View allAll Photos Tagged constraining
This shot was inspired by David Hobby's shot but given my own spin.
Ulla spends a lot of time in this chair reading each day. Why not put her to a spot that she's most comfortable in?
I originally planned to take this shot in landscape orientation but there was just too much miscellaneous crap outside the frame (door frames, electrical plugs, etc). I was shoot with a 35mm prime so moving back and shooting in landscape orientation wouldn't really work. There was not enough room to use my 85mm prime and the field of view would be too narrow for what I want to achieve anyway. Definitely a good challenge shooting with so many constrains. :)
Bob Lai Photography | Facebook Fan Page | Twitter | Email
580EXII into gridded Qbox24 camera left, Cybersync.
Looking at how the shadows are falling on the wall I think I should have moved the light more on-axis...
The day starts at 7:30 am with a 40-minute drive to the Punta Bandera dock to take a boat on Lago Argentino to Upsala Glacier, a large valley glacier on the eastern side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its higher portion lies in a disputed territory between Chile and Argentina. The glacier terminus is at Upsala channel of Lago Argentino. The Upsala Glacier is well known for its rapid retreat that has been ongoing since the glacier was first documented in 1810. The glacier showed almost continual recession up until 1999. The acceleration in ice motion during the two decades preceding 1999 may have been augmented by the release of backstress when the glacier retreated beyond the islands in Brazo Upsala. Another period of even faster retreat started in 2008. As of 2018 Upsala Glacier has retreated to such degree that it no longer constrains its tributary Bertacchi Glacier. The boat then drops us off at the Estancia Cristina, an Argentine cattle and sheep ranch located inside Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz Province. It is here that we take a 4x4 for 45 minutes up a mountain, stop and continue up for another 20 minutes, reaching the summit around 12:30 pm. The ranch was founded in 1914 by Joseph Percival Masters, an Englishman who came to Patagonia with his wife in 1900; Estancia Cristina is named for Masters' daughter Cristina. Located on the coast of Brazo Cristina, a northern channel of Lago Argentino, Estancia Cristina still keeps the history of the Masters family alive. Its lodge has 20 rooms distributed over 5 buildings and it his here that we had lunch followed by a presentation of the traditional Mate, an Argentinean tea and a tour of the ranch. We then take the boat back to Punta Bandera and arrive back at the hotel at 8:00 pm.
Into the future
29 December 2017 By Lisa Jucca
Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne will soon be heading for Fiat Chrysler’s off ramp. As directors consider who should succeed him, Breakingviews imagines what advice a consultant might give.
Distinguished members of the FCA board,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our thoughts on Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, after Sergio Marchionne’s planned 2019 departure. His extraordinary achievements, unique management style and dominant presence will be a tough act to follow.
Marchionne was the right person for the job, despite a lack of industry experience when he took the wheel in June 2004. His direct, pugnacious and intrepid approach was what was needed to turn around a moribund Fiat and get insolvent Chrysler back on the road.
Shareholders, including top owner Exor, have so far received a 900 percent total return on FCA stock, 2.6 times the industry average. Those who held on to their stakes in spun-off CNH and Ferrari have even more to cheer about. Combined, these two were worth $37 billion as of Dec. 7, 45 percent more than their erstwhile parent company.
There are, however, gaps to be addressed: FCA’s pretax margin may almost double to 5.3 percent in 2017, an admirable achievement. But it remains lower than most competitors and the company is subscale – points Marchionne has acknowledged.
Spending a lot more time both in and on China is critical for Marchionne’s replacement. The Middle Kingdom is now the world’s biggest car market: vehicle sales surpassed 28 million in 2016, about a third of global demand.
FCA’s 2014 deepening of its alliance with Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group has not gone far enough. Its sales were 176,000 in 2016 against about 4 million for VW. Your company is falling a long way short of its 2014 goal of selling 850,000 vehicles by 2018.
Next, the new chief needs a solid understanding of the tech world to steer FCA through unprecedented industry disruption. Marchionne has been reluctant to make big financial bets in new technology, in large part because he has been a vocal sceptic of electric cars.
He has a point. Questions remain about the environmental impact of lithium batteries and the availability of cobalt and other materials. Now, though, China is vowing to ban petrol and diesel cars by 2040, so having battery-powered vehicles will be essential to compete. France and the United Kingdom are talking a similar line.
Fiat Chrysler also lags rivals in connected and autonomous cars, having outsourced most work to Alphabet’s Waymo. Such a conservative R&D approach made sense given FCA’s high debt. And getting regulators and customers comfortable with self-driving vehicles may well take a while. Marchionne has been speeding up in this area lately. But General Motors’ plan to get robo-taxis in U.S. streets by 2019 suggests FCA needs to move even faster.
That brings us on to our next point. M&A skills, a defining Marchionne trait, remain a requirement. Preparing FCA for the future calls for more joint ventures, taking stakes in startups or buying them outright. The prospect of FCA merging with a more traditional rival currently appears to be off the table, but it cannot be ruled out; as Marchionne himself said in his 2015 presentation “Confessions of a Capital Junkie”, carmaker returns are being hurt by each of them spending vast amounts replicating basic or non-differentiating functions. The push for electric and autonomous vehicles will exacerbate this.
We would also caution against choosing just one replacement for Marchionne. There’s no need for joint CEOs. But we’d note that Marchionne put on too many hats. He runs the entire company, is chairman and CEO of both North America and Ferrari, where he’ll stay on after leaving FCA, and is chair of Maserati and CNH.
We laud your decision to seek stability by looking to promote people who are graduates, shall we say, of the “Marchionne School”. Finance chief Richard Palmer, Jeep boss Michael Manley and EMEA Chief Operating Officer Alfredo Altavilla are all worthy choices. But we urge you not dismiss the idea of outside candidates, if only for some of the roles below the CEO level.
Finally, the sooner you can announce the new CEO, the better. Marchionne is planning to unveil a new five-year plan in 2018. That could constrain his successor, who needs to own the plan, not simply inherit it. After all, FCA does not need a Marchionne copycat, but someone who can decisively drive it into the future.
The day starts at 7:30 am with a 40-minute drive to the Punta Bandera dock to take a boat on Lago Argentino to Upsala Glacier, a large valley glacier on the eastern side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its higher portion lies in a disputed territory between Chile and Argentina. The glacier terminus is at Upsala channel of Lago Argentino. The Upsala Glacier is well known for its rapid retreat that has been ongoing since the glacier was first documented in 1810. The glacier showed almost continual recession up until 1999. The acceleration in ice motion during the two decades preceding 1999 may have been augmented by the release of backstress when the glacier retreated beyond the islands in Brazo Upsala. Another period of even faster retreat started in 2008. As of 2018 Upsala Glacier has retreated to such degree that it no longer constrains its tributary Bertacchi Glacier. The boat then drops us off at the Estancia Cristina, an Argentine cattle and sheep ranch located inside Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz Province. It is here that we take a 4x4 for 45 minutes up a mountain, stop and continue up for another 20 minutes, reaching the summit around 12:30 pm. The ranch was founded in 1914 by Joseph Percival Masters, an Englishman who came to Patagonia with his wife in 1900; Estancia Cristina is named for Masters' daughter Cristina. Located on the coast of Brazo Cristina, a northern channel of Lago Argentino, Estancia Cristina still keeps the history of the Masters family alive. Its lodge has 20 rooms distributed over 5 buildings and it his here that we had lunch followed by a presentation of the traditional Mate, an Argentinean tea and a tour of the ranch. We then take the boat back to Punta Bandera and arrive back at the hotel at 8:00 pm.
This single exposure image was shot on a borrowed Sony α7 MkII and Sony Zeiss FE 24-70 f/4 ZA OSS at 1/1500 sec at f/4.0, IS100 24mm focal length. I imported the single image into Adobe Lightroom.
The following Adobe Lightroom adjustments were made to the image.
* Shadows to 50 and highlights to -50 to reduce some of the "hot" areas of the sky.
* Contrast to -6, white clipping to 7.
* Exposure to 0.60
* Enable profile corrections and constrain crop
* Colour temperature to 12, and tint to 3.
I used with the edit with Lightroom adjustments feature to bring the image into Adobe Photoshop. I used Photoshop content-aware fill to remove several street lights that stuck up from the lower half. I think they detracted from the image.
The edited image was then imported back into Adobe Lightroom where I adjusted the orage and yelllow to 33 respectively.
The oases of the Maghreb region are green islands flourishing in a constraining and harsh environment. They are home to a diversified and highly intensive and productive system, which has been developed over millennia.
The Ghout Oasis system El Oued was designated in 2011 and is celebrating its’ 10th anniversary on year 2021. The site has been focusing on creating associations which can work on the dynamic conservation of the site. Due to these efforts, the local community has learned about the importance of the heritage and has been working towards protecting their system. There was an increase in the number of farmers after designation and increase in the price of dates produced in the Oasis system. Activities were also conducted to safeguard biological diversity.
Photo credit must be given: Photo courtesy of GIAHS Algeria - Ghout System. Editorial use only.
More information:
The day starts at 7:30 am with a 40-minute drive to the Punta Bandera dock to take a boat on Lago Argentino to Upsala Glacier, a large valley glacier on the eastern side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its higher portion lies in a disputed territory between Chile and Argentina. The glacier terminus is at Upsala channel of Lago Argentino. The Upsala Glacier is well known for its rapid retreat that has been ongoing since the glacier was first documented in 1810. The glacier showed almost continual recession up until 1999. The acceleration in ice motion during the two decades preceding 1999 may have been augmented by the release of backstress when the glacier retreated beyond the islands in Brazo Upsala. Another period of even faster retreat started in 2008. As of 2018 Upsala Glacier has retreated to such degree that it no longer constrains its tributary Bertacchi Glacier. The boat then drops us off at the Estancia Cristina, an Argentine cattle and sheep ranch located inside Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz Province. It is here that we take a 4x4 for 45 minutes up a mountain, stop and continue up for another 20 minutes, reaching the summit around 12:30 pm. The ranch was founded in 1914 by Joseph Percival Masters, an Englishman who came to Patagonia with his wife in 1900; Estancia Cristina is named for Masters' daughter Cristina. Located on the coast of Brazo Cristina, a northern channel of Lago Argentino, Estancia Cristina still keeps the history of the Masters family alive. Its lodge has 20 rooms distributed over 5 buildings and it his here that we had lunch followed by a presentation of the traditional Mate, an Argentinean tea and a tour of the ranch. We then take the boat back to Punta Bandera and arrive back at the hotel at 8:00 pm.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Having seen a few of these floating around on Flickr I wanted to give it a go myself, so to the Drove Road I went armed with my camera, a tripod and very vague idea of what it was I wanted to do.
I think it came out fairly well for a first attempt, the trees are a little more distorted than I would have liked but other than that it's not bad!
There aren't too many clear tutorials for this online and with each photo I saw I wanted to know how they did it, so here's my 'workflow'.
Standing with the Tripod directly in the center of what you can see above, I did the following:
Step 1- 360 degree Panorama of the landscape around, try if you can to keep the horizon straight.
Step 2- Panorama of the path I was stood on.
Step 3- Walk back through a field of scary cows (because apparently the path wasn't good enough).
Step 4- Get home and have a cigarette. Recommended
Step 5- Merge the Panoramas in Photoshop separately. (If you don't have Photoshop, PC users can use Autostitch, and for Mac users Hugin. Both free!)
Step 6- This is the part that's complicated and you ideally want Photoshop for it. (You can do the same thing in Gimp though, also free.)
Taking your Landscape panorama you want to resize it so the 'Height' value is the same as the 'Width'. To do this go to Image > Image Size from the menu bar, copy the width value and paste it into the height. Make sure 'Constrain Properties' is un-ticked.
Step 7- Now you want to flip the image upside down: Image > Rotate Canvas > 180°.
What you have now is pretty ugly looking but don't worry! The next step will fix that.
Step 8- From the menu bar choose Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates and press Ok!
You're half way there, but the rest is up to you, you're going to want to patch up the corners and any overly distorted parts using the other pictures you took, including the panorama of the path/ground.
Have fun!
Apologies for the massive wall-of-text description, I will sort out a blog post and link to that rather than having it all here!
(Taken on 12/06/2010)
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
from JRhoan (check my contacts)
About Yosemite Indians
Basic Facts
The Yosemite Valley Plan was recently approved and is in full swing within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park. The first of many projects centered within the Lower Yosemite Falls area has begun in one of the most heavily visited areas of the park. The National Park Service(NPS)who has promised to preserve the environment, history,and culture within the boundaries of the park has failed miserably at keeping their promise to the indigenous people of the Yosemite Valley.
Oral history tells us that the Yosemite Indians have been indigenous to Yosemite National Park since the beginning of time. Written history as well archaeological recovery data places the people in the parameter of Yosemite as early as 500 B.C. The NPS now claims this information is incorrect and is systematically trying to erase the oral history by replacing it with new data, which suggests the Yosemite Indians are extinct and that the last of them died due to plague brought on in the 1800's. Under the direction of Kathleen Hull PH.D.,Anthropologist(U.C.Berkley), the written history is being changed to fit the needs of the NPS. "
Though the NPS claims the Yosemite Indians have been wiped out,in a 1997 Memorandum of Understanding(MOU), the NPS has allowed remnants of this group to gather traditional native plants which include bracken fern as well as mushrooms. Now, they are removing these areas of traditional significance to make way for progress under the Yosemite Valley Plan, violating any and all agreements they made with the indigenous people of this area.
In the first project initiated by the National Park Service called "The Lower Yosemite Falls Corridor Project" so many losses to Indian culture as well as the environment will occur. Why? The National Park Service hides behind "enhancing the visitor experience" with a Disneyland atmosphere. Some of the main points not all of this project are listed below:
The Lower Falls project is located in an area once inhabited by Chief Ten-ie-ya, had one of the largest villages (Koom-I-Nee) which is under the area of question.The village is approximately 3 miles in length and is scheduled for total removal of obliteration. In previous archaeological discoveries(and on more than one occasion) the unearthing of human remins have been found in this area. These remains have been determined to be American Indian. The NPS denies that such remains exist even though Kathleen Hull, Anthropologist, has documented discoveries. Along with this , other discoveries have been found such as tools,obsidian flake, and beads used by Indians in the past.
This area also encompasses 56 sensitive acres of braided stream, black oak, and helimushrroms that cannot be reforested in other areas. These items are important traditional plant use.
Although awash in flood recovery money, the NPS allowed the Lower Falls area to degrade purposely to create a sense of urgency so they could begin this plan under a guise of a "Restoration Plan". This plan is far from a restoration plan-it is a total obliteration plan to American Indian history, native plants animal populations as well as sensitive ecosystems.
Widening and Adding Pathways: These pathways are actually being routed through untouched areas that contain rare bat roosting areas as well as sensitive ecosystems; also an ancient undisturbed archaeological site determined to belong to the Indians of the valley.
Disrupting,Degrading and Destroying History, Culture and Ethnographic areas belonging to the Yosemite Indian: Plans to create new trails through these areas in order to provide the visitor with a more urban landscape comes first instead of protecting Indian culture as outlined in a 1997 MOU.
The NPS has hidden the true devastation by shuffling the impacts:
Bridges: Six new bridges have been added which will prevent natural stream meandering.
A new bathroom constructed in a sensitive archaeological area that requires protection. This area will suffer because of the digging of new sewer lines when in reality the old lines can be replaced.
It is a total and absolute falsehood that the Yosemite Indians (the NPS, who have indicated don't exist) have agreed with the NPS plans to install this bathroom in this location even though at every opportunity the NPS claims this is true and precise information.
By relocating the shuttle bus stop you now spread visitors (as well as impacts) to again trample sensitive gathering areas, also impact historic, ancient and prehistoric sites, which have been well documented. The new shuttle stop will be located to allow passengers to disembark directly in front of sensitive gathering areas.
The Yosemite Valley Plan calls for allowing natural processes to revail yet this plan constrains hydrology and in turn upsets sensitive ecosystems continuity.
Today, this project is on the fast track to completion with the public remaining mostly clueless to the actual impacts that this plan will bring about. This plan does nothing but degrade,desecrate,and fails to enhance the natural beauty and pristine wilderness areas along with the long history of Indian occupation which is soon to be lost to bulldozers and $12,500,000 dollars donated by corporations such as Chevron Texaco. True Indian history will be removed from this area and replaced by fabricated NPS lies that accommodate only the Federal Government's quest to carry on their tradition of Indian Removal and Extermination
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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.
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...
- * -
Free Cultural Spaces
Christiania
Christianias Kulturforening
www.christianiaskulturforening.dk
Free Christiania *
www.flickr.com/photos/sterneck/albums/72157693213298290
- * -
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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Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture
Sixth Death Anniversary, 29 July 2005
International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo
The political formation of cultures
Dilivered by | Narendra Subramanian
Outcomes such as the sharpening of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and the growth of Tamil nationalism in Tamil Nadu are often seen as political expressions of deep-seated cultural mores and cultural differences. Even if the levels of conflict or cooperation between ethnic groups may vary depending on changing political circumstances, the boundaries between these groups are themselves often taken to have been cast long before mass political movements mobilised people based on group identity. If ethnic kin living in different states feel an affinity with each other and act on that basis, this is often considered a natural expression of group belonging. Ethnic mobilisers lend such views credence when they claim to express the enduring spirit of cultural groups.
Does identity-based mobilisation express a pre-existing cultural logic? Or does it form the cultures it claims to represent? My work on the Dravidian parties of south India points to the political salience of different visions of community in Tamil Nadu from the early decades of the 20th century to the 1950s. On the one hand, the main representative of pan-Indian nationalism, the Congress party, was much stronger than the political vehicles of Tamil nationalism through this period. On the other, many activists of the pan-Indian parties shared Tamil nationalist sentiments. The Dravidian parties mobilised behind appeals to the middle and the lower castes at least as much as to the glory of the Tamil language and the need
for the greater recognition of this language. However, their relationships with the associations of particular intermediate and lower castes were fraught with tension, and such associations allied themselves as often with pan-Indian parties as with the Dravidian parties. If the Dravidian parties appealed to marginal groups, so did the communists, who spoke the language of class more than that of caste even while they drew much of their support from lower caste groups. These ideologically diverse political forces aggregated the concerns of a range of Tamil Nadu’s major groups in different ways, and enjoyed significant pockets of support by the 1950s. The cultures of 20th century Tamil Nadu could clearly be incorporated into different political projects, articulating various views of political community.
The Dravidian parties of Tamil Nadu were not exceptional in their ambiguous relationship with the local cultures that preexisted their growth. The Pakistan movement claimed to represent the Muslims of British India, who they claimed constituted a distinct nation. Yet, the All India Muslim League, which led this movement, enjoyed greatest support until the late 1930s in regions which remained a part of India after decolonisation, rather than the Muslim-majority regions, most of which became a part of Pakistan in 1947. So, the party’s leadership was largely drawn from Muslim-minority areas and reflected the concerns of Muslim elites in these regions. The Pakistan movement spread rapidly to most Muslim-majority regions (except Kashmir) through the 1940s due to the growth of anxieties that Muslims would be marginalised in a Hindu majoritarian postcolonial India. It was also significant that the leaders of the Muslim League crafted coalitions with Muslim political and religious elites in the Muslim-majority areas.
Did the social terrain of late colonial Southasia make the emergence of a movement representing a distinct Muslim nation very likely, perhaps inevitable? Some features of the colonial state’s understanding and governance of British India made religious identities important bases of solidarity. Religion was the major basis on which colonial officials categorised the population of British India, although they also gave importance to caste and language. This was best reflected in the census exercise, which aggregated the members of particular religious groups into communities of definite sizes. Credible claims to represent religious groups often gained people access to state patronage. Separate electorates were carved out for Muslims. These were among the reasons for the growth of mobilisation behind religious identity, specifically the formation of the Muslim League. Muslims being the second largest religious group, and forming the majority of the population in large areas of British India also aided the imagination of the Muslims of colonial India as a nation.
However, incentives remained strong to mobilise along other lines too, such as language, caste and class. They urged the majority of the Muslims of British India to support parties and movements not primarily associated with religious banners until the late 1930s. For instance, the Krishak Praja Party which dominated Bengali politics in the 1930s drew substantial support from both Muslims and Hindus, and the Unionist Party which dominated Punjabi politics through the same period counted many Hindus, Muslims as well as Sikhs among its supporters. Even in the Muslim-minority provinces, only a minority of the Muslims voted for the Muslim League a decade before the formation of Pakistan. The nature of late colonial Indian society clearly left space for political alternatives not based mainly on religious identification.
If colonial knowledge and colonial institutions privileged religious identity in India, they privileged language identity in Sri Lanka. While this encouraged mobilisation behind language identity, it did not rule out other forms of solidarity. The revival of Buddhism was a more important focus of mobilisation than the promotion of the Sinhala language through the first half of the 20th century, and remained an important aspect of Sinhala nationalism even later. Buddhist revivalists sometimes opposed Sinhala-speaking Christians more than Tamil-speakers in the early decades of the last century. While various Sri Lankan Tamil elites presumed to lead all the residents of the country who spoke the Tamil language, their efforts encountered resistance among Tamil-speaking Muslims as well as Tamil-speaking plantation workers. This led to the formation of distinct parties representing these groups, the Muslim Congress and the Ceylon Workers’ Congress, which continue to play significant roles in Sri Lankan politics. Later Sri Lankan Tamil political forces would respond to such impudence with attempts to expel Muslims from the eastern province. Contrary to the claims of many later Sinhala and Tamil militants, it was not preordained that language would be the major cleavage in the postcolonial Sri Lankan polity.
Identity and cultural change
If identity movements and parties do not express group cultures in the only ways in which they can be expressed, do they reshape cultures in the process of mobilisation? If they are successful in gaining considerable support among their target community, do they thereby come to represent group culture in important ways? What changes in institutions and strategies accompany such political formations of culture?
Identity-based political forces attempt to sharpen group boundaries to clearly delineate the groups they wish to mobilise and differentiate them from other proximate groups. This is true to some extent even of movements which are inclusive to an extent and deploy subtly-layered identities.The Dravidian movement was one such political force. One of the its major leaders, C N Annadurai, the founding leader of the DMK, related in his journal Nam Naadu an experience he had while engaged in an agitation in 1953 to augment the territory that would be part of the state of Madras, later renamed Tamil Nadu. Language identities were crucial in this context as the boundaries between the states of Madras and Andhra Pradesh were being drawn along the lines of language use. Annadurai was campaigning in the regions that are now along the borders between these states. When he asked a shepherd he met in the course of his campaign whether he was a Tamil or a Telugu, he found to his dismay that the categories and distinction he introduced meant nothing to the boy. Perhaps the boy’s speech included words from both languages. Perhaps the boy was aware of Tamil and Telugu as referents to languages, but not to the identities of individuals.
Annadurai bemoaned what he considered the boy’s low level of ethnic consciousness, clearly wishing to urge people to assume a definite and exclusive language identity. The shepherd in question did not seem to suffer because he did not share his interrogator’s classificatory scheme. I understand that the same was not true of individuals who attempted to reject the vision of the so-called rioters who questioned them about their ethnic identity on the streets of Colombo on 29 July 1983. Over a generation of ethnicised politics had sharpened the boundaries between the two categories that mattered most, Sinhala and Tamil, so that people could not evade their comprehensive and mutually exclusive character. In response to the question, “Are you Sinhala or are you Tamil?”, answers such as “Sri Lankan” and “Christian” made little sense that day.
The ways in which political forces construct group cultures are associated with particular political strategies. For instance, the dominant constructions of Sri Lankan Tamil identity until the 1970s emphasised the long history of literary production in Tamil. This view of Tamil identity was associated with the significant roles of group members in Western education and the bureaucracy, and with electoral participation to promote constitutional changes such as the introduction of federalism and the greater official recognition of Tamil. The Tamil Congress and the Federal Party, the major Sri Lankan Tamil parties of the first postcolonial generation, had limited success in achieving these goals. The decrease in the recruitment of Sri Lankan Tamils to the bureaucracy and the professions suggested that aptitude in education would be no guarantee of reasonable life chances. The army’s attack on the Jaffna Library in 1981 directly destroyed some of the textual artefacts which occupied a central place in the sense of identity of many Sri Lankan Tamils. These circumstances raised questions for many Sri Lankan Tamils about the viability of an ethnic strategy focused on electoral participation and recruitment to the bureaucracy, and the value of a predominantly textual construction of group identity. The militant movement, which came to dominate Sri Lankan Tamil politics from the 1980s, adopted an alternative strategy of armed insurgency, perhaps for secession. It associated this strategy with a reconstructed group identity emphasising the military powers of ancient Tamil kingdoms and memorialising the militants who died in the civil war of the last two decades.
Identity-based political forces vary in the extent to which they aim to promote cultural change. They may be divided into two ideal-types: first, those which instrumentally deploy cultural banners to help build broad social coalitions and gain access to resources and power; and second, those which prioritise cultural change, sacrificing some support, resources and power if necessary to promote the norms they value. Instrumental identity movements usually keep their constructions of group culture capacious, to broaden the coalition which can identify with such a cultural vision. Movements such as the Pakistan movement, the Bangladesh movement, Hindu nationalism, Kashmiri nationalism, and Moro nationalism belong to this category.
The Pakistan movement’s major leaders were modernists, in some cases atheists, who operated with a secular geography of a Muslim-majority state or autonomous region. However, they also built alliances with some religious literati (ulema) and invited some of the faithful to entertain a millenarian vision of Pakistan as the land of the pure. Meanwhile, Hindu nationalists claimed to offer an inclusive cultural vision of the Hindu as he (not she) who conceived India as his fatherland, his native land and his sacred land. They focused on the practices of the upper and upper-middle castes of northern and western India to animate their sense of Hindu identity, but also reached out to other groups - the middle and the lower castes, and eastern and southern Indians. The Moro nationalists of the southern Philippines used the Moro category, which the Spaniards had employed in earlier centuries, to refer to the Muslims of Spain, North Africa and the Philippines. This blanket category included the speakers of different languages - the Tausug, the Maguindanao and the Maranao; and included people with different attitudes towards the relative value of local customs and textual Islam.
The purposive type of identity movement specifies group norms more precisely, and equates them with the practices it values. The Sikh movement in India, the Islamist movements of Malaysia and Indonesia, and the Protestant fundamentalists of the United States are examples of such movements. The Sikh movement associated Sikh identity primarily with the practices of the Gobindpanthi sect, and built a vision of the Sikh man as a militaristic lion among certain agrarian and artisanal castes. In the process, it marginalised sects like the Nanakpanthis which regarded Sikh tradition differently, as well as the lower castes. The main party which emerged from this movement, the Shiromani Akali Dal, deployed such a vision of Sikh identity, although in the process it lost the support of most Sikhs of the lower castes to its major competitor, the Congress party. Some Sikh secessionists of the 1980s attacked members of the Nirankari sect located along the Sikh-Hindu boundary as much as they attacked those who identified themselves exclusively as Hindus. Many Islamists of Indonesia value the so-called santri practices associated with either Islam’s founding texts or the practices of the Arab peninsula, in the process abandoning the so-called abangan Muslims more attached to local custom.
If identity-based movements and parties mobilise considerable support, their understanding of group culture and the style in which they articulate this understanding acquire some authority. Group members who are uncomfortable with such characterisations or opposed to them face the dilemma of either conforming to the dominant style and swallowing their misgivings or risking marginalisation. This is particularly true of purposive identity movements. The Sikh movement associated in the popular imagination the image of the Sikh man with practices initially specific to the Gobindpanthi sect such as the wearing of long hair and a turban, and carrying a double-edged knife or sword. The Islamists of Southeast Asia increased practices originating in the Arab peninsula such as the wearing of the hijab and the burqa among Muslim women, and devalued local practices such as wearing the sarong, providing daughters inheritance rights equal to those of sons, and recognising extensive post-divorce rights for women. Besides, they increased popular knowledge of Islam’s founding texts, as well as contact with the Arab world.
Even instrumental identity movements often introduce some changes in group practices and in the institutional recognition of these practices, although they do not prioritise such changes. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Pakistan movement, was an atheist who did not observe Muslim taboos against drinking liquor and eating pork. However, he began to assemble the coalition for the formation of Pakistan through the introduction of the Muslim Personal Law Application Act (also called the Shariat Act) in India’s Central Assembly in 1937. This Act decreed that Islamic law, rather than customs specific to sect, caste and region, would govern India’s Muslims in most family law matters. Jinnah saw in the Act’s recognition of British India’s Muslims as sharing a way of life a basis to argue that this group was a distinct political community. By initiating the passage of the Act, the Muslim League gained the support of sections of the ulema, who wanted somewhat conservative interpretations of Islamic law to govern family life among India’s Muslims.
This step, which the Muslim League took to consolidate a coalition in favour of the formation of Pakistan, reinforced in the eyes of many of the Muslims of Southasia the link between Muslim identity and being governed by Anglo-Muhammadan law. Anglo-Muhammadan law is the hybrid jurisprudence which emerged in the courts of colonial India by interpreting aspects of Islamic legal tradition in terms of British common law. The link between Muslim identity and Islamic law did not get weakened in the three countries which emerged from British India - Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. This was an important reason why Anglo-Muhammadan law continued to govern the family life of Muslims in these countries, with some modifications. The Pakistan movement’s path to success, thus, had an enduring effect on the regulation of aspects of everyday life among most Southasian Muslims.
The cultural effects of other instrumental identity movements were more closely related to the movements’ construction of group culture. For instance, Hindu nationalists valued the extensive use of words originating in Sanskrit, the language of many major Hindu texts, when speaking and writing the Hindi language. They increased the use of Sanskritic words among their core support groups, as well as in the official media when they were in power in India or in particular Indian states. The Dravidianists helped develop and deployed a form of Tamil in which the usage of words originating in Sanskrit or other North Indian languages was reduced. The political dominance of the Dravidianists gave the form of Tamil the Dravidianists preferred a preponderant role in public speech and the media. It relegated the more Sanskritic variants of Tamil largely to the homes of the Brahmin upper caste. Brahmins, who typically use a Sanskritic Tamil dialect, had to adopt the new Tamil if they were to succeed in political life.
Prior alignments, pre-existing cultures
Do successful identity movements erase preexisting cultural affinities, social solidarities, political alignments and material cultures which are not compatible with their construction of group identities? Considerable evidence suggests that prior affinities, solidarities and cultures resist the homogenising drives of identity movements, even if these movements gather considerable support. To return to the example of the Pakistan movement, its rapid growth through the last colonial decade changed partisan alignments dramatically in the regions that became part of Pakistan in 1947. The Muslim League, which was barely present in these regions in 1937, won the elections of 1946 there, handily for the most part.
However, a crucial reason for the institutional growth of the Muslim League in the future Pakistan was the incorporation into the Muslim League of much of the Muslim components of some parties with prior local strength, like the Krishak Praja Party in Bengal and the Unionist Party in the Punjab. Such province-specific political forces retained their distinctive concerns even while they supported the demand for Pakistan. For instance, considerable autonomy for the provinces, the official recognition of the Bengali language, and the substantial redistribution of agricultural land were major priorities of the leaders of the Krishak Praja Party. This was true of Fazl-ul Haq, who led the Krishak Praja Party. The repression of the agitations in Bengal against the introduction of Urdu as Pakistan’s sole official language urged Fazl-ul Haq to leave the Muslim League to revive his earlier party in 1953 with a slightly different label, the Krishak Sramik Party. Parties like the Krishak Sramik Party joined hands to rout the Muslim League in all the provinces in Pakistan’s first provincial elections of 1954. The Muslim League had clearly not overcome prior alignments and concerns, which became more prominent after the formation of Pakistan.
Pre-existing regional parties and the concerns of language groups were not the only sources of opposition to the early postcolonial Pakistani regime. The name Pakistan referred both to the regions included in early dreams of the country’s territorial contours and to the millenarian promise that this country would be a land of the pure. The latter interpretation was particularly relevant to the religious literati and seers who campaigned for the country’s formation. These groups and those they moved were dismayed when Jinnah, Pakistan’s first Governor General, declared in his speech to mark the transfer of power from the British that Pakistan would be a secular country. They had greater influence over early postcolonial policy-making than the Bengali nationalists did. So, the first Constituent Assembly could not decide on the role of religion in public life, delaying the adoption of a constitution until a different non-elected assembly adopted one nine years after Pakistan’s formation.
Prior affinities, solidarities and cultures mediate the cultural effects of enduring political forces like the Dravidian parties as well, and not just forces which rise and fall rapidly like the Muslim League. While the Muslim League fragmented and declined soon after Pakistan’s formation, the Dravidian parties dominated politics in Tamil Nadu for almost four decades and continue to do so. The extent and social composition of support for the Dravidian parties and the orientations of their activists and supporters varied across region. These developments depended crucially on prior patterns of stratification and solidarity; and the strength, support bases and orientations of rival parties.
Political formation of culture in Sri Lanka
Having addressed the impact of various identity-based political forces on group boundaries, group cultures, and patterns of contention, it would be peculiar if little was said about Sri Lanka considering that ethnic politics plays a central role here, and the possibility is in the air of compromise over some of the central issues that have divided the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil militant movement for long. So, I venture some comments on the political formation of culture in Sri Lanka earlier and the prospects of its re-formation now.
There have been changes in the ways that major Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic mobilisers constructed group identity with the emergence of the militant movement. The strategies of an earlier generation of Sri Lankan Tamil politicians involved electoral participation, electoral alliances with the major Sinhala parties, and non-violent agitation for constitutional change. The ethnic composition and geographic distribution of the population, the existence of a unitary state, the emergence of an ethnicsed party system, the tendency of the two major parties to outbid each other on Sinhala majoritarian policies and promises, and the first-past-the-post electoral rules gave the parties of the Sri Lankan Tamils very little ability to achieve their major goals. Sinhala majoritarianism grew and led to incidents of anti-Tamil violence of increasing frequency and intensity.
This led to the emergence of militant groups, their resort to armed insurgency, and the adoption of the goal of secession by some militant groups. An embrace of militarised constructions of Tamil culture accompanied these strategic choices. If many Sri Lankan Tamils felt that they and their community could seek justice only by taking to arms, the circumstances had much to do with the growth of this feeling. The militant movement appeared to hold the promise of giving Sri Lankan Tamils a more effective political voice, and contributing to the deepening of democracy.
The situation began to change in the mid-1990s. After over a decade of civil war, a sense grew among Sinhala policy-makers and Tamil militants that the war could not be won, and the feeling increased among many civilians that the war was a series of harrowing losses. This changed the context in which periodic negotiations took place between the contending parties to the civil war. A significant body of opinion grew within the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and United National Party in favour of compromise on the crucial issues of the devolution of power and official language policy so that the war could be ended. This enabled the rise of politicians open to the introduction of such changes to the leadership of the two major parties. The pressure exerted by the militant movement was crucial to the emergence of these changes. If some powerful Sinhalese no longer roared like lions, this was crucially because some Tamils had growled like tigers for some time. The constriction of the militants’ transnational resource networks, especially since 11 September 2001 also pressed the militants to consider compromise and the abandonment of secessionism.
The militant movement made possible openings for compromise and a peace more just than the one that preceded the civil war. However, the militarised construction of Tamil ethnicity and the strategic orientations which accompany it at least delayed a settlement, and might still prevent one. If the circumstances of the 1970s and the 1980s called forth a militaristic formation of Tamil culture, the situation today requires the re-formation of political culture.
We can only hope that the pressures operating on both sides will lead to a settlement. If peace is to endure, it is crucial that a pluralistic polity be built. An important step towards this end is the effective contestation of militarised constructions of Sinhala and Tamil ethnicity. While visions which contest militarism exist, attacks from ethnic extremists eroded the sub-cultures embodying these visions. These sub-cultures need to be revitalised. The growth of alternative visions of identity and citizenship should constrain those who might wish to continue to roar like lions and growl like tigers. Or rather, more people should learn that the beasts of the jungle coexist at least as often as they threaten or attack each other, even if they see themselves as lions or tigers. Some of the legacies of the long civil war and the terms on which it ends may hinder efforts to build alternatives to militarism. However, peace will only brighten the prospects of such alternatives.
Neelan Tiruchelvam was a reform-minded Member of Parliament and legal scholar who advocated a peaceful solution to the ethnic Tamil rebellion against the Sinhala-dominated Sri Lankan state. He was assassinated by a suicide bomber in Colombo in 1999. The International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) in Colombo, of which Tiruchelvam was founder director, has since 1999 been conducting The Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Millennium Lecture Series. This article is a version of the latest in the lecture series, The Political Formation of Cultures: South Asian and Other Experiences presented by political scientist Narendra Subramanian on 29 July 2005, and is printed here with permission of ICES. The earlier lectures were as follows:
Re-imagining the State, by Blandine Krigel, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Politics, University of Paris, May 1999
Nationalism and Self-Determination: Is There an Alternative to Violence? by Michael Ignatieff, London-based writer, historian and broadcaster, 19 March 2000
Human Rights: Political Conflict and Compromise, by Ian Martin, Former Secretary-General of Amnesty International, 30 July 2000
International Tribunals: Justice by Prosecution, by Patricia Viseur Sellers, Office of the Prosecutor, International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the Hague, 21 October 2000
No Greater Sorrow: Times of Joy Recalled in Wretchedness, by Amitav Ghosh, Novelist, Anthropologist, Professor of Comparative Literature, City University of New York, 29 July 2001
Truth and Reconciliation in Times of Conflict: The South African Model, by Alexander Boraine, President, International Centre for Transitional Justice, 29 July 2002
Whose Face is that I See, by E. Valentine Daniel, Professor of Anthropology and Philosophy, Columbia University, 29 July 2003
Justice and Human Rights for All: The Key to Peace and a Sustainable Worlds, by Clare Short, British Labour Party politician and MP, 9 October 2004
For more details, go to www.icescolombo.org/Neelan
And so it begins, the planning for my first layout! The Bukit Timah Station Station has two sidings and a main line that leads to a Truss Bridge that goes into the 'Forested area' - marked by the cute lego trees (of course not final forest design) where the hidden sidings are to park other trains. The Station -> 'Forested Area' direction simulates the journey from Singapore to Woodlands and subsequently Malaysia. The whole layout will be sitting on an elevated 'land' to allow space for a road to go under the truss bridge. A little simple shunting can happen in front of the station before being sent away on the main line. Happy with how this looks given the space constrains. Now to slowly order the parts...
The oases of the Maghreb region are green islands flourishing in a constraining and harsh environment. They are home to a diversified and highly intensive and productive system, which has been developed over millennia.
Dominated by the date palm, intertwined with trees and crops, these ancient systems produce a surprising variety of fruits and vegetables, cereals and forages, medicinal and aromatic plants. The palm groves offer shade and lower the ambient temperature, making it the best place to live in the Sahara and an important place of recreation.
The systems of production and irrigation and the culture of the oases vary between the different locations in correspondence to their environment. There are oases in continental, mountainous, as well as in littoral areas. With their rich diversity these oases systems constitute an agricultural and cultural heritage.
Photo credit must be given: Photo courtesy of GIAHS Algeria - Ghout System. Editorial use only.
More information:
The day starts at 7:30 am with a 40-minute drive to the Punta Bandera dock to take a boat on Lago Argentino to Upsala Glacier, a large valley glacier on the eastern side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its higher portion lies in a disputed territory between Chile and Argentina. The glacier terminus is at Upsala channel of Lago Argentino. The Upsala Glacier is well known for its rapid retreat that has been ongoing since the glacier was first documented in 1810. The glacier showed almost continual recession up until 1999. The acceleration in ice motion during the two decades preceding 1999 may have been augmented by the release of backstress when the glacier retreated beyond the islands in Brazo Upsala. Another period of even faster retreat started in 2008. As of 2018 Upsala Glacier has retreated to such degree that it no longer constrains its tributary Bertacchi Glacier. The boat then drops us off at the Estancia Cristina, an Argentine cattle and sheep ranch located inside Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz Province. It is here that we take a 4x4 for 45 minutes up a mountain, stop and continue up for another 20 minutes, reaching the summit around 12:30 pm. The ranch was founded in 1914 by Joseph Percival Masters, an Englishman who came to Patagonia with his wife in 1900; Estancia Cristina is named for Masters' daughter Cristina. Located on the coast of Brazo Cristina, a northern channel of Lago Argentino, Estancia Cristina still keeps the history of the Masters family alive. Its lodge has 20 rooms distributed over 5 buildings and it his here that we had lunch followed by a presentation of the traditional Mate, an Argentinean tea and a tour of the ranch. We then take the boat back to Punta Bandera and arrive back at the hotel at 8:00 pm.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
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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Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Along Foul Bay Rd., in Oak Bay, across the "Tweed Curtain" from Victoria, BC.
The downhill side of the street is in Saanich, a larger suburb, though borders are often incidental in the fractures of history that have the British Columbia capital divided into 13 municipal entities, each with its own identity and own approaches to local and regional issues. Transportation management and system design is jealously protected in municipal engineering departments, perhaps more so by the protective oversight of local and neighbourhood residents who are insistent on their involvement in system design - sometimes contradictory, but always necessary.
Foul Bay, looking north, heads further into Oak Bay, skirting Saanich along the way, and morphs into Henderson Rd., both main routes to the University of Victoria, the single highest trip generator for cycling traffic in the Capital Region.
The paired bike lanes, too narrow on the Saanich side of the road, are compromised by the reluctance on the Oak Bay side to dispense with the perceived entitlement of free on street parking.
The gap on the bike lane towards the crest of the hill is a little bit parking and a lot more design.
The facility is nearly two decades old, one of the earliest triumphs of local cycling advocates to build an on street network of bike lanes to supplement an emerging new off road trail that was taking shape on the now familiar Galloping Goose, though as is the case with most dedicated multi-use trails across North America, the Goose is a reclaimed rail corridor, not something that criss-crosses urban neighbourhoods or serving multiple and diverse trip generators and major destinations.
Alignment of the intersection that can be discerned in the high centre background of the photo, is offset and awkward. Perhaps more lanes than are needed facilitate through and turning traffic in all directions, constraining the space available to link the bike lane with the fresher section that awaits the other side of the cross-street at the intersection.
It's a near perfect illustration of an axiom turned on its head. Some voices in the community can't see the trees for the forest.
Fixing a few hundred metres here and there, tackling a specific gap or focusing thought and rethinking design on targeted intersections can be as important as the visionary projects that re-imagine a corridor or offer fresh new approaches to system wide design. Intersections are often the most challenging of engineering problems and more worrisome too for cyclists navigating their way through the complexity of movements and the allocation of space and timing.
Progress in Oak Bay is glacial in pace, it too need a nudge or a push to focus efforts on key fixes that will help weave a regional cycling network together.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
oil on wood & mdf
2005
68" x 68" x 2"
collection of Tandem Public Relations
All of my paintings, prints, publications and more can be found at www.brycehudson.com
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
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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The day starts at 7:30 am with a 40-minute drive to the Punta Bandera dock to take a boat on Lago Argentino to Upsala Glacier, a large valley glacier on the eastern side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its higher portion lies in a disputed territory between Chile and Argentina. The glacier terminus is at Upsala channel of Lago Argentino. The Upsala Glacier is well known for its rapid retreat that has been ongoing since the glacier was first documented in 1810. The glacier showed almost continual recession up until 1999. The acceleration in ice motion during the two decades preceding 1999 may have been augmented by the release of backstress when the glacier retreated beyond the islands in Brazo Upsala. Another period of even faster retreat started in 2008. As of 2018 Upsala Glacier has retreated to such degree that it no longer constrains its tributary Bertacchi Glacier. The boat then drops us off at the Estancia Cristina, an Argentine cattle and sheep ranch located inside Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz Province. It is here that we take a 4x4 for 45 minutes up a mountain, stop and continue up for another 20 minutes, reaching the summit around 12:30 pm. The ranch was founded in 1914 by Joseph Percival Masters, an Englishman who came to Patagonia with his wife in 1900; Estancia Cristina is named for Masters' daughter Cristina. Located on the coast of Brazo Cristina, a northern channel of Lago Argentino, Estancia Cristina still keeps the history of the Masters family alive. Its lodge has 20 rooms distributed over 5 buildings and it his here that we had lunch followed by a presentation of the traditional Mate, an Argentinean tea and a tour of the ranch. We then take the boat back to Punta Bandera and arrive back at the hotel at 8:00 pm.
Hawaii ain't got nothin' over Utah when it constrain bows, apparently!
Panoramic photo created with an iPad.
17 October 2015
This photo shows a batch of aluminium air pucks before assembly. Three units are used together to build air sleds used in our research into how our brain controls arm movements. An air sled is sometimes needed to constrain the movement of the arm in a plane and supports the weight of the lower arm on a cushion of air. High pressure air is blown through the brass connector and comes out of the air puck through a hole in the base, resulting in a very low friction air bearing. Air pucks built by John Beavis in the Department workshop.
What is Mortgage?
Mortgage refers to an understanding that permits a money lender to take property when a borrower neglects to pay. In most cases, it refers to a home loan where the lender can constrain you out of the property, sell it, and gather the cash despite everything you owe.
Mortgage and “Home Loan” are often used conversely. For real estate transactions, there should be written agreement, so a home loan is an archive that gives your money lender the privilege to foreclose on your home.
Types of Mortgages
Mortgages are regularly utilized by customers, but organizations can even buy property with this. There are following types of mortgages offered generally.
Altered Rate Mortgages:
You calculate to what extent it will take to pay off all the main and interest, and then you touch base at a regularly scheduled installment. You will pay the same monthly installment through the whole term of the altered rate mortgage. Of course on the off chance that you offer your home before the end of the term, you can simply pay off the parity that you owe.
Second Mortgage:
A second mortgage is a loan that uses your home as security – like a credit you may have used to buy your home. The loan is known as a “second” mortgage in light of the fact that your purchase loan is often the primary credit that is secured by a lien on your home.
Now, you have access to more than you could get without utilizing your home as guarantee. The amount which you would be able to acquire relies upon your lender, yet you may hope to get up to 80% of your home’s estimation.
Conceded Beginning:
You may need a ‘conceded begin’ when you take out your mortgage. Conceded begin or poor start contracts permit you to defer the beginning on repayments on your home loan for various months. Your lender will charge interest on the home loan for these months and add it to the original loan. So your mortgage balance will ascend before you start to make repayments.
With a specific end goal to know more about mortgage types log on to our site www.stopforeclosure.co
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
The focus of my research is an examination of the daily lives of South Asian women, specifically in my home city of Karachi, Pakistan. Within my art practice, I draw from my experiences of how I inhabit public and private spaces and rely on research from other South Asian scholars interested in gender, urban space and the women’s right in everyday life. My research into how gender is interwoven with demarcations between and connotations of public and private spaces has led me to deeply examine what private spaces and boundaries mean to women for whom unconditional access to public spaces is still a fantasy. In this exhibition I investigate “phenomenal boundaries”; a term coined by sociologist Bridget Purcell, that is, the boundary not as “real”, but as experienced and constituted (or not) by its inhabitants. My aim is to think about place from the lens of gender and discuss phenomenal boundaries women create in order to feel safer in public spaces, as well as the phenomenal boundaries in the form of fear that women experience when they step into a public place. Examining my relationship with place has led me to a deeper and more expansive definition of boundaries as constraining, or safe, and sometimes both at the same time. In the installation, Transgressing Boundaries, I present my perspective as a upper middle class woman living in Pakistan, negotiating the boundaries of fear, of limited access to public space, and within the private spaces of home. My work draws out how I, and many other women around me, actively engage and negotiate for space and power. One of the ways of doing this is by using the very same boundaries and constraints to empower space for ourselves in the patriarchal world. In this installation, I reflect on the idea of boundaries by curating a private space, built with separators, the ritual of Rangoli, and illustrations of myself. I create a private space that is safe and yet constraining, active and yet passive; a space that maintains boundaries while simultaneously transgress them.
Entry in category 3. Locations and instruments; © CC-BY-NC-ND: Eduardo Rossi
As researchers in physical volcanology, we have the privilege to study one of the most fascinating phenomena in Nature: volcanic eruptions. Part of our job is to constrain the eruptive parameters and to collect data from actual fallouts. Such kind of photos helps us to improve our theoretical description of volcanic eruptions. Volcanic eruptions are humbling experiences: you really feel as a grain of sand respect to the power of a volcanic cloud. But at the very end, even such eruptions disappear in front of the magnificence of our Galaxy, here represented by thousands of stars of the Southern hemisphere.You really feel a spectator of the most spectacular show ever. The following picture shows a nocturnal eruption at Sabankaya volcano (Perù) taken in the August 2018. The photo has been taken at an altitude of about 4500 meters a.s.l. in the upland above the Colca canyon, close to Chivay.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
The day starts at 7:30 am with a 40-minute drive to the Punta Bandera dock to take a boat on Lago Argentino to Upsala Glacier, a large valley glacier on the eastern side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its higher portion lies in a disputed territory between Chile and Argentina. The glacier terminus is at Upsala channel of Lago Argentino. The Upsala Glacier is well known for its rapid retreat that has been ongoing since the glacier was first documented in 1810. The glacier showed almost continual recession up until 1999. The acceleration in ice motion during the two decades preceding 1999 may have been augmented by the release of backstress when the glacier retreated beyond the islands in Brazo Upsala. Another period of even faster retreat started in 2008. As of 2018 Upsala Glacier has retreated to such degree that it no longer constrains its tributary Bertacchi Glacier. The boat then drops us off at the Estancia Cristina, an Argentine cattle and sheep ranch located inside Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz Province. It is here that we take a 4x4 for 45 minutes up a mountain, stop and continue up for another 20 minutes, reaching the summit around 12:30 pm. The ranch was founded in 1914 by Joseph Percival Masters, an Englishman who came to Patagonia with his wife in 1900; Estancia Cristina is named for Masters' daughter Cristina. Located on the coast of Brazo Cristina, a northern channel of Lago Argentino, Estancia Cristina still keeps the history of the Masters family alive. Its lodge has 20 rooms distributed over 5 buildings and it his here that we had lunch followed by a presentation of the traditional Mate, an Argentinean tea and a tour of the ranch. We then take the boat back to Punta Bandera and arrive back at the hotel at 8:00 pm.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Another real doozy of a pinhole image by me. If the previous photo I posted of Lake Willoughby demonstrated that I am not always spot on with my composition, this one shows that I am not always quite there with my exposure either. Well this one has kind of a weak composition as well now that I mention it.
I wanted to talk a bit more about fear and failure today and our perceptions, as artists, of them. This has become a bit of a burr in my side as I am lucky enough to be surrounded by some terribly talented photographers, who for various reasons, refuse to admit to the extent of their own abilities and do them justice.
This all started on Sunday when I was talking with my friend Jason, one of the few photographers who holds the rare status of photographic hero in my book. The man is insanely creative and also possesses that extremely elusive of ability to actually hone his vision into a physical product. Everything he does photographically blows my mind and helps me discover new ways of seeing or thinking about the world. I know only one other photographer who is also this consistent at being able to do that.
Yet Jason has barely shown his work. Not for any lack of desire. What keeps him from showing is the correct assumption that if he waits just a bit longer to put together his portfolio, to introduce his work to the world, that it will be just a bit stronger. This is true, it will be. My point to him on Sunday though was that what he already has would blow people's minds. In specific I am talking about his strip photography. And if you are one of the privileged few who have seen these images not just on a computer monitor, but in print, I am sure you will whole-heartedly agree that they are impressive. So he is held up by the slight worry that he is not putting his best foot forward, that he needs to keep working and make a stronger showing later.
Nevermind the fact that being so insanely creative he reinvents his style of shooting every couple of years and the old stuff tends to get shelved in favor of the new...
This is a problem I have had to deal with myself. It is particularly evident when I go back and look at some of my old work and can see such obvious improvement. I thought that stuff good at the time, now I think it is horrible. What if I think the stuff I find good now is in truth horrible too? Maybe I should just focus on more of my photography for another year and wait on making a porfolio or gallery submissions or whatever.
So if that is one type of fear, here is another, not simply the fear of knowing you have something decent but it is not yet your best, but the fear that your art just is not any good at all. I think this may be a bit more common, but granted I have not done any precise surveys on this.
This one bugs me the most, because those folk I know who succumb to this fear are almost always doing two things wrong. First, they are making this assumption without ever having tried to get any of their work out there. They do not do shows, submit to contests, build portfolios, etc. They don't because they are afraid that if they do, they will fail. So they choose to deal with the perceived fear of failure rather than the actual sense of failure. The other thing they do, is they tend to base the validity of their work on the limited public reaction they have gotten on it, generally by doing such meaningless activities such as noting the lack of comments or favorites their photos have gained on sites such as Flickr.
Let me address the latter first. As an artist, you do not create a valueless piece of work and wait for the public to instill value in it. Your photography depends upon you having placed something of value in it, not strangers. If you do this, then it does not matter whether the extremely fickle and subjective public likes a particular piece or not, because that should not be your goal. Your goal should be communication, not acceptance. If you pursue the latter I think you will always be placing yourself at a timid disadvantage.
If you can accomplish this shift in perspective it will make rejection that much easier to deal with, because let's face it, you are going to be rejected. If you start doing more than just posting images to a public blog, that is submitting them, showing them, contacting art dealers or magazines, entering contests and the like, you will hear "No" way more than you will hear "Yes". It just is. Get used to it, keep trying. The most successful photographers often are not the ones who take the best images, but rather the ones who are the most determined. They hear a No, and keep plugging away until they hear a Yes.
I also want to remind you of something of mentioned in that last post on failure, that no failure is a complete waste. There is always experience to be gained, something to be learned, ways to be found to improve. Failure is just as valuable of a teaching tool as success, sometimes more so. That is why one should not look at it as "failure". That is a trap of a word, because it gets you on that line of thinking where something is either A or B, good or bad, right or wrong. It is not that black and white. Failures can be successes, and successes can be failures, if this sounds like it can start to become confusing, that is because it can, and it can because I think it is not the correct way of approaching this issue.
Art and photography are journeys. They are like walking across a field to get to something you want to see on the other side. Sometimes you walk straight forward, in the shortest possible route. Sometimes, halfway across the field, you are distracted by some other interesting phenomenon and you detour. Sometimes you stop and pause to reflect on something. Sometimes you realize you missed something a step back and you reverse direction to re-examine it. Sometimes you trip and stumble on a hole in the ground, but from that point on you learn to be more careful of holes in the ground and you walk a bit more securely. Sometimes you run, at others you meander.
The point I am not so sure I am adequately making, is that this is all one big experience-filled trip across a field. And there is no right or wrong way to get there, but there is certainly also no tally sheet on the other side pinned to a tree telling you how many times you succeeded or failed, unless you put one there yourself, and why would you?
Anyway, this has been a long and rambling discourse. I just think that we sometimes get too fixated on this idea of good and bad, success or failure, and everything has to fall into one category or the other all the time. Failure is to be avoided and is shameful and embarassing. Success to be proud of and celebrated. I just think that as creative individuals, we do ourselves a great disservice by constraining our art to such a limited scale of measurement as this. I think it is an inadequate way of determining the worth of a photograph, or more importantly, yourself as a photographer.
So that is my moral of the day, stop using the words: good, bad, success and failure. Or their ilk. I think you will be doing yourself a valuable favor.
Now I need to eat breakfast and walk to work, which means that while walking I will no doubt think of half a dozen different ways I could have expressed this point in a more lucid fashion, but that is ok. The reward is most often in the effort and not the result.
UPDATE: After having walked to work and thought some more on the 30 minute walk, I have decided I have a bit more to say on this topic (big surprise there eh?), so consider this, "To be continued..."
Session 1: Engaging the Private Sector
Understanding how companies and markets can create more economic opportunities, and the barriers that constrain the creation of additional jobs and self-employment opportunities is essential to addressing the current challenges of youth underemployment and unemployment.
This session discussed how three private sector organizations are putting youth at the centre of agricultural transformation.
L-R: Panelist Eric Kaduru – Co-founder, KadAfrica and Moderator - Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin – CEO and Founder, blueMoon
MasterCard Foundation YAW2017 - Day Two 17/02/2017
Kigali, Rwanda
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.
THIS SHORE LIGHTHOUSE GUARDS THE EAST SIDE OF THE ENTRANCE TO LOCH RYAN FROM A POINT JUST SOUTH EAST OF IT. IT STANDS ON CAIRN POINT WHICH PROJECTS INTO LOCH RYAN FROM A NARROW SHELF IN FRONT OF THE MAIN (A77) ROAD; A SOLID PORTION ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE LANTERN CONSTRAINS THE LIGHT TO SEAWARD. THE LIGHTHOUSE WAS BUILT BY ALAN STEVENSON AND FIRST LIT IN 1847. IT WAS CONVERTED TO OIL BURNING IN 1847, AND AUTOMATED (ELECTRIFIED AND MADE 'UNATTENDED') IN 1964.
The day starts at 7:30 am with a 40-minute drive to the Punta Bandera dock to take a boat on Lago Argentino to Upsala Glacier, a large valley glacier on the eastern side of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Its higher portion lies in a disputed territory between Chile and Argentina. The glacier terminus is at Upsala channel of Lago Argentino. The Upsala Glacier is well known for its rapid retreat that has been ongoing since the glacier was first documented in 1810. The glacier showed almost continual recession up until 1999. The acceleration in ice motion during the two decades preceding 1999 may have been augmented by the release of backstress when the glacier retreated beyond the islands in Brazo Upsala. Another period of even faster retreat started in 2008. As of 2018 Upsala Glacier has retreated to such degree that it no longer constrains its tributary Bertacchi Glacier. The boat then drops us off at the Estancia Cristina, an Argentine cattle and sheep ranch located inside Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz Province. It is here that we take a 4x4 for 45 minutes up a mountain, stop and continue up for another 20 minutes, reaching the summit around 12:30 pm. The ranch was founded in 1914 by Joseph Percival Masters, an Englishman who came to Patagonia with his wife in 1900; Estancia Cristina is named for Masters' daughter Cristina. Located on the coast of Brazo Cristina, a northern channel of Lago Argentino, Estancia Cristina still keeps the history of the Masters family alive. Its lodge has 20 rooms distributed over 5 buildings and it his here that we had lunch followed by a presentation of the traditional Mate, an Argentinean tea and a tour of the ranch. We then take the boat back to Punta Bandera and arrive back at the hotel at 8:00 pm.
Better Brothers Los Angeles teamed up with the Diva Foundation at the historic Wilshire Ebel Theater in Los Angeles.
The event is sponsored by Gilead, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the generous support of businessman and activist Gerard McCallum.
The Truth Awards will benefit the DIVA Foundation and its partnership with Better Brothers LA with several initiatives aimed at affirming and strengthening the African American LGBTQ community educationally, financially, physically and socially. Proceeds will also benefit the Better Brothers LA Book Scholarship and other programming needs of the organization. For more information about the organization and its scholarship program
ABOUT BETTER BROTHERS LOS ANGELES
Better Brothers Los Angeles was created to provide spaces for Black gay men to network, socialize and be BETTER – at life, love and community. Developing a sense of community has been a challenge for some Black gay men, given the cultural and religious opposition to their sexual orientation. As those challenges have receded in mainstream society, they still present significant difficulties and constrain a sense of well-being for Black gay men within the Black community. Better Brothers Los Angeles has sponsored cultural, recreational, and social/networking events, and continues to create a community where Black gay men and women can walk with a greater sense of confidence and pride. Visit www.BetterBrothersLA.com
ABOUT THE DIVA FOUNDATION
The DIVA Foundation -- founded in 1990 by Tony-nominated actress and HIV/AIDS advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph -- is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created as a living memorial to the many friends she lost to HIV/AIDS as an original cast member of the Broadway musical “Dreamgirls,” and because of her concern for the threat HIV/AIDS posed to women and children. Over the years, the DIVA Foundation has worked to break the silence and erase the stigma still connected to HIV/AIDS and encourage people to get tested in order to know their HIV status.