the winding stairs which lead to the Middle Chamber of King Solomon’s Temple, consisting of three, five, and seven steps.
The first three allude to the three principal stages of human life, namely, youth, manhood, and old age. In youth, as Entered Apprentices, we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge; in manhood, as Fellow Crafts, we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves; so that in old age, as Master Masons, we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality.
They also allude to the three principal supports in Masonry, namely, Wisdom, Strength. and Beauty; for it is necessary that there should be wisdom to contrive, strength to support, and beauty to adorn all great and important undertakings.
They further allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.
Let’s pause here and consider what some of the deeper meanings of these first steps infer. The first segment is fairly straight forward; with narrative telling us that the three steps allude to the three stages of human life – Youth, Manhood, and Old Age.
Youth is defined as:
Young persons, collectively.
A young person; especially, a young man.
The quality or state of being young; youthfulness; juvenility.
The part of life that succeeds to childhood; the period of existence preceding maturity or age; the whole early part of life, from childhood, or, sometimes, from infancy, to manhood.
from ThinkExist.com
This is a pretty straight forward idea, especially as it says to us that “we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge”, but how does this apply to an older initiate, someone who is no longer in his youth. Is it a wistful thought to what was achieved when younger and in still in school? Taken on a deeper level, it could allude to the idea of the degree itself, the First degree being synonymous to mean that in the first, the candidate comes to the lodge as a youth (despite his chronological or physical age) with a clean slate of perception and a clean pallet of interpretation. In a sense, he comes as blank slate to its teachings or to the ideas before him. The degree being his introduction from exterior life to interior life which ushers him both into the fraternity and into the concept of the undertaking. Pike, in the first degree lecture in Morals and Dogma, calls this the focusing of the aspirants “unregulated force” – the channel by which they constrain their previously raw, infantile state, into that of a focused and youthful aspirant no matter their age.
Next, the candidate enters into his Manhood, more literally the 2nd degree, of which the ceremony says of it “we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves” which is a really active process to live by. We, in essence, are to achieve much by way of our doing, essentially, the work of our daily life towards our deity in worship and practice, our community in which we live and reside, but more specifically as we apply it to ourselves in continuing to apply what we’ve learned in our youth to this state of existence.
The Free Dictionary defines Manhood as:
1. The state or time of being an adult male human.
2. The composite of qualities, such as courage, determination, and vigor, often thought to be appropriate to a man.
3. Adult males considered as a group; men.
4. The state of being human.
In the third entry, we can take much from it beyond it simply being our middle state of being. It is in fact our ability to BE in the first place, our SELF in daily practice. Interesting as this is, the second degree in which our further education takes place is not only about the practice of our youth but also our ability to learn and apply that education to our life.
Campbell says of the age progression that “As a child, you are brought up in a world of discipline, of obedience, and you are dependant on others. All this has to be transcended when you come to maturity, so that you can live not in dependency but with self-responsible authority.”[2] This is, in essence, the heart of the three degree progression and the fundamental of the three steps – he becoming a man (or woman, respecting your discipline)!
Old age is a bit more of a troubling and complex issue. So often in modern society we look at old age as a point of retirement where work and physical activity dramatically changes or diminishes. In this description, the idea of old age holds true in that the degree says of old age that in it “we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality”
There are several interesting meanings we can take from this especially that it is in the degrees that these physical changes are metaphorically said to take place which can become a literal interpretation, and that once attained the Master Mason can live through them – literally to reflect on the life well spent. What’s troubling here is that the major portion of the work of the lodge is spent in the third degree and a caution must be considered so as to not see the work of the Master Mason as just one of reflection and of casual rest lest no work, as described in Manhood, be completed.
Old Age is essentially defined as ones age nearing or passing the average life span of human beings, and thus at the end of the human life cycle. In the U.S. this is considered to be 78 years old giving a distinct impression as to when one should then become a True Master. It really is at a twilight of life period, one of great age and maturity where little change and much reflection takes place. This gives us an interesting perspective on the meaning as it implies a near end of physical life period of time which squares with the degrees lesson as the period of reflection of a life well spent. We become the Master of our all, ready to pass our knowledge on to the next generation.
With this vantage, we can take pause to deeply consider that our daily working of the degrees, intrinsically, could (or should) be conducted in the 2nd state, our manhood in which we conversely learn and grow.
Cirlot, in his Dictionary of Symbols, makes an interesting point in that the idea of progression in the stages of age is not unique to Masonry. Besides the stages themselves, the number three (3) is a representation of synthesis and unites the “solution of conflict posed by dualism.” In other words, the third object brings about balance for the first two opposing states. Think of the balance of three dots, one stacked above two.
From this point, the degree breaks off to correlate these first steps with the three principal pillars of the lodge as Wisdom, Strength and Beauty which also has an interesting Kabalistic point of reference in the three pillars that make up the structure of the tree of life. Keep in mind, the orientation assumes the viewer reverse the structure to mirror ones own standing rather than simply reflect the observer.
Wisdom, the left hand pillar of mercy, is an active pillar and representativeof alchemical fire, which is the principal of spirituality, often called the pillar of Jachin. It is a masculine pillar, and relates to our mental energy, our loving kindness, and our creative inspiration as we traverse it up the Kabbalaistic tree through the Sephirot.
Strength is the right hand pillar and takes the form of severity, shaped into the alchemical symbol of water. It can represent darkness, but it is a passive symbol that is feminine in nature and called the pillar of Boaz. Upon it we find the points of our thoughts and ideas, our feelings and emotions, and the physicality of our physical experience, our sensations, each an aspect of its Cabalistic progression.
Beauty, then, takes on the role of synthesis of the two, the pillar of mildness; it is upon this pillar that the novitiate is transformed through his progressive states as he progresses. The central pillar of Beauty is representative of Jehovah, the Tetragrammaton which represents deity itself"mercurial transformation" upon which our crown of being resides balanced through feeling and emotion from our foundation of justice and mercy, all of which springs from our link to the everyday world.
These aspects of the Kabbalah are not specific attributes of the study in the blue lodge, rather elements of deeper esoteric study, found more specifically in the degrees of the Scottish Rite. Because of the pillars, and their deeper symbolic meaning, it does, however, necessitate looking at them deeper to see the relationship between them as the blue lodge degrees seem to have parallels in the study of the Kabbalah – a happy accident at some time past or with purpose to link the ideas together. Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty are specific aspects of the lower three degrees and emphasized here in the first three steps into the middle chamber, necessitating their deeper esoteric study to fully grasp their broader importance.
As the degree instructs – Wisdom is to contrive, Strength is to support, and Beauty is to adorn all great and important undertakings – which are the fundamentals of the three pillars in the Kabbalaistic study.
Conversely, as the degree states, these three pillars “allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.” and can be interpreted as such in both a micro (in lodge) fashion and in a broader macro tradition of Masonry itself – in this Kabbalaistic formulation. When the alchemical aspects of wisdom and strength are combined we can see the 6 pointed star appears, the symbol of transformation, often depicted in the conjoining of the square and compass in which Masons are instructed to square their actions and circumscribe their passions, which also corresponds to the link between the Saints Johns – the Baptist as the principal of alchemical water, and the Evangelist as the symbol of alchemical fire, both of whom have much deeper esoteric connections in Masonry. Also, the figures of the lodge leadership have a deeper connection as you begin to look at their alchemical connections too, when you look at their relationship to the Sun and moon, and the aspirant candidate as the solution of conflict, as Cirlot described, and as defined in the first degree – the three sphere aspect to balance the two of conflict.
From these short first few tentative steps, we can see that there is a wealth of Masonic symbols at hand, but we are only one third into our progression. Our next step takes us deeper into the middle chamber to its central position where we encounter an interesting juxtaposition of the physical world to our very human aspect of being through our senses.
For now, reflect a time on these first three steps and consider what comes next upon the path.
What is Offshore Web Hosting Good for?
Here are the resources I use: www.sidewages.com/resources/
Why Offshore Web Hosting?
- have you even heard of it before?
- benefits vary by country
- freedom is a primary key
- privacy is also an important factor
Legalities Across the Globe
- certain countries restrict certain sites
- other countries are more enabling
- laws can protect but possibly constrain, too
Privacy is Always in Mind
- can choose anonymous hosting
- protect your identity from the masses
- don't have to worry about random stalkers
- DON'T do this for unlawful reasons!
- think long term and world-wide impact
Consider the Costs
- some offshore hosting can be extremely cheap
- others can be crazy expensive
- other countries may open advertising routes
Freedom from Nature?
- natural disasters are a real concern
- you may not be able to relocate
- no reason you can't keep your data safe
- ensure website protection by location
But Where are these Offshore Places?
- the United States and United Kingdom
- Panama, Netherlands, Singapore
- China can be good, but be aware of spam rules
Wrapping Up Your Hosting Needs
- looking for reliability in any situation
- potentially powerful price for performance
- legalities and privacy are important
- do what's right and get to doing already
Here are the resources I use: www.sidewages.com/resources/
The turtleneck was purchased two falls ago at Kohl's; the skirt at a thrift store earlier this year, as I recall. It is very tight, even with the corset, and constrains my stride almost like a hobble skirt. Combined with the spike heels, it turns my walk into a lady-like mince.
Accessories are the red rose headband, black-and-white jewelry, black belt, light hose, and the aforementioned blue patent pumps with spike heels. Props are a book and a handbag.
Re-Move is a free clinic specifically geared toward removing "tribal tattoos" and "native inspired tattoos" in addition to offering tattooed lines of separation and their removal.
Lines that qualify include but are not limited to: International border lines, state lines, the line between men, and the line between people and land.
Skin is the tissue we are born in, we experience pain and pleasure and violence through it. Skin is the tissue used to define, constrain, label and separate us.
Tattoo uses the surface tissue or our bodies to display knowledge, ignorance, desire, connection, love, allegiance and stories.
Tattoo has been practiced by people all over the world to identify, adorn, and designate us in every direction from celebration and honor to degradation and ownership.
Colonization and religious conversion attempted to forcibly remove the practice of tattoo from Indigenous cultures.
The rampant tattooing of "tribal/Native inspired" tattoos is continued colonization of culture through commodification and fictionalization.
Re-Move highlights removal of culture, and removes divisions damaging to culture today. We extend our services to cover the removal of lines that damage culture for all of us, Indigenous and settler, human and non-human.
Collaborative Performance w/ Merritt Johnson at MOCNA, Sante Fe 2017
5th Futurological Symposium On Free Cultural Spaces
Christiania, Copenhagen - 24-26.09.2015
Programm:
www.christianiaskulturforening.dk/2015/FREE%20CULTURAL%20...
Video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSDrL5cjtiw
Photos:
www.flickr.com/photos/sterneck/albums/72157699018464575
Short Report:
www.freeculturalspaces.net/free-cultural-spaces-5th-sympo...
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Free Cultural Spaces
Christiania
Christianias Kulturforening
www.christianiaskulturforening.dk
Free Christiania *
www.flickr.com/photos/sterneck/albums/72157693213298290
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Wolfgang Sterneck:
In the Cracks of the World *
Photo-Reports : www.flickr.com/sterneck/sets
Articles (german / english) : www.sterneck.net
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The 5th FUTUROLOGICAL SYMPOSIUM
ON FREE CULTURAL SPACES:
Individuals and Collectives within Free Cultural Spaces, (a spiral meeting)
On the 24th, 25th, & 26th of September2015, Free-Town Christiania, in Copenhagen, Denmark, will host the 5th Futurological Symposium On Free Cultural Spaces (FCS): Individuals and Collectives within Free Cultural Spaces.
The term Futurological Symposium is taken from Stanislav Lem’s novel The Futurological Congress (1971) and refers to a deep commitment to developing an evolutionary perspective on Free Cultural Spaces (FCS) or Autonomous Zones. Ruigoord, the Dutch village that originated the Symposium idea, has been an active Free Cultural Space since 1973. Along with ThyLejren (the People’s Lair) and Christiania in Denmark, Ruigoord is one of the longest-lived of the Northern European utopian communities that emerged from the tumult of the Sixties. Its foundational principles, and thus those of the Futurological Symposia, rest on the notion of Homo Ludens, Playful Mankind ― the idea that free and playful interactions between people generate powerful communal impulses.
Since their inception, the Futurological Symposia have aimed to co-create a dynamic, lasting, sustainable, non-hierarchical global network of FCS; to originate a transnational platform for independent cultural experimentation; and to exchange ideas about the forms and content of free cultural circuits. Free Cultural Spaces take many forms, including squatted and hacker communities, pirate radio collectives and stations, free-towns, Eco-villages, perma-culture centers, independent festivals, (semi) nomadic groups, communes and communities, occupied grounds, Unceded Indigenous Territories, etc. When connected as an independent collaborative network, they have the potential to trigger profound changes in individual participants and society at large by disseminating values and practices that can generate new and creative alternatives to mainstream culture.
The 1st Symposium was organized as a response to an increasing oppression of Amsterdam’s counter-cultural communities and focused on the historical projects that had transformed the city into a pioneering Free-Town in the 60s and 70s.
The 2nd Symposium engaged different disciplines (philosophy, futurology, anthropology, politics, ecology, town planning etc.) and welcomed representatives from The Cultural Defense Line of Amsterdam in an attempt to conceptualize and organize a broad association of collective efforts.
The 3rd Symposium was an international gathering aimed at creating a solidarity league and formulating a treaty of mutual cooperation among FCS and the people involved with them. Representatives from Europe ― Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the UK; Eastern Europe ― Russia; Asia ― Mongolia; North America ― the USA and Canada; and South America ― Colombia, gathered to share their visions. It was during this 3rd Symposium that the first steps were taken towards drafting a “Declaration of the Universal Spaces takes place in Christiania, Denmark on the 24th, 25th and 26th of September Value of Free Cultural Spaces.”
In August of 2014, the 4th Futurological Symposium: Creating Unity in Diversity took place at the Boom Festival, at Idahna-a-Nova Lake, Portugal. The Boom Symposium focused on festival culture. Festivals are playgrounds for the experience of freedom. They help shape group spirit and ethos and facilitate direct human contact among people who are nowadays often connected solely via the Internet. A festival experience often accelerate an individual’s awareness that life offers multiple alternatives to the constrained and constraining experiences that mainstream society advocates. It can establish deep and mutually enriching connections between FCS and experiences of personal liberation. The importance of festivals for the co-creation of a counter-cultural reality links festival culture to autonomous zones around the world.
The Boom Symposium explored the festival parameters of free cultural experience, and linked the Futurological Symposium project to Project Nuevo Mundo, an international network of sustainability-focused communities based in Mexico and Central America. Particularly interesting features of the “free culture” that animates FCS began to emerge, including the importance of developing and/or recognizing rites of passage to the mindsets that recognize the potentialities contained in FCS.
At Christiania, the 5th Symposium will debate the interactive importance of Individual and Collective Aims within Free Cultural Spaces.
The Futurological Symposiums are manifestations of a nomadic, decentralized event. Future Symposiums will take place in different FCS, and will focus on different aspects of FCS networks. The diversity between the projects and perspectives presented at each event will constitute its distinctive feature, with the connections, collaboration, and continuities it generates providing new and exciting synergies to the overall Futurological Symposium project.
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Information from:
Atlanta (pronounced /ətˈlæntə/ or /ætˈlæntə/) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia.
As of 2008, Atlanta is the thirty-third largest city in the United States, with an estimated population of 537,958. Its metropolitan area, officially named the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA (commonly referred to as Metropolitan Atlanta) is the ninth largest metropolitan area in the country, inhabited by approximately 5.5 million people. Like most areas in the Sun Belt, the Atlanta region has seen explosive growth in the past decade, adding more than 1.13 million residents between 2000 and 2008. It is the fastest growing area of the United States behind the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.[3]
Considered a top business city and transportation hub,[4][5] Atlanta is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T Mobility, and Delta Air Lines. Atlanta has the country's fourth largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies inside city limits (although UPS, Home Depot, and Newell Rubbermaid are not in the city limits) and more than 75 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the metro area. Also the Atlanta metro area has the 11th largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies headquarters. [6] Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is located seven miles south of downtown Atlanta, is the world's busiest airport and the only major airport to serve the city.[7][8]
Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County and the fifth location for the seat of government of the state of Georgia. A small portion of the city of Atlanta corporate limits extends into DeKalb County. Residents of the city are known as Atlantans.[9]
History
Main articles: History of Atlanta and Atlanta in the Civil War
The land constituting the city of Atlanta was once a Native American village called Standing Peachtree. The land that became the Atlanta area was taken from the Cherokee and Creeks by white settlers in 1822, with the first area settlement being Decatur.
On December 21, 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwestern United States.[10] Following the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation between 1838 and 1839 the newly depopulated area was opened for the construction of a railroad. The area around the eastern terminus to the line began to develop first, and so the settlement was named "Terminus" in 1837. It was nicknamed Thrasherville after John Thrasher, who built homes and a general store there.[11] By 1842, the settlement had six buildings and 30 residents and the town was renamed "Marthasville".[12] The Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thomson, suggested that the area be renamed "Atlantica-Pacifica" after the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which was quickly shortened to "Atlanta".[12] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[13] By 1854, another railroad connected Atlanta to LaGrange, and the town grew to 9,554 by 1860.[14][15]
During the American Civil War, Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion. The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William T. Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible Confederate assets destroyed. The next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. He then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his march south, though he spared the city's churches and hospitals.[16]
The rebuilding of the city was gradual. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the Freedmen's Bureau worked in tandem with a number of freedmen's aid organizations, especially the American Missionary Association. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital.[17] The Confederate Soldiers' Home was built to house disabled and elderly Georgia veterans from 1901 to 1941.[18] Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", one built on a modern economy, less reliant on agriculture. However, as Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 left at least 27 dead[19] and over 70 injured.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the movie based on Atlanta-born Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of the same name. Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and legendary producer David O. Selznick attended the gala, which was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, now destroyed. Leslie Howard had returned to England for the war.[20] The reception was held at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, which is still standing.
During World War II, manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population and economy. Shortly after the war, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded in Atlanta.[21]
In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta began to express themselves in acts of violence. On October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed; the synagogue's rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was an outspoken advocate of integration.[22] A group of anti-Semitic white supremacists calling themselves the "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility.
In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, as Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities played major roles in the movement's leadership. Two of the most important civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had their national headquarters in Atlanta. Despite some racial protests during the Civil Rights era, Atlanta's political and business leaders labored to foster Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools.[23]
African-American Atlantans demonstrated growing political influence with election of the first African-American mayor in 1973. They became a majority in the city during the late 20th century but suburbanization, rising prices, a booming economy and new migrants have decreased their percentage in the city from a high of 69 percent in 1980 to about 54 percent in 2004. The addition of new immigrants such as Latinos and Asians is also altering city demographics, along with an influx of white residents.[24]
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Atlanta became the third American city to host the Summer Olympics. The games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[25]
Contemporary Atlanta is sometimes considered to be an archetype for cities experiencing rapid growth and urban sprawl.[26][27] Unlike most major cities, metropolitan Atlanta does not have any natural boundaries, such as an ocean, lakes, or mountains, that might constrain growth.
The city has recently been commended by bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency for its eco-friendly policies.[28] In 2009, Atlanta's Virginia-Highland became the first carbon-neutral zone in the United States. Verus Carbon Neutral developed the partnership that links 17 merchants of the historic Corner Virginia-Highland shopping and dining neighborhood retail district, through the Chicago Climate Exchange, to directly fund the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project (thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia).
Information from:
Atlanta (pronounced /ətˈlæntə/ or /ætˈlæntə/) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia.
As of 2008, Atlanta is the thirty-third largest city in the United States, with an estimated population of 537,958. Its metropolitan area, officially named the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA (commonly referred to as Metropolitan Atlanta) is the ninth largest metropolitan area in the country, inhabited by approximately 5.5 million people. Like most areas in the Sun Belt, the Atlanta region has seen explosive growth in the past decade, adding more than 1.13 million residents between 2000 and 2008. It is the fastest growing area of the United States behind the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.[3]
Considered a top business city and transportation hub,[4][5] Atlanta is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T Mobility, and Delta Air Lines. Atlanta has the country's fourth largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies inside city limits (although UPS, Home Depot, and Newell Rubbermaid are not in the city limits) and more than 75 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the metro area. Also the Atlanta metro area has the 11th largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies headquarters. [6] Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is located seven miles south of downtown Atlanta, is the world's busiest airport and the only major airport to serve the city.[7][8]
Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County and the fifth location for the seat of government of the state of Georgia. A small portion of the city of Atlanta corporate limits extends into DeKalb County. Residents of the city are known as Atlantans.[9]
History
Main articles: History of Atlanta and Atlanta in the Civil War
The land constituting the city of Atlanta was once a Native American village called Standing Peachtree. The land that became the Atlanta area was taken from the Cherokee and Creeks by white settlers in 1822, with the first area settlement being Decatur.
On December 21, 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwestern United States.[10] Following the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation between 1838 and 1839 the newly depopulated area was opened for the construction of a railroad. The area around the eastern terminus to the line began to develop first, and so the settlement was named "Terminus" in 1837. It was nicknamed Thrasherville after John Thrasher, who built homes and a general store there.[11] By 1842, the settlement had six buildings and 30 residents and the town was renamed "Marthasville".[12] The Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thomson, suggested that the area be renamed "Atlantica-Pacifica" after the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which was quickly shortened to "Atlanta".[12] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[13] By 1854, another railroad connected Atlanta to LaGrange, and the town grew to 9,554 by 1860.[14][15]
During the American Civil War, Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion. The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William T. Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible Confederate assets destroyed. The next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. He then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his march south, though he spared the city's churches and hospitals.[16]
The rebuilding of the city was gradual. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the Freedmen's Bureau worked in tandem with a number of freedmen's aid organizations, especially the American Missionary Association. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital.[17] The Confederate Soldiers' Home was built to house disabled and elderly Georgia veterans from 1901 to 1941.[18] Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", one built on a modern economy, less reliant on agriculture. However, as Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 left at least 27 dead[19] and over 70 injured.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the movie based on Atlanta-born Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of the same name. Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and legendary producer David O. Selznick attended the gala, which was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, now destroyed. Leslie Howard had returned to England for the war.[20] The reception was held at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, which is still standing.
During World War II, manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population and economy. Shortly after the war, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded in Atlanta.[21]
In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta began to express themselves in acts of violence. On October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed; the synagogue's rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was an outspoken advocate of integration.[22] A group of anti-Semitic white supremacists calling themselves the "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility.
In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, as Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities played major roles in the movement's leadership. Two of the most important civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had their national headquarters in Atlanta. Despite some racial protests during the Civil Rights era, Atlanta's political and business leaders labored to foster Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools.[23]
African-American Atlantans demonstrated growing political influence with election of the first African-American mayor in 1973. They became a majority in the city during the late 20th century but suburbanization, rising prices, a booming economy and new migrants have decreased their percentage in the city from a high of 69 percent in 1980 to about 54 percent in 2004. The addition of new immigrants such as Latinos and Asians is also altering city demographics, along with an influx of white residents.[24]
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Atlanta became the third American city to host the Summer Olympics. The games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[25]
Contemporary Atlanta is sometimes considered to be an archetype for cities experiencing rapid growth and urban sprawl.[26][27] Unlike most major cities, metropolitan Atlanta does not have any natural boundaries, such as an ocean, lakes, or mountains, that might constrain growth.
The city has recently been commended by bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency for its eco-friendly policies.[28] In 2009, Atlanta's Virginia-Highland became the first carbon-neutral zone in the United States. Verus Carbon Neutral developed the partnership that links 17 merchants of the historic Corner Virginia-Highland shopping and dining neighborhood retail district, through the Chicago Climate Exchange, to directly fund the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project (thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia).
A friend of mine recently introduced me to Josef Sudek so when this week's #TwPhCh challenge was announced it seemed natural to turn to his portfolio for inspiration. Given that Sudek worked with film I figured I should constrain my contribution to being straight out of the camera, so I set my camera to RAW+jpeg and used its internal processing to record in black and white with an orange filter and medium-high contrast. I miss the vivid bubbles in the original but was rather tickled by the illusion of a floating glass.
The turtleneck was purchased two falls ago at Kohl's; the skirt at a thrift store earlier this year, as I recall. It is very tight, even with the corset, and constrains my stride almost like a hobble skirt. Combined with the spike heels, it turns my walk into a lady-like mince.
Accessories are the red rose headband, black-and-white jewelry, black belt, light hose, and the aforementioned blue patent pumps with spike heels. Props are a book and a handbag.
The turtleneck was purchased two falls ago at Kohl's; the skirt at a thrift store earlier this year, as I recall. It is very tight, even with the corset, and constrains my stride almost like a hobble skirt. Combined with the spike heels, it turns my walk into a lady-like mince.
Accessories are the red rose headband, black-and-white jewelry, black belt, light hose, and the aforementioned blue patent pumps with spike heels. Props are a book and a handbag.
What is Offshore Web Hosting Good for?
Here are the resources I use: www.sidewages.com/resources/
Why Offshore Web Hosting?
- have you even heard of it before?
- benefits vary by country
- freedom is a primary key
- privacy is also an important factor
Legalities Across the Globe
- certain countries restrict certain sites
- other countries are more enabling
- laws can protect but possibly constrain, too
Privacy is Always in Mind
- can choose anonymous hosting
- protect your identity from the masses
- don't have to worry about random stalkers
- DON'T do this for unlawful reasons!
- think long term and world-wide impact
Consider the Costs
- some offshore hosting can be extremely cheap
- others can be crazy expensive
- other countries may open advertising routes
Freedom from Nature?
- natural disasters are a real concern
- you may not be able to relocate
- no reason you can't keep your data safe
- ensure website protection by location
But Where are these Offshore Places?
- the United States and United Kingdom
- Panama, Netherlands, Singapore
- China can be good, but be aware of spam rules
Wrapping Up Your Hosting Needs
- looking for reliability in any situation
- potentially powerful price for performance
- legalities and privacy are important
- do what's right and get to doing already
Here are the resources I use: www.sidewages.com/resources/
Pre Grand Slam
Information from:
Atlanta (pronounced /ətˈlæntə/ or /ætˈlæntə/) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia.
As of 2008, Atlanta is the thirty-third largest city in the United States, with an estimated population of 537,958. Its metropolitan area, officially named the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA (commonly referred to as Metropolitan Atlanta) is the ninth largest metropolitan area in the country, inhabited by approximately 5.5 million people. Like most areas in the Sun Belt, the Atlanta region has seen explosive growth in the past decade, adding more than 1.13 million residents between 2000 and 2008. It is the fastest growing area of the United States behind the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.[3]
Considered a top business city and transportation hub,[4][5] Atlanta is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T Mobility, and Delta Air Lines. Atlanta has the country's fourth largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies inside city limits (although UPS, Home Depot, and Newell Rubbermaid are not in the city limits) and more than 75 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the metro area. Also the Atlanta metro area has the 11th largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies headquarters. [6] Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is located seven miles south of downtown Atlanta, is the world's busiest airport and the only major airport to serve the city.[7][8]
Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County and the fifth location for the seat of government of the state of Georgia. A small portion of the city of Atlanta corporate limits extends into DeKalb County. Residents of the city are known as Atlantans.[9]
History
Main articles: History of Atlanta and Atlanta in the Civil War
The land constituting the city of Atlanta was once a Native American village called Standing Peachtree. The land that became the Atlanta area was taken from the Cherokee and Creeks by white settlers in 1822, with the first area settlement being Decatur.
On December 21, 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwestern United States.[10] Following the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation between 1838 and 1839 the newly depopulated area was opened for the construction of a railroad. The area around the eastern terminus to the line began to develop first, and so the settlement was named "Terminus" in 1837. It was nicknamed Thrasherville after John Thrasher, who built homes and a general store there.[11] By 1842, the settlement had six buildings and 30 residents and the town was renamed "Marthasville".[12] The Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thomson, suggested that the area be renamed "Atlantica-Pacifica" after the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which was quickly shortened to "Atlanta".[12] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[13] By 1854, another railroad connected Atlanta to LaGrange, and the town grew to 9,554 by 1860.[14][15]
During the American Civil War, Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion. The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William T. Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible Confederate assets destroyed. The next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. He then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his march south, though he spared the city's churches and hospitals.[16]
The rebuilding of the city was gradual. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the Freedmen's Bureau worked in tandem with a number of freedmen's aid organizations, especially the American Missionary Association. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital.[17] The Confederate Soldiers' Home was built to house disabled and elderly Georgia veterans from 1901 to 1941.[18] Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", one built on a modern economy, less reliant on agriculture. However, as Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 left at least 27 dead[19] and over 70 injured.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the movie based on Atlanta-born Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of the same name. Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and legendary producer David O. Selznick attended the gala, which was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, now destroyed. Leslie Howard had returned to England for the war.[20] The reception was held at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, which is still standing.
During World War II, manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population and economy. Shortly after the war, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded in Atlanta.[21]
In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta began to express themselves in acts of violence. On October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed; the synagogue's rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was an outspoken advocate of integration.[22] A group of anti-Semitic white supremacists calling themselves the "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility.
In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, as Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities played major roles in the movement's leadership. Two of the most important civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had their national headquarters in Atlanta. Despite some racial protests during the Civil Rights era, Atlanta's political and business leaders labored to foster Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools.[23]
African-American Atlantans demonstrated growing political influence with election of the first African-American mayor in 1973. They became a majority in the city during the late 20th century but suburbanization, rising prices, a booming economy and new migrants have decreased their percentage in the city from a high of 69 percent in 1980 to about 54 percent in 2004. The addition of new immigrants such as Latinos and Asians is also altering city demographics, along with an influx of white residents.[24]
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Atlanta became the third American city to host the Summer Olympics. The games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[25]
Contemporary Atlanta is sometimes considered to be an archetype for cities experiencing rapid growth and urban sprawl.[26][27] Unlike most major cities, metropolitan Atlanta does not have any natural boundaries, such as an ocean, lakes, or mountains, that might constrain growth.
The city has recently been commended by bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency for its eco-friendly policies.[28] In 2009, Atlanta's Virginia-Highland became the first carbon-neutral zone in the United States. Verus Carbon Neutral developed the partnership that links 17 merchants of the historic Corner Virginia-Highland shopping and dining neighborhood retail district, through the Chicago Climate Exchange, to directly fund the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project (thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia).
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Gotha 146 was a fast reconnaissance aircraft that was used throughout WWII by the German Luftwaffe, and one of the results of a mutual technology exchange program with Japan.
The Go 146 was actually a license-built, modified variant of the excellent Mitsubishi Ki-46. The latter type's career started in late 1937: the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force issued a specification to Mitsubishi for a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi Ki-15.
The specification demanded an endurance of six hours and sufficient speed to evade interception by any fighter in existence or development, but otherwise did not constrain the design by a team led by Tomio Kubo.
The resulting design was a twin-engined, low-winged monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It had a small diameter oval fuselage with the pilot and observer situated in individual cockpits separated by a large fuel tank. The engines, two Mitsubishi Ha-26 radials, were housed in close fitting cowlings to reduce drag and improve pilot view.
The first prototype aircraft, flew in November 1939 from the Mitsubishi factory at Kakamigahara, Gifu.Tests showed that the Ki-46 was underpowered, and slower than required, only reaching 540 km/h (336 mph) rather than the specified 600 km/h (373 mph). Otherwise, the aircraft tests were successful. As the type was still faster than the Army's latest fighter, the Nakajima Ki-43, as well as the Navy's new A6M2,an initial production batch was ordered.
To solve the performance problems, Mitsubishi fitted Ha-102 engines, which were Ha-26s fitted with a two-stage supercharger, while increasing fuel capacity and reducing empty weight to give the Ki-46-II. This machine was also demonstrated to German officials, who became immediately aware of its potential.
Knowing that the German Luftwaffe lacked this fast type of aircraft (German reconnaissance aircraft of that time were either slow artillery observation types, or variants of bombers or heavy fighters), the RLM immediately asked for a batch of airframe kits in order to adapt it to the European theatre and test its capabilities.
The result was a delivery of seven engine-less airframe kits that arrived in Germany in early 1940. In the meantime, with the help of blueprints and other documentations, an alternative engine installation had been devised - the German aircraft was to be powered by liquid-cooled DB 601 engines, which delivered more power than the Ha-102 and offered improved aerodynamics, despite the necessity to add radiators under the outer wings.Effectively, many stock parts from the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter were incorporated, so that development time was very short.
In May 1940 the first batch of the Gotha 146 (which had officially been described as a further development of a four seat, twin-engine transport aircraft from the 1930s) was ready, and they were immediately transferred to the Western Front and based in France.
Allocated to the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the Go 146 A-0 machines carried out various reconnaissance tasks over the North Sea, Great Britain and France, and they were also used for camouflage trials: each of the five aircraft sported a different paint scheme, raging from uniform, all-over grey to disruptive geometrical patterns, reminiscent of Dazzle camouflage!
The Go 146 was popular among its crews, since it was fast, agile and easy to fly. During the test phase in summer 1940 the Go 146 proved to be slightly faster than its Japanese Ki-46 ancestor, and with a top speed of more than 375 mph (600 km/h) it was hard to intercept by any British or French fighter. The results were so convincing that serial production was ordered, and from October 1940 on the Go 146 A-1 was produced in limited numbers, and the type was steadily developed further, including the change of the nose section that came withe the Ki-46III and augmented engines.
Specifications:
Crew: two (pilot and observer)
Length: 11.00 m (36 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in)
Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 8¾ in)
Wing area: 32.0 m² (344 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,263 kg (7,194 lb)
Loaded weight: 5,050 kg (11,133 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 5,800 kg (12,787 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Daimler-Benz DB 601B-1 liquid-cooled inverted V-12, 809 kW (1,100 hp) each
Performance:
Maximum speed: 625 km/h (345 knots, 388 mph) at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
Cruise speed: 400 km/h (217 knots, 249 mph)
Range: 2,474 km (1,337 nmi, 1,537 mi)
Service ceiling: 10,720 m (35,200 ft)
Wing loading: 157.8 kg/m² (32.3 lb/ft²)
Climb to 8,000 m (26,250 ft): 17 min 58 sec
Armament:
1x 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun in the observer's cabin, facing rearwards
The kit and its assembly:
This sounds like a weird idea, but the Luftwaffe had seriously been interested in the Ki-46, even though no aircraft ever made it to Europe. On the other side, several German aircraft were delivered to Japan (including the Bf 109E, Ju 87 and Me 210) for trials, so reversing this procedure makes sense.
Anyway, a German version would certainly not have been powered by radials, since this type of engine was not very popular in Europe and rather seen as a "slow" option for bombers. So the idea was born to convert a stock Ki-46 II into a prototype with German liquid-cooled engines - and it was easier to realize than expected!
The basis is the Airfix Dinah, a vintage and very simple kit. Fit is basically good, but the clear parts were (in my case) somewhat damaged around the edges of both canopies. Engines and landing gear are also basic - so I used different wheels, and the radials were replaced, anyway.
I used DB 601 engines, taken from an Airfix Bf 110 C kit, which also donated the radiators.
The latter were easy to place outside or the engine nacelles, the engines took some effort. The DB 601's height is perfect for the nacelles, just the width had to be enlarged in order to fit the original, circular shape of the radials' attachment points.
The remedy was simple: two long cuts in the upper cowling made the new engines flexible and wide enough to press them onto the nacelles' front ends! Some putty was necessary to hide gaps and smooth out the intersection, but the result looks very natural!
Otherwise not much was changed. The cockpits and the pilots were taken OOB, I just added a typical ring antenna under the fuselage and an additional pitot under the nose.
Painting and markings:
The fun part, even though it took a while to find something... different. The typical RLM 70/71/65 splinter scheme with a low waterline for prototypes or bombers of the BoB era was a valid option, but soooo boring.
While looking for inspiration I stumbled across some experimental schemes that had been tested on Bf109E fighters from JG53 - and that's what I finally settled upon.
What the Go 146 now carries is effectively a mix of two schemes: the stylish, geometric pattern was taken from one Bf 109, the colors (RLM 61/02/71/65) from another. Everything was painted with brushes and without masks, some light panel shading, black ink and grinded graphite were used for weathering.
The markings are minimal, typical for German reconnaissance aircraft of the time and based upon Bf 110 of the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the decals come from various aftermarket sheets and the code was puzzled together from single letter decals (TL Modellbau). A coat of acrylic matt varnish finally sealed the kit.
An exotic whif, and despite the weird basic idea I made it even more spectacular through the strange paint scheme which reminds of similar experiments by the US Navy. Odd thing is that I had the idea for a German Ki-46 on the agenda for quite a while, but this was/is to become a beefed-up Ki-46III for the late WWII period.
Building this kit's ancestor now, even before the Ki-46III conversion even started, is a little odd - but confirms the feasibility of an engine change and adds another contribution to the 2015 "Battle of Britain" Group Build at whatifmodelers.com.
The bitterest of pains,
I have swallowed endless times;
The most torturous of sorrows,
I have fought until oblivion and beyond;
Awake in the terror of its trace,
Trapped in the corner of my own mind;
I realize the source is none but,
The haunting ghost of lost opportunity…
Where in deceitful haven I have lied,
Enslaved by fears and bound by ignorance;
I have known no light of hope,
Neither warmth of a smile;
Now, in this hour of revelation,
I am to leave without looking back,
I am to meet all that has been avoided,
I am to reach through the murk of unknown,
I am to face the truth behind the veil of dread;
As my grasp expands above the obscurity,
I savage the constrains of fear and ignorance;
Ferociously I fight to extricate,
Incited by majestic passion for freedom;
Through the eyes of a wise man,
I see now what lies behind;
Inspirited essence, eternal and irrepressible,
Diminishing the once grave anguish;
Belittle my past fears,
Eradicate my worries,
Sunk and insignificant they have become;
As I raise splendid from the source of me,
I devote myself to the path of triumph;
I choose dedication over doubt;
I choose movement over hesitation;
I choose expression over conformity;
I choose authenticity over validation;
A heart unbridled will now shine;
Hungry for zestful life,
Eager for countless beginnings;
Ravishing beauty and ecstasy devoured insatiably,
This energy knows no bounds nor excuses,
It is to be the master of itself henceforth and forevermore…
© 2015 DOMGARTH
Aysgill Force is a beautiful and quite large waterfall near Gayle. Access is by way of a footpath that crosses several sheep filled fields before finally joining and following Gayle Beck. Understandably, due to the steep valley sides, the path provides limited viewing points of the falls all from above. Whilst this does constrain the opportunity for varied compositions, it does ensure that visitors get to see the falls in their wider context enclosed by surrounded by trees and shrub.
Absolutely wonderful evening at the 2024 Edinburgh International Book Festival last night. Acclaimed poet Raymond Antrobus was collaborating with the amazing Scottish musician Dame Evelyn Glennie, who has long been one of my musical heroines (I've seen her perform live several times, she's remarkable)
The theme of the work was "listening" - both the poet and internationally acclaimed musician are deaf, yet both have not only refused to allow that to constrain them, they have made it a part of themselves and their work, the way they communicate with the world through their art, and this event was just a beautiful example.
It was touching, warm, sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and very human. At one point Raymond had the sign language interpreter stand directly in front of him as he read, as if they were one voice, the one from the mouth, the other with hands and expressions, while Evelyn played.
Books, words, poetry and music, some of my favourite things, all stirring together then moving out across the audience to share. A very special evening.
This is only the second time I have been inside the new home of the book fest, the Edinburgh Futures Institute. I was in here back in early June for the programme launch (you can see the pictures a bit futher back in my timeline), which was in the same space as this event was in (although it can be reconfigured so it almost looked like a totally different space). I'm really liking the festival's new home.
Information from:
Atlanta (pronounced /ətˈlæntə/ or /ætˈlæntə/) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia.
As of 2008, Atlanta is the thirty-third largest city in the United States, with an estimated population of 537,958. Its metropolitan area, officially named the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA (commonly referred to as Metropolitan Atlanta) is the ninth largest metropolitan area in the country, inhabited by approximately 5.5 million people. Like most areas in the Sun Belt, the Atlanta region has seen explosive growth in the past decade, adding more than 1.13 million residents between 2000 and 2008. It is the fastest growing area of the United States behind the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.[3]
Considered a top business city and transportation hub,[4][5] Atlanta is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T Mobility, and Delta Air Lines. Atlanta has the country's fourth largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies inside city limits (although UPS, Home Depot, and Newell Rubbermaid are not in the city limits) and more than 75 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the metro area. Also the Atlanta metro area has the 11th largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies headquarters. [6] Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is located seven miles south of downtown Atlanta, is the world's busiest airport and the only major airport to serve the city.[7][8]
Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County and the fifth location for the seat of government of the state of Georgia. A small portion of the city of Atlanta corporate limits extends into DeKalb County. Residents of the city are known as Atlantans.[9]
History
Main articles: History of Atlanta and Atlanta in the Civil War
The land constituting the city of Atlanta was once a Native American village called Standing Peachtree. The land that became the Atlanta area was taken from the Cherokee and Creeks by white settlers in 1822, with the first area settlement being Decatur.
On December 21, 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwestern United States.[10] Following the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation between 1838 and 1839 the newly depopulated area was opened for the construction of a railroad. The area around the eastern terminus to the line began to develop first, and so the settlement was named "Terminus" in 1837. It was nicknamed Thrasherville after John Thrasher, who built homes and a general store there.[11] By 1842, the settlement had six buildings and 30 residents and the town was renamed "Marthasville".[12] The Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thomson, suggested that the area be renamed "Atlantica-Pacifica" after the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which was quickly shortened to "Atlanta".[12] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[13] By 1854, another railroad connected Atlanta to LaGrange, and the town grew to 9,554 by 1860.[14][15]
During the American Civil War, Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion. The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William T. Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible Confederate assets destroyed. The next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. He then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his march south, though he spared the city's churches and hospitals.[16]
The rebuilding of the city was gradual. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the Freedmen's Bureau worked in tandem with a number of freedmen's aid organizations, especially the American Missionary Association. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital.[17] The Confederate Soldiers' Home was built to house disabled and elderly Georgia veterans from 1901 to 1941.[18] Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", one built on a modern economy, less reliant on agriculture. However, as Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 left at least 27 dead[19] and over 70 injured.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the movie based on Atlanta-born Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of the same name. Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and legendary producer David O. Selznick attended the gala, which was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, now destroyed. Leslie Howard had returned to England for the war.[20] The reception was held at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, which is still standing.
During World War II, manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population and economy. Shortly after the war, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded in Atlanta.[21]
In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta began to express themselves in acts of violence. On October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed; the synagogue's rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was an outspoken advocate of integration.[22] A group of anti-Semitic white supremacists calling themselves the "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility.
In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, as Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities played major roles in the movement's leadership. Two of the most important civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had their national headquarters in Atlanta. Despite some racial protests during the Civil Rights era, Atlanta's political and business leaders labored to foster Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools.[23]
African-American Atlantans demonstrated growing political influence with election of the first African-American mayor in 1973. They became a majority in the city during the late 20th century but suburbanization, rising prices, a booming economy and new migrants have decreased their percentage in the city from a high of 69 percent in 1980 to about 54 percent in 2004. The addition of new immigrants such as Latinos and Asians is also altering city demographics, along with an influx of white residents.[24]
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Atlanta became the third American city to host the Summer Olympics. The games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[25]
Contemporary Atlanta is sometimes considered to be an archetype for cities experiencing rapid growth and urban sprawl.[26][27] Unlike most major cities, metropolitan Atlanta does not have any natural boundaries, such as an ocean, lakes, or mountains, that might constrain growth.
The city has recently been commended by bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency for its eco-friendly policies.[28] In 2009, Atlanta's Virginia-Highland became the first carbon-neutral zone in the United States. Verus Carbon Neutral developed the partnership that links 17 merchants of the historic Corner Virginia-Highland shopping and dining neighborhood retail district, through the Chicago Climate Exchange, to directly fund the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project (thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia).
Three outstanding Flying Crew Chiefs (FCC) were awarded with Meritorious Service Medals (MSM) by NYANG Commander Brig Gen Denise M. Donnell for actions during Operation ALLIES REFUGE.
MSgt Michael S. Roe’s MSM Citation:
Master Sergeant Michael S. Roe distinguished himself by outstanding achievement while assigned to the 105th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, Stewart Air National Guard Base. While assigned as a Crew Chief with a C-17 Aircrew staged in support of Operation ALLIES REFUGE, Sergeant Roe went above and beyond the realm of his normal duties. As he and his crew were waiting on the ramp at Al Udeid Air Base, a call came over the radio from an aircraft nearby experiencing multiple medical emergencies. As emergency services were heavily tasked, Sergeant Roe jumped at the opportunity to aid the medical officer assigned to his crew and accompanied him to the distressed airplane, where he learned, on the fly, to record blood pressure and pulse, identify signs of dehydration and heat stroke, and administer basic medical care to refugees with a litany of medical issues. Days later, after the crew’s medical officer was reassigned elsewhere, Sergeant Roe and his crew were tasked to evacuate over four-hundred refugees from Afghanistan. Without a medical crew member on board, Sergeant Roe stepped up, using the impromptu training he received to administer medical care to malnourished and ill refugees, issuing hydration packs and passing out his own food and candy to children. He stepped outside his role as a Crew Chief, doing what he could to improve a difficult situation, and embodied the core values of Service Before Self and Excellence In All We Do. The singularly distinctive accomplishments of Sergeant Roe reflect great credit upon himself, the Air National Guard, and the United States Air Force.
TSgt Craig A. Hernandez’s MSM Citation:
Technical Sergeant Craig A. Hernandez distinguished himself by outstanding achievement while assigned to the 105th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, 105th Airlift Wing, Stewart Air National Guard Base, Newburgh, New York. Sergeant Hernandez was the top-choice selection to be a Flying Crew Chief during Operation ALLIES REFUGE to Kabul, Afghanistan. As part of an aircrew of nine, Sergeant Hernandez executed the maintenance and upkeep of multiple 313 million dollar Air Force C-17 aircraft, resulting in the crew evacuating 1,476 Afghan refugees. His career field expertise and exceptional work ethic resulted in the expedient repair of a Special Operations Low Level II aircraft tasked on a no-fail mission in the last critical days of the evacuation. The aircraft sustained multiple generator failures and it became imperative to return it to service for additional no-fail missions. Sergeant Hernandez led a team of four engine and electrical maintainers in a time-critical situation to perform an expedient and effective repair in austere conditions. Finally, beyond excelling at his primary job as crew chief, Sergeant Hernandez was an ambassador of goodwill, personally attending to the health and welfare of Afghan refugees, providing food, water, extensive provisions, and medical care. The singularly distinctive accomplishments of Sergeant Hernandez reflect great credit upon himself, the Air National Guard, and the United States Air Force.
TSgt Byron A. Catu’s MSM Citation:
Technical Sergeant Byron A. Catu distinguished himself by outstanding achievement while assigned to the 105th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, 105th Airlift Wing, Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York. During this time, he was hand-selected to be a Flying Crew Chief during Operation ALLIES REFUGE to Kabul, Afghanistan. On the crew’s initial mission into Kabul, extreme airfield temperatures of over 115 degrees Fahrenheit resulted in a fuel overspill. Sergeant Catu recognized the emergency, immediately contained the situation, and directed responding emergency services. His plan of action saved the mission and ensured critical Special Operations cargo was delivered for the Afghan evacuation. Furthermore, on three separate missions into Kabul, the crew brought back hundreds of Afghan refugees. Following each mission, the aircraft was rendered unusable due to biohazard waste and the high operations temp constraining support personnel. Sergeant Catu went above and beyond his maintainer duties to ensure the aircraft was able to quickly return to their departure airfield where Sergeant Catu spearheaded the effort to expeditiously identify, fuel, and preflight another aircraft so the mission could continue. The overall mission success could not have been achieved without his outstanding professional skill and ceaseless efforts. The singularly distinctive accomplishments of Sergeant Catu reflect great credit upon himself, the Air National Guard, and the United State Air Force.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Gotha 146 was a fast reconnaissance aircraft that was used throughout WWII by the German Luftwaffe, and one of the results of a mutual technology exchange program with Japan.
The Go 146 was actually a license-built, modified variant of the excellent Mitsubishi Ki-46. The latter type's career started in late 1937: the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force issued a specification to Mitsubishi for a long-range strategic reconnaissance aircraft to replace the Mitsubishi Ki-15.
The specification demanded an endurance of six hours and sufficient speed to evade interception by any fighter in existence or development, but otherwise did not constrain the design by a team led by Tomio Kubo.
The resulting design was a twin-engined, low-winged monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage. It had a small diameter oval fuselage with the pilot and observer situated in individual cockpits separated by a large fuel tank. The engines, two Mitsubishi Ha-26 radials, were housed in close fitting cowlings to reduce drag and improve pilot view.
The first prototype aircraft, flew in November 1939 from the Mitsubishi factory at Kakamigahara, Gifu.Tests showed that the Ki-46 was underpowered, and slower than required, only reaching 540 km/h (336 mph) rather than the specified 600 km/h (373 mph). Otherwise, the aircraft tests were successful. As the type was still faster than the Army's latest fighter, the Nakajima Ki-43, as well as the Navy's new A6M2,an initial production batch was ordered.
To solve the performance problems, Mitsubishi fitted Ha-102 engines, which were Ha-26s fitted with a two-stage supercharger, while increasing fuel capacity and reducing empty weight to give the Ki-46-II. This machine was also demonstrated to German officials, who became immediately aware of its potential.
Knowing that the German Luftwaffe lacked this fast type of aircraft (German reconnaissance aircraft of that time were either slow artillery observation types, or variants of bombers or heavy fighters), the RLM immediately asked for a batch of airframe kits in order to adapt it to the European theatre and test its capabilities.
The result was a delivery of seven engine-less airframe kits that arrived in Germany in early 1940. In the meantime, with the help of blueprints and other documentations, an alternative engine installation had been devised - the German aircraft was to be powered by liquid-cooled DB 601 engines, which delivered more power than the Ha-102 and offered improved aerodynamics, despite the necessity to add radiators under the outer wings.Effectively, many stock parts from the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter were incorporated, so that development time was very short.
In May 1940 the first batch of the Gotha 146 (which had officially been described as a further development of a four seat, twin-engine transport aircraft from the 1930s) was ready, and they were immediately transferred to the Western Front and based in France.
Allocated to the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the Go 146 A-0 machines carried out various reconnaissance tasks over the North Sea, Great Britain and France, and they were also used for camouflage trials: each of the five aircraft sported a different paint scheme, raging from uniform, all-over grey to disruptive geometrical patterns, reminiscent of Dazzle camouflage!
The Go 146 was popular among its crews, since it was fast, agile and easy to fly. During the test phase in summer 1940 the Go 146 proved to be slightly faster than its Japanese Ki-46 ancestor, and with a top speed of more than 375 mph (600 km/h) it was hard to intercept by any British or French fighter. The results were so convincing that serial production was ordered, and from October 1940 on the Go 146 A-1 was produced in limited numbers, and the type was steadily developed further, including the change of the nose section that came withe the Ki-46III and augmented engines.
Specifications:
Crew: two (pilot and observer)
Length: 11.00 m (36 ft 1 in)
Wingspan: 14.70 m (48 ft 2¾ in)
Height: 3.88 m (12 ft 8¾ in)
Wing area: 32.0 m² (344 ft²)
Empty weight: 3,263 kg (7,194 lb)
Loaded weight: 5,050 kg (11,133 lb)
Max. takeoff weight: 5,800 kg (12,787 lb)
Powerplant:
2× Daimler-Benz DB 601B-1 liquid-cooled inverted V-12, 809 kW (1,100 hp) each
Performance:
Maximum speed: 625 km/h (345 knots, 388 mph) at 5,800 m (19,000 ft)
Cruise speed: 400 km/h (217 knots, 249 mph)
Range: 2,474 km (1,337 nmi, 1,537 mi)
Service ceiling: 10,720 m (35,200 ft)
Wing loading: 157.8 kg/m² (32.3 lb/ft²)
Climb to 8,000 m (26,250 ft): 17 min 58 sec
Armament:
1x 7.92 mm (.312 in) MG 17 machine gun in the observer's cabin, facing rearwards
The kit and its assembly:
This sounds like a weird idea, but the Luftwaffe had seriously been interested in the Ki-46, even though no aircraft ever made it to Europe. On the other side, several German aircraft were delivered to Japan (including the Bf 109E, Ju 87 and Me 210) for trials, so reversing this procedure makes sense.
Anyway, a German version would certainly not have been powered by radials, since this type of engine was not very popular in Europe and rather seen as a "slow" option for bombers. So the idea was born to convert a stock Ki-46 II into a prototype with German liquid-cooled engines - and it was easier to realize than expected!
The basis is the Airfix Dinah, a vintage and very simple kit. Fit is basically good, but the clear parts were (in my case) somewhat damaged around the edges of both canopies. Engines and landing gear are also basic - so I used different wheels, and the radials were replaced, anyway.
I used DB 601 engines, taken from an Airfix Bf 110 C kit, which also donated the radiators.
The latter were easy to place outside or the engine nacelles, the engines took some effort. The DB 601's height is perfect for the nacelles, just the width had to be enlarged in order to fit the original, circular shape of the radials' attachment points.
The remedy was simple: two long cuts in the upper cowling made the new engines flexible and wide enough to press them onto the nacelles' front ends! Some putty was necessary to hide gaps and smooth out the intersection, but the result looks very natural!
Otherwise not much was changed. The cockpits and the pilots were taken OOB, I just added a typical ring antenna under the fuselage and an additional pitot under the nose.
Painting and markings:
The fun part, even though it took a while to find something... different. The typical RLM 70/71/65 splinter scheme with a low waterline for prototypes or bombers of the BoB era was a valid option, but soooo boring.
While looking for inspiration I stumbled across some experimental schemes that had been tested on Bf109E fighters from JG53 - and that's what I finally settled upon.
What the Go 146 now carries is effectively a mix of two schemes: the stylish, geometric pattern was taken from one Bf 109, the colors (RLM 61/02/71/65) from another. Everything was painted with brushes and without masks, some light panel shading, black ink and grinded graphite were used for weathering.
The markings are minimal, typical for German reconnaissance aircraft of the time and based upon Bf 110 of the 14. Aufklärungsgruppe, the decals come from various aftermarket sheets and the code was puzzled together from single letter decals (TL Modellbau). A coat of acrylic matt varnish finally sealed the kit.
An exotic whif, and despite the weird basic idea I made it even more spectacular through the strange paint scheme which reminds of similar experiments by the US Navy. Odd thing is that I had the idea for a German Ki-46 on the agenda for quite a while, but this was/is to become a beefed-up Ki-46III for the late WWII period.
Building this kit's ancestor now, even before the Ki-46III conversion even started, is a little odd - but confirms the feasibility of an engine change and adds another contribution to the 2015 "Battle of Britain" Group Build at whatifmodelers.com.
Driven by immediate surrounding, little by little, machine deposits material while sensing and moving within it’s territory. Traces left by it’s passing alter the landscape it operates within step by step. Instant decisions solidify, aggregate and therefore shift or constrain its possible future trajectories. Moving away from industrial precision towards almost primitive, still mediated digitally ways of constructing and articulating the space poses a question wether material traces of networked culture have to be necessarily highly technological. Matter, whether tangible or virtual becomes a medium of record. Since there is no other blueprint than the behavior itself, resulting shapes gain their specificity from tool resolution, medium fidelity and saturation of generative processes leaving them as traces.
Information from:
Atlanta (pronounced /ətˈlæntə/ or /ætˈlæntə/) is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia.
As of 2008, Atlanta is the thirty-third largest city in the United States, with an estimated population of 537,958. Its metropolitan area, officially named the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA MSA (commonly referred to as Metropolitan Atlanta) is the ninth largest metropolitan area in the country, inhabited by approximately 5.5 million people. Like most areas in the Sun Belt, the Atlanta region has seen explosive growth in the past decade, adding more than 1.13 million residents between 2000 and 2008. It is the fastest growing area of the United States behind the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.[3]
Considered a top business city and transportation hub,[4][5] Atlanta is the world headquarters of The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T Mobility, and Delta Air Lines. Atlanta has the country's fourth largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies inside city limits (although UPS, Home Depot, and Newell Rubbermaid are not in the city limits) and more than 75 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies have a presence in the metro area. Also the Atlanta metro area has the 11th largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies headquarters. [6] Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is located seven miles south of downtown Atlanta, is the world's busiest airport and the only major airport to serve the city.[7][8]
Atlanta is the county seat of Fulton County and the fifth location for the seat of government of the state of Georgia. A small portion of the city of Atlanta corporate limits extends into DeKalb County. Residents of the city are known as Atlantans.[9]
History
Main articles: History of Atlanta and Atlanta in the Civil War
The land constituting the city of Atlanta was once a Native American village called Standing Peachtree. The land that became the Atlanta area was taken from the Cherokee and Creeks by white settlers in 1822, with the first area settlement being Decatur.
On December 21, 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western and Atlantic Railroad to provide a trade route to the Midwestern United States.[10] Following the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation between 1838 and 1839 the newly depopulated area was opened for the construction of a railroad. The area around the eastern terminus to the line began to develop first, and so the settlement was named "Terminus" in 1837. It was nicknamed Thrasherville after John Thrasher, who built homes and a general store there.[11] By 1842, the settlement had six buildings and 30 residents and the town was renamed "Marthasville".[12] The Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, J. Edgar Thomson, suggested that the area be renamed "Atlantica-Pacifica" after the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which was quickly shortened to "Atlanta".[12] The residents approved, and the town was incorporated as Atlanta on December 29, 1847.[13] By 1854, another railroad connected Atlanta to LaGrange, and the town grew to 9,554 by 1860.[14][15]
During the American Civil War, Atlanta served as an important railroad and military supply hub. In 1864, the city became the target of a major Union invasion. The area now covered by Atlanta was the scene of several battles, including the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the Battle of Atlanta, and the Battle of Ezra Church. On September 1, 1864, Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuated Atlanta after a four-month siege mounted by Union General William T. Sherman and ordered all public buildings and possible Confederate assets destroyed. The next day, Mayor James Calhoun surrendered the city, and on September 7 Sherman ordered the civilian population to evacuate. He then ordered Atlanta burned to the ground on November 11 in preparation for his march south, though he spared the city's churches and hospitals.[16]
The rebuilding of the city was gradual. From 1867 until 1888, U.S. Army soldiers occupied McPherson Barracks in southwest Atlanta to ensure Reconstruction era reforms. To help the newly freed slaves, the Freedmen's Bureau worked in tandem with a number of freedmen's aid organizations, especially the American Missionary Association. In 1868, Atlanta became the fifth city to serve as the state capital.[17] The Confederate Soldiers' Home was built to house disabled and elderly Georgia veterans from 1901 to 1941.[18] Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, promoted the city to investors as a city of the "New South", one built on a modern economy, less reliant on agriculture. However, as Atlanta grew, ethnic and racial tensions mounted. The Atlanta Race Riot of 1906 left at least 27 dead[19] and over 70 injured.
On December 15, 1939, Atlanta hosted the premiere of Gone with the Wind, the movie based on Atlanta-born Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel of the same name. Stars Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and legendary producer David O. Selznick attended the gala, which was held at Loew's Grand Theatre, now destroyed. Leslie Howard had returned to England for the war.[20] The reception was held at the Georgian Terrace Hotel, which is still standing.
During World War II, manufacturing such as the Bell Aircraft factory in the suburb of Marietta helped boost the city's population and economy. Shortly after the war, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded in Atlanta.[21]
In the wake of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, racial tensions in Atlanta began to express themselves in acts of violence. On October 12, 1958, a Reform Jewish temple on Peachtree Street was bombed; the synagogue's rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was an outspoken advocate of integration.[22] A group of anti-Semitic white supremacists calling themselves the "Confederate Underground" claimed responsibility.
In the 1960s, Atlanta was a major organizing center of the Civil Rights Movement, as Dr. Martin Luther King and students from Atlanta's historically black colleges and universities played major roles in the movement's leadership. Two of the most important civil rights organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had their national headquarters in Atlanta. Despite some racial protests during the Civil Rights era, Atlanta's political and business leaders labored to foster Atlanta's image as "the city too busy to hate". In 1961, Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. became one of the few Southern white mayors to support desegregation of his city's public schools.[23]
African-American Atlantans demonstrated growing political influence with election of the first African-American mayor in 1973. They became a majority in the city during the late 20th century but suburbanization, rising prices, a booming economy and new migrants have decreased their percentage in the city from a high of 69 percent in 1980 to about 54 percent in 2004. The addition of new immigrants such as Latinos and Asians is also altering city demographics, along with an influx of white residents.[24]
In 1990, Atlanta was selected as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Following the announcement, Atlanta undertook several major construction projects to improve the city's parks, sports facilities, and transportation. Atlanta became the third American city to host the Summer Olympics. The games themselves were marred by numerous organizational inefficiencies, as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.[25]
Contemporary Atlanta is sometimes considered to be an archetype for cities experiencing rapid growth and urban sprawl.[26][27] Unlike most major cities, metropolitan Atlanta does not have any natural boundaries, such as an ocean, lakes, or mountains, that might constrain growth.
The city has recently been commended by bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency for its eco-friendly policies.[28] In 2009, Atlanta's Virginia-Highland became the first carbon-neutral zone in the United States. Verus Carbon Neutral developed the partnership that links 17 merchants of the historic Corner Virginia-Highland shopping and dining neighborhood retail district, through the Chicago Climate Exchange, to directly fund the Valley Wood Carbon Sequestration Project (thousands of acres of forest in rural Georgia).
MARSYAS/MYSELF
MYSELF Diptych, Detail
Below is a transcription of the handwritten text on the detail pictured above:
Art
Desire—Creativity—Release
"To embrace absence. To cradle and enfold the freedom and purity of immolation. To distill all need into the heavy metal of desire. To need no allies. To know that there are no allies. To know. To find sustenance in the ashes. To set corms into the ashes and bring forth all that which is no longer there. This is not despair. From this place springs the emptying of self after the purging of ambition. From this place springs Art. I have pitched my tent in this verdant wasteland of contradiction and set no value on any other place. From this vast horizontal, only the horizon defines me. A speck of desire on a polished orb. I hold in amputated hands the future of the future and have dedicated my life to the poverty of self-awareness. I am not afraid. I want nothing. I have no regrets. Let me speak for Art. Let me speak as Art. Am I not qualified? I have destroyed the audience and created silence. For myself, I have created the silence. Silence, then, will be my audience. As Art creates silence, Art speaks for silence. I speak for myself. Am I not qualified? I speak to the silence. Listen. I have established the eternal present. It is on this scale are all illusions weighed. I judge nothing. I am the shifting paradox of possibility. Nothing more. I am now. Nothing more...but there is a caveat: I am of human invention. Like nature, I am. Like rocks and rivers and the passing of days, I am. I exist when perceived. I impose my existence when engaged. Through perception, I confound the conception of time. Through engagement, I re-create myself within the living Now. I am more ancient than the caves of Lascaux and when perceived, I confront human consciousness with the power of Isness. I have no past. Like nature, I am. But within the caveat of human invention, I am born of desire. Though I am the most enduring of human enterprise, my purpose is unclear. Let me speak to this. Some would claim that I exist to illustrate the passage of time thus supporting the invention of history. But history has to do with memory and the cataloguing of events, a neatly arranged rationale of cause and affect, one influence on another through linear time. But this is not my purpose. Because I exist, like nature, in the eternal now, I belie such definition. To impose such limitations on my purpose is to confine me to the cage of intellect. If one accepts this definition, it is he who lives inside the cage, not I, though I concede a certain compassion for this usage as it enables the blind a kind of vision. But I am made of fiercer stuff. Compassion is not my purpose. My purpose is to destroy illusion. Linearity is my enemy and because I exist always in the now, to impose linearity upon me is to pervert my purpose. I am created when perceived. Being born of desire, I mirror the desire of the perceiver. Together we confirm the eternal now. There is no history, only the encapsulated instant of recognition. Only the birth of silence. Only the transforming re-creation of the creator. A duet and a paen to the purging light. I am the by-product of the creator’s desire to create himself. Having himself been created through the purging light of re-creation, his pursuit of the light causes my potential for creation. How simple it seems. What obvious and unquestionable truth. As light feeds the eye and sound the ear, odor the nose, friction the touch and taste the tongue, the now is created and sustained. So, too, is Art. Because I am created by the perceiver, my creation is sporadic and serendipitous. I am of the moment. I am in the now. As long as my materiality exists, my potential for conversion exists, from noun to verb, objectivity to response. Artifact to Art. Those who would force me into linearity turn actions into events and anchor my identity within the reflective mirror of history. They fear me. They fear what they cannot see. They fear what they cannot feel. They fear what they cannot control. They fear chaos. But I, too, have a protocol. Because it alters and redefines their position does not preclude their viability. It simply means that they serve me rather than I them. This is not chaos. It requires only the acceptance of a more humble role. Simply put, the protocol for my Isness is thus: The artist creates himself. The culture-maker creates metaphor. And the perceiver creates Art. Obviously, the recognition of this shift in roles requires an almost total restructuring of the cultural gestalt. I flourish and propagate within the eternal feminine. Masculine entelechy is a hostile and barren landscape. It would nullify my purpose. In this arid desert of the intellect, my sensuality is veiled in sand. I am contained and controlled, bourkhaed in masculine fear. To restrict and confine my purpose to the identity of the artist is to re-enforce linearity, history, knowledge, and illusion. For the one who makes me, I am but a by-product of self-creation. Hermaphroditically conceived within the artifacts of desire, I exist solely for the purpose of connection. He who makes me is not she who creates me. Art is conceived within the womb of perception. I exist when I am created without prejudice, cultural correctness, or linear logic. As for taste, good and bad have nothing to do with my inception. Moral judgment serves group identity. These strictures cannot constrain my birthright. I exist where I am perceived. There is no such thing as good or bad art; there is only Art and I am created by the perceiver. All else is artifact. Whenever and wherever I am perceived, Art exists. The fusion that occurs between making and creating forces my becoming and reinforces the eternal now. This fusion is the peak of human experience: Being without metaphor, simile, or trope. As with physical orgasm, the orgasm of aesthetic response is not filtered through the intellect. The experience defines itself through a tautology of sensation. How would one define an orgasm? It simply is. Though procreation is its purpose, procreation is not its definition. This is true also of aesthetic orgasm. Though cultural enhancement is its practicality, the sensation of response is indefinable. Orgasm is the ultimate reality. It is wordless and transcends all boundaries. Its communication is total, a connection so intense that ones existence is confirmed. Some speak of me in terms of spirit; the response I invoke, a religious catharsis. I think not. Religiosity distorts my purpose, and spirit separates me from my totality. Appreciation is another facet of response, as is beauty, as is seduction. I am a gestalt of many metaphors. No one characteristic defines me. I am defined by the indefinable. Totality. When I occur, when Art occurs, it is with the violence of disconnection and the sublimity of connection. In the moment of my creation, the armor of the intellect is pierced with the turgescent light of recognition and my creator is filled with my maker’s desire for self-creation. Because I am a gestalt of many metaphors, by examination and deletion, metaphor by metaphor, I shall define my purpose. Through distillation, I might define my purpose. Because I am all of these and no one of these, my totality is indefinable, unexplainable. My outline can be etched by describing what I am in part and through deconstruction that which presses out may be released. In the orgasm of my inception, the perceiver is disconnected from the linear masculine and enveloped within the spherical feminine. This episode, this moment, this lifetime is my birth. Art is realized within the bourn of the creator. The variables of causation for orgasmic perception are infinite, chaotic, and serendipitous. Like the artifacts that induce the sensation, connection occurs when connection occurs, without judgment or foreplay. Two basics exist for my creation: attraction and seduction...Art can happen to anyone with any artifact at any time. There is no such thing as good or bad Art; there is, however, such a thing as profound or mediocre orgasm. Only the perceiver can distinguish the experience. Whether the orgasm is sexual or aesthetic, it occurs within the bourn. It belongs to the perceiver and no other. It lies beyond the reach and control of the culture-maker’s protocol of intimidation. Culture is my enemy. For it to exist, it must defeat my purpose. For a culture to exist, it must establish its identity on the necklace of linear time. This beaded processing of artifacts and events called history would place one of myriad metaphors above all others as my defining gestalt. That art as evidence defines me is a perversion of my purpose. It would use me as decoration rather than the defining force of human Isness. It is my entirety that defines my purpose and that entirety is revealed with the bourn of the perceiver. That Art is a reflection of its time is as much a truism as Art History is an oxymoron. This propagandizing of a single metaphor as my defining purpose is the ultimate confusion of artifact with Art. Most of my metaphors tie me to concepts of culture and group identities. Two do not. That Art is beauty and that Art is truth may pit the perceiver against the active and pervasive cultural metaphor of the perceiver’s time and require a degree of courage and a desire for self-creation through the orgasm of response with its residual euphoric sense of enlightenment. I have brought perceivers to their knees and tears to their eyes. I have no peer in terms of emotional power and epiphanic response. My ability to split the individual from the numbing complacency of the group can be cataclysmic. My potential to induce the insurrection of solitude is extreme. Of all my metaphors, Art is beauty and Art is truth are linked in controversy. They tend to provoke heated and emotional intellectual criticisms and commentaries on idealism, romanticism, ignorance, taste, sophistication, naivete, sophism, empiricism, fascism, egalitarianism, aesthetics, history, historicism, elitism, and on and on and on. These two metaphors are the intellectual battlefield on which the war between culture and Art is fought. It is a conflict that cannot, will not, and must not be resolved, for it is through this conflict that humankind’s evolution transpires: individual enlightenment vs. cultural control, freedom vs. repression, individual courage vs. group fear. Life vs. death. Art is entertainment is the metaphor whose dominance most contorts and ridicules my purpose. It perverts human endeavor and diverts the search for being. It requires audience, gratification, and applause thus embedding my determination in linear time. It is a crippling, procrustean enabler of social control. This metaphor, with its sibling, Art is money, reduces my significance within the cultural gestalt to product, and my maker, a comedian on the stage of trivialities. These metaphors breed nihility without the blandishments of hope. Their fertility is cancerous eating away the potential for joy and replacing it with the immediacy of amusement. And though pleasure is often a part of me, it is subsidiary to my purpose. Culture is my enemy because it selects a single metaphor from my pantheon of metaphors to define my significance within its gestalted singularity in linear time. It manipulates me to control individual response and maintain the status quo. That Art is entertainment and that Art is money are metaphors of a fearful culture, stagnant and repressive, hostile to excellence. These metaphors, if taken as my primary distinction, condemn my artifacts to flaccid mediocrity. This is not a judgment against the majority; rather, it is a complaint for the minority which seeks neither to be entertained nor to buy and sell art. Their desire leads toward challenge rather than pacification and materialism. They are forced to seek me outside the paradigm of the culture of entertainment. This most self-creating segment of culture is driven into the linear past to create the eternal now. Branded as elitists, these futurists secure my furtherance. The most avid culture-makers force the artifacts of first appearance as their definitions of my being. Newness, however, does not define me; it reflects, rather, their own ambitions. Art is created by the perceiver regardless of cultural imperative. The culture-maker has no purchase in this transaction. Nor does history. The shoulds and shouldn’ts of cultural propriety are the shoulds and shouldn’ts of cultural identity. Exactly that. To be culturally correct has to do with the ordering of the group, not with the creation of Art. The perceiver may or may not create Art from the acceptable artifacts of the culture. If the perceiver cannot, Art will be created outside of that culture’s prerogatives. I exist when and where I am created. No authority can prejudice my becoming. My essence is amoral. Because aesthetic orgasm is my purpose, I do not qualify the means of attainment whether by attraction and consent or rape. Seduction or surprise, my inception is irrepressible. I occur within the being of the perceiver and my only recordation lies within the perceiver’s bourn. My only history is aesthetic memory. Cultural and artifactual history lie within the purview of the intellect. Further deconstruction of my gestalt would be the metaphor Art is communication: what the perceiver reads into me, what he is told to read into me, and what is discussed about me. It is through communication that the hierarchy of the culture is established, promoted and maintained. Constructed on military, traditionally proven protocols of control, words used like cattle-prods direct and channel large segments of the cognoscenti into an oligarchy of historical distinction. This oligarchy is dependent on an elite group of culture-makers which has jockeyed itself into positions of authority through education, political wisdom, and brilliance of intellect, qualities which have nothing whatever to do with my creation. How tribal the human condition! How masculine the fierce competition for advancement and retainment of control, rank, and command. The ordering of culture is controlled from the top down. With military pragmatism, the ordering of culture-making proceeds from the upper ranks of the culturally elite and descends through the various levels of worth, wealth and sycophantism. Through response, curiosity, education, intimidation, and imposition, culture-makers initiate, propagate and maintain cultural correctness through the various structures of communication. The artists of any culture are not necessarily culture-makers; all induce aesthetic orgasm and thus the creation of Art. Through communication, culture-makers create history. Through silence, perceivers create Art. Happily, for the evolving human condition, we are not mutually exclusive. As cultures invent and record the repetitions of linear time through the alphabets of history, I await discovery by the perceiver within the artifacts of silence. Words do not enhance my perception. Alphabets of communication obscure my purpose, bits and pieces, shards of descriptive analyses opaque my seduction. Aesthetic orgasm does not occur within the mind; it occurs unexpected and unexplained within the fertile bourn of the perceiver. My inception can be neither induced nor denied by instruction or imperative. Acculturation is my enemy. It muddies and opaques my transparency of purpose. Noise. Business. Confusion. I am recorded within the wisdom of myth rather than the knowledge of history. Transformed by the tongues of silence into the nodding recognition of self, I await my perceivers. I am discovered where I am found. Without qualification or judgment, I mark their journeys. As history records the alphabet of repeat, Myth affords the epiphanies of evolvement. Myths are connections within the eternal now for the self’s process of becoming. They transport my significance. My most expedient and perplexing metaphor is: Art is what artists make. This truism absolves the culture-maker from the advancement of aestheticism to the promotion of artists. Celebrity becomes product and its creation becomes culture. On the beaded necklace of linear time, this metaphor is of little moment. Its artifacts are created and sustained by contrivance: Culture-makers create culture-makers who create history. The perceiver, the artist who creates me, re-creates my maker in the eternal now. Through this creation-re-creation, one sees what the other seeks. This is my purpose. This is Art.
Subsequent to the completion of STUDIO SECTION 2002-2005, Marsyas/Myself, the artist created another studio section, STUDIO SECTION 2005-2007, The Seven Deadly Sins and Three Diptychs from The Winter Notebooks. On Pages 7 and 8 of The Winter Notebooks he reprised MARSYAS/MYSELF in retrospect visual and verbal consideration and wrote the following excerpt about it:
"Marsyas/Myself was completed in 2005 and entered into the permanent collection of the Crocker Art Museum in November of that same year. My three year involvement with this studio section was epiphanic and liberating, the separation nearly complete. However, the song of the artist, the skin of Marsyas, hangs heavy and will not be silenced. It lingers still, as Myself lingers still, and will not be silenced. As long as artists create artifacts and as long as viewers persist in creating Art from these artifacts, the myth of Marsyas is the truth of the artist; his life, his pain, his ecstasy, and his fate. By subjection of myself as a particular artist in equation with the corpus of Marsyas, an attempt was made to recast the drama of art into an anti-fascisttic and non-authoritarian process; a complete reassignment of roles wherein the viewer becomes the sole creator of Art and all else is cultural rhetoric. It was also an attempt by this artist at total honesty. As we know virtually nothing about Marsyas, it was my intention to reveal everything about Myself even to the extent of confessional boredom. All information has been made available to the viewer. Setting the plight of Marsyas in his challenge of Apollo within the context of a contemporary sculptor’s studio establishes the parallel of the cautionary myth with all artists who would gamble their lives on a rigged contest. There is no drama greater than the artist’s struggle with his own mortality. The transmutation of mortal desire into material artifact into immortal response is the distinguishing principal of humanity and it is the artist who personifies this principal in its sublime purity. No challenge is greater, no reality more intense. Marsyas is the artist’s myth and it is to this myth all artists conform…."
STUDIO SECTION 2002-2005, Marsyas/Myself is a multi-part installation work that requires a space approximately 40' x 40' for exhibition in its entirety. It consists of free-standing sculptures, and large panels hanging on the walls and a combination of these and evenly divided into two metaphorical dimensions: "Marsyas" and "Myself."
Collection:
Crocker Art Museum
Sacramento, California