View allAll Photos Tagged hypocrite
lovely heather tagged me! i was going to write my tag thing just now but i have 11 minutes until im supposed to be sitting on my checkout at work and am not yet dressed, cleaned or anything.
21:40:
okay, so im back. here is the dealeyo
List 10 things that your friends may or may not know about you, but that are true. Tag ten people and be sure to let them know they’ve been tagged (a quick message will do). Don’t forget to link back to the person who tagged you. Post a picture in your stream with the 10 facts and list your tagged people :)
1.i stay up until rediculous hours in the evening/morning, even when i know i have to be up at a certain time in the morning. all i do is sit on msn and look at flickr. im also becoming obsessed by faceboook for some reason.
2. i can be quite a hypocrite. e.g. ill say "i would never smoke in my whole life, its disgusting" and then find my self trying it later that day. i always point myself out for doing it, but its just... bad habit perhaps?
3. i like to spoon but rarely get the chance.
4. i cant keep my surroundings tidy, i walk and mess follows.
5. i thrive off of my infatuation for a certain someone. i cant tell yet if it is infatuation or in fact love.
6. i have very elabourate dreams.
7. i find myself telling white lies more often than i should.
8. i love crying.
9. i often worry abot weather people like me or not.
10. i like to know of music that other people dont know. it makes me feel coooool.
NOW MY TURN TO TAG TAG TAG!
i choooooose
expolorid :) Highest position: 471 on Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The Three Caballeros (1944) | meaupload rapidshare download movie ...Rapidshare Software for You The Three Caballeros (1944)
The Three Caballeros (1944) Hollywood Movie DownloadThe Three Caballeros (1944) Hollywood Movie online Informations. Movie Summary : A large box arrives for Donald on his birthday, three gifts inside. He unwraps one at a time, and each takes him on an adventure. The first is a movie ...
Antagony & Ecstasy: DISNEY ANIMATION: THREE HAPPY CHAPPIES WITH ...Here's what's craziest about The Three Caballeros: I didn't even mention the most surreal bits in that recap. This is by far the strangest feature-length movie in the history of the Walt Disney Company, with virtually every new minute ...
Watch Saludos Amigos / Three Caballeros Movie Online « harley2547470The most bizarre movie the Walt Disney company has ever produced, 1945's “The Three Caballeros” is a collection of gripping shorts, all tied together by a bare-bones site of Donald Duck learning about Latin America. ...
The Three Caballeros Movie StreamingThe Three Caballeros Movie Streaming. Movie Title: The Three Caballeros Average customer review: The Three Caballeros is available for streaming or downloading. Click Here to Stream or Download The Three Caballeros ...
Steve's Church-Less Movie Of The Week ...March 8th (part 2): The Three Caballeros March 15th: Sonny Chiba's "The Street Fighter" (free to watch) March 29th (part 1): I Bury The Living (free to watch) March 29th (part 2): Drive-In Massacre (free to watch) ...
Buy The Three Caballeros At Amazon!I am a Tall fan of this movie, but this DVD (as well as the Saludos Amigos, Melody Time, and Form Mine Music DVDs) seriously panders to the soccer-mom crowd. Smoking (from Goofy in Saludos, and an innocent bystander in Caballeros) is ...
My favorite Disney MovieI watched the Three Caballeros when I was little and I remember wanting to watch it again for some reason and when I finally did, it became the greatest Disney movie day of my life. There is no exact plot of the Three Caballeros. ...
Cuaderno Latinoamericano: The Three CaballerosI thought that since we talked about the movie in class, I would give a link to a musical number from The Three Caballeros. The movie was made as a good-will message to Latin America. Overall, I think that the message sent is a positive ...
What is the complete disney movie list. So far I got these...?Back in the late 80's and early 90's, the Disney channel played many sets of music videos, many times in succession.
(Since commercials were not very big on the Disney Channel yet.)
These were videos in which a cartoon or movie was set to music, though they were usually short and didn't use the whole 4 minute song.
There was one video to Rhythm of the Night by El Debarge set to video of a Donald Duck Halloween cartoon where a witch enchants his feet and gets him dancing everywhere.
There was also another that used video from the "Three Caballero's" movie - Donald Duck, Panchito, and Jose Carioca (though I can't remember the song off hand, might be 'Baia')
I used to love watching these videos and I believe its what turned me into making music videos later in life. Does anyone remember more or even know where we can access these videos, just even to watch?
PLease tell me someone remembers!
Does anyone remember the old Disney music videos played in the late 80's/early 90's?I know, this is a repost of a question I asked a long time ago, but nobody really knew, so I'm trying again. When the movie starts, there's a green screen that says that the movie has been edited to fit the screen AND FOR CONTENT. What exactly did they have in there that had to be removed in the first place?
For those that don't remember the movie that well, it involved Donald Duck and a few South American bird buddies of his. It was a quasi-educational movie as well, with a few live action sequences.
Any ideas are appreciated -- thanks all!Double posted in Movies -- sorry if any confusion.
How was Disney's "The Three Caballeros" edited?I know, this is a repost of a question I asked a long time ago, but nobody really knew, so I'm trying again. When the movie starts, there's a green screen that says that the movie has been edited to fit the screen AND FOR CONTENT. What exactly did they have in there that had to be removed in the first place?
For those that don't remember the movie that well, it involved Donald Duck and a few South American bird buddies of his. It was a quasi-educational movie as well, with a few live action sequences.
Any ideas are appreciated -- thanks all!Double posted in Senior Citizens -- sorry if any confusion.
How was Disney's "The Three Caballeros" edited?He appeared is the movies Salludos, Amigos and The Three Caballeros, and Aquarela do Brasil.
I want answers!
What is your opinion about the Disney's brazilian character Joe Carioca? Do you like him? Yes or no, and why?Ooh, Song of the South is so-oo terrible! Poor Uncle Remus; he's happy-go-lucky, he sings, he tells story, he tends to Johnny and Ginny...but wait! He's a slave. And because of men like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Disney will never, ever release this en-masse again. God forbid somebody see blacks and whites coexisting in harmony, they'd be out of jobs!
Now I understand that Song is unsettling because it portrays the idea of Romanticised slavery, that Remus and the children lived in harmony about as much as Scarlet and Mammie did in Gone with the Wind, that it's too fantastical an idea that Remus and Johnny live in peace, because it's a distorted view of post Civil-War blacks being happy and cheery and content living in their downwardly constituted societal caste, which is incredibly demeaning, not to mention insulting, but that's really the point isn't it?
Everyone's offended because Uncle Remus is so happy.
But we can't completely sign off on the idea that blacks and whites NEVER co-existed peacefully, it's not such a fantastical idea because it's neither totally true or completely false.
But if you really think about it, Song is hardly the worst, nor is it something worth being completely condemned. Look, Disney is hypocritical, racist and sexist on more than one level, and I've compiled some proof. This took some time to figure out, but bear with me, some of it makes sense.
*Dumbo; The crows are given very stereotypical "black" attitudes and speech patterns. Nope, they can't be intelligent, they have to be loud, cocky and brash.
*Lady and the Tramp; The Siamese cats have slanted eyes, lisps, and buck teeth.
*Swiss Family Robinson; The pirates are Asian with really bad speech impediments.
*Peter Pan; Native Americans referred to as 'Injuns' (yes I understand this is a normal mistake for small children) and the vernacular includes the 'ugs' and 'hows?'
*Oliver and Company; Tito's role is that of the 'stupid mexican' lusting after a rich white girl. This was pointed out to me by a friend at work, points to her.
*The Arisocats; The Siamese cat has slitted eyes and plays "Chopsticks" on the piano with chopsticks
*The Lion King; During Scar's "Prepare" song, the hyena's march by in perfect lines, goose-stepping like Nazis. He conducts them from on high much like Hitler; the whole thing has a definent Nazi undertone.
*The Little Mermaid; Not as bad as the others, but the fish during "Under The Sea" play up a few different stereotypes; the "latina" fish is a saucy dancer, almost promiscuous acting.
*The Three Caballeros; Think of any and all stereotypes about Mexicans, Latinos, Spainards...
*101 Dalmations; Sexist. The truck driver (however justified the statement is) calls Cruella a "crazy woman driver!"
*Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty; Sexist. Wait around for a man to come and rescue you, forget any ideas you might have had about your life or what to do with it, marry the prince and live happily ever after. The message seems to be that a girl just has to be nice and look pretty and she'll be taken away by the man of her dreams.
Really though, all ranting and BS aside...
All these movies have distinct flaws, yet all have been released or are being released and re-released like nothing is wrong, but Song harder to find than those damn WMDs. And if you really think about it, Jar Jar Binks is a much worse character than Uncle Remus, but you can get Episode One just about anywhere.
So...is there anyone aware of a place I can get Song of the South?
Anybody know where I can find the "racist" Disney movie, "Song of the South"?[x] High School Musical
[x] Holes
[x] Lizzie McGuire Movie
[x] Cheetah Girls
[x] Halloween Town
[x] Halloween Town High
[x] Cadet Kelly
total so far: 7
[x] Get a Clue
[x] Motocrossed
[x] Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
[x] Pocahontas
[] Pocahontas 2
[x] Lady and the Tramp
total so far: 12
[] Lady and the Tramp 2
[x] Cinderella
[x] The Parent Trap
[x] The Little Mermaid
[] The Little Mermaid 2
total so far: 15
[] Mary Poppins
[x] The Fox and the Hound
[x] Dumbo
[x] Pinocchio
[x] Bambi
total so far:19
[] Basil: The Great Mouse Detective
[] The Rescuers Down Under
[x] Toy Story
[x] Toy Story 2
[x] Lion King
[x] Lion King 2
total so far: 23
[x] Peter Pan
[x] Peter Pan 2
[] Fantasia
[] The Three Caballeros
[x] Alice in Wonderland
[x] Sleeping Beauty
total so far: 27
[x] 101 Dalmatians
[x] 102 Dalmatians 2
[x] The Sword in the Stone
[x] The Jungle Book
[ ] The Aristocats
total so far: 31
[x] Robin Hood
[x] Oliver and Company
[x] Beauty and the Beast
[] Beauty and the Beast 2
[x] Aladdin
[] Aladdin: Return of Jafar
[] Aladdin: The King of Thieves
total so far: 35
[x] Finding Nemo
[x] Monsters, Inc.
[x] Hercules
[x] Mulan
[] Mulan 2
[x] Tarzan
total so far: 40
[x] Lilo & Stitch
[x] The Hunchback of Notre Dame
[x] The Emperor's New Groove
[x] The Nightmare Before Christmas
[x] Bed Knobs and Broomsticks
[] Pete's Dragon
total so far: 45
[x] Remember the Titans
[] Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
[x] James and the Giant Peach
[x] Mighty Ducks
[x] Mighty Ducks 2
[x] D3 Mighty Ducks
[x] A Bug's Life
[x] The Incredibles
total so far: 52
[x] A Goofy Movie
[] An Extremely Goofy Movie
[x] Atlantis
[x] The Chronicles of Narnia
[x] Around the World in 80 Days
[x] Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
total so far: 57
[x] A Cinderella Story
[x] Pirates of the Caribbean
[] Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
[] Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
[x] National Treasure
[x] Princess Diaries
[x] Princess Diaries 2
total so far: 62
[x] Freaky Friday
[x] Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
[x] A Muppet Christmas Carol
[x] Ice Princess
total: 66
How many Disney movies have you seen?At the beginning of the VHS version (and most likely DVD), it says that the movie has been "edited for content." This is more of a cultural, educational type movie, although it certainly has entertainment value as well. What in the world could have been "edited for content" from a Disney movie? And, regardless of what it might have been, is there any way I could find an uncut version? How would I know before I bought it?
Does anybody remember Disney movie "The Three Caballeros" with Donald Duck? Weird question regarding VHS.I am trying to understand "Os quindins de Iaiá" by Ary Barroso (featured in 1945 Disney movie "The Three Caballeros"). I think quindins are one of those famous brazilian egg yolk sweets right? Could "cumé" be quem é or comer? What are the other two words from my question? I will post the lyrics below. movienow.biz/details/movie/thethreecaballerosmovie-386140...
What do "cumé," "zóinho," and "jeitão" mean in Portuguese?i am trying to get all of disney's movies i have most of them on dvd already but i can't find old school ones like snow white and the three caballeros (im not sure of the spelling on that one) and others i could find them on vhs but not on dvd and the dvd versions are hard to find authentic ebay and amazon have great posibilites of fake ones if you know what i mean well your input would be greatly appreciated!!
Do you guys think i should buy a vcr just to get old movies?I mean classic please. NO NEW MOVIES....
Snow White, Cinderella, The three caballeros, The Jungle Book, etc...
oh my goodness just when i started liking you, you go and be a damn hypocrite. tell your 8 OR 9 YEAR OLD sister to get off the damn internet and go read a book. gosh.
14 facts about me -:)
1- I'm Bahraini girl but I live in QATAR =)
2- I ❤ my small family specialty my mum she is every thing for me =')
3- I ❤ ma friends they are very important in my life xD
4- I ❤ the pink color <3
5- I am always shaking specialty when I'm worried or in unusual situations ;/
6- I wear Glasses but I hate them >< so I prefer contact lenses ;)
7- I'm single since I born I never been in a real love relationship ;Pp
8- I ❤ the cute and quiet animals , I have birds , rabbets and fish ;Pp and I want a hamster and Cat ;)
9- I don't like العتاب specialty when some when ask [ lesh ma ts2len ] anzen lesh anty ma ts2len b3d , ya5y al-dnya msha'3la o_O
10- I ❤ my soul she is My best friend , no one like her *K
11- I'm very childish girl and I don't know for how long I will be like that [a] ~
12- I hate hypocrites people [ al-mnaf8en ] ;@
13- I ❤ Heel shoes although I'm tall ;Pp
14- Ana waed 3la neaty ldrja any ma a3rf az3l mn a7d ><
that's it xD
all by me ^^
comment me and I will comment you except those who put copy paste ;)
Don't juste view ;@
_____
plzz don't be copied, downloaded, or used my pic in any way without my permission ..
The incident occurred at the height of the Algerian war of independence, when the French colonial administration was locked in a bitter battle with the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) – the Algerian party fighting for the North African nation’s liberation from France.More than half-a-century later, the details surrounding the October 17 massacre – including the casualty figures – remain murky. A day after the demonstrations, the left-leaning French newspaper Libération reported the official toll as two dead, several wounded and 7,500 arrests. The death toll, however, was disputed by the FLN, which claimed that dozens were killed. Many of the bodies were found floating in the River Seine.On Jan. 11, the French imperialist bourgeoisie mobilized and manipulated a massive demonstration in all the country’s major cities under hypocritical slogans extolling Western civilization and alleged “freedom of speech.” Their goal — which they share with U.S. and European Union imperialism — is a reactionary modern crusade against colonial peoples, mostly Muslims, in the guise of a “war on terror.”
REPORTSouth Sudan humanitarian crisis: Over 100,000 people face starvation..The October 17, 1961 incident would have remained obscure were it not for the efforts of one man: French historian Jean-Luc Einaudi, who doggedly pursued the case and published the results in his book, “La Bataille de Paris” (“The Battle of Paris”).In 1991, when Einaudi published his definitive account of the events of October 1961, it caused a stir across France. French people were horrified to hear the details of a massacre by French police in the heart of the capital.Details surrounding the events of October 1961 unravelled in the course of a landmark 1997 case against Papon for his participation in the deportation of thousands of Jews to concentration camps during World War II. At that time, Papon was police chief in the south-western province of Bordeaux.During the trial, Einaudi took to the stand to testify against Papon and the direct role he played as Paris police chief in the October 1961 massacres. In 1998, Papon was found guilty of complicity in crimes against humanity during World War II.
Official recognition of the tragedy, Einaudi discussed the peculiar circumstances that made acknowledging the event a touchy subject in France.Why has it been so difficult for France to officially recognise the killings in October 1961?
France has not yet officially recognized the crime for various reasons. The first is that French officials from that era have continued, for a long time, to occupy senior positions in French governments. Remember, Maurice Papon, who was Paris police chief in 1961, was a Cabinet minister right up to 1981.In 1961, François Mitterrand was in the opposition. Once he became president [in 1981], Mitterrand did not dwell on events during the Algerian war – given his critical responsibilities as Interior and then Justice Minister during those years. There was a convergence of interests [within the French political establishment] to maintain a silence, a forgetfulness, a willful ignorance about this issue. It took a lot of research, the publication of books and a civil society movement to slowly uncover the truth.I recall a crucial moment in 1999, when Maurice Papon filed a suit against me, which finally enabled the massacre to be recognized for the first time. This led to a gradual recognition of the events.
However, at the same time, the police chief responsible for these events [i.e. Papon] continued to try to impede the moves to raise awareness about this by lying and falsifying accounts.On October 17, 2011, at an event on the Clichy bridge [on the outskirts of Paris, from where the mostly Algerian victims were thrown into the River Seine] presidential candidate François Hollande publicly promised to recognize this crime if he was elected president. He is now president of the republic. I expect him to meet his commitment.Why are the events of October 1961 not well known by both French and Algerian youths?In France, great strides have been made in raising awareness of the events. I’ve had many opportunities to talk about this issue to large gatherings, many of them comprised of students from different backgrounds, who have been very attentive.
I must also add that these events are now mentioned in [French] history books. But on these facts, like many others, the work must continue and will never be finished.Regarding Algeria, internal conflict that followed independence [in 1962] have resulted, for many years, in sidelining, and even silence on, the role played by the Algerian diaspora, especially the Algerian immigrants in France during the Algerian war of independence. Too often, history has been manipulated for vested interests.Do you think the events of October 1961 played a role in the Algerian war and the independence that Algeria finally won in 1962?I think the October 17, 1961 massacre in Paris is one among many episodes of the Algerian war.As such, it cannot be understood if we do not put it in the context of the war on Algerian territory. I would even say it cannot be understood if you do not bear in mind that France was in a state of colonial repression.Senior officials, police, and security officials had been swimming in this ambiance for years and it had led to a characteristic mindset within the establishment. That said, the peculiarities of October 17 are twofold. On one hand, you have the emergence of an anti-colonial struggle in the very heart of the colonial power to support Algerian independence. On the other, you have a display of the full fury of the Paris police, a brutality that was the product of years of experience in the colonial war.However, these events and the bloody repression did not decisively influence the negotiations between the French government and the Algerian provisional government [the government in exile that was set up during the Algerian independence war to represent the Algerian cause abroad, especially in international diplomatic circles].[Then French President Charles] de Gaulle was determined to end this war, which isolated France internationally. The outcome had to be independence, which had the support of the vast majority of Algerians, including immigrants. The massacres of October 17 did not cause major reactions in France. They were largely concealed by official lies and overlooked due to public indifference. [French historian] Pierre Vidal-Naquet has called October 17, 1961, "the day that Paris did not stir”. I share this view.
www.france24.com/en/20121017-paris-massacre-algeria-octob...
One piece of French history that clashes with this ruling-class argument concerns the massacre of Oct. 17, 1961. If you don’t know about this massacre, it is because the imperialist defenders of “French civilization” have made every effort to keep it secret.
Between 1954 and 1962, French imperialism waged a bitter colonial war to hang on to its North African colony of Algeria. As is often the case with peoples of an imperial colony, many Algerian immigrants and their descendants lived in Paris in October 1961. Many sympathized with the National Liberation Front’s struggle for independence in Algeria.
On Oct. 17, some 30,000 protesters took to the streets in an unarmed demonstration in Paris to protest a curfew imposed by occupation forces on “Muslim Algerians” in the colony. (France24.com, Oct. 18, 2012)
Some 7,000 heavily armed French police – following direct orders of Paris prefect Maurice Papon — brutally attacked the peaceful demonstrators, trapping them on the bridges, beating, strangling and throwing them into the Seine River to drown. Papon told his officers he would stand behind their slaughter of the protesters.
Because so many bodies were lost in the Seine, there is uncertainty about the number of people the French police killed. Estimates range between 70 and 300. Thousands were injured and 11,000 arrested.
The next day, the French newspaper Libération reported the official toll as two dead, several wounded and 7,500 arrests. They and the rest of the corporate French media collaborated with the French state and covered up the real story of the massacre for decades. The international imperialist media did the same, even though reporters saw dozens of bodies floating in the Seine. (wrmea.org, March 1997)
Finally, in 1991, French historian Jean-Luc Einaudi wrote a book on the massacre, “The Battle of Paris.”
Top-cop Papon had collaborated with the Nazi occupation during World War II and sent Jews, Communists and other Resistance fighters to their deaths. He was tried in France and found guilty of complicity in war crimes decades later in 1998. More information on the massacre came out during Papon’s trial. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Papon was released in 2002 on alleged health grounds, but died in 2007 at the age of 96.
In 2005, filmmaker Alain Tasma made a film about the massacre, “Nuite noire,” and stories of the event became incorporated into other films and books. Current French Premier Francois Hollande acknowledged the massacre officially for the first time in 2012.
French colonialism in Algeria: 1830-1962
The French fleet first sailed across the Mediterranean, invaded the city of Algiers and took it in 1830. At the time Algiers was ruled from Turkey by the Ottoman Empire, which surrendered the port city after a brief battle. The Indigenous people of Algeria, including both Arab and Berber tribes, put up heroic resistance to the French in the country’s interior.
French Lieutenant-Colonel Lucien de Montagnac, an officer in the French expeditionary force in Algeria, gave another vision of “French civilization” in a letter to a friend dated March 15, 1843, which his nephew later published: “This is how, my dear friend, we must make war against Arabs: kill all men over the age of 15, take all their women and children, load them onto naval vessels, send them to the Marquesas Islands or elsewhere. In one word, annihilate all who will not crawl beneath our feet like dogs.” (“Lettres d’un soldat,” Plon, Paris, 1885; republished by Christian Destremeau, 1998, p. 153)By 1845, the French military was routinely putting this program into practice. General Aimable Pélissier reported the massacre of a Berber tribe of 1,500 people who had taken refuge in a cave. The French troops commanded by Pélissier burned the Berbers alive. This included all the children and elderly people — and, of course, the women who were heroic resistance fighters.The French Army in Algeria prevented these reports from reaching Paris and possibly allowing some progressive members of Parliament to object to the genocidal acts carried out in the name of “French civilization.” So much for “freedom of the press.”
These stark truths accurately describe how the French ruling class imposed its rule over large parts of the world when building a colonial empire in the 19th century, second only in size to the British Empire.Currently, U.S. imperialism is the dominant reactionary power policing and waging war on the world’s people. No one should forget this. A look at the history of French colonialism and imperialism, however, can help counter today’s blatant, pro-imperialist propaganda emanating from Paris.France’s pre-World War II empire extended from Kanaky and Fiji in the South Pacific through Indochina to what are now Lebanon and Syria to Madagascar and Reunion islands in the Indian Ocean to what are now Lebanon and Syria. It included vast swaths of West and North Africa. The empire reached across the Atlantic Ocean to the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean and French Guiana in South America. It once included Haiti. However, in 1804, the world’s first successful slave revolt — which required enormous sacrifices by the enslaved population — expelled Napoleon’s France.Post-World War II liberation strugglesFast forward to 1946 when imperialist France had just emerged from the German occupation during World War II. The Arab and Berber peoples carried out mass demonstrations and uprisings in Algeria against French rule. To suppress that rebellion, the French troops massacred 6,000 Algerians.
French imperialism considered Algeria to be part of France — much like U.S. imperialism does with regards Hawai’i and Alaska and in a slightly different way with Puerto Rico. Even though there were over a million European-origin French who lived in Algeria as settlers, the more than 6 million non-European Algerians began an eight-year war of liberation starting in 1954.But that was not France’s only colonial war. The French Army and the notorious French Foreign Legion tried to drown all liberation movements in their own blood. not only the one in Algeria. In 1947, the people of Madagascar, armed mostly with spears, took on a well-armed, 30,000-strong French army. The soldiers carried out a strategy of terror and psychological warfare. According to General Staff reports, they killed 89,000 people to “pacify” the rebellion, There were using “torture, summary executions and villages [which were] forcibly evacuated and torched.” (Le Monde Diplomatique, March 1997)Vietnam’s struggle for liberation from France went on from 1946 to 1954 before the Vietnamese Communists defeated French imperialism in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Then it took another 21 years before Vietnam’s victory over U.S. imperialism — after the U.S. killed 3 million Vietnamese.Algeria’s struggle was bitter. One million non-European Algerians died before the National Liberation Front won independence in 1962.Because this article focuses on the crimes of French imperialism and the resistance of Algerians, it has omitted much about the actions of the French working class in solidarity with colonial peoples. Also, the French ruling class was likewise murderous when ordering French troops to crush the working-class revolt of 1871 known as the Paris Commune; the soldiers shot down 30,000 French workers.
What is needed now more than anything else is for the working-class movements in imperialist countries to show solidarity with the struggles of oppressed peoples — both as immigrants and in their own countries. This — and not “defense of Western civilization” — is how humanity can prevail.
www.workers.org/2015/01/13/french-imperialisms-brutal-col...
This is our world,
Here boys grow up into adult so that they can fight to death.
Here girls are trafficked abroad so that they can be enslaved for oppression.
Here women and children are starved to death for poverty.
Here animals are preserved so that they can be shot to extinction.
Here petals are plucked off the flowers just to be stepped on.
This is our show,
Here we despise hypocrites, even though everybody is one.
Here faults are thick, hatred is thick, but love is thin…
This is our game,
Here we play our whole life despite knowing the fact that eventually we have to lose to death.
This is our life,
Here humans chase after happiness, but love to cry.
Here devils do prevail, but angels deserve to die...
Abir Shaqran photography
25 March, 2014.
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
“It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites. ”
― Thomas Sowell
Thank you all for your comments and faves!
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It's been rather hot lately and I find myself wishing for a cool breeze coming from the water, alas, I have no plans for a visit to any lake for the foreseeable future.. I was looking at some of my winter photos to cool myself of, but decided it would be a bit perverse of me to share any, just yet, especially when I am the one always complaining about cold ;D. And, since, I refuse to be a complete hypocrite here is some sunset images from Astotin Lake, instead. It was a surprisingly beautiful evening despite the rain and, I hope, I will have a chance to visit the lake soon again :D
Now this is a bit far-fetched, unlike most of my work (yeah sure), but I thought it would be a fun way to describe this rainting. This looked like to me like a red alligator looking at the moon and being very critical and quite hungry. He thought the little "Man in the Moon" had a nose that was way too long and very much out of proportion. He also thought the "Man in the Moon" himself was way too small compared to the moon itself. Thus, he determined he would eat the little man with the long nose and the moon entirely. Someone in the swamp (we can only guess who) decided to reason with the alligator. She said, "You think the Man in the Moon's nose is out of proportion. You should see YOUR OWN humongous mouth and snout!"
So the alligator decided not to eat the man in the moon with the huge nose, nor the moon itself after all.
THE END
(DSCN7600HypocriticalAlligatorWillEatManInTheMoonFlickr112022)
Yes,
Us people are just poems
We're 90% metaphor
With a leanness of meaning
Approaching hyper-distillation
[...]
And the shock was subsonic
And the smoke was deafening
Between the setup and the punch line
Cuz we were all on time for work that day
We all boarded that plane for to fly
And then while the fires were raging
We all climbed up on the windowsill
And then we all held hands
And jumped into the sky
And every borough looked up when it heard the first blast
And then every dumb action movie was summarily surpassed
And the exodus uptown by foot and motorcar
Looked more like war than anything I've seen so far
So far
So far
So fierce and ingenious
A poetic specter so far gone
That every jackass newscaster was struck dumb and stumbling
Over 'oh my god' and 'this is unbelievable' and on and on
And I'll tell you what, while we're at it
You can keep the pentagon
Keep the propaganda
Keep each and every TV
That's been trying to convince me
To participate
In some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution
Perpetuate retribution
Even as the blue toxic smoke of our lesson in retribution
Is still hanging in the air
And there's ash on our shoes
And there's ash in our hair
And there's a fine silt on every mantle
From hell's kitchen to Brooklyn
And the streets are full of stories
Sudden twists and near misses
And soon every open bar is crammed to the rafters
With tales of narrowly averted disasters
And the whiskey is flowin
Like never before
As all over the country
Folks just shake their heads
And pour
[...]
And we hold these truths to be self evident:
#1 George W. Bush is not president
#2 America is not a true democracy
#3 the media is not fooling me
Cuz I am a poem heeding hyper-distillation
I've got no room for a lie so verbose
I'm looking out over my whole human family
And I'm raising my glass in a toast
Here's to our last drink of fossil fuels
Let us vow to get off of this sauce
Shoo away the swarms of commuter planes
And find that train ticket we lost
Cuz once upon a time the line followed the river
And peeked into all the backyards
And the laundry was waving
The graffiti was teasing us
From brick walls and bridges
We were rolling over ridges
Through valleys
Under stars
I dream of touring like Duke Ellington
In my own railroad car
I dream of waiting on the tall blonde wooden benches
In a grand station aglow with grace
And then standing out on the platform
And feeling the air on my face
[...]
Give back the night it's distant whistle
Give the darkness back it's soul
Give the big oil companies the finger finally
And relearn how to rock-n-roll
Yes, the lessons are all around us and a change is waiting there
So it's time to pick through the rubble, clean the streets
And clear the air
Get our government to pull it's big dick out of the sand
Of someone else's desert
Put it back in it's pants
And quit the hypocritical chants of
Freedom forever
Cuz when one lone phone rang
In two thousand and one
At ten after nine
On nine one one
Which is the number we all called
When that lone phone rang right off the wall
Right off our desk and down the long hall
Down the long stairs
In a building so tall
That the whole world turned
Just to watch it fall
And while we're at it
Remember the first time around?
The bomb?
The Ryder truck?
The parking garage?
The princess that didn't even feel the pea?
Remember joking around in our apartment on avenue D?
Can you imagine how many paper coffee cups would have to change their design
Following a fantastical reversal of the New York skyline?!
[...]
So let the record show
That the FBI was all over that case
That the plot was obvious and in everybody's face
And scoping that scene
Religiously
The CIA
Or is it KGB?
Committing countless crimes against humanity
With this kind of eventuality
As it's excuse
For abuse after expensive abuse
And it didn't have a clue
Look, another window to see through
Way up here
On the 104th floor
Look
Another key
Another door
10% literal
90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people
On an almost too perfect day
Must be more than poems
In some asshole's passion play
So now it's your job
And it's my job
To make it that way
To make sure they didn't die in vain
Sshhhhhh....
Baby listen
Hear the train?
In two weeks time, a supposedly happy day was still something of a gloomy time—despite the biggest highlight being the celebration of Tyrone and Erin’s wedding. People kept up happy faces, but I knew somberness was prevalent.
So much going on, so little time. It was decided the wedding be made private, much to the couple's wishes rather than a big one to be held at Paladin, but thank god they scrapped that. We flew to the Canary Islands, to Japan and Michigan for a party. Basically, anywhere the two had wanted, as long as Edens promised us we would be enjoying much time off. But he wasn't present, because of whatever he was entangled in, and Navin was...also doing the same shit.
**Canary Islands, 11:40 A.M:**
Priest: “Will you proclaim each other as wife and husband?”
Ty/Erin: “Yes we do.”
Priest: "No matter health, life and death, shall you cherish each other and love each other?"
Ty/Erin: "Yes, we do."
Priest:" You may now exchange the rings, and kiss.
Though the happiness and excitement returned when the ceremony took place. Music, laughs and some cries. It felt warm to me, and a lot of people. I get it's a whole lotta wedding stuff, it’s fun but…something feels missing. If there was a billionaire right here, he’d be throwing things, maybe an actual big party. At least I saw the tension was non-existent between both parents of the bride or groom—from Tyrone’s mother and grandmother, along with Erin’s dad. Guess they’re on good terms, these elders. Anything for their children. The beauty of family dynamics.
Kurt: “Well, congrats on the uh, rings! I knew it was going to happen to you both.”
Erin: “Thanks Kurt.”
Kurt: “So the day were there…you saved our asses partially, probably missed out some stuff…you got Riley but not Harry?”
Ty: “We got filled in by others. Harry…he’s...was a coma. When we found his room, he was gone. Nobody knew where he was.”
Kurt: “I assume Jericho saved him. He's a friend. But Harry has a lot of issues...and I don't know, we might be seeing him again someday."
Leaving the couple to celebrate, I hope it wouldn’t make matters worse when everyone had something to announce. Jesse seemed bitter and unlike himself...he wasn’t cracking jokes anymore. Something was definitely up on his mind. Indeed, his temper was changing, his behaviour led to a lot of his arguments with his...ex lover. Not the most proper breakup, but this is what young people do, I guess?
Gary: “You’re not leaving, are you?”
Jesse: “I will. I can’t stand hypocrites around. Remus...used to be a teacher, until he wasn’t anymore. This is the part where I leave everybody—and this place. Congrats on the wedding, voila. I need to go away somewhere.”
Kieran: “You’re really considering it? Why not anyone?”
Jesse: “Who have I left to trust? Nobody. The agency used me, you, everyone as a tool! Us! As much as I like a lot of people in this room, it’s the end of the line for me. I'm gonna off the grid—no one’s gonna find me. Darling, I’m sorry."
Gary: "Is this breakup? Come on, we can decide--"
Jesse: "I've thought through tooth and nail, and the last couple of years are just...bad. I need to keep a low profile."
Gary: "J, please..."
Jesse: "Pray faith will allow us to meet again someday, love...”
***
Jesse: "Con, I'm gonna go. Please, we've been through this a whole lot."
Connor: "I'm not gonna stop you, and you're a functioning adult. You can make your own choices and I won't govern it, so you don't need permission."
Jesse: "The toughest calls always get the worst timings."
Connor: "I know, we haven't gotten much time, but at least we went home a few times. That's good enough in my book."
Jesse: "I'm just happy our best friends got married. And I just broke up."
Connor: "Yeah...about that, I'm sorry. It must have been awkward,. I can't do much but I'll always love you, Jes. I'm your big brother. Try giving me a call, will ya?"
Jesse: "Adios, bro."
***
Connor: “Sorry to inform everyone, but my brother's gone. I'm sorry, Gary and everyone else. But I hate bringing up agency matters at the moment, so we need to talk now."
Ty: "Well, it's not our worst day. We gotta accept our best friend's going, but I'm just glad our wedding was great, right babe?"
Erin: "You know I love you enough to not say no."
Ty: "Gotta make through the talk so we can go on honeymoon. Family's waiting over there."
Connor: "Okay. In that decision, we should all be making a vote. Who leaves or stays. My call is personal, I’m on and off. The Guild and Oddcrow need me. I'm flying for Kyoto tomorrow.”
Erin: “I hope you don’t leave for long.”
Connor: " I'll remain whenever you need me, E."
Sam: “I’m voting to stay. Healing takes a bit of time. We got nowhere to go honestly. So why not finish the party?”
Lyra: "Agreed."
Riley: "Stay, I can't fucking wait for girl party for us. You lads better stay off."
Erin: "That too, Riley. Me and Lyra need some good girl times."
Ty: "Yeah, we got one more night left, why not spend it well?"
Kieran: “Ok, let’s call it off for now. I gotta relax my bones.”
Kurt: "Drinks, monsieur and madams?"
Connor: "Here, let's toast to us."
***
At night through next morning, Jesse was never seen again, despite the celebration. God knows where he’s heading off but he's not entirely wrong. I swear, if he had stayed longer, I could have gotten a better understanding of what his electricity powers meant.
I too myself got tired during the hours of drinking, opting to go home or some bar. Doing research myself before snoozing off—least I can drink lots, but I’m not that kind of drunkard. I know I got work.
The focus of things look good once in a while. Research allows me to get back on the market, sort of. At least I can fluctuate in devising and making good use of atoms, some from my powers that I could experiment with, feels less work like the agency but more relaxed.
So where does this leave us? Agents, homeless, no jobs? Yeah, I guess pension means I should retire, but thanks to science, I'm a scientist. Avalon and Gamma teams are gonna have to regulate to civilian identities, have a normal job. It would be a challenge for newlyweds, or those who gotta adapt.
But I didn't find it hard, given I'm the oldest, having a career and all that, it's like being a hero is a part time job. There's so many ways you can save the world. Once at a time. If I do it step by step, I can acknowledge the procedures make it right.
***
On a rainy morning a week later, I received a call from Kieran, who asked me to go to the Paladin base to scavenge some things—while it’s on lockdown. Wonder what could that be? Prison? A reintroduction to my former life? No...couldn’t be.
The place is as dark as it gets as I wander around the open corner. This is the damn basement. The US is always under heavy security and guns and whatnot, but yeah, it's easy to slip through. I remember we were formally discharged after Gardner's incident, but we took some equipment, our suits and personal items before we left. The board made sure we would not step foot into Paladin again.
Kurt: “Where am I at again?”
Riley: “In secret.”
Lyra: “Welcome home again.”
Kurt: “Y’know the other day I thought about retirement...maybe I should have stayed there. You act like Washington isn't full of dirty secrets already.”
Sam: "So much for independency. I know, but this is different."
Kurt: "Again, hard to forgive for my pessimism. Yes I'm sober, but I'm still drowning in my own works."
Gary: “We still have unfinished business, Kurt. We need you. Jesse might be gone for now but this team has to get stronger."
Kurt: "Tell that to ones who just got married. But hey, they deserved it."
Glad to hear that then? I scuffle my hair and wait impatiently digging through my pockets, doing a mental headcount until something happens.
With the flicker of lights, my eyes are exposed to a garage like base of sorts. What it implies is that we may have relocated, but I could be wrong.
Sam: “Paladin may still be active, but...with the losses, we don’t have much time to cope on the inside, so we do it on the outside.”
Navin: “So what you say, old eagle?”
Kurt: “Khattar. You’re still alive.”
Navin: “I made it though, I know a few might not be present but...we should skip to explaining instead of jumping straight to conclusions.”
Khattar: “Well, for starters, Edens is regretting what he's done, keeping secrets. But the irony is—this is secretive. We've put him on Interpol list. He's negotiating to be under house arrest.”
Kurt: "Well, that's...something."
They all nod in agreement, like I’m late to the party or something. Emerging from the shadows in front of me is none other than Yvette Gardner, Mason’s sister. I've barely seen her before, but her presence is calming, yet mysterious. But it does remind me of her dead brother.
Yvette: “Looks like everyone’s here. Now where do I begin with...I thank you for the condolences for my brother’s death, which I’m in mourning too but since we’re facing dire times...I am going to take up his remaining funds. What he started—is in my hands. The Gardner company cannot work on its own but rather I’d have to focus on Cavebridge Solutions to maintain a public persona.”
Kurt: “That means giving up your career, would you want that? Worth the risks?”
Yvette: “I don’t have any choice left—my brother had to show the world...and in fact, I’m a superhuman too. Which is why we’re all gathered in secret.”
Navin: “Avalon and Gamma are now gone, with the exception of Sam and Connor, Tyrone and Erin have gone on their honeymoon and to focus on a new life, so I don’t blame them."
Kurt: "After what they've been through, they need the break."
Navin: "Yes, Doctor Rackham. I can ensure that. But your decision to stay or leave is crucial. I need to lead a team that is capable of surviving hardships in the aftermath of these events; you can still choose to leave if you want to, no one will force you to make a choice.”
Kurt: "I know, this is hard. Give me a minute."
Navin: "Best to make a steadfast decision, doctor."
***
No one spoke up. They were just exchanging glances, or it was just Riley trying to tease Kieran. Yvette sat on a chair, looking into her own digital businesses.
Kurt: "Okay, I'm in."
Navin: “Glad to hear that, doctor. Ms Gardner?"
Yvette: "The façade and reputation of Paladin has been tarnished—but it maybe beyond repair; the board saw it as a very dangerous stunt and now I have to prove myself as being trustworthy to be amongst everyone. It will double our work in the meantime, and our secrets will be held like this for another planning.”
Kurt: “So basically we’re building ourselves another agency? Well sounds sketchy to me even if you need men and women like us...and I wish Harry was here.”
Kieran: “Desperate times, desperate measures.”
Yvette: “If everyone proceeds to stay, then let’s get to work: the manhunt for North is still on, lots of enemies outside including the former guild members. Last couple of days, Connor has been assisting us with intel regarding ES activity in Berlin. If I’m not wrong about analytics, which presumably Sabine Rackham is still alive and active, she has ordered her cells on the move. I’m gonna hand the rest to Sam.”
Sam: ”Last but not least, we have a source of power...somewhere in the files that Jericho left us, a location...which could benefit us. But it’ll be a long trip searching...we’ll need someone up for that job as well.
Riley: "Woosh woosh. Lyra, babe. This is where we have fun. But we're definitely gonna crash Erin's place this coming weekend."
Lyra: "Deal."
Kieran: "Let's get to work, everyone."
Sounds like it. Hope comes in the form of a small...team. Since that day, we were a merged team, with a brand new leader, a financial benefactor and a new director. From people of different cultures and countries as team members, same faces but with a breathe of fresh air. And now with a mystery that should be a recurring thing to be decoded, analyzed and solved slowly...
The Knights of the Round Table are indeed alive after all. Do we have a name? Who cares right now? Who knows what will bring us to come? I wish I had the ability to predict the future, but the present is important to guide us there in time.
And the world will know Mason Gardner died a man who tried to save the world as a regular person, not as hero.
And we have to make sure his sacrifice will be remembered.
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Thanks, in part, to the inflammatory vitriol and the deliberate and outright lies spewed by the hypocritical, demagogic "democratic" "leadership", some of us associated with the making of "Path to 9/11" have received abundant hate mail and death threats.
The ever thoughtful Jessiqua has provided me with this disguise and I have moved to a defensible and "undisclosed" location....should work: no one here (having long ago given up on the idea of a meaningful civil discourse from the two superpowers of american politics on the issues confronting the union) gives a flying fuck about either Bush or Clinton or their bankrupt policies, agendas or minions.
Basically, it boils down to this: a curse on both your houses and shame on you for abandoning reason and dialogue in a time when it is desperately needed.
Slightly bruised and battered from the shrapnel fallout from the trench warfare of the two 'true believer' factions of American democracy battling it out: As producer, I am unbowed, unrepentant and totally unapologetic for "Path to 9/11"
Another gull one, not the best quality but the best I've got.
' Prince ' William is a shameless hypocrite....
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/prince-william-shoots-wild-...
Ancient Trees (11th Century) @ Ripley Castle,England,UK
THE DEER PARK CONTAINS SEVERAL MAGNIFICENT TREES. SOME HAVE PROBABLY BEEN HERE SINCE THE 11TH CENTURY. CERTAINLY THESE OAKTREES MUST BE VERY OLD TO ACHIEVE A GIRTH OF 28.5'.
The Ingilby family celebrates 700 years at Ripley CastleThe Ingleby family can trace its history back to 1090, when Sir Robert Ingleby owned land in the village of Ingleby, near Saxelby, Lincs. Another branch of the family had extensive lands in and around Ingleby Greenhow and Ingleby Mill in North Yorkshire. When Sir Thomas Ingleby (c1290-1352) married the heiress Edeline Thwenge in 1308/9 she came with a very substantial dowry: Ripley Castle and its surrounding estates. Like most wedding presents, it has taken the family several generations to work out what to do with it! Life was far from easy: in 1318 the Scots, under Sir James ‘Black’ Douglas, plundered the region mercilessly, destroying 140 of the 160 houses in nearby Knaresborough. In the following year a bovine plague killed almost all of the cattle in the region, leaving thousands destitute and milk in short supply. In 1349 the Black Death struck, wiping out almost half of the local population and leaving numerous hamlets bereft of people.
The old village of Ripley was abandoned and the survivors built a new settlement on the site of the current village, on the doorstep of the castle. Sir Thomas was in great favour at the king’s court in London and was appointed as an Advocate in 1347. In 1351 he was appointed as a Justice of Assize. He died the following year and a magnificent tombchest in All Saint’s Church, Ripley, has the figures of Thomas and Edeline lying recumbent on the top, he in his armour and chain mail, she in a long robe and head dress. His oldest son, also called Thomas (1310-1369) also married well: Katherine Mauleverer was descended from Aelfwine, an Anglian of proud descent and one of the largest landowners in the North of England. He followed his father into the royal court, and accompanied Edward III on a hunting trip to the royal hunting forest of Knaresborough in 1357. The king found a wild boar and threw his spear at it, but only injured it. The boar charged the king’s horse, and the king was thrown to the ground. Thomas killed the boar, saving the king’s life. He was knighted, granted the boar’s head emblem as his family crest, and granted the right to hold a weekly market and annual horse fair in Ripley – both continued to be held until the early 1900’s. He was appointed as a justice of the King’s Bench in 1361, the only judge to hold that position apart from the Chief Justice. He could claim £40 pa for expenses, and a further £20pa for holding assizes in different counties.
Thomas’s brother, Sir Henry Ingleby, enjoyed an equally notable career. Rector of several parishes, he was appointed Master of the Rolls and Keeper of the Writs, serving under the Lord Chancellor William Edington: he had an office in the Tower of London and paid 40 shillings a year for the privilege of collecting the wool tax from the monasteries. He also oversaw the network of royal horse dealers who bought horses for the royal household, then sold them at a profit: the proceeds were used to build Windsor Castle. He died in 1375 and was buried in York Minster.
Sir John Ingleby (1434-1499) inherited the estate from his father at the age of five: his trustees had to testify to his correct date of birth in order to get the estates out of trust when he came of age. Their testimony paints a remarkable picture of an average day in the life of 15th century England. ‘Ralph Acclom remembers John’s birth because he was staying with John, Abbot of Fountains Abbey and rode across with him to baptize the baby. Ralph Apilton remembered John’s birth because he killed a deer between Ripley and Hampsthwaite. Robert Atkinson remembered the date because he rode with John Slingsby from Ripley to Sherburn and was robbed and beaten up, losing 28s and 8d.’John built the castle gatehouse – still there today – and married a wealthy heiress, Margery Strangeways of Harlsey Castle. She bore him a son and heir, William. In 1457 John abandoned his wife, son estates and earthly possessions to become a monk at Mount Grace Priory a Carthusian charterhouse near Northallerton which had been founded by his great grandfather – and was the last resting place for his parents.
He was appointed prior of Sheen in 1477 and first visitor of the English province between 1478 and 1496. The royal family worshipped at Sheen and John became the first of three executors for Queen Elizabeth, wife of Edward IV, in 1492. He was Henry VII’s special ambassador to Pope Innocent VIII, the king describing him as ‘my captain and envoy’ in one of the letters that John delivered to the Pope. Henry appointed him to oversee the conversion of priory at Sheen into the royal palace of Richmond between 1495 and 1499, and the Pope appointed him bishop of Llandaff on 27th June, 1496. He was buried at the church of St Nicholas in Hertford. His luckless wife, Margery, effectively became a widow when he took holy orders: she spent eleven years raising her son before marrying Richard, Lord Welles. Her luck was no better second time round: Edward IV reneged on a promise of safe keeping and had her husband beheaded in 1469, less than a year after their marriage.Sir William Ingleby (1518-1578) married the staunchly Catholic Ann Mallory and lived through a period of profound religious turbulence. When Henry VIII suppressed the smaller monasteries in 1536, Yorkshire’s old established Catholic families rose in revolt: the Pilgrimage of Grace was a populist and peaceful revolt that received such widespread support throughout the North that the king, heavily outnumbered, was forced to sue for peace. Reneging on a promise of safe keeping, Henry had the organizer, Robert Aske, arrested and put to death: 200 of his fellow pilgrims shared his fate. William received a reward for his staunch loyalty to the crown: Queen Mary wrote ‘For the opinion I have conceived of Sir William Ingleby…I have appointed him Treasurer of Berwick’. The Rising of the North in 1568 was potentially even more serious. The rebels set out from nearby Markenfield Hall and mustered an army that far outnumbered the king’s resources. Sir William, as High Sheriff of York, was obliged to muster additional troops but while doing so was surrounded in Ripon market square, by a group of rebels amongst whom were two of his sons, David and Francis. He had to fight his way out and, deciding that Ripley Castle was too weak to defend, took refuge in the duchy of Lancaster’s Knaresborough Castle until the troops under his command were strong enough to defeat the rebels. The earl of Sussex wrote to
William Cecil ‘Sir William Ingleby has served the Queen as truly and as chargeably from the first suspicion of this rebellion, as any man of his rank has done. He has delivered to me, from time to time, better intelligence than I have received from any others. He be such that her majesty may rest assured of his honesty and loyalty’. The rebellion was crushed: David and Francis fled into exile but Sir William’s own son in law,
Thomas Markenfield, was executed. Francis Ingleby (1550-1586) studied at Brasenose College, Oxford and read law at the Inner Temple. In 1583, having received a heavenly visitation while staying at Ripley, he emigrated to Reims and became ordained a Catholic seminary priest, returning to England in 1585. There are remarkable parallels with today: a native Englishman, passionately supporting a minority religion, goes abroad to receive militant training in his faith. He returns intent on spreading the word and overthrowing the established religion and government.
Francis was hung, drawn and quartered on York Knavesmire in 1586 and beatified by the Pope in 1987. His brother David (1547-1600) became known as ‘the Fox’ for his ability to outrun his pursuers. He was the man who guided the seminary priests around the North of England, leading them from one safe house to another. He married Lady Ann Neville, daughter of the exiled earl of Westmoreland – and another staunch Catholic. David was heavily implicated as a co-conspirator of John Ballard in the Babington treason, a conspiracy to remove Elizabeth I from the throne and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. He and Francis were described as ‘the most dangerous papists in the North’. A huge manhunt was launched to find them: a secret priest’s hiding hole, built to conceal them and other visiting priests while they were at Ripley, was only discovered by accident in 1964. A set of instructions written out for a spy being sent to the royal court in Scotland listed numerous things that the spy should and should not do: it ended with a very simple warning ‘ beware of David Ingleby’. David died in exile in Belgium: Elizabeth I, taking pity on his by now
impoverished widow, awarded her a pension provided she behaved herself. Their cousin Mary Ward spent several of her formative years staying with the Inglebys. In 1609 she founded a Catholic Society for Women, modeled on the Society of Jesus. They founded schools and taught in them, and the nuns were strongly encouraged to work in the community. Pope Urban VIII suppressed the order and it wasn’t until 1877 that her society was fully restored with papal blessing. The Bar Convent in York – which she founded - was the first teaching convent in the world. Sir William Ingleby (1546 - 1618) hosted a visit by James VI of Scotland en route to the king’s coronation as James I of England in 1603. Within two years William was heavily implicated in a plot to kill the king his family and hundreds of MP’s. The Ingilbys were related to or closely associated with, nine of the eleven principal conspirators of the infamous Gunpowder Plot. The mother of Robert and Thomas Wyntour, two of the leading conspirators, was an Ingleby. They had spent the week before the plot was unearthed at Ripley, buying horses from the surrounding district. Sir William and his son were arrested and charged with treason, but were, surprisingly, acquitted of all the charges. The third charge was that of bribing witnesses.
Sir William Ingleby (1594-1652) supported Charles I throughout the civil war, raising a troop of horse to fight under the generalship of Prince Rupert of the Rhine. He fought at the battle of Marston Moor, alongside his redoubtable sister, ‘Trooper’ Jane Ingleby, and somehow managed to escape the bloody rout that saw the king’s northern armies defeated for good. He made the safety of Ripley, but was his arrival was followed almost immediately by that of the victorious rebel general, Oliver Cromwell. Sir William leapt into the priest’s secret hiding place, leaving his sister to look after Cromwell. She at first refused to let him into the castle, swearing that she would defend it against all comers. After some negotiation, he was allowed to enter and spend the night there, guarded at pistol point by Jane, to prevent him from searching the castle for her brother. Cromwell, stunned at being held at gunpoint by a woman having just won the greatest victory of his career, did nothing and she saw him off the premises the following morning.
Sir William’s son, also called William (1620-1682) was deeply religious – and a closet ‘rebel’. He managed to get the family’s entire fortune captured by the rebels and his father, believing him to have done it on purpose, wrote him a blistering letter, threatening to disinherit him. The letter, signed ‘your loving father’, can be seen at the castle today.
William junior was not good looking: his portraits confirm that. In 1659 he employed a dating agent, a Mr E Pitt, to find him a wife, and again we have the correspondence: the mission was successful.Sir John Ingilby (1757 – 1835) married Elizabeth Amcotts, a Lincolnshire heiress. His father in law promised him funds to help the young couple rebuild the castle. Sir John had a row with his father in law half way through the project, and ended up so heavily in debt that he had to flee the country for eleven years while his land agent sold timber to pay off his debts. While he and his wife were abroad their oldest son died at the age of 18, and they were hustled from one European city to another as the Napoleonic wars consumed the continent. A bundle of frequently harrowing letters, written to his agent while he was in exile, survives. By the time he returned, his marriage was over: having had 11 children by his wife, he had a further 5 by Martha Webster, daughter of a local tenant farmer.
One son, Edward Webster, had problems involving a gamekeeper’s daughter near Skipton and was placed on board the RM Reynolds at Ramsgate with £200 and a supply of clean shirts: his stepbrother was ordered to remain on the dockside to ensure that he didn’t leave the vessel before it set sail for Sydney. This proved to be a life-changing experience and he and his successors thrived Down Under: Robert Webster was the minister of state for the Olympics in the NSW state government when Sydney won the bid for the games.
Sir John’s son Sir William Amcotts Ingilby (1783-1854) was the product of a broken home, and a great eccentric. He was a drinker, gambler and general reprobate: he became an MP, as many such people do. He was a leading Whig, and an outspoken supporter of the reform Act of 1832. His dress sense was spectacularly awful ‘’As to your friend, Sir William Ingilby I am told by a lady who saw him and absolutely took fright at it, that this eccentric baronet walks about Ripley and Ripon too, in his dressing gown, without smalls or loincloth on. The absence of the former was luckily disguised by the wrap of the gown, and is alleged on hearsay: but the naked throat, shirt collar displayed a la Milord Byron, had a striking effect, and produced the scarecrow impression.’ Believing that his tenants and workforce should be well housed in this age of industrial revolution, Sir William demolished the entire village of Ripley and rebuilt it as a model estate village, copying an idea that he had observed in Alsace Lorraine. Instead of a Town Hall, Ripley has a magnificent ‘Hotel de Ville’ – certainly the only one of its kind in England! He died without heir and left the estate to his cousin Henry, telling him that he was doing so because ‘ I don’t believe that you are any longer the canting hypocrite I took you for’. Sir William Ingilby (1829-1918) was a somewhat dictatorial Landlord. He disapproved of alcoholic drink being served on the Sabbath day and closed down the three pubs in the village when the Landlords refused to close on Sundays. The village remained dry for 71 years until the Boar’s Head opened in 1989. When a child ran out of the front door of one of the village houses and startled his horse, causing him to be deposited on the ground in the middle of the Main Street, he prevented further embarrassment by imposing an edict that the villagers should not use their front doors.
Having survived several plagues, invasions, civil wars, wars, religious turbulence, a plot to commit regicide, numerous periods of deep recession and everything else that has befallen this country in the last seven hundred years, the Ingilbys can justifiably breathe a sigh of relief that they have arrived safely at this astonishing landmark. Theirs is a story of how one family has been tossed around in the choppy waters of England’s stormy history – and somehow survived, despite being on the losing side more often than not. The history of the Ingilbys is a microcosm of the history of England and features a cast of extraordinarily brave, foolish, eccentric and courageous characters, black sheep and white. They have gone from high office in the court of kings and queens to running a wedding and conference venue and hotel, but they are still at Ripley and the story continues as they steer their family and business through these challenging times. Sir Thomas and Lady Ingilby have four sons and a daughter. A more detailed history of the family, complete with family trees not just of the Ingilby family but various families that became related to the Ingilbys by marriage over the centuries
youtu.be/KcPcJ9ycEu4?t=2m22s Full Feature
Paving for the way for later occult classics like Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man, Night of the Demon is a spooky tale of witchcraft in modern Britain. With Jacques Tourneur’s film opening the BFI’s Monster Weekend, curator Vic Pratt explains why it’s a masterpiece of fright.
Vic Pratt
Wednesday, 21 August 2013
Night of the Demon (1957)
Night of the Demon screens on 29 August as part of the BFI’s Monster Weekend at the British Museum.
Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film is a major four-month film season at BFI Southbank and across the UK from October 2013 to January 2014.
I’ve loved Night of the Demon (1957) since I first watched it on telly many moons ago with my Dad. I was just a kid at the time, and yes, it may have been past my bedtime, so the thrill of staying up late to see it might have meant I enjoyed it all the more. But ever since then, it’s been a firm favourite of mine.
Looking back at it with an adult eye, you can see that it’s a film that belongs on any decent foundation course in cinematic horror. Beautifully constructed and ingeniously fashioned by master film-craftsmen, it remains a haunting, chillingly plausible tale of witchcraft and the occult, and the conflict between rationality and superstition.
But back when I was a fresh-faced child, I didn’t care about that. I was far more interested in the creepy demon of the title. That writhing, nasty-faced, woodcut-like creature – his arrival heralded by strange squealing strains, unsettling jangling noises, smoky footprints, and bizarre star-spangled puffs of smoke – captured my youthful imagination.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the film was directed by a master of spooky, suspenseful, atmospheric cinema, the great Jacques Tourneur. I found out about him later on, as a teenager. Tourneur’s shadowy, moody films – which seemed to mix Gothic themes with film noir-ish imagery – had an immediate appeal.
French born, but later active in the USA, he shot a string of low-budget classics in the 1940s for Val Lewton’s B-picture unit at RKO. If that had been that, and he’d packed it in then, his reputation would already have been assured. The man who’d made Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) certainly had nothing to prove. But Tourneur was not a man to rest on his laurels. He carried on, moved into bigger budget productions, and, some years later, shot a Gothic chiller about modern-day witchcraft in England. It was called Night of the Demon. And it might even be the best of the bunch.
The film was adapted from M.R. James’s short story ‘Casting the Runes’ by Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett, and it grips from the very beginning. Dana Andrews, playing sceptical American psychologist Holden, scoffs when he’s passed a cursed piece of parchment in the British Museum reading room by genial occultist Dr Karswell (masterfully played by Niall MacGinnis). It means that he’s scheduled to die at the demon’s hand within four days. Holden doesn’t believe it. But – having spotted that monster in the first reel – we viewers know better than the sometimes irritatingly sure-of-himself scientist. And so Holden is dragged ever further into a web of devilry, while perceptive Joanna (the wonderful Peggy Cummins) races against time to convince him that it’s not all just flim-flam.
But you can see why Holden takes some convincing. While Karswell really is the possessor of strange powers, he acts like a show-off schoolboy conjuror spoiling the summer fete. A petulant, overgrown rich-kid know-all who lives with his mother, occasionally dabbling as a children’s entertainer, he’s a modern-day sorcerer who really doesn’t understand the seriousness of the dark forces at his command – and doesn’t much care either.
In one splendid scene, set at his grand country house, merely to demonstrate his powers to the resolutely sceptical Holden, Karswell conjures up a whirlwind out of nowhere, and smiles smugly as terrified children – whom he entertained, dressed as a clown, moments earlier – run screaming across the grounds of his stately pile. “A medieval witch’s speciality: a wind storm,” he gloats. He’s ruined their party.
Shot in broad daylight, this eerie, darkly humorous scene demonstrates that good Gothic doesn’t need to take place at night, or even in a creepy castle; and that Tourneur is a master of mood, whatever the setting. And something tells me our old friend Alfred Hitchcock watched it closely: it foreshadows a somewhat similar silly-sinister sequence in The Birds (1963) where a flap of feathered beasts suddenly dive bomb the children to spoil yet another tea-party on the lawn.
A disrupted children’s party was a million miles away from the censor-shocking, blood-spattered Hammer horrors that were poised to take the world by storm at the end of the 1950s; but this film, though perhaps harking back to an earlier era, was no less brilliant than those.
Despite the monster, Night of the Demon is a cerebral piece: it chills viewers intelligently, slowly, and fills them with an ominous sense of impending dread and looming, inevitable disaster, leavened with dark, dry dashes of humour and irony – tactics that, once again, bring to mind a certain Mr Hitchcock. And what’s more, it makes witchcraft creepily contemporary. Modern-day malevolence of this kind would be the centrepiece of numerous films still to come, such as Night of the Eagle (1962), Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973), to name but a few.
Night of the Demon has now been remastered by the BFI National Archive, and the full-length British version now stands ready to be unleashed on cinema screens once more. If you haven’t seen it before, you should. And while that old demon lurking in the shadows at the centre of it all has had some bad press over the years – many critics think we meet him too early, or even that we shouldn’t meet him at all – my childhood self would beg to differ. He had quite an effect on me in my formative years, and my adult self will hear nothing bad said about him. He belongs exactly where he is, forever swirling malevolently in the smoke, at the heart of Night of the Demon.
Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment
1957/58 / B&W / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 / 82, 95 min. / Street Date August 13, 2002 / $24.95
Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, Maurice Denham, Athene Seyler
Cinematography Ted Scaife
Production Designer Ken Adam
Special Effects George Blackwell, S.D. Onions, Wally Veevers
Film Editor Michael Gordon
Original Music Clifton Parker
Written by Charles Bennett and Hal E. Chester from the story Casting the Runes by Montague R. James
Produced by Frank Bevis, Hal E. Chester
Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Savant champions a lot of genre movies but only infrequently does one appear like Jacques Tourneur's superlative Curse of the Demon. It's simply better than the rest -- an intelligent horror film with some very good scares. It occupies a stylistic space that sums up what's best in ghost stories and can hold its own with most any supernatural film ever made. Oh, it's also a great entertainment that never fails to put audiences at the edge of their seats.
What's more, Columbia TriStar has shown uncommon respect for their genre output by including both versions of Curse of the Demon on one disc. Savant has full coverage on the versions and their restoration below, following his thorough and analytical (read: long-winded and anal) coverage of the film itself.
Synopsis:
Dr. John Holden (Dana Andrews), a scientist and professional debunker of superstitious charlatans, arrives in England to help Professor Henry Harrington (Maurice Denham) assault the phony cult surrounding Dr. Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis). But Harrington has mysteriously died and Holden becomes involved with his niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who thinks Karswell had something to do with it. Karswell's 'tricks' confuse the skeptical Holden, but he stubbornly holds on to his conviction that he's " ... not a sucker, like 90% of the human race." That is, until the evidence mounts that Harrington was indeed killed by a demon summoned from Hell, and that Holden is the next intended victim!
The majority of horror films are fantasies in which we accept supernatural ghosts, demons and monsters as part of a deal we've made with the authors: they dress the fantasy in an attractive guise and arrange the variables into an interesting pattern, and we agree to play along for the sake of enjoyment. When it works the movies can resonate with personal meaning. Even though Dracula and Frankenstein are unreal, they are relevant because they're aligned with ideas and themes in our subconscious.
Horror films that seriously confront the no-man's land between rational reality and supernatural belief have a tough time of it. Everyone who believes in God knows that the tug o' war between rationality and faith in our culture has become so clogged with insane belief systems it's considered impolite to dismiss people who believe in flying saucers or the powers of crystals or little glass pyramids. One of Dana Andrews' key lines in Curse of the Demon, defending his dogged skepticism against those urging him to have an open mind, is his retort, "If the world is a dark place ruled by Devils and Demons, we all might as well give up right now." Curse of the Demon balances itself between skepticism and belief with polite English manners, letting us have our fun as it lays its trap. We watch Andrews roll his eyes and scoff at the feeble séance hucksters and the dire warnings of a foolish-looking necromancer. Meanwhile, a whole dark world of horror sneaks up on him. The film's intelligent is such that we're not offended by its advocacy of dark forces or even its literal, in-your-face demon.
The remarkable Curse of the Demon was made in England for Columbia but is gloriously unaffected by that company's zero-zero track record with horror films. Producer Hal E. Chester would seem an odd choice to make a horror classic after producing Joe Palooka films and acting as a criminal punk in dozens of teen crime movies. The obvious strong cards are writer Charles Bennett, the brains behind several classic English Hitchcock pictures (who 'retired' into meaningless bliss writing for schlockmeister Irwin Allen) and Jacques Tourneur, a master stylist who put Val Lewton on the map with Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. Tourneur made interesting Westerns (Canyon Passage, Great Day in the Morning) and perhaps the most romantic film noir, Out of the Past. By the late '50s he was on what Andrew Sarris in his American Film called 'a commercial downgrade'. The critic lumped Curse of the Demon with low budget American turkeys like The Fearmakers. 1
Put Tourneur with an intelligent script, a decent cameraman and more than a minimal budget and great things could happen. We're used to watching Corman Poe films, English Hammer films and Italian Bavas and Fredas, all the while making excuses for the shortcomings that keep them in the genre ghetto (where they all do quite well, thank you). There's even a veiled resentment against upscale shockers like The Innocents that have resources (money, time, great actors) denied our favorite toilers in the genre realm. Curse of the Demon is above all those considerations. It has name actors past their prime and reasonable production values. Its own studio (at least in America) released it like a genre quickie, double-billed with dreck like The Night the World Exploded and The Giant Claw. They cut it by 13 minutes, changed its title (to ape The Curse of Frankenstein?) and released a poster featuring a huge, slavering demon monster that some believe was originally meant to be barely glimpsed in the film itself. 2
Horror movies can work on more than one level but Curse of the Demon handles several levels and then some. The narrative sets up John Holden as a professional skeptic who raises a smirking eyebrow to the open minds of his colleagues. Unlike most second-banana scientists in horror films, they express divergent points of view. Holden just sees himself as having common sense but his peers are impressed by the consistency of demonological beliefs through history. Maybe they all saw Christensen's Witchcraft through the Ages, which might have served as a primer for author Charles Bennett. Smart dialogue allows Holden to score points by scoffing at the then-current "regression to past lives" scam popularized by the Bridey Murphy craze. 3 While Holden stays firmly rooted to his position, coining smart phrases and sarcastic put-downs of believers, the other scientists are at least willing to consider alternate possibilities. Indian colleague K.T. Kumar (Peter Elliott) keeps his opinion to himself. But when asked, he politely states that he believes entirely in the world of demons! 4
Holden may think he has the truth by the tail but it takes Kindergarten teacher Joanna Harrington (Peggy Cummins of Gun Crazy fame) to show him that being a skeptic doesn't mean ignoring facts in front of one's face. Always ready for a drink (a detail added to tailor the part to Andrews?), Holden spends the first couple of reels as interested in pursuing Miss Harrington, as he is the devil-worshippers. The details and coincidences pile up with alarming speed -- the disappearing ink untraceable by the lab, the visual distortions that might be induced by hypnosis, the pages torn from his date book and the parchment of runic symbols. Holden believes them to be props in a conspiracy to draw him into a vortex of doubt and fear. Is he being set up the way a Voodoo master cons his victim, by being told he will die, with fabricated clues to make it all appear real? Holden even gets a bar of sinister music stuck in his head. It's the title theme -- is this a wicked joke on movie soundtracks?
Speak of the Devil...
This brings us to the wonderful character of Julian Karswell, the kiddie-clown turned multi-millionaire cult leader. The man who launched Alfred Hitchcock as a maker of sophisticated thrillers here creates one of the most interesting villains ever written, one surely as good as any of Hitchcock's. In the short American cut Karswell is a shrewd games-player who shows Holden too many of his cards and finally outsmarts himself. The longer UK cut retains the full depth of his character.
Karswell has tapped into the secrets of demonology to gain riches and power, yet he tragically recognizes that he is as vulnerable to the forces of Hell as are the cowering minions he controls through fear. Karswell's coven means business. It's an entirely different conception from the aesthetic salon coffee klatch of The Seventh Victim, where nothing really supernatural happens and the only menace comes from a secret society committing new crimes to hide old ones.
Karswell keeps his vast following living in fear, and supporting his extravagant lifestyle under the idea that Evil is Good, and Good Evil. At first the Hobart Farm seems to harbor religious Christian fundamentalists who have turned their backs on their son. Then we find out that they're Karswell followers, living blighted lives on cursed acreage and bled dry by their cultist "leader." Karswell's mum (Athene Seyler) is an inversion of the usual insane Hitchcock mother. She lovingly resists her son's philosophy and actively tries to help the heroes. That's in the Night version, of course. In the shorter American cut she only makes silly attempts to interest Joanna in her available son and arranges for a séance. Concerned by his "negativity", Mother confronts Julian on the stairs. He has no friends, no wife, no family. He may be a mass extortionist but he's still her baby. Karswell explains that by exploiting his occult knowledge, he's immersed himself forever in Evil. "You get nothing for nothing"
Karswell is like the Devil on Earth, a force with very limited powers that he can't always control. By definition he cannot trust any of his own minions. They're unreliable, weak and prone to double-cross each other, and they attract publicity that makes a secret society difficult to conceal. He can't just kill Holden, as he hasn't a single henchman on the payroll. He instead summons the demon, a magic trick he's only recently mastered. When Karswell turns Harrington away in the first scene we can sense his loneliness. The only person who can possibly understand is right before him, finally willing to admit his power and perhaps even tolerate him. Karswell has no choice but to surrender Harrington over to the un-recallable Demon. In his dealings with the cult-debunker Holden, Karswell defends his turf but is also attempting to justify himself to a peer, another man who might be a potential equal. It's more than a duel of egos between a James Bond and a Goldfinger, with arrogance and aggression masking a mutual respect; Karswell knows he's taken Lewton's "wrong turning in life," and will have to pay for it eventually.
Karswell eventually earns Holden's respect, especially after the fearful testimony of Rand Hobart. It's taken an extreme demonstration to do it, but Holden budges from his smug position. He may not buy all of the demonology hocus-pocus but it's plain enough that Karswell or his "demon" is going to somehow rub him out. Seeking to sneak the parchment back into Karswell's possession, Holden becomes a worthy hero because he's found the maturity to question his own preconceptions. Armed with his rational, cool head, he's a force that makes Karswell -- without his demon, of course -- a relative weakling. Curse of the Demon ends in a classic ghost story twist, with just desserts dished out and balance recovered. The good characters are less sure of their world than when they started, but they're still able to cope. Evil has been defeated not by love or faith, but by intellect.
Curse of the Demon has the Val Lewton sensibility as has often been cited in Tourneur's frequent (and very effective) use of the device called the Lewton "Bus" -- a wholly artificial jolt of fast motion and noise interrupting a tense scene. There's an ultimate "bus" at the end when a train blasts in and sets us up for the end title. It "erases" the embracing actors behind it and I've always thought it had to be an inspiration for the last shot of North by NorthWest. The ever-playful Hitchcock was reportedly a big viewer of fantastic films, from which he seems to have gotten many ideas. He's said to have dined with Lewton on more than one occasion (makes sense, they were at one time both Selznick contractees) and carried on a covert competition with William Castle, of all people.
Visually, Tourneur's film is marvelous, effortlessly conjuring menacing forests lit in the fantastic Mario Bava mode by Ted Scaife, who was not known as a genre stylist. There are more than a few perfunctory sets, with some unflattering mattes used for airport interiors, etc.. Elsewhere we see beautiful designs by Ken Adam in one of his earliest outings. Karswell's ornate floor and central staircase evoke an Escher print, especially when visible/invisible hands appear on the banister. A hypnotic, maze-like set for a hotel corridor is also tainted by Escher and evokes a sense of the uncanny even better than the horrid sounds Holden hears. The build-up of terror is so effective that one rather unconvincing episode (a fight with a Cat People - like transforming cat) does no harm. Other effects, such as the demon footprints appearing in the forest, work beautifully.
In his Encyclopedia of Horror Movies Phil Hardy very rightly relates Curse of the Demon's emphasis on the visual to the then just-beginning Euro-horror subgenre. The works of Bava, Margheriti and Freda would make the photographic texture of the screen the prime element of their films, sometimes above acting and story logic.
Columbia TriStar's DVD of Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon presents both versions of this classic in one package. American viewers saw an effective but abbreviated cut-down. If you've seen Curse of the Demon on cable TV or rented a VHS or a laser anytime after 1987, you're not going to see anything different in the film. In 1987 Columbia happened to pull out the English cut when it went to re-master. When the title came up as Night of the Demon, they just slugged in the Curse main title card and let it go.
From such a happy accident (believe me, nobody in charge at Columbia at the time would have purposely given a film like this a second glance) came a restoration at least as wonderful as the earlier reversion of The Fearless Vampire Killers to its original form. Genre fans were taken by surprise and the Laserdisc became a hot item that often traded for hundreds of dollars. 6
Back in film school Savant had been convinced that ever seeing the long, original Night cut was a lost cause. An excellent article in the old Photon magazine in the early '70s 5, before such analytical work was common, accurately laid out the differences between the two versions, something Savant needs to do sometime with The Damned and These Are the Damned. The Photon article very accurately describes the cut scenes and what the film lost without them, and certainly inspired many of the ideas here.
Being able to see the two versions back-to-back shows exactly how they differ. Curse omits some scenes and rearranges others. Gone is some narration from the title sequence, most of the airplane ride, some dialogue on the ground with the newsmen and several scenes with Karswell talking to his mother. Most crucially missing are Karswell's mother showing Joanna the cabalistic book everyone talks so much about and Holden's entire visit to the Hobart farm to secure a release for his examination of Rand Hobart. Of course the cut film still works (we loved the cut Curse at UCLA screenings and there are people who actually think it's better) but it's nowhere near as involving as the complete UK version. Curse also reshuffles some events, moving Holden's phantom encounter in the hallway nearer the beginning, which may have been to get a spooky scene in the middle section or to better disguise the loss of whole scenes later. The chop-job should have been obvious. The newly imposed fades and dissolves look awkward. One cut very sloppily happens right in the middle of a previous dissolve.
Night places both Andrews and Cummins' credits above the title and gives McGinnis an "also starring" credit immediately afterwards. Oddly, Curse sticks Cummins afterwards and relegates McGinnis to the top of the "also with" cast list. Maybe with his role chopped down, some Columbia executive thought he didn't deserve the billing?
Technically, both versions look just fine, very sharp and free of digital funk that would spoil the film's spooky visual texture. Night of the Demon is the version to watch for both content and quality. It's not perfect but has better contrast and less dirt than the American version. Curse has more emulsion scratches and flecking white dandruff in its dark scenes, yet looks fine until one sees the improvement of Night. Both shows are widescreen enhanced (hosanna), framing the action at its original tighter aspect ratio.
It's terrific that Columbia TriStar has brought out this film so thoughtfully, even though some viewers are going to be confused when their "double feature" disc appears to be two copies of the same movie. Let 'em stew. This is Savant's favorite release so far this year.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Curse of the Demon / Night of the Demon rates:
Movie: Excellent
Footnotes:
Made very close to Curse of the Demon and starring Dana Andrews, The Fearmakers (great title) was a Savant must-see until he caught up with it in the UA collection at MGM. It's a pitiful no-budgeter that claims Madison Avenue was providing public relations for foreign subversives, and is negligible even in the lists of '50s anti-Commie films.
Return
Curse of the Demon's Demon has been the subject of debate ever since the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland. From what's on record it's clear that producer Chester added or maximized the shots of the creature, a literal visualization of a fiery, brimstone-smoking classical woodcut demon that some viewers think looks ridiculous. Bennett and Tourneur's original idea was to never show a demon but the producer changed that. Tourneur probably directed most of the shots, only to have Chester over-use them. To Savant's thinking, the demon looks great. It is first perceived as an ominous sound, a less strident version of the disturbing noise made by Them! Then it manifests itself visually as a strange disturbance in the sky (bubbles? sparks? early slit-scan?) followed by a billowing cloud of sulphurous smoke (a dandy effect not exploited again until Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The long-shot demon is sometimes called the bicycle demon because he's a rod puppet with legs that move on a wheel-rig. Smoke belches from all over his scaly body. Close-ups are provided by a wonderfully sculpted head 'n' shoulders demon with articulated eyes and lips, a full decade or so before Carlo Rambaldi started engineering such devices.
Most of the debate centers on how much Demon should have been shown with the general consensus that less would have been better. People who dote on Lewton-esque ambivalence say that the film's slow buildup of rationality-versus demonology is destroyed by the very real Demon's appearance in the first scene, and that's where they'd like it removed or radically reduced. The Demon is so nicely integrated into the cutting (the giant foot in the first scene is a real jolt) that it's likely that Tourneur himself filmed it all, perhaps expecting the shots to be shorter or more obscured. It is also possible that the giant head was a post-Tourneur addition - it doesn't tie in with the other shots as well (especially when it rolls forward rather stiffly) and is rather blunt. Detractors lump it in with the gawd-awful head of The Black Scorpion, which is filmed the same way and almost certainly was an afterthought - and also became a key poster image. This demon head matches the surrounding action a lot better than did the drooling Scorpion.
Savant wouldn't change Curse of the Demon but if you put a gun to my head I'd shorten most of the shots in its first appearance, perhaps eliminating all close-ups except for the final, superb shot of the the giant claw reaching for Harrington / us.
Kumar, played (I assume) by an Anglo actor, immediately evokes all those Indian and other Third World characters in Hammer films whose indigenous cultures invariably hold all manner of black magic and insidious horror. When Hammer films are repetitious it's because they take eighty minutes or so to convince the imagination-challenged English heroes to even consider the premise of the film as being real. In Curse of the Demon, Holden's smart-tongued dismissal of outside viewpoints seems much more pigheaded now than it did in 1957, when heroes confidently defended conformist values without being challenged. Kumar is a scientist but also probably a Hindu or a Sikh. He has no difficulty reconciling his faith with his scientific detachment. Holden is far too tactful to call Kumar a crazy third-world guru but that's probably what he's thinking. He instead politely ignores him. Good old Kumar then saves Holden's hide with some timely information. I hope Holden remembered to thank him.
There's an unstated conclusion in Curse of the Demon: Holden's rigid disbelief of the supernatural means he also does not believe in a Christian God with its fundamentally spiritual faith system of Good and Evil, saints and devils, angels and demons. Horror movies that deal directly with religious symbolism and "real faith" can be hypocritical in their exploitation and brutal in their cheap toying with what are for many people sacred personal concepts. I'm thinking of course of The Exorcist here. That movie has all the grace of a reporter who shows a serial killer's atrocity photos to a mother whose child has just been kidnapped. Curse of the Demon hasn't The Exorcist's ruthless commercial instincts but instead has the modesty not to pretend to be profound, or even "real." Yet it expresses our basic human conflict between rationality and faith very nicely.
Savant called Jim Wyrnoski, who was associated with Photon, in an effort to find out more about the article, namely who wrote it. It was very well done and I've never forgotten it; I unfortunately loaned my copy out to good old Jim Ursini and it disappeared. Obviously, a lot of the ideas here, I first read there. Perhaps a reader who knows better how to take care of their belongings can help me with the info? Ursini and Alain Silvers' More Things than are Dreamt Of Limelight, 1994, analyzes Curse of the Demon (and many other horror movies) in the context of its source story.
This is a true story: Cut to 2000. Columbia goes to re-master Curse of the Demon and finds that the fine-grain original of the English version is missing. The original long version of the movie may be lost forever. A few months later a collector appears who says he bought it from another unnamed collector and offers to trade it for a print copy of the American version, which he prefers. Luckily, an intermediary helps the collector follow up on his offer and the authorities are not contacted about what some would certainly call stolen property. The long version is now once again safe. Studios clearly need to defend their property but many collectors have "items" they personally have acquired legally. More often than you might think, such finds come about because studios throw away important elements. If the studios threaten prosecution, they will find that collectors will never approach them. They'd probably prefer to destroy irreplaceable film to avoid being criminalized.
Picked up Tristram Shandy, the other night, picked a random chapter and started reading -- a book most suited to this method, Sterne being the Cervantes of English letters -- and came across a very nonce word. Decided such a wonderful word must be exhumed and brought back to life. From a circle of 24 lb printer paper.
—And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way back?—'Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the pyramid in any one group!—and what a price!—for there is nothing of the colouring of Titian—the expression of Rubens—the grace of Raphael—the purity of Dominichino—the corregiescity of Corregio—the learning of Poussin—the airs of Guido—the taste of the Carrachis—or the grand contour of Angelo.—Grant me patience, just Heaven!—Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst—the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Chapter 2.V
day 240
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I could somehow forget flickr and the world of photography, and just slip back into a monotonous life without knowledge of the world and possibilities that were out there. I try really hard to imagine what my life would be like without it … I don’t know … I don’t know if I would be happier or sadder without it.
I say this with the upmost confidence in you guys. I’ve always felt comfortable writing about all the struggles I go through, but this one is different, because I know it’s bad of me to think this way and I know there will be people who won’t like me for it. (And I’m such a people pleaser I destroy myself every day.) But the fact of the matter is I’m insanely jealous of people more successful than me. A couple days ago I posted on tumblr that I felt like that awkward friend that hangs out with some of the popular kids but still isn’t quite part of the popular kid group. I have some incredibly talented friends on here and they make me want to work harder and become a better person. But I don’t know, I guess I’m just sick of putting in literally hours every day on something that no one really cares about. It’s a fact of life, we humans thrive on positive feedback. I’m such a hypocrite too—I’m the worst at commenting on people’s photos, especially now that I’m in college. I’m also wary of posting this because I don’t want people to feel sorry for me (okay, part of me does, but please don’t indulge that part). I want my work to stand for itself. I hate people who beg for compliments and I don’t want to become one of those people. But I can’t just keep my emotions bottled inside. And maybe you have a right to know why I’ve been feeling so down on my photos.
There are just so many inspiring people in the world and I want to be one of those people. I’ve never been the popular kid, and I don’t really want to be “popular” just for its own sake, but to make a difference. Ugh I’m so utterly cliché. And I’m cliché for saying I’m cliché. But don’t we all want to inspire someone? I want to make someone feel the way I feel when I look at my favorite photographers’ photostreams. This desire is so great it is driving me crazy. So I partly am incredibly selfish and just want people to notice me for once in my life, and I partly just want to change someone’s life, just like my first friends on flickr did for me.
I feel a little better after writing that. But I don’t know. I may still delete my flickr. I may keep it, but just to keep up with my friends. Or I may go back to posting. Lots of things are changing in my life, so who knows what will happen. Knowing me though, this place has always been my haven in times of turmoil, so I probably will stick around for a little while longer. I just don’t know.
Thank you to those of you who frequent my photostream. You really and truly push me to take pictures every day, and make each day’s photo better than the one before it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I love you guys.
I think this is a mix of washing up liquid like YES and shampoo, I added some polluted powder and then it went more milky dim in opacity and composition the crayon seen to survive quite well in this sludge of messy running mess-thing... there are also some other objects in this hell-soup the light is the flash from my CANON camera the paler streaks running from to to bottom is liquid running down the side and dehydrated to stains...
Peace and Noise!
MushroomBrain
- Inking Secret
For some reason secrets are tagged as hypocritical,
seen as too reserved, but why should it be?
It's only fair to keep some personal solitude
although I have been known to be an open book,
a heavy one that accidentally fell off a high shelf
and laid there on the floor forever open for everyone to be read.
Like an ancient scripture with million numbers and letters -
falling apart, page by page flowing away into a cloudy breeze..
Soft wind makes it seen floating as calm and serene like autumn leafs
and heavy winds make it seen as a rapid blow into a sailing wing,
sailing away into unknown and mysterious waters that leads here,
into my heart, into my body, into my blue veins, into my psyche
as open minded and as an exotic dream barely be living without a sting.
I'm gone now with my beloved sailor and his wondrous sailing ship,
writing thousand of pages, as the paper is now soaked with heavy black ink.
Gaeia
(continue if you may)
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The Black Lives Matter movement has spawned a number of these yard signs in Boulder, Colorado (and probably all over the US).
Let me comment on each line:
Black Lives Matter. Well, of course they do. IMHO, so to the lives of human fetuses, something the liberals do not support. The lives of cops also matter. I support that Black Lives Matter but I strongly reject the rioting and looting of the Black Lives Matter organizations.
No human is illegal. That's insanity! Of course a person immigrating illegal is illegal. Liberals often point out that most Americans are descendants of immigrants. That's true. But that was before the gracious entitlements (that many immigrants come for), the drug trafficking, human trafficking, and criminal trafficking.
Love is love. Seem hypocritical that the world's largest hate group (American Liberals) would espouse this slogan. I suppose they are trying to make a dig into the conservative stance on marriage and gender -- a very nuanced and complex topic. Also an extreme oversimplification of the conservative viewpoint. Finally, parental love is different than marital love is different than other loves. There are indeed different loves.
Women's Rights are Human rights. This is a euphemistic way of saying unborn babies have no rights. It seems that since the widespread introduction of contraceptives, people (men and women) have grown to believe they can satisfy their sexual desires anytime, any place, with anyone without the hindrance of those pesky pregnancies. This has lead to a weakening of marriage, the prevalence of fatherless house households (spawning all sorts of other social problems). If you believe (I do not) that the woman can decide to kill her fetus, then you must laos believe the father of the baby can make the same decision since he will be asked to pay at least half of the baby's costs for 18 years. Can he decide that w/o the woman's concurrence? Can she w/o his concurrence?
Science is real. This is part of the fake liberal narrative that conservatives don't believe in science. That's simply untrue. Conservative distrust some scientist and there's plenty of historical evidence to support that scientist can be either mistaken and corrupt. Liberals have also twisted Trumps word in ways that would make Joseph Goebbels proud, to paint a picture of a leader not believing in science. Since science says there are types of love (parental, marital, platonic, etc), then this contradicts the "Love is Love" slogan above.
Water is life. Yea. Ok. Is this the science they think conservatives reject?
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Absolutely. So, is the injustice of trying to impeach a president on fake grounds included? How about the injustice of squelching conservative voices, blocking conservative speakers at Universities? What about closing churches due to the covid, but allowing protest (and riots) and liquor stores to remain open? Double standard, you think?
Blatantly there's a number of principles omitted. For example:
Meritocracy is good.
Freedom of speech is paramount.
Don't f-ing resist the cops or run. Put your hands up. If you can't breathe, stop fighting. Obey the cops!
Nothing about security.
Nothing about economic prosperity.
Nothing about law and order.
Nothing about helping the poor and disadvantaged.
I decided to make a tribute to the famous duel of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar, because I wanted to make a scene with lava. :D It turned out I don't have Episode III version of Kenobi, only younger and older one, so I had to use another version.
Well, I have something to say about the Jedi. Anakin was right. Their Order at the time was evil, and this scene is a perfect proof. Kenobi gives a speech about how important his former apprentice Anakin was for him, he loved him as a brother, etc. And yet, instead of showing some mercy by finishing his opponent, who is screaming from pain, and sparing dear "brother" from certain and very painful death, Kenobi just... leaves.
As an unknown author of the meme said: "I can't kill you, Jedi don't do that! ... so I'll cut off your limbs and leave you to burn alive!"
Well, that means all that Kenobi have said was bullshit. He should have ended Anakin's suffering, that's what close people are for! Instead of it, he just ran away, like a true coward. Oh, he was thinking about not spilling the blood? Excuse me, you just literally cut both of his legs! Oh, he was thinking about not being a murderer? But that's not a murder, he was dying anyway! And this is so extremely selfish of Kenobi - instead of thinking about helping to his close friend in his last minutes, he chose to think about his own soul, or morality, or principles, or whatever. Somehow it was more important than his painfully dying (because of him!) friend. And people think Anakin was a bad guy, come on! At least he was open about his motives, unlike his hypocritical Master.
You can watch the scene here:
The FALL of Anakin Skywalker: FIGHT with Obi-Wan Kenobi - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Hand/Out Some Cold/Hard Cash/Truth - IMRAN™
Hey, Did Texas Secede From The Union Already? Or Did The Traitors In TX Legislature Who Now Want “Socialism” Style Handouts From A Democrat President In Washington Cancel Their Plans? 😂
© 2021 IMRAN™
#Texas #traitors #Republicans #snowstorm #humor #socialism #hypocrites #politics
The other day I was driving out of a Target department store after I just purchased a few items. For some reason I find Target more acceptable than Walmart (which I refuse to even walk into).
In any case… I saw one of the more horrifying disgusting most sickening notion of awful scenes I have ever seen in my whole life:
… a most noticeable pregnant woman smoking a cigarette!
Likely 8 or 9 months pregnant and standing there in front of this store holding a cart full of shit smoking away on a cigarette.
Really?!
Call me a hypocrite… but actually, I would quit these fuckers in a half second heartbeat if I knew I had a baby inside me. I don’t think I have ever been so aghast in my life. Talk about the ultimate repugnance. I just drove by with my mouth wide open in total repulsion as this woman puffed away on a cigarette with a tiny person inside her.
And what’s funny is the fact that I am NOT easily repulsed or offended or maddened by anything random or inconsequential such as a casual person doing anything I don’t morally approve of (which is rare anyway).
But seeing that just not only maddened me; it made me want to vomit on the spot.
Knowing what we know these days in the year 2009? To sit there and puff away on a fucking asshole worthless cigarette with a full grown baby inside you? Come on.
Which leads me to my stance on abortion: Pro-choice.
Not that I could or even would get an abortion if I were a woman. I don’t think I could go through with it, no matter the circumstances were. Too much of a mind fuck frenzied horrific guilt left in my inner conscience.
But I still think women should be left to the choice to have an abortion. And just for the simple fact that IF they aren’t left that option, they will likely take matters into their own hands if they are that desperate. And we’re going to end up with a lot of preventable backalley crazy abortions going on. And other random acts of insanity too.
The photo at hand? It is just I smoking a cigarette in front of my apartment on a day I didn’t feel like taking a real self-portrait. When you have to do a self-portrait every day for an entire year, some days you just don’t give a flying fuckass. This day was one of those days. I tried to make it cool by editing it to make the picture seem like a piece of old time cinema. Sad attempt.
The album at hand? Just a good solid piece of indie pop man. If you enjoy “Vampire Weekend” then you will enjoy this. It’s an orchestra pop cute work of art. One of the better releases I’ve heard from 2008. The song highlighted is easily the best song on the album. The lead singer has such a great voice.
Location: my apartment complex; Alameda, California
Taken: October 5th, 2009
Posted: November 18th, 2009
Album of the Day: The Rhumb Line by Ra Ra Riot
Video: Can You Tell by Ra Ra Riot
*=lapse
Two-faced / Faccol(a)
adjective
synonyms: deceitful, insincere, double-dealing, hypocritical, back-stabbing, false, untrustworthy, duplicitous
Copyright © KappaVision / Jean-Paul Borg
St Mary, Woolpit, Suffolk
Taken with my Xperia Z5 mobile phone.
Woolpit is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not particularly sleepy, and only a little chocolate boxy, but somewhere people actually actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed to go shopping, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey, Rattlesden and Tuddenham. Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once haunted the pits here...
Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.
A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.
You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at, the summa cum laude of the genre. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.
Perhaps it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...
The wallposts contain Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner.
Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His naked delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.
And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.
Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier than Dowsing's visit, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.
Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?
The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?
There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.
But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On a recent journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.
Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!
Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalledthe theory that the roof at Woolpit was intended as a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever! Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.
How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.
So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.
But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.
They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.
In Catholic Southern Europe there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come to rural southern Europe I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance before moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.
Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.
Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things. The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their husband or wife, their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.
Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!
Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?
How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.
So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its surviving medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.
The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the weirdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.
The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.
I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?
Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1547 edict which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?
I am being a bit hypocritical, as I normally would ban any mention of Christmas within a couple of weeks of the big day, but I couldn't resist this. Taken in the garden of a house in a little village within walking distance of where I live. Every year he puts on this display and opens his garden for people to come in and walk round.
that feeling you get. You call it butterflies but I don't know; butterflies don't move in swarms, and this is overwhelming. My words are incoherent and nonsensical; don't listen, just keep talking at me. Your voice, your smile, the way you absently flick at your hair when you're nervous, the way you look me in the eye when you speak to me, as if you care about the answer. My hand brushes yours and my heart beats faster, inconcievably, crazily, unnecessarily. Why is this? Is it just the chase; the unconcious notion of fascination, just because the chances of making your heart race in return are so irrevocably minimal that I know you'll (the you I 'know') only ever exist in my dreams and ideals. Who are you? I want to know. To find out, to smile, to laugh, to have your hand in mine and trace the contours of your palm; the valleys and mountains of the things they've seen, places they've been. To curl up with my legs resting against yours and have you slide an arm around my waist, brush the hair out of my eyes then wind me up with your words, make me laugh and want to live in the moment forever. I want to dance with you, hold you close beneath a million fireworks and stand beneath the pouring rain, allowing it to soak into my pores and drown me (the happiness, that is). I want you to feel the same, to look at me with that glint in your eye that makes me question what could happen, how you could feel one day.
How could it possibly be butterflies that cause it? They always look far too delicate and harmless for all that heart-break potential.
I can guarentee that that's not written about who you think it is; I've never mentioned them on here. (Nor is it particularly a present emotion, something today just reminded me.)
Red nose day.
Support it.
I feel like such a hypocrite for saying that, since I've not actively done anything other than give money, but raising money is a large part of what it's about and it's a worthy cause.
Good day. Mostly.
An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedic stage play by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour. The action is set in London, in "the present", and takes place over the course of twenty-four hours. "Sooner or later," Wilde notes, "we shall all have to pay for what we do." But he adds that, "No one should be entirely judged by their past." Together with The Importance of Being Earnest, it is often considered Wilde's dramatic masterpiece. After Earnest it is his most popularly produced play.[1]
Background
In the summer of 1893, Oscar Wilde began writing An Ideal Husband, and he completed it later that winter. His work began at Goring-on-Thames, after which he named the character Lord Goring, and concluded at St. James Place. He initially sent the completed play to the Garrick Theatre, where the manager rejected it, but it was soon accepted by the Haymarket Theatre, where Lewis Waller had temporarily taken control. Waller was an excellent actor and cast himself as Sir Robert Chiltern. The play gave the Haymarket the success it desperately needed.
After opening on 3 January 1895, it continued for 124 performances. In April of that year, Wilde was arrested for 'gross indecency' and his name was publicly taken off the play. On 6 April, soon after Wilde's arrest, the play moved to the Criterion Theatre where it ran from 13–27 April. The play was published in 1899, although Wilde was not listed as the author. This published version differs slightly from the performed play, for Wilde added many passages and cut others. Prominent additions included written stage directions and character descriptions. Wilde was a leader in the effort to make plays accessible to the reading public.
Themes
Many of the themes of An Ideal Husband were influenced by the situation Oscar Wilde found himself in during the early 1890s. Stressing the need to be forgiven of past sins, and the irrationality of ruining lives of great value to society because of people's hypocritical reactions to those sins, Wilde may have been speaking to his own situation, and his own fears regarding his affair (still secret).[2] Other themes include the position of women in society. In a climactic moment Gertrude Chiltern "learns her lesson" and repeats LORD GORING's advice "A man's life is of more value than a woman's." Often criticized by contemporary theatre analyzers as overt sexism, the idea being expressed in the monologue is that women, despite serving as the source of morality in Victorian era marriages, should be less judgemental of their husband's mistakes because of complexities surrounding the balance that husbands of that era had to keep between their domestic and their worldly obligations.[3][4] Further, the script plays against both sides of feminism/sexism as, for example, Lord Caversham, exclaims near the end that Mabel displays "a good deal of common sense" after concluding earlier that "Common sense is the privilege of our sex."
A third theme expresses anti-upper class sentiments. Lady Basildon, and Lady Markby are consistently portrayed as absurdly two-faced, saying one thing one moment, then turning around to say the exact opposite (to great comic effect) to someone else. The overall portrayal of the upper class in England displays an attitude of hypocrisy and strict observance of silly rules.[4]
Dramatis Personae
The Earl of Caversham, K.G.
Lord Goring, his son. His Christian name is Arthur.
Sir Robert Chiltern, Bart., Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs
Vicomte De Nanjac, Attaché at the French Embassy In London
Mr. Montford, secretary to Sir Robert
Mason, butler to Sir Robert Chiltern
Phipps, butler to Lord Goring
James, footman to the Chilterns
Harold, footman to the Chilterns
Lady Chiltern, wife to Sir Robert Chiltern
Lady Markby, a friend of the Chilterns'
The Countess of Basildon, a friend of the Chilterns'
Mrs. Marchmont, a friend of the Chilterns'
Miss Mabel Chiltern, Sir Robert Chiltern's sister
Mrs. Cheveley, blackmailer, Lady Chiltern's former schoolmate
Plot
An Ideal Husband opens during a dinner party at the home of Sir Robert Chiltern in London's fashionable Grosvenor Square. Sir Robert, a prestigious member of the House of Commons, and his wife, Lady Chiltern, are hosting a gathering that includes his friend Lord Goring, a dandified bachelor and close friend to the Chilterns, his sister Mabel Chiltern, and other genteel guests. During the party, Mrs. Cheveley, an enemy of Lady Chiltern's from their school days, attempts to blackmail Sir Robert into supporting a fraudulent scheme to build a canal in Argentina. Apparently, Mrs. Cheveley's dead mentor and lover, the Austro-Hungarian Baron Arnheim, convinced the young Sir Robert many years ago to sell him a Cabinet secret, a secret that suggested he buy stocks in the Suez Canal three days before the British government announced its purchase. Sir Robert made his fortune with that illicit money, and Mrs. Cheveley has the letter to prove his crime. Fearing the ruin of both career and marriage, Sir Robert submits to her demands.
When Mrs. Cheveley pointedly informs Lady Chiltern of Sir Robert's change of heart regarding the canal scheme, the morally inflexible Lady Chiltern, unaware of both her husband's past and the blackmail plot, insists that Sir Robert renege on his promise. For Lady Chiltern, their marriage is predicated on her having an "ideal husband"—that is, a model spouse in both private and public life that she can worship: thus Sir Robert must remain unimpeachable in all his decisions. Sir Robert complies with the lady's wishes and apparently seals his doom. Also toward the end of Act I, Mabel and Lord Goring come upon a diamond brooch that Lord Goring gave someone many years ago. Goring takes the brooch and asks that Mabel inform him if anyone comes to retrieve it.
In the second act, which also takes place at Sir Robert's house, Lord Goring urges Sir Robert to fight Mrs. Cheveley and admit his guilt to his wife. He also reveals that he and Mrs. Cheveley were formerly engaged. After finishing his conversation with Sir Robert, Goring engages in flirtatious banter with Mabel. He also takes Lady Chiltern aside and obliquely urges her to be less morally inflexible and more forgiving. Once Goring leaves, Mrs. Cheveley appears, unexpected, in search of a brooch she lost the previous evening. Incensed at Sir Robert's reneging on his promise, she ultimately exposes Sir Robert to his wife once they are both in the room. Unable to accept a Sir Robert now unmasked, Lady Chiltern then denounces her husband and refuses to forgive him.
In the third act, set in Lord Goring's home, Goring receives a pink letter from Lady Chiltern asking for his help, a letter that might be read as a compromising love note. Just as Goring receives this note, however, his father, Lord Caversham, drops in and demands to know when his son will marry. A visit from Sir Robert, who seeks further counsel from Goring, follows. Meanwhile, Mrs. Cheveley arrives unexpectedly and, misrecognized by the butler as the woman Goring awaits, is ushered into Lord Goring's drawing room. While she waits, she finds Lady Chiltern's letter. Ultimately, Sir Robert discovers Mrs. Cheveley in the drawing room and, convinced of an affair between these two former lovers, angrily storms out of the house.
When she and Lord Goring confront each other, Mrs. Cheveley makes a proposal. Claiming to still love Goring from their early days of courtship, she offers to exchange Sir Robert's letter for her old beau's hand in marriage. Lord Goring declines, accusing her of defiling love by reducing courtship to a vulgar transaction and ruining the Chilterns' marriage. He then springs his trap. Removing the diamond brooch from his desk drawer, he binds it to Cheveley's wrist with a hidden device. Goring then reveals how the item came into her possession. Apparently Mrs. Cheveley stole it from his cousin, Mary Berkshire, years ago. To avoid arrest, Cheveley must trade the incriminating letter for her release from the bejewelled handcuff. After Goring obtains and burns the letter, however, Mrs. Cheveley steals Lady Chiltern's note from his desk. Vengefully she plans to send it to Sir Robert misconstrued as a love letter addressed to the dandified lord. Mrs. Cheveley exits the house in triumph.
The final act, which returns to Grosvenor Square, resolves the many plot complications sketched above with a decidedly happy ending. Lord Goring proposes to and is accepted by Mabel. Lord Caversham informs his son that Sir Robert has denounced the Argentine canal scheme before the House. Lady Chiltern then appears, and Lord Goring informs her that Sir Robert's letter has been destroyed but that Mrs. Cheveley has stolen her letter and plans to use it to destroy her marriage. At that moment, Sir Robert enters while reading Lady Chiltern's letter, but as the letter does not have the name of the addressee, he assumes it is meant for him, and reads it as a letter of forgiveness. The two reconcile. Lady Chiltern initially agrees to support Sir Robert's decision to renounce his career in politics, but Lord Goring dissuades her from allowing her husband to resign. When Sir Robert refuses Lord Goring his sister's hand in marriage, still believing he has taken up with Mrs. Cheveley, Lady Chiltern is forced to explain last night's events and the true nature of the letter. Sir Robert relents, and Lord Goring and Mabel are permitted to wed.
Reception
The play proved extremely popular in its original run, lasting over a hundred performances. Critics also lauded Wilde's balance of a multitude of theatrical elements within the play. George Bernard Shaw praised the play saying "Mr. Wilde is to me our only thorough Playwright. He plays with everything; with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre."[2]
Selected Production History
An Ideal Husband was originally produced by Lewis Waller, premiering on the 3rd of January, 1895 in Haymarket Theatre. The run lasted 124 performances. The original cast of the play was:[5]
Mr. Alfred Bishop, THE EARL OF CAVERSHAM, VISCOUNT GORING, Mr. Charles H. Hawtrey, SIR ROBERT CHILTERN, Mr. Lewis Waller, VICOMTE DE NANJAC, Mr. Cosmo Stuart, MR. MONTFORD, Mr. Harry Stanford, PHIPPS, Mr. C. H. Brookfield, MASON, Mr. H. Deane, JAMES, Mr. Charles Meyrick, HAROLD, Mr. Goodhart, LADY CHILTERN, Miss Julia Neilson, LADY MARKBY, Miss Fanny Brough, COUNTESS OF BASILDON, Miss Vane Featherston, MRS. MARCHMONT, Miss Helen Forsyth, MISS MABEL CHILTERN, Miss Maud Millet, and MRS. CHEVELEY, Miss Florence West.
Oscar Wilde was arrested for "gross indecency" (homosexuality) during the run of the production. At the trial the actors involved in the production testified as witnesses against him. The production continued but credit for authorship was taken away from Wilde.[2]
An Ideal Husband was revived for a Broadway production featuring the Broadway debut of film stars Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray. Denison and Gray had earlier starred in a West End Theatre revival that had proved extremely popular for English audiences.[6]
Film, television and radio adaptations
1935 film
Main article: An Ideal Husband (1935 film)
A 1935 German film directed by Herbert Selpin and starring Brigitte Helm and Sybille Schmitz.
1947 film
Main article: An Ideal Husband (1947 film)
A lavish 1947 adaptation was produced by London Films and starred Paulette Goddard, Michael Wilding and Diana Wynyard
1998 film[edit]
Main article: An Ideal Husband (1998 film)
It was adapted for the screen in 1998. It starred James Wilby and Jonathan Firth
1999 film
Main article: An Ideal Husband (1999 film)
It was adapted once more for the screen in 1999. It starred Julianne Moore, Minnie Driver, Jeremy Northam, Cate Blanchett and Rupert Everett. The film adapts the play to some measure, the most significant departure being that the device of the diamond broach/bracelet is deleted, and instead Lord Goring defeats Mrs. Cheavley by making a wager with her: if Sir Robert capitulates and supports the scheme in his speech to the House of Commons, Goring will marry her, but if he sticks to his morals and denounces the scheme, she will give up the letter and leave England.
Television and radio
The BBC produced a version which was broadcast in 1969 as part of their Play of the Month series. It stars Jeremy Brett and Margaret Leighton and was directed by Rudolph Cartier. It is available on DVD as part of The Oscar Wilde Collection box-set.
BBC Radio 3 broadcast a full production in 2007 directed by David Timson and starring Alex Jennings, Emma Fielding, Jasper Britton, Janet McTeer and Geoffrey Palmer. This production was re-broadcast on Valentine's Day 2010.
L.A. Theatre Works produced an audio adaptation of the play starring Jacqueline Bisset, Rosalind Ayres, Martin Jarvis, Miriam Margolyes, Alfred Molina, Yeardley Smith and Robert Machray. It is available as a CD set, ISBN 1-58081-215-5.
Quotes
LORD GORING: Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: All sins except a sin against itself, love should forgive.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us – else what use is love at all?
LORD GORING: Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.
MRS. CHEVELEY: Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
PHIPPS: I will speak to the florist, my lord. She has had a loss in her family lately, which perhaps accounts for the lack of triviality your lordship complains of in the buttonhole.
LORD GORING: Extraordinary thing about the lower classes in England - they are always losing their relations.
PHIPPS: Yes, my lord! They are extremely fortunate in that respect.
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This Bit comes from when the Americans were filming their version of the play “an Ideal Husband”
A couple of newspapers picked up on it at the time.
The film was shot on several sites, including an Italian waterfront.
At the end of the week it was their custom to have a “wrap” party celebrating the end of the week’s shoot.
The ball scene had been filmed that day and most of the cast attended the get-together still in costume. This included 3 of the minor actresses who had bonded during the filming.
After the revelry was dying out, these 3 decided to go it alone, leaving the stage room to hit several of the bars and a casino located on the riverfront. Making a decidedly poor decision, they opted to wear the elegant gowns and shimmering jewelry they had donned for the stylish ball act( much of which was later cut from thye movie, including their roles) .
Needless to say the young trio of pretty actresses garnered a considerable amount of male attention as they made their rounds. They left their last stop in the wee early hours of the morning only to discover they taxi they had paid to wait for them had vanished. A dapper young man with a foreign accent that made the girls swoon came upon the young ladies, and after they explained their predicament, offered some aid. He invited them to a back room off a nearby alley to wait while he brought his private car around, suggesting that it would be a place of refuge to stay warm from the cool ocean air( only one of the actresses had a wrap).
About ten minutes after he had left them a masked man burst in brandishing a wicked looking blade. He demanded their ”jools” and “perses” than after receiving their valuables, had them strip down to their silky undergarments. He then bundled the lot and ran off. They could hear tires screeching off in the night. The dapper male never returned, and it was hours before their pitiful cries of help were heard by a passing vagrant, who after making sure they had nothing more of value, disappeared, than must have had a change of heart, for he summoned a patrolman to help them.
Two of the ladies had been wearing prop gowns and rhinestones, but the third, a minor relative of the New York Cabot family, had been waering her own designer gown(worth 2000 pounds) and her family diamonds( worth 55000 pounds sterling) So it was generally regarded that the ladies were scammed by a couple of professionals who had been out on the prowl for such prey, knew where to find it, and how to acquire her valuables.
Then, two weeks later another young lady, again unescorted, had decided to do a tour of the same riverfront establishments. She did so after attending a relatives wedding reception. She had met a rather handsome man while out drinking, and the pair had set off for a second bar when a masked man mugged them of their valuables. Including a 30000 lira ring she had worn, and 10000 Lira of other jewellery. Her friend dropped her off at the bar and went for help, disappearing in the night. Her description of the pair matched the ones who had robbed the Actresses.
Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives
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Alice looked in the green hole and froze in terror. "How? What? All my adventures gone? All my friends disapeared? Culled you say? Culled! How dare they hide such a horrible heinous act with such a hypocritical word!"
The revenge upon her would be sweet, even though it was purely theoretical.
She was the very epitome of every stuck up girl who ever passed judgment on those she refused to view as an equal. And I? I possessed the subtle skill to knock her smirking ego down a few pegs.
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In late spring of the year 1952, a, bank rented safety deposit lockbox, dusty from many years gone by, was opened. The box had laid unclaimed, the banks records having been destroyed during the Nazi blitzes of World War Two. When its existence became known, an attempt was made to contact the owner, whose family surname was well known in the county. The name turned out to be an alias, no such person ever existed.
Please read the account below to learn more about the person who was believed to have rented the strongbox, as well as what he had placed inside……….
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Case Study 84 :
Warning, these are the raw, bare unusual facts as originally recorded. Some names, times, places and some facts have been altered for obvious reasons.
Exerted from the private letters of Mr. Harley Q. circa early 1900’s.
Name: Harly Q. circa 19 …
Subject: Seemingly a rather dexterous scoundrel
Place: A large coastal metropolis in Britian
Time: A period of time in late autumn
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Harly’s story as related:
The following affair occurred during my younger days when my youth and its’ raw passions were still a strong pull on my reactions! Now, how do I start?
The Blonde dancing in front of me was dressed up like a movie star on a red carpet. Only about nineteen, her slinky gown created the impression of having been poured along her curvy, voluptuous figure, like shimmering liquid satin, fluidly swishing as she swirled about the massive chamber! It all made her appear far older and mature than she obviously thought she was. For some, her looks and personality may have been seen as charming and fun. “But for me personally, the only thing charming about her was the way her abundant sparkling jewellery played with the lights from the large chandeliers which held my upmost command!
But wait, I may be placing the carriage before the steed…….
Allow me to restart:
I had taken a long train into town with the intention of spending a few days relaxing from my previous month of hectic “professional” affairs. Rewarding myself, I located my lodging in a fancy upscale hotel situated across the street from a cavernous Ballroom, checking in for a fortnight. Since my social calendar was unusually light, with only the one high society event, a wedding that I was planning to attend the following Sabbath, at a “chapel” located in one of the cities sprawling suburbs. I spent the first day perusing the cultural calendar of the local papers, and ended up circling one or two events of interest that would be taking place later that month. I than took care of my remaining personal business, locating a reputable bank and renting out one of their lockboxes, before allowing myself some time off from my endeavors.
I than spent the first portion of my week taking in moving picture shows, visiting stores and hanging out at the local museums and antique shoppes. It felt great not worrying about work, although I will did admit that my mind scoped out a few prospects as I was out and about, walking amongst the great masses..
It was mid-week during my stay, while making my way back to the hotel suite, that I decided on a whim to pop into the Ballroom to see what it was all about. I walked into the massive lobby full of activity and wandered about, looking into the massive main ballroom, meeting rooms and various party rooms. As I was leaving I discovered a wall containing posters for all the upcoming events. One poster caught my eye. It advertised the occurrence of a Halloween Ball to take place that very weekend, Tickets still available. The Ball seemed to be the very type of party I was partial to, combining all of my favorite types of affairs, a large gathering frequented by the rich, and everyone attending would be in costume.
Purchasing a pair of tickets (less questions asked) I went out the very next morning scouting various shops in search of my own costume. I finally settled on a highwayman’s attire. It seemed appropriate, and the ribbon style “ masque” over my eyes set off the vacation beard that had been growing quite nicely since my last outing. On my way out to pay for the costume I spied a half off bin. On top of the pile was a phantom of the opera mask. On impulse I added it to my bundle and went to the checkout.
Although I really didn’t have the feeling that this concern would lead to anything, I mean, who wears good jewellery with a costume ? But a little bored by the inactivity, I was none the less growing excited about the venture. I still decided to play it cautious by setting up my usual safe guards, just in case.
A few blocks away from the Ballroom and my hotel suite I found a small chain style motel. Going to the desk I purchased rent for a room for the night, paying in advance. Going into the small room I laid down my purchases and headed back out to the street via a back stairwell, bypassing the registrars chambers. I headed back to my hotel suite to prepare for the evening.
After showering, I changed into a suit, shirt and tie. I then headed out onto the street a couple of hours before the ball was set to begin. Regaining my small quarters in the chain motel I changed into my new persona for the evening’s festivities and left via the same back door I had used earlier. I walked back to the Ballroom, getting my share of looks until I reached my destination, where I blended right in with the other arriving costumed guests.
I followed the stream to the ballroom proper. The main doors leading inside were large, made of a fancy scrolled oak, held open, and guarded by a pair of burly security types.
Apparently which, I soon gathered, was appearing to be the only security present for the evening’s festivities. Capital, I thought, smirking to myself as I joined my fellow guests.
I walk onto a landing, immediately in front of a long bannister guarding a set of wide stairs ascended downwards. I went off to one side, and paused at the railing, starting to survey with eager anticipation, the crowded room below.
All was quite glittering, as large chandeliers set off a spectrum of colors with any crystal or glass it touched. It especially created shimmers as it played off the colorful jewelry the lavishly costumed ladies present were wearing. Several dozen couples were dancing in front of a 17 piece orchestra, a slow dance, and many were dancing almost too close. Many more people were mingling around tables of appetizers. A large, chattering crowd was also gathered at the long oak bar that took up one whole side of the huge room. It was to the bar that I headed, to observe the merry proceedings.
But the Ball, as it turned out, was a bust, so to speak. Although several attempts were made to ask a number of charming (to me) ladies to add me to their dance cards, they all were, unfortunately, full. I should have suspected it would turn out this way, but I still harbored an all too familiar nagging feeling in the back of my head that something was still going to happen, call it intuition if you need to label it. So I nursed my drink, reminiscing about how I had reached this point in my then still young life…..
Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of my favorite poets, once said” Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Long before the the time I discovered this quote I found that my life’s path had already been heading that way.
Without boring anyone with far too many details of my rather complicated youth, I discovered while quite young that I had a certain knack for adeptness at being able to nimbly pick pockets. When I was eighteen ( having graduated high school at seventeen) and out on my own in the world, I found this skill quite useful. But it was at a wedding reception in my early twenties where I became of age, so to speak.
She was older than me, resplendent in a sleek black satin gown with bright white frills, long white satin gloves upon which graced a pair of diamond bracelets. She was very tipsy and would not take no for an answer when asking for a dance partner. She cornered me and before I could catch my wits, we were in a close embrace on the dance floor. I was totally mesmerized by the feel of her warm figure emitting through the sensuous satin gown. My eyes feasted upon the dazzling show put on by her flashy twin bracelets. When the exquisitely long dance ended and she moved on: I was left with a lot of pleasantly mixed feelings, I was also left with my first trophy, the Lady’s appealing necklace of pearl that I had ever so delicately sipped off her throat, using the sleekness of her satin gown to its fullest advantage.
I found myself enthralled with my new “hobby”, and over the course of the next couple of years sought out fancy dress affairs to better learn how to master the art of attracting and dancing with any lady I chose. Along the way I managed to accumulate quite a few trophies for my efforts. I stayed under everyone’s radar by picking out only those females who had been enthusiastically imbibing and by allowing myself to acquire only one trophy per gathering, two if the function was large enough.
During this period I made two discoveries: One was that most women would rather assume their jewel had been merely lost long before ever considering that they had been robbed of it. The second was that most of my collection of pretty trophies carried an equally pretty price, and could quite acceptably be turned into ready cash.
So, by the tender age of twenty two, my life started to lead where there had ever been but few tracks. And thus we finally come to this particular branch of my rather unique, lengthily crooked trail….
So, there I was, on a bar stool, alone and growing more bored by the minute, wishing something interesting would happen. I can remember thinking, as I looked over my fellow partiers about a saying that I had always found to be amusingly true. “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.” I don’t know who first said it, but brother, the person was right on the money. As I had witnessed for myself time and time again. So I just settled in and watched the amusing antics of the wealthy among the crowd, especially those of …“the girl!’
The girl was a stunning young blonde who was probably just fresh out of high school, with the maturity level of a grade schooler!
I kept catching my eye on her all evening, and once or twice, was sure she caught mine looking. But I was not watching her for the reasons she would think were mine. To her I was just some male face in the crowd, exhibiting his lust. But, the reason my eyes kept traveling upon her was for an entirely different one. I just found nothing to be more annoying than a sulky, immature young whelp who believes she is the apple of everyone’s eye, making an absolute nuisance of herself. She was running around, making silly remarks about people, sometimes to their face. Hanging out with her group of friends whom seemed to be of the same mold as my blonde, one girlfriend was even dressed appropriately enough, as a willowy witch.
The Blonde was dressed up like a movie star on a red carpet. Only about nineteen, her slinky gown created the impression of having been poured along her curvy voluptuous figure, like shimmering liquid satin, fluidly swishing as she bounced about the massive chamber, slipping in and out amongst the guests! It all made her appear far older and mature than she obviously thought she was. For some, her looks and personality may have been seen as charming and fun. “But for me personally, the only thing charming about her was the way her abundant sparkling jewellery played with the lights from the large chandeliers which held my command! But I had decided, as far as I could tell, that she was wearing nothing but cheap rhinestones, which like her, appeared totally fake. But, as they say, appearances can sometimes be deceiving!
This girl was the epitome of every condescending stuck up high society girl that probably everyone has had the misfortune to be the victim of. The girl, who mainly because of her looks, was popular with everyone like her, and had no use for those who, forever what reason they deemed, was ostracized by those of her type. In high school I knew girls like this one, and was a witness, sometime victim, to many a scene of arrogance displayed by girls like her. This one was young, too young to be acting the way she was. Her mannerisms were just a beacon, reaching out out to be taught a lesson.
Wallowing in my boredom, a spark began to kindle into flame deep within my brain. Determined not to let the evening be a total loss, I decided act upon it. My plan being to theoretically get revenge on all those smirking girls who tormented me during high school, by knocking this cocky little scamp down a few pegs, using the best of my abilities..
Now, I’m not one normally to act as judge, jury, and executioner in most situations, in my selected line of work it would be hypocritical. But obviously old wounds’ had been opened, this long haired girl scampering about reminded me of ones whom had ridiculed me, another lifetime, one that I had left behind A long time ago. The opportunity for bittersweet revenge had presented itself for the taking, and the pull to obtain a little solace by using my unique talents was far too great to resist. Talk about mixing pleasure with business I though wickedly to myself, smiling with the inviting thought.
Believe me, this girl would be no innocent victim, and nothing I was about to attempt would leave her with any type of lasting impression, or harm. But if I could cause her at least some considerable discomfort to ruin the rest of her evening out, it would be reward in and of itself! I again eyed her sparkling jewels with all the seriousness I would have given any I was really interested in acquiring. Although she didn’t fit my favorite pre-requisite, she certainly was not drunk on alcohol, she was merely just intoxicated in her own questionable self-esteem, which can work just as well.
I waited until her friends had all apparently deserted her for the evening and leaving her, quite vulnerably, alone. I walked up behind her and tapped her shoulder. She whirled facing me, her eyes going from happy expectations to a glare! “What do you want!? she snipped disdainfully”. Calmly I held her gaze, “I was hoping you would help me win a bet” I asked in what I hoped was my most wily voice. She was curious, but wary of me, “as you should be my pretty miss”, I remember thinking to myself. Her eyes sized me up and down, and I seized the moment to take in her jewels, not at all disappointed in them, but my curiosity was aroused about her necklace, I definitely needed to get a closer look to appraise them! “Why should I help you,” she practically spitted out he words like daggers.
“It’s this way miss, a couple of boys over at the bar bet me 50 quid that I could not get a dance with the prettiest girl here.” “Me?” she asked primping, no I confessed, I picked you, they had wanted me to dance with someone far less pretty, in my opinion.
I don’t think so; she said with a slight hint of hesitation, my card is full. Just for fifteen minutes I implored. That’s all I need (which was the truth), and Ill split my winnings with you on top of it. She finally bought it, hook line, sinker and pound signs in her adorable violet coloured eyes. Fifteen minutes she specified, before, be-grudgingly, allowing me to lead her to the dance floor.
Now, as I took her stiff body in my arms, I was able to satisfy my curiosity about the girl’s necklace, and it caused a dilemma to rear its thought provoking head. While she was busy looking around to make sure none of her friends saw her dancing with me, I allowed myself a couple of precious minutes to think. Her long rhinestone earrings were clip held, and an easy pick. I wanted to try for them both,( I knew how I would do it), and losing a pair of earrings would send a message that they had not just fallen away. Also, I would be suspected by her, which suited me just fine. However, my dilemma was caused by the vixen’s pretty necklace. While the rest of her plentiful jewels were cheap rhinestones as I had suspected the row of diamonds that rippled blazingly around her throat were in fact, the real McCoy. So, which should I go for? The necklace would be profitable and easy but she may just suspect its clasp had broken. The earrings would be just for a sporty trophy, not worth anything but for the knowledge that she would know she had been a victim. Ah, life’s precious little quandaries!
So, I continued with the dance, my partner still rigid, so very true to her character. Then, with five minutes left, I made up my mind on what she would not be leaving the ball still wearing. She was a charmer, this disdainful one. Her stiff figure was warm to the touch, underneath the scintillating slippery gown. The show her sparkling jewels produced was most pleasing to the eye. All in all quite a pretty portrait, a shame it was that I was not allowed to appreciate it. Which was fine by me! I was able to concentrate freely on the task at hand. I looked around, the coast was still clear. Then eyeing for one last time her mesmerizingly swaying long earrings and the flickering diamonds that graced her pretty little throat, I executed my move..
By the time the final five minutes were up I had the selected jewelry in my pocket without even the slightest notice from my unwilling dance partner. Then, fifteen minutes to the second (good thing I had been keeping track of the time) she broke it off. “Thank you”, I said, to which she mumbled, “my money, sir!” I told her I had to collect it, and would meet her by the ladies powder room. I left her waiting, smiling inwardly to myself at the empty space from which the missing jewelry was glaringly gone from her.
She had no doubt that I would be back with her money, was I not merely like one of her household servants, who routinely, without question or error, existed to do her bidding. It would be a major jolt to her system when she realized I was not coming obediently back to her. I had no doubt she would spend some time searching me out for her money once she realized I was not coming back forthwith, with the intention of lecturing me on how I should act around my betters. So I knew that her immediate attention would be elsewhere upon realizing I was tardy, and that it would take quite a bit of time before she recieved a second shock of an altogether different sort.
I left with my prize, walking past the two guards with such a carefree air that even they would never have suspected that I could possibly have been up to any mischief. I made good time getting back to the dingy motel room. Changed out of my costume and back into the shirt and tie I had worn. The highwayman costume, which had served me well, I rolled in a bundle under my arm, I again left by the back stairwell and retraced my earlier steps, whistling, back to the suite in the hotel. Along the way the costume was stuffed unceremoniously into a handy trash bin. My little operation had been a complete success. The evening was after all, not going to be a total loss.
Back in my suite I stowed the newly acquired jewels the girl had worn into one of my many secret hiding spots. There they would be safe until I could convey it to my banks lockbox on Monday. As I finished I, spied the phantom of the opera mask lying discarded on top of a table. A shame it would not be used….
A thought washed over me that would not be denied! Risky, but it would make my evening complete. I quickly shaved off the thin beard, and restyled my hair. I changed from my suit into my tux and tails. Scooping up the phantom mask I headed back to the costume ball. Placing the mask on before entering, I presented my second ticket( not very often did the opportunity arise to use both of the pair of tickets I customarily purchased!) I walked past the two security types without a second glance from them, they absolutely did not recognize me, which meant I had passed that test. My objective now was to try and catch the second half of the show; namely the shimmering liquid satin gowned brats squawking reaction when she first discovered her jewels were gone.
I regained a bar seat just in time.
She did not disappoint!
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Epilogue
When, in the presence of both bank and county officials, the strong box was opened, it was found to contain a fairly large collection of the Kings currency, equaling roughly £500 , and a selection unmatched jewelry, rings, single earrings, bracelets, and necklaces, worth a almost £3.000. Also inside was small a bundle of papers. The papers, old and yellowed, appeared to contain the partial handwritten journals of a certain Mr. Harly Q___ , esq. The papers were examined, but gave no clues to who Harley was, or to his current whereabouts. But the journals presented clues as to Harly’s nature, and as a consequence the money and jewels were considered stolen goods and handed over to the authorities. No one knows what became of them, as for the papers, they were handed over to a relative of one of the government officials, and also, for a period of time, lost.
The journal was rediscovered amongst the personal files of the late Professor Sedwig Dermitt phd, llc.a dex,
Recovered, restored, and now kept in the human behavioral archives of the criminology dept, Chatwick U.
Courtesy of Chatwick University Archives
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Feb. 28, '26: I pray for Iran and for all Iranians, a beautiful country filled with beautiful people, victimized since the advent of the mass production of motor vehicles because they live above such a great wealth of natural resources in oil and gas. They're in the same club as the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Congolese and the Venezuelans (despite the wall to wall media propaganda re Israeli security concerns, etc., etc.), but they have the ingenuity and strength of will to fight back when they have to, and now they have to. (I might be a hypocrite to pray for anything seeing as I'm not religious, but I don't care.)
I wrote the following some years ago.:
One of the things that amazed me most about Iran is that so much of it is home to nomadic peoples, currently @ 1.5 million. "By 1920 nomadic pastoral tribes were over 1/4 of Iran's population. Their numbers declined sharply as a result of forced settlement in the '20s and '30s. Continued pressure as well as the lure of the cities and settled life have resulted in a further sharp decline since the '60s".
- What concerns me most now is the contamination of their grazing lands in Western Iran (and the land of all peoples there and in Iraq and Afghanistan) with radioactive uranium dust blowing in from Iraq where the US and Brits have been using nuclear-waste coated munitions, and which has seen a huge increase in cancers and birth defects. (One scientist quoted by Project Censored calculates the amount of radiation these have released in Iraq is roughly equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs, recalculated since at 400,000, and the amount in Afghanistan to 83,000.) : www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/4-high-urani... . I assume everyone in W. Iran, particularly nomads like the Lors, now face a huge increase in cancers, birth defects and stillbirths. The 1/2 life of the radioactive dust is in the billions of years (ie. forever). Here's an interview with an independent scientist re the history and use of these weapons. She stresses that the nano-size of the particles are a greater threat than their toxicity or radioactivity. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iSF9HyF7bw . Another good video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MfNGHnuZLQ . One of the recent reports re the refusal of women in Fallujah to get pregnant because of the great number of deformities there (DU's not mentioned in these new reports. The cover-up continues. Skynews refers to white phosphorous, how could that be the cause?): www.youtube.com/watch?v=--zQPty6b2Y&feature=related Here's a good Al Jazeera report from Jan 2010: www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-u2VW4XymA
- A list and description of Iranian nomadic peoples: www.bestirantravel.com/culture/history/nomads.html
Weather is too cold and still broke from the holidays, paying off damn credit card.
So night in binge watching latest season of Stranger Things.
My cis-male room mate returned unexpected with his buddy and found me dressed en-femme, "Not cool" he said. "Nobody likes trans-people". F**kin hypocrite, because the last time he saw me dressed before a night out, he said I looked hot and was cool with it, and couldn't stop staring at my legs. Oh well, he's moving in with his girlfriend soon, so won't have to see him!!!
Below is a copy of an actual debate between myself (as Truth in science) and some militant atheists.
Is atheism exposed as bankrupt? Read the debate below, and judge for yourself .....
This debate took place in response to an image ridiculing Christians posted by militant atheist (Silly Deity) on his photostream. Anyone looking at his photostream can see it wholly consists of images insulting and ridiculing religion and religious people.
It commenced with a comment by another militant atheist (Badpenny) supporting the image posted by Silly Deity ...
The image posted by Silly Deity with the original debate can be seen here:
www.flickr.com/photos/131599163@N05/18212093014
I have copied it all in this post to give it more public exposure, and also in case the original is deleted.
THE DEBATE FOLLOWS:
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Bad penny begins the debate by commenting on an image ridiculing Christians. It insinuates that Christians have no sensible argument, and that the only argument they have is to threaten people with Hell.
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
I reckon that neatly sums it up :)
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Truth in science 2y
Wrong! Theists do have a VERY reasonable argument based on logic, natural law and fundamental scientific principles. Unlike atheists, who have no such logical argument,
Atheism revealed as false - why God MUST exist.
www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/18927764022
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
Sorru #TruthinScience but you've pedalling that same old bollocks for ages now in the hope that the gullible or those with no understanding will buy your sciencey sounding shite as truth
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Truth in science 2y
~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!)
You obviously have no understanding.
Apparently, you have swallowed the ludicrous fable that the universe created itself from nothing, without any cause and for no reason - and you think that is 'science'.
If you disagree with my logical argument (based on natural law and scientific principles) let's see your point by point logical and scientific argument for your non-contingent, autonomous, self-creating, adequate, natural, first cause?
Or is it just the usual bluff, bluster and hot air that I get all the time from atheists? Who are very good at dishing out ridicule and abuse to anyone who refuses to swallow their naturalist ideology, but very poor at logically or scientifically justifying it.
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
So basically there has to be a beginning,a prime mover,an initial cause for,well,everything so therefore it follows from the point of view of logic that this first cause is god.
Is that a fair summation of your proof and scientific evidene ???
How do you know this initial cause was god.
Perhaps there was a some event outside of our universe that set our universe into existence.Something non intelligent or sentient that pushed the plunger that ignited the big bang.
I am unable to determine in any realistic way what it was that started the ball rolling in exactly the same way you are unable to.
All you have done here is taken a logical argument and applied it to something that you know fine no one can verify or refute.
Your logical and scientific evidence is mere speculation in the same way all theories of what occured before the big bang are specualtion.Without being able to look back before the beginning to see if there is a cause or anything at all it's all just interesting notions.
If you are touting logic as the proof of your viewpoint then the same logic dictates that something came before god so what was that then ????
Presently cause and effect are deemed to be a universal rule,you're own explanation as I've understood it so far demands this particular order and progression of events but back beyond the big bang,the singularity the laws of physics appear to breakdown so can you definitively show that the time and the law of cause and effect alone remains in tact.
Of course,unless you're privvy to some special knowledge that no one else has ever know or knows today then in all truth you are stumbling around in the dark like everyone else .No ????
Also,you are doing the usual if not this then that juggle that people use all the time.
If there has to be an initial cause then that cause has to be god.
As I've said,yes cause and effect are the fundamental to our universe but until we can say that there is nothing outside or before our universe OR that there is then all bets are off.The laws that dictate here may hold no sway outside our universe and maybe they do but at this point in time we have no way of saying either way.
Obviously you are convinced you can so I'd love to hear how you think you are able beyond applying logic puzzles to that which we can neither see,measure or even state with confidence exists,existed or even possible
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
Of course,you do realise logic is just a tool help you think objectively.It's not truth itself just like mathematics is just a language to describe reality not reality itself.
Putting something into a logical argument is just away to apply logic to something,it doesn't make that thing true or suddenly real....you do understand that don't you ???
I could make a logical argument to say that I could become the president of the US but that doesn't mean I will be.
Applying logic to anything at all you can imagine has no effect whatsoever on the real,physical world.
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Truth in science 2y
~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!)
You wrote:
"So basically there has to be a beginning,a prime mover,an initial cause for,well,everything so therefore it follows from the point of view of logic that this first cause is god.
Is that a fair summation of your proof and scientific evidene ???
How do you know this initial cause was god.
Perhaps there was a some event outside of our universe that set our universe into existence.Something non intelligent or sentient that pushed the plunger that ignited the big bang."
The first cause cannot be a natural first cause, that is obvious because all natural events are contingent. There is no such thing as a non-contingent natural entity or event. Science is about looking for causes for every natural thing or occurrence. Every natural effect has to have a cause, and the effect cannot be greater than its cause/s. That is the fundamental principle behind ALL scientific enquiry. If you don't accept that principle you cannot practice science. A first cause has to be uncaused, or it wouldn't be first. If it is the very first cause in a chain of causes and effects it not only has to be uncaused it also has to be adequate to produce everything that follows it. Nothing that follows the first cause can be superior to that which ultimately caused it. So, the first cause has to be capable of creating every property and quality that exists in the universe. Which, of course, includes life, intelligence, information, consciousness etc.
If you think there can be such a thing as an uncaused, natural, first cause which is capable of creating all those attributes, please tell us what it is?
You wrote:
"The laws that dictate here may hold no sway outside our universe and maybe they do but at this point in time we have no way of saying either way"
Laws of nature are based on the properties of natural things, they describe those properties. contingency is a basic property of all natural things. That law is fundamental, it cannot be different elsewhere. If matter/energy was once some sort of non-contingent, autonomous being, why would it change its nature to an inferior one where it is subject to the limitations of causality? To claim that matter/energy is, or once was, an autonomous, non-contingent entity is to imbue it with the attributes of God. It is simply replacing the supernatural, first cause - God, with a natural deity.
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
Again you are making sweeping assumptions about the conditions previous to our universe and stating as fact that what's a natural law within the universe is both fundamental and natural outwith it or before it.
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
Until you can categorically state what was before the big bang,that the universe is all there is where nothing exist beyond it.Until you can state what conditions prevailed before our universe began you cannot with certaintity make definitive claims what the first cause consist of because you cannot difinitively state what was natural and fundamental before the start of our universe.You cannot even do more than claim that the big bang was a result of a first cause.How do you know the there aren't entirely different laws that prevail in the time and/or space before/beyond our present universe.
There could be an infinite number of universe that all have different laws prevailing within them.
Until you fully know the nature of our universe,whether it's all there is,the first and only one to exist you cannot say with certainty that laws the govern how ours work our the same laws outwith and therefore all statements pertaining to the conditons before our universe are equally uncertain.
How exactly does the quantum world relate to your ever regressing complexity of causes as much of what is observed there does necessarily conform strictly to your natural laws of cause and effect.
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
Fundamentally what you are doing is the ultimate example of the god of the gaps.Everything that has happened since the big bang is natural therefore what came before cannot be natural or contingent because that is the natural law ever since.You cannot and don't know what came before so it has to be god because the big bang was the first event.The first event that created the conditions we exist in so.........
Yes it was the beginning of our universe but perhaps there's a continous cycle where the universe begins,has it's life cycle before collapsing in on itself down to an infinite point where it begins all over again so on and so on.
Until it is possible to observe back beyond/before the big bang which it seems likely is impossible you cannot apply the laws that govern here.
You would have to know for sure these fundamental laws were created in the event that created the universe or that they existed before,beyond and outwith the universe all together .Again you cannot make such categorical statements while knowing nothing of what was before it.How can you even be sure time existed before the big bang.
Without time,without entropy and the conservation of energy there may be no order the governs cause and effect.There may even be a god or there may not be,with no knowledge what came before the beginning of our universe you cannot be certain what laws are a product of the universe and what are laws outwith it.
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Truth in science 2y
~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!)
So you want to indulge in fantasy and still claim it is science.
If you want to evade the Law of Causality, and other natural laws that destroy your naturalist argument, you step outside of science.
Nevertheless, you still pretend to be working within a scientific framework by proposing causes which are actually non-causes.
You seem to think you can glibly dismiss natural laws as irrelevant to the argument, when they are absolutely crucial to any ‘scientific’ argument.
There is NO god of the gaps.
The so-called gaps are created by your own, unscientific fantasies.
The universe was CAUSED - there are no gaps, there is only the question – was the CAUSE natural or supernatural?
If you claim it was ‘natural’ but at the same time you want to claim that natural laws did not apply, you are simply contradicting yourself. You are effectively claiming supernatural abilities for a natural cause, which cannot possibly have supernatural abilities. In other words, you are endowing nature with godlike abilities and attributes, which science tells us nature certainly does not possess.
The god of the gaps argument is stupid. We can only deal in known facts, not a never ending, stream of what if’s or maybes, conjured up by fertile imaginations working overtime.
And all your - ‘what if’s?’ can be easily debunked.
For example - a cyclical universe, is similar to applying the scientifically, discredited idea of perpetual motion on a grand scale to the universe. Firstly, matter/energy is contingent, it always is, and always has been, contingent. It is not, and cannot be, autonomously, self-existent.
Secondly, the universe is running down from a peak of initial, energy potential at its creation. It cannot rewind itself any more than a clock can – there is no such thing as a free lunch, to suggest otherwise is fantastical nonsense, not credible science or logic.
‘What if’s’ or maybes are not logical arguments, they are just a way of evading definitive conclusions which are uncomfortable.
That is the whole basis of the god of the gaps argument, they are just fantasy gaps which can never be filled by anything, because as one gap is filled another can be immediately invented.
Anyone can attempt to destroy any logical conclusions by creating their own ‘gaps’ with endless, bizarre - what if’s and maybes?
Well how about this - What if I don’t actually exist? ‘What if’ you think you are having this discussion with a person, but really, I am just a clever, robotic, word generator in cyberspace? It would mean you are wasting your time, because I can just generate answers and ‘what if’s’ until the cows come home – and ‘what if’ the cows don’t ever come home? – It means all your arguments are just gaps in my – endless stream of - what if’s? And if you manage to fill one gap and answer one of my - what if’s?, I can just keep creating more and more, so your argument is, and always will be, useless. It is just an argument of never-ending gaps.
As for time – time is a physical thing, which theists knew long before Einstein confirmed it.
Theists have always known that where physical things exist, time MUST exist. Put simply, time is the chronology of physical events.
Matter/energy cannot exist in a timeless state. Only non-physical entities can be timeless.
2 + 2 = 4 is both statistical information and a true fact. Information and truth are both non-physical entities which (unlike physical entities) can exist independently of time. They are, in effect, eternal. Time does not in any way affect them. Only the tangible expression of information and truth in physical media can be eroded by time, but not the essence of their existence.
Truth and information exist whether they are made tangible in physical form or not.
If any physical thing or cause existed before the alleged Big Bang, it had to be subject to time.
Which, means - that which existed in a timeless state before the creation event of a physical universe (the first cause) had to be a non-physical entity. There is no other option.
Your claim that we can have no knowledge of anything before the material universe or the alleged Big Bang is completely spurious. Logic and science are tools that help us to make predictions and sensible and reasonable assessments and conclusions. They help us to know what is possible and likely - and especially, in this instance, to know what is IMPOSSIBLE. We do KNOW that a self-created, autonomous, NATURAL, first cause is IMPOSSIBLE. There are no ifs and buts about it, that is what science, logic, reason and common sense tells us.
And that is enough to debunk the atheist belief in an all-powerful, self-creative, non-contingent, Mother Nature.
To dispute that is not only irrational, it is the hallmark of a dogmatic, illogical and unscientific ideology.
As for quantum effects, they may appear random and uncaused, but they are most definitely not. Even if their direct cause is difficult to determine, they are part of a CAUSED physical universe.
So, the idea that anything within a CAUSED universe can be causeless is ridiculous.
As for a direct cause of quantum effects, it can be compared to the randomness of a particular number coming up from throwing a dice. It may appear random and without a direct cause, but it isn’t. Because if we knew all the complicated and variable factors involved – such as the exact orientation of the dice as it leaves the hand, the velocity of the throw and the amount of spin etc. we could predict the number in advance. So just because, in some instances, causes are too incredibly complex to accurately predict the end result, doesn’t mean there are ever no causes.
You wrote:
"There could be an infinite number of universe that all have different laws prevailing within them."
No there couldn't.
The 'Multiverse' idea is as nonsensical as it sounds, and has been soundly debunked.
www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/15897203833
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Silly Deity 2y
Since the bizarrely named "Truth in science" is so fond of repeating the fallacy that his drivel is based on "the principles of science" let's look at the principles of science shall we?
There are five basic components to the scientific method:
1) From observations of the natural world, determine the nature of the phenomenon that is interesting to you (i.e. ask a question or identify a problem).
2) Develop one or more hypotheses, or educated guesses, to explain this phenomenon. The hypotheses should be predictive - given a set of circumstances, the hypothesis should predict an outcome.
3) Devise experiments to test the hypotheses. ( All valid scientific hypotheses must be testable.)
4) Analyze the experimental results and determine to what degree do the results fit the predictions of the hypothesis.
5) Further modify and repeat the experiments.
"Truth in science" fails to get beyond step 2.
He is also repeatedly pedalling the notions so succinctly described earlier as "bollocks" otherwise termed logical fallacies.
This is the use of poor, or invalid, reasoning for the construction of an argument. Some fallacies are committed intentionally to manipulate or persuade by deception, while others are committed unintentionally due to carelessness or ignorance.
So.........."Truth in science" fails the Principles of Science test and also uses logical fallacies as a means to deceive.
Yep!! Bollocks just about sums it up!
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
Ah no way my latest reply written last night has gone astray.
It was very much along the lines of your response Silly Diety although I'd hasten to admit not as eloquently put.
Basically,if you live by the sword then you will die by the sword.Or more aptly if TruthinScience is going to continously invoke science to frame his argument in a manner that appears both authoritative and beyond argument then he has to remain within the bounds of science.
As I think I said in an earlier reply science,much like critical thinking,logic and reason,is not a particular set of complex or technological subjects but a tool and a framework for the study and advancement of knowledge that is based on observation,analysis,hypothesis,prediction,experimentation to tthe predictions,divising similarly or more liable explanations...i.e falsification and then ongoing refining ofyour hypothesis even if it is fully accepted and becomes a scientific theory.....as Newton's work on gravity gave way to Einstein centuries later.There are NO sacred cows in science as Newton would attest if he were alive today and the day may come when Einstein is proven to have got relativity completely upside down if the evidence is stong enough to prove it.
Now why doesn't TruthinScience's claims bear any resemblence to science ???
Quite simply he is making definitive statements that he knows and can prove what happened before our universe began.
His arguments about causality and contingent and natural causes sound very compelling at first glance,science certainly does seem to confirm cause and effect and certainly seems at first to support time as a river that only flows one way but the point is that these natural laws as he puts it,these fundamental laws that govern our universe have as he suggests been observed to apply across the entire universe from the moment of the big bang forwards until this second.
But we CANNOT look further back in time than the big bang,our science and laws of physics can alliw us to model and imply what happened millionths of a second after the big band but note AFTER not before.
We have no way of observing back before the big bang and can only see as far as light has travelled since then giving us a horizon beyond which we can not see and therefore cannot make observations of,about,from either.
Therefore the science cannot say anything at all about either what occured,what was there,the potential cause,whethee time and space existwd in any sense we could understand or even if such fundamental laws like causality applied.If everything started with the big bang i.e time and space,then seeing as causality (cause and effect) are contingent on time then is there any reason at all to imagine causality meant anything pre big bang ???
The real answer is,the scientific answer absolutely,is there is simply no way of knowing,there may never be a way of see back before the big bang so the probability is we may never know though every time such statements have been made,that some knowledge is beyond science it's eventually been discovered and understood by science but.......
TruthinScience is clearly taking laws of physics that are well established and seemingly understood amd applying them to an area that isn't.That is a sound logical and reasoned approach but to apply them to something that is so far beyond our knowledge we don't even know if it can ever be observed or how that could happen is completely unscientific......it's what's known as psuedoscience.If it had any true grounding in logic or reason it may be a form of philosophy but it's too ad hock and cobbled together to be that.
At the very best and most generous his claims could be said to amount to an hypothosis but when they are based on a fog of reason like they are that's being too kind.
I know what it is he objects too so strongly and that's other hypothoses by real scientist about possible causes or ways that the universe could have come about without the necessity for a FIRST SUPERNATURAL INTENTION CONTINGENT CAUSE i.e god.Personally,the only one I've really read and have an understanding of is Laurence Kraus and his 'A Universe from Nothing' which I highly recommend anyone to read.
The one thing to note though is as he takes great pains to stress throughout the book it's a hypothosis that COULD explain how a universe can be created from seemingly nothing (although it would appear nothing is the operative word as empty space devoid of matter of any kind still has mass and energy).What TrurhinScience and many,many other theists fail to grasp os he's offering an expanation that remains within the bounds of science yet he freely admits that doesn't mean it's what happened,that there is no way of knowing what happened for all the reasons I've stated.
Shit,who knows there may be something extremely bizarre behind it all like some big,old bearded man who waved his hand and 7 days later
.......lol
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Silly Deity 2y
~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!)
As Bertrand Russell so eloquently stated:
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
The reliance on logic alone to "prove" something fails because logic is not empiricism (which is fundamental to science). It fails to provide EVIDENCE..........something sorely lacking in "Truth in science's" rants. His presumption that a real or perceived relationship between things means that one is the cause of the other is simply an example of false cause. To make such presumptions with no evidence means that his argument falls flat on its face.
So he fails on the scientific principles (miserably) and he fails on logic too.
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Truth in science 2y
Silly Deity
Nice try, but I am afraid it is another gigantic fail. You have simply hoisted yourself on your own petard.
None of the proposed, fantasy, natural, origin scenarios invented by atheists in order to get around natural laws and scientific principles are testable - none are observable - none are subject to experiment and - none are repeatable.
So NONE of them have got anything whatsoever to do with genuine science.
For example, tell us how a ‘singularity’ or a ‘multiverse’ can be tested, observed, or demonstrated by repeated experiment?
The Law of Cause and Effect and other natural laws which atheists glibly dismiss, and which definitively rule out a natural, first cause - ARE testable - ARE observable and - ARE subject to repeatable experiment.
We can only deal in FACTS, not atheist myths and fantasy.
The existence and veracity of the law of cause and effect and other natural laws IS A FACT.
The idea that natural laws and the basic principle of the scientific method didn’t apply to the origin of the universe or of matter/energy is NOT a fact, it is no better and no more credible than a fairy story or Bertrand Russell’s, flying teapot.
I don’t claim that a supernatural first cause can be proven by science, it can’t, because it is outside the remit of science, which can only deal with natural events and entities.
But the atheist idea of a natural, first cause can also never be proven by science.
However, science CAN DISPROVE a natural, first cause of the universe - and that is exactly what it does.
Science tells us that a natural first cause is impossible. Science can only look for adequate causes, that is the fundamental principle and raison d’etre of the scientific method.
Science cannot look for non-causes – or for inadequate causes – or for non-contingency – or for natural things self-creating themselves from nothing.
Therefore, the claim that atheist naturalism has anything to do with science is completely bogus.
In fact, atheism is anti-science - because it seeks to contradict the verdict of the scientific method and natural law.
If we apply the scientific method to the origin of the universe/matter - science tells us that it had to have an adequate cause, but atheists say no! We can't accept that, science must be wrong, we propose that the universe was causeless.
If that is what atheists want to believe, then fair enough, but they should stop calling it 'science', it is anti-science.
As for Mr Krauss and - his universe from the ‘nothing’ that isn’t really nothing, but ‘something’ - space/time, you would need to be extremely gullible to fall for that load of nonsense.
It is just another desperate, atheist attempt to get around the Law of Cause and Effect.
Presumably he thinks that if he can fool people into believing that something, which is an integral part of the material realm is – no different from nothing (i.e. no thing). Then he can avoid having to explain what caused it?
Nothing (that which doesn’t exist) obviously doesn’t need a cause. However, Mr Krauss’ nothing is a bogus ‘nothing’ … so, unfortunately for him, it certainly does require an adequate cause, just like everything else in the material realm. So the whole exercise is spurious and devious nonsense. One thing is certain, it is not science, it is just fantasy.
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Silly Deity 2y
Truth in science
Getting a bit desparate eh?
Can't refute the issue that you don't understand the science or scientific principles?
Can't deny that you use logical fallacies?
So you pepper your response with a few more of the latter, ignoring the self-same scientific principles you claim to espouse, while introducing the odd red-herring and conflating theories of the origin of the universe with atheism.
A bit of a messy really.
Desparate too.
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
Truth in PsuedoScience I honestly cannot be bothered trying to refute your nonsense anymore I'm losing interest and the will to continue by going over and over it ad infinitum .....of course you,like all theists will claim it as your victory but you don't get it,you refuse to contemplate anyrhing that doesn't fit you particular beliefs and you won't be remotely swayed from your abslotue certainty despite the fact you're making a fool.of your self by firmly clinging to the label scientific....even a high school kid just starting out in basic science could see the gaping fallacy at the heart of your bullshit but you blythely ignore it making you dishonest or you just don't see it making you not exactly the sharpest tool.
Either way m8 I have to respect the law of free speech (the most important and fundamental of laws lol) which afterall allows you to talk whatever pigs swill you like and be judged by it.
Can I just add with science observations,results,evidence are what determines the theory the outcome if you like.You DON'T start with a confirmed conviction and shape the evidence to fit it.
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Truth in science 2y
~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!)
Is that the best either of you can do?
In other words, like every other atheist I have encountered, you don't have a credible answer or response.
Of course, you bluff it out and pretend that you have refuted my argument.
But I have shown that it is science and logic that you are trying to refute, not me. And that is why you are doomed to failure.
Atheists masquerade as the champions of science but, all the while, they hate the verdict that science has for their cherished ideology.
The only arguments they ever present to justify belief in their religion of naturalism are based on fantasies which seek to undermine natural laws and basic scientific principles. Such as; a universe self-creating from some sort of bogus 'nothing' or a magical, so-called singularity where no laws apply. They are clearly nothing to do with genuine science, they are just devices to fool people into thinking atheist naturalism is credible.
Atheist naturalism is a completely blind faith, one that has no support from natural law, logic or science.
You obviously can't answer the question I posed: tell us how a ‘singularity’ or a ‘multiverse’ can be tested, observed, or demonstrated by repeated experiment?
I will leave people reading through my arguments and your responses to judge who has won the argument - but they can be sure of one thing that I have demonstrated, that the point presented in the image is completely erroneous. It is not theists, who don't have a reasonable rebuttal of any arguments, but atheists.
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Silly Deity 2y
~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!)
Bob
He's the one making the claims here...........no one else. He can't provide evidence to support those claims so resorts to flim-flam.
As I said earlier................just a bit desparate.
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
Come on PsuedoScience now you are throwing out scientific method as if you were applying it all along.
A multiverse ???
Have you not read my main arguement over umpteen replys now I have stated that we are unable to observe back before thw big bang and the 'birth' of our universe.That means no observations of god with a match,a multiverse,a continueing cycle of big bangs or any other hypothesis rational or batshit crazy you can possibly suggest.
Do you not get this fundamental basic fact,i cannot prove,observe or test or take a fucking stroll in a multiverse.I thought that point was self evident any more than you can prove,observe or state what came before either.The point is neither of us can say anymore than the other but science which you claim is your master can at best just hypothosise it cannot state fact,prove,observe,test anything pre big bang either so your claims being proven by science are as disingenuos as any claim I decided to state as fact.
Do you not understand that yet.No obsevations,no way to test or experiment,predict etc,etc means science has nothing definitive to say about it as yet nor can it prove what happened.......do you not get this genuinely straight forward premise.
As for singularitys.......observe the centre of almost any galaxy you wish to study.You'll find a super massive black hole or all the predicted effects of one.Isn't a black hole a singularity then ????
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
I know Silly Deity that he's the one making spurious claims but seriously beginning to piss me off.....not because of his pure unshackelled belief that he's cracked it and won't listen but because people may actually believe he's based his claims in sound science
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) (deleted) 2y
Oh yes and Psuedo you do realise that simply 'defeating' the multiverse or singularity idea in your own mind doesn't mean your claims are true.
I cannot prove of make statements of fact about the origin of the universe but that doesn't mean that you in that case must be right.It's not either or.
Your whole premise of calling something bogus or demanding that everyone else's suggestions must withstand scientific rigour you don't apply to your claim is basically a straw man.As if the best argument against your beliefs is the multiverse hypothesis so if you can show it cannot be proven therefore you win.No it doesn't work that way.
How have you made observations of your first cause god then,how did you measure,quantify his existence and that he was responsible for putting it all into action.Experiments and test ???
Come on,just banging on about natural laws and causality does nothing whatsoever to observe,analyse,test,experiment on god.
Come on,you're the real,true scientist here......explain how first before you can expect anyone to take you seriously
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Truth in science 2y
~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!)
You wrote:
"Do you not get this fundamental basic fact,i cannot prove,observe or test or take a fucking stroll in a multiverse.I thought that point was self evident any more than you can prove,observe or state what came before either.The point is neither of us can say anymore than the other but science which you claim is your master can at best just hypothosise it cannot state fact,prove,observe,test anything pre big bang either so your claims being proven by science are as disingenuos as any claim I decided to state as fact."
So why do atheists continuously present such unscientific nonsense as a 'multiverse', or the universe from nothing without a cause, as 'science'? It doesn't even make logical or common sense, let alone scientific sense.
It is all sheer, magical fantasy.
If you are going to frame a scientific hypothesis, then you should do so according to the facts we know - and within the framework of natural laws and the principle of causality which lies behind the scientific method.
You should not just dream up any old, imaginative nonsense, which tramples on natural laws and the basic principle of science, and then present it as the latest, greatest, scientific explanation of how the universe originated and/or a so-called 'Theory of Everything' which effectively makes a supernatural, first cause redundant. When, in fact, it is a Theory of absolutely Nothing,
it doesn't even deserve to be called a theory.
And then why have the barefaced cheek to accuse anyone who challenges atheist, naturalist fantasies or questions the scientific credibility of abandoning natural laws and scientific principles with such airy fairy, mythological fables, as indulging in pseudoscience and advocating a "god of the gaps?"
The ONLY motivation atheists have for dismissing and opposing natural laws and scientific principles, concerning origins, is an ideological one. It is nothing whatsoever to do with science or logic. It is ONLY to do with trying to preserve their religious devotion to naturalism. So, stop pretending it is science.
Atheism has nothing to do with science. The fact that atheists deliberately abandon natural laws and scientific principles in ALL of their proposed origin scenarios, just because they are inconvenient to their naturalist ideology, actually makes atheism - anti-science.
Put simply - I respect natural laws and the fundamental principle of the scientific method. And I present a logical argument for the origin of everything, simply on that basis.
Whereas - you reject and hate natural laws and the fundamental principle of the scientific method as far as they relate to origins.
And you live in the vain and contradictory hope that somehow, someday, someone will present a 'scientific' argument for the origin of everything which can ignore or refute natural laws and basic scientific principles. In the meantime, you are quite willing to consider any hair-brained unscientific idea or fantasy that supports your naturalistic beliefs, regardless of whether they violate natural laws, in preference to any logical argument that respects them.
And you refer to my logical argument based on natural laws and scientific principles as the 'god of the gaps'. The 'gaps' are only created by your fantastical belief and wishful thinking that natural laws will someday be shown not to apply.
So who is indulging in pseudoscience? I think the answer to that is obvious.
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Silly Deity 2y
Truth in science
So......................................back to familiar territory yet again with strawman arguments and ad hominem atttacks.
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~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!) did NOT present the multiverse as a cause. If you actually bothered to read his response you would have realised that he was saying nothing of the sort.
You plainly DON'T respect the scientific method otherwise you would present evidence to support your claims. You consistently fail to do that.
Your rant simply confirms the caricature in my image. Talk about life imitating art!
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Aimless Alliterations PRO 2y
"Life imitating art!" He, he. Love it!!!!
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Truth in science 2y
Silly Deity
If you had actually bothered to read my comment properly you would know that I didn't accuse him of presenting the multiverse as a ‘cause'.
I asked: "So why do atheists continuously present such unscientific nonsense as a 'multiverse', or the universe from nothing without a cause, as 'science'?"
In fact, the only reason that atheists invent such bizarre, origin scenarios as; a multiverse - or a universe from nothing, is to avoid having to explain a cause.
They think they can hoodwink the public into believing they are credible explanations of how everything could come into existence from nothing, without needing an adequate cause.
The scientific fact that every natural occurrence and entity requires an adequate cause is absolutely fatal to atheist, naturalist beliefs. So, atheists are compelled to waste their lives trying to devise origin scenarios which they think can fool people into believing that everything CAN come from nothing without a cause. Unfortunately for them, every sensible person, who is not indoctrinated with atheist pseudoscience, knows it CAN'T.
The amazing thing is, that you and the other 2 stooges, on here actually fall for such nonsense and think it is credible science.
Atheists even have the cheek to rip off theist arguments to try to silence any opposition. Such as the theist argument that ("to ask what caused God? is an invalid question, because the first cause - by virtue of being first - could have no preceding cause"). Atheists cynically apply a similar concept (in disguise) to their naturalistic fantasies - i.e. "to ask what caused the universe to arise from nothing? is an invalid question. It is like asking what is north of the North Pole?" Which of course anyone with any sense knows it isn't. To ask - what caused any and every natural occurrence or entity? Is not only a valid question, it is also an essential question. A question which true science demands we ask.
The only way atheist, naturalist beliefs can be true, is if natural laws and the basic principle behind the scientific method are not true and valid.
So, there is a straight choice between supporting atheism - OR supporting science and natural law. You can't do both...
Which do you choose?
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Silly Deity 2y
Truth in science
Let me translate what you've just stated:
I've repeatedly dodged providing evidence to support the initial claim that I made.
Instead I've quoted one of the individuals who questioned the validity of my claim and then turned that into a straw man argument by distorting his question to give the impression I was refuting his argument, while actually refuting an argument which was not advanced by him in the first place.
I know that this was pointed out to me but I flatly deny that I've done this and will now repeat that self-same straw man (incorporating sweeping generalisations).
Now having tried to wriggle out of that I'll make some bizarre and inaccurate statements about science and throw in some ad hominem attacks for good measure as that's something I like to do.
I'll round it off with a false dichotomy which results in me once more dodging the fact that I've no evidence to support my original claim and tries to hide that I'm talking absolute bullshit.
Yes. Life imitating art it most certainly is. I posted that image little realising how accurate it was but true to form "Truth in pseudoscience" you have repeatedly confirmed its accuracy.
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Truth in science 2y
~~badBADpenny~~ (read profile !!)
You have produced no logical or scientific justification for atheism. Whereas I have presented a logical argument based on natural law and scientific principles for theism which should satisfy any reasonable person. Furthermore, I have presented a logical argument as to why atheist naturalism is unscientific nonsense. I don’t expect you, or any other died-in-the-wool atheist to accept it, because atheism is an insidious and deceptive cult, which attempts to indoctrinate the public through relentless hype and propaganda.
Here is some good news for any theists reading this. All atheist arguments are easily demolished. Not because I, or any other theist, is exceptionally clever, but because atheism is based on lies and deceit. Once people realise that, it becomes obvious that there will be major flaws in EVERY atheist argument. It is then a simple matter, for anyone interested in truth, to expose them.
Atheism is claimed to be the scientific viewpoint and supporter of science. That is the great deception of the modern age.
What is the truth?
Science is based on looking for adequate causes of EVERY natural happening or entity AND on making predictions and assessments about the natural world, based on the validity of natural laws.
Atheism is based on ignoring the fact that EVERY natural happening or entity requires an adequate cause, not just ignoring it, but even actively opposing it. Atheism is about looking for, and hoping to find, non-causes and inadequate causes.
Atheism is also against the scientific method, of making assessments and predictions based on the validity of natural laws, and in favour of rejecting and challenging the validity of natural laws.
Your argument that we just don’t know whether causality or any other natural laws existed before the start of the universe, is not a valid argument for atheism. Even if it was a sensible argument, the very best that could be said of it, is that it is an argument for agnosticism. Not knowing (agnosticism) is a neutral position, it is not an argument for or against theism or for or against atheism. If you claim to be in the ‘don’t know’ camp and are a genuine agnostic, you have to sit firmly on the fence - you have no right to ridicule and lambast theists who believe that causality and natural laws are universally valid and by the same token you cannot ridicule atheism. You are clearly not a genuine agnostic, because you come down firmly on the side of atheism made evident by the fact that you support ‘silly deities’ posts and photostream which attacks theism. That is not a ‘don’t know’ (agnostic) position.
The argument for atheism cannot be simply based on ‘not knowing’ whether the law of cause and effect and other natural laws existed prior to the universe. Atheism depends on a definite rejection of causality and natural laws at the beginning of the material realm.
And that argument also reveals atheists as gross hypocrites.
When Stephen Hawking declared to the world: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing” atheists applauded and crowed about ‘science’ making God redundant. How come they didn’t criticise him for claiming he knew the law of gravity pre-existed the universe? Apparently, Hawking KNEW the law of gravity existed, but decided that the law of cause and effect and other natural laws didn’t exist. What happened to the: “we just don’t know what laws existed before the universe or Big Bang” argument on that occasion? Unbelievable hypocrisy! Which effectively demolishes the bogus atheist argument that “we don’t know what laws existed”. What atheists actually mean to say is that: “we know that laws which support our argument did exist, but we don’t know that laws which destroy our argument existed”.
As I said before:
The only way atheist, naturalist beliefs can be true, is if natural laws and the basic principle behind the scientific method are not true and valid.
So there is a straight choice between supporting atheism - OR supporting the universal validity of science and natural law. You can't do both...
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Silly Deity 2y
Truth in science
I'll make this very simple "Truth in pseudoscience"
You made a claim.
The scientific method requires that you provide evidence for your claim. That is a fundamental scientific principle.
Logical argument is not evidence. Particularly when such arguments are logical fallacies. For example I could state the following:
1. Some men are doctors.
2. Some doctors are women.
3. Therefore, some men are women.
Logically that is correct, however it is patently wrong. In order to prove it true I would have to provide evidence. That is the problem with your arguments. Arguments are not evidence. You may think they are logical but they fail because they are logical fallacies and because you provide no EVIDENCE to support your claim.
Everything else you've stated (the straw man arguments, the reversal of burden of proof, the ad hominem attacks, the quoting the phrase "natural laws" ad nauseum) is merely you dodging for the umpteenth time the fact that you have no evidence to support your claim.
I'll repeat, the scientific method requires that you provide evidence for your claim. That is a fundamental scientific principle.
EVIDENCE
EVIDENCE
SHOW US THE EVIDENCE
Your failure to grasp this and the nature of your responses simply reinforces the satire contained in the original image.
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Truth in science 2y
Silly Deity
Your comments are as pathetic as your original image.
Your ridiculous image, which you seem to be so proud of, is a straw man portrayal of a Christian, which bears no relationship whatsoever to any Christian I know, or know of. It is nothing more than a crude and offensive stereotype which exists only in the imagination of atheist ideologues and zealots. I have shown it to be entirely false. I have shown that theism is based on eminently reasonable arguments and that it is atheism that is unreasonable nonsense with NO credible, logical or scientific argument Furthermore I have not mentioned, nor have I needed to mention, anyone being condemned to hell.
As for your stupid example of a logical argument, it bears no comparison to my logical argument.
Science uses natural laws to predict and assess the answers to questions, that is all science can do. It cannot make predictions or assessments based on the idea that natural laws are not valid. My logical argument is the ONLY possible assessment based on the validity of natural laws and the basic principle of the scientific method. if you think that is wrong, once again, I challenge you to give a logical or scientific argument against it?
My evidence is that natural laws can be observed, and tested by repeated experiment and have been shown to be valid in all known circumstances - AND that scientific research cannot even be carried out without an acknowledgement that we can expect every natural occurrence to have an adequate cause. I cite the known and tested universality of natural laws and scientific principles as my evidence.
My evidence is the fact that science and natural law supports my logical argument for a supernatural, first cause and definitively rejects the notion of a natural, first cause. It couldn't be clearer than that.
My argument is based on things we know, ALL atheist arguments are based on fantasy - what ifs, maybes, what we don't know and are never likely to know.
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Aimless Alliterations PRO 2y
So your evidence is...........just a repeat of you saying you're right and everyone else is wrong? You don't seem to get what the scientific method requires of those who make claims.
A central theme of science and scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or at least empirically based, that is, it should depend on evidence or results that can be observed by our senses. Scientific statements are subject to and derived from our experience or observations and empirical data is based on both observations and experiment results.
Not one of your statements refers to empirical evidence of a supernatural being.
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Silly Deity 2y
Aimless Alliterations
Thanks for that. It saves me the trouble of having to explain the concept of evidence yet again to our scientifically-challenged "friend".
"Truth in pseudoscience" The example of flawed logic I provided you with was just that - an example. You appear to have some difficulty understanding that trying to prove an argument through the use of logic is always going to fail if you use flawed logic. Your repeated use logical fallacies simply illustrates this.
Your constant ad hominem attacks when you are accused of such behavour are further examples of logical fallacies. So my comments are far from pathetic......they are an uncannily accurate reflection of the satire contained in the original image.
If you can't see that, then that's your problem and I think we can safely say this debate is at an end.
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Aimless Alliterations PRO 2y
Yes. For someone who claims to use science to supposedly support his claims there appears to be some pretty fundamental gaps in "Truth in pseudoscience's" knowledge of science and scientific principles.
Something that's reflected in all of his bizarre claims.
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Mark 2y
@"Truth in science" and pretty much everyone too..
1. Your wish thinking does not work as advertised. (unlikely headline: prayer meeting ends world hunger)
2. Your convoluted blathering is only a neon sign to the above.
3. As a person raised on the secular ideals of the U.S. I can not support any leader who is not answerable to the rest of us, so "worship" is totally out of the question.
(even the "inalienable rights" line proves the plastic nature of a simple deist assumption of a god's nature, let alone one who takes more license)
4. I'm disappointed that anyone gives you the time of day, as your kind need not be eliminated but simply left to wither away.
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The debate ended with the comment by atheist 'Mark' above.
I didn't think there was any point in continuing, as the arguments were already becoming repetitive.
I think I am justified in concluding that this debate (as many others) demonstrated that the atheist belief in naturalism - and the belief that there was no adequate, infinite, first cause of everything temporal - is bankrupt. It is bankrupt because it relies completely on natural laws not being universally valid. Atheist HAVE TO dismiss natural laws, because they are fatal to their ideology of naturalism. To dismiss natural laws is not scientific, we depend on the reliability of natural laws to make scientific predictions. We cannot practice science without trusting in natural laws. So, atheism, in seeking to debunk natural laws, is exposed as ANTI-SCIENCE.
The image posted by Silly Deity with the original debate can be seen here:
St Mary, Woolpit, Suffolk
Woolpit is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not particularly sleepy, and only a little chocolate boxy, but somewhere people actually actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed to go shopping, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey, Rattlesden and Tuddenham. Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once haunted the pits here...
Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.
A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.
You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at, the summa cum laude of the genre. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.
Perhaps it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...
The wallposts contain Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner.
Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His naked delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.
And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.
Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier than Dowsing's visit, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.
Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?
The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?
There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.
But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On a recent journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.
Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!
Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalledthe theory that the roof at Woolpit was intended as a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever! Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.
How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.
So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.
But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.
They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.
In Catholic Southern Europe there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come to rural southern Europe I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance before moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.
Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.
Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things. The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their husband or wife, their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.
Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!
Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?
How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.
So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its surviving medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.
The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the weirdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.
The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.
I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?
Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1547 edict which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?
Avram Noam Chomsky
Portrait of Noam Chomsky painted in admiration for Justice and Liberty of his Wisdom
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1273830809738507&set=a.1...
“Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift.”
― Noam Chomsky
Language and Freedom
Noam Chomsky
chomsky.info/language-and-freedom/
Excerpted from For Reasons of State, New York: Pantheon Books, 1973.
When I was invited to speak on the topic “Language and freedom”, I was puzzled and intrigued. Most of my professional life has been devoted to the study of language. There would be no great difficulty in finding a topic to discuss in that domain. And there is much to say about the problems of freedom and liberation as they pose themselves to us and to others in the mid-twentieth century. What is troublesome in the title of this lecture is the conjunction. In what way are language and freedom to be interconnected?
As a preliminary, let me say just a word about the contemporary study of language, as I see it. There are many aspects of language and language use that raise intriguing questions, but – in my judgement – only a few have so far led to productive theoretical work. In particular, our deepest insights are in the area of formal grammatical structure. A person who knows a language has acquired a system of rules and principles – a “generative grammar,” in technical terms – that associates sound and meaning in some specific fashion. There are many reasonably well-founded and, I think, rather enlightening hypotheses as to the character of such grammars, for quite a number of languages. Furthermore, there has been a renewal of interest in “universal grammar”, interpreted now as the theory that tries to specify the general properties of those languages that can be learned in the normal way by humans. Here, too, significant progress has been achieved.
The subject is of particular importance. It is appropriate to regard universal grammar as the study of one of the essential faculties of mind. It is, therefore, extremely interesting to discover, as I believe we do, that the principles of universal grammar are rich, abstract, and restrictive, and can be used to construct principled explanations for a variety of phenomena. At the present stage of our understanding, if language is to provide a springboard for the investigation of other problems of human nature, it is these aspects of language to which we will have to turn our attention, for the simple reason that it is only these aspects that are reasonably well understood. In another sense, the study of formal properties of language reveals something of the nature of humans in a negative way: it underscores, with great clarity, the limits of our understanding of those qualities of mind that are apparently unique to humans and that must enter into their cultural achievements in an intimate, if still quite obscure, manner.
In searching for a point of departure, one turns naturally to a period in the history of Western thought when it was possible to believe that “the thought of making freedom the sum and substance of philosophy has emancipated the human spirit in all its relationships, and . . . has given to science in all its parts a more powerful reorientation than any earlier revolution.” [1] The word “revolution” bears multiple association in this passage, for Schelling also proclaims that “man is born to act and not to speculate”; and when he writes that “the time has come to proclaim to a nobler humanity the freedom of the spirit, and no longer to have patience with men’s tearful regrets for their lost chains” we hear the echoes of the libertarian thought and revolutionary acts of the late eighteenth century. Schelling writes that “the beginning and end of all philosophy is – Freedom.” These words are invested with meaning and urgency at a time when people are struggling to cast off their chains, to resist authority that has lost its claim to legitimacy, to construct more humane and more democratic social institutions. It is at such a time that the philosopher may be driven to inquire into the nature of human freedom and its limits, and perhaps to conclude, with Schelling, that with respect to the human ego, “its essence is freedom”; and with respect to philosophy, “the highest dignity of Philosophy consists precisely therein, that it stakes all on human freedom.”
We are living, once again, at such a time. A revolutionary ferment is sweeping the socalled Third World, awakening enormous masses from torpor and acquiescence in traditional authority. There are those who feel that the industrial societies as well are ripe for revolutionary change – and I do not refer only to representatives of the New Left. The threat of revolutionary change brings forth repression and reaction. Its signs are evident in varying forms, in France, in the Soviet Union, in the United States—not least, in the city where we are meeting. It is natural, then, that we should consider, abstractly, the problems of human freedom, and turn with interest and serious attention to the thinking of an earlier period when archaic social institutions were subjected to critical analysis and sustained attack. It is natural and appropriate, so long as we bear in mind Schellings’s admonition that man is born not merely to speculate but also to act.
One of the earliest and most remarkable of the eighteenth-century investigations of freedom and servitude is Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (1755), in many ways a revolutionary tract. In it, he seeks to “set forth the origin and progress of inequality, the establishment and abuse of political societies, insofar as these things can be deduced from the nature of man by the light of reason alone.” His conclusions were sufficiently shocking that the judges of the prize competition of the Academy of Dijon, to whom the work was originally submitted, refused to hear the manuscript through. [2] In it, Rousseau challenges the legitimacy of virtually every social institution, as well as individual control of property and wealth. These are “usurpations . . . established only on a precarious and abusive right . . . having been acquired only by force, force could take them away without (the rich) having grounds for complaint.” Not even property acquired by personal industry is held “upon better titles”. Against such a claim, one might object: “Do you not know that a multitude of your brethren die or suffer from need of what you have in excess, and that you needed express and unanimous consent of the human race to appropriate for yourself anything from common subsistence that exceeded your own?” It is contrary to the law of nature that “a handful of men be glutted with superfluities while the starving multitude lacks necessities.”
Rousseau argues that civil society is hardly more than a conspiracy by the rich to guarantee their plunder. Hypocritically, the rich call upon their neighbors to “institute regulations of justice and peace to which all are obliged to conform, which make an exception of no one, and which compensate in some way for the caprices of fortune by equally subjecting the powerful and the weak to mutual duties”– those laws which, as Anatole France was to say, in their majesty deny to the rich and the poor equally the right to sleep under the bridge at night. By such arguments, the poor and weak were seduced: “All ran to meet their chains thinking they secured their freedom. . . .” Thus society and laws “gave new fetters to the weak and new forces to the rich, destroyed natural freedom for all time, established forever the law of property and inequality, changed a clever usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a few ambitious men henceforth subjected the whole human race to work, servitude and misery”. Governments inevitably tend toward arbitrary power, as “their corruption and extreme limit”. This power is “by its nature illegitimate,” and new revolutions must
dissolve the government altogether or bring it closer to its legitimate institutions … . The uprising that ends by strangling or dethroning a sultan is as lawful an act as those by which he disposed, the day before, of the lives and goods of his subjects. Force alone maintained him, force alone overthrows him.
What is interesting, in the present connection, is the path that Rousseau follows to reach these conclusions “by the light of reason alone,” beginning with his ideas about human nature. He wants to see man “as nature formed him”. It is from human nature that the principles of natural right and the foundations of social existence must be deduced.
This same study of original man, of his true needs, and of the principles underlying his duties, is also the only good means one could use to remove those crowds of difficulties which present themselves concerning the origin of moral inequality, the true foundation of the body politic, the reciprocal rights of its members, and a thousand similar questions as important as they are ill explained.
To determine the nature of man, Rousseau proceeds to compare man and animal. Man is “intelligent, free . . . the sole animal endowed with reason.” Animals are “devoid of intellect and freedom.”
In every animal I see only an ingenious machine to which nature has given senses in order to revitalize itself and guarantee itself, to a certain point, from all that tends to destroy or upset it. I perceive precisely the same things in the human machine, with the difference that nature alone does everything in the operations of a beast, whereas man contributes to his operations by being a free agent. The former chooses or rejects by instinct and the latter by an act of freedom, so that a beast cannot de viate from the rule that is prescribed to it even when it would be advantageous for it do so, and a man deviates from it often to his detriment . . . . it is not so much understanding which constitutes the distinction of man among the animals as it is his being a free agent. Nature commands every animal, and the beast obeys. Man feels the same impetus, but he realizes that he is free to acquiesce or resist; and it is above all in the consciousness of this freedom that the spirituality of his soul is shown. For physics explains in some way the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing, or rather of choosing, and in the sentiment of this power are found only purely spiritual acts about which the laws of mechanics explain nothing.
Thus the essence of human nature is human freedom and the consciousness of this freedom. So Rousseau can say that “the jurists, who have gravely pronounced that the child of a slave would be born a slave, have decided in other terms that a man would not be born a man.”[3]
Sophistic politicians and intellectuals search for ways to obscure the fact that the essential and defining property of man is his freedom: “They attribute to men a natural inclination to servitude, without thinking that it is the same for freedom as for innocence and virtue – their value is felt only as long as one enjoys them oneself and the taste for them is lost as soon as one has lost them.” In contrast, Rousseau asks rhetorically “whether, freedom being the most noble of man’s faculties, it is not degrading one’s nature, putting oneself on the level of beasts enslaved by instinct, even offending the author on one’s being, to renounce without reservation the most precious of all his gifts and subject ourselves to committing all the crimes he forbids us in order to please a ferocious or insane master” – a question that has been asked, in similar terms, by many an American draft resister in the last few years, and by many others who are beginning to recover from the catastrophe of twentieth-century Western civilization, which has so tragically confirmed Rousseau’s judgement:
Hence arose the national wars, battles, murders, and reprisals which make nature tremble and shock reason, and all those horrible prejudices which rank the honour of shedding human blood among the virtues. The most decent men learned to consider it one of their duties to murder their fellowmen; at length men were seen to massacre each other by the thousands without knowing why; more murders were committed on a single day of fighting and more horrors in the capture of a single city than were committed in the state of nature during whole centuries over the entire face of the earth.
The proof of his doctrine that the struggle for freedom is an essential human attribute, that the value of freedom is felt only as long as one enjoys it, Rousseau sees in “the marvels done by all free peoples to guard themselves from oppression.” True, those who have abandoned the life of a free man
do nothing but boast incessantly of the peace and repose they enjoy in their chains . . . . But when I see the others sacrifice pleasures, repose, wealth, power, and life itself for the preservation of this sole good which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see animals born free and despising captivity break their heads against the bars of their prison; when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel that it does not behoove slaves to reason about freedom.
Rather similar thoughts were expressed by Kant, forty years later. He cannot, he says, accept the proposition that certain people “are not ripe for freedom,” for example, the serfs of some landlord:
If one accepts this assumption, freedom will never be achieved; for one can not arrive at the maturity for freedom without having already acquired it; one must be free to learn how to make use of one’s powers freely and usefully. The first attempts will surely be brutal and will lead to a state of affairs more painful and dangerous than the former condition under the dominance but also the protection of an external authority. However, one can achieve reason only through one’s own experiences and one must be free to be able to undertake them. . . . To accept the principle that freedom is worthless for those under one’s control and that one has the right to refuse it to them forever, is an infringement on the rights of God himself, who has created man to be free. [4]
The remark is particularly interesting because of its context. Kant was defending the French Revolution, during the Terror, against those who claimed that it showed the masses to be unready for the privilege of freedom. Kant’s remarks have contemporary relevance. No rational person will approve of violence and terror. In particular, the terror of the postrevolutionary state, fallen into the hands of a grim autocracy, has more than once reached indescribable levels of savagery. Yet no person of understanding or humanity will too quickly condemn the violence that often occurs when long-subdued masses rise against their oppressors, or take their first steps toward liberty and social reconstruction.
Let me return now to Rousseau’s argument against the legitimacy of established authority, whether that of political power or of wealth. It is striking that his argument, up to this point, follows a familiar Cartesian model. Man is uniquely beyond the bounds of physical explanation; the beast, on the other hand, is merely an ingenious machine, commanded by natural law. Man’s freedom and his consciousness of this freedom distinguish him from the beast-machine. The principles of mechanical explanation are incapable of accounting for these human properties, though they can account for sensation and even the combination of ideas, in which regard “man differs from a beast only in degree.”
To Descartes and his followers, such as Cordemoy, the only sure sign that another organism has a mind, and hence also lies beyond the bounds of mechanical explanation, is its use of language in the normal, creative human fashion, free from control by identifiable stimuli, novel and innovative, appropriate to situations, coherent, and engendering in our minds new thoughts and ideas. [5] To the Cartesians, it is obvious by introspection that each man possesses a mind, a substance whose essence is thought; his creative use of language reflects this freedom of thought and conception. When we have evidence that another organism, too, uses language in this free and creative fashion, we are led to attribute to it as well a mind like ours. From similar assumptions regarding the intrinsic limits of mechanical explanation, its inability to account for man’s freedom and consciousness of his freedom, Rousseau proceeds to develop his critique of authoritarian institutions, which deny to man his essential attribute of freedom, in varying degree.
Were we to combine these speculations, we might develop an interesting connection between language and freedom. Language, in its essential properties and the manner of its use, provides the basic criterion for determining that another organism is a being with a human mind and the human capacity for free thought and self-expression, and with the essential human need for freedom from the external constraints of repressive authority. Furthermore, we might try to proceed from the detailed investigation of language and its use to a deeper and more specific understanding of the human mind. Proceeding on this model, we might further attempt to study other aspects of that human nature which, as Rousseau rightly observes, must be correctly conceived if we are to be able to develop, in theory, the foundations for a rational social order.
I will return to this problem, but first I would like to trace further Rousseau’s thinking about the matter. Rousseau diverges from the Cartesian tradition in several respects. He defines the “specific characteristic of the human species” as man’s “faculty of selfperfection,” which, “with the aid of circumstances, successively develops all the others, and resides among us as much in the species as in the individual.” The faculty of selfperfection and of perfection of the human species through cultural transmission is not, to my knowledge, discussed in any similar terms by the Cartesians. However, I think that Rousseau’s remarks might be interpreted as a development of the Cartesian tradition in an unexplored direction, rather than as a denial and rejection of it. There is no inconsistency in the notion that the restrictive attributes of mind underlie a historically evolving human nature that develops within the limits that they set; or that these attributes of mind provide the possibility of self-perfection; or that, by providing the consciousness of freedom, these essential attributes of human nature give man the opportunity to create social conditions and social forms to maximize the possibilities for freedom, diversity, and individual self-realization. To use an arithmetical analogy, the integers do not fail to be an infinite set merely because they do not exhaust the rational numbers. Analogously, it is no denial of man’s capacity for infinite “self-perfection” to hold that there are intrinsic properties of mind that constrain his development. I would like to argue that in a sense the opposite is true, that without a system of formal constraints there are no creative acts; specifically, in the absence of intrinsic and restrictive properties of mind, there can be only “shaping of behaviour” but no creative acts of self-perfection. Furthermore, Rousseau’s concern for the evolutionary character of self-perfection brings us back, from another point of view, to a concern for human language, which would appear to be a prerequisite for such evolution of society and culture, for Rousseau’s perfection of the species, beyond the most rudimentary forms.
Rousseau holds that “although the organ of speech is natural to man, speech itself is nonetheless not natural to him.” Again, I see no inconsistency between this observation and the typical Cartesian view that innate abilities are “dispositional,” faculties that lead us to produce ideas (specifically, innate ideas) in a particular manner under given conditions of external stimulation, but that also provide us with the ability to proceed in our thinking without such external factors. Language too, then, is natural to man only in a specific way. This is an important and, I believe, quite fundamental insight of the rationalist linguists that was disregarded, very largely, under the impact of empiricist psychology in the eighteenth century and since.[6]
Rousseau discusses the origin of language at some length, though he confesses himself to be unable to come to grips with the problem in a satisfactory way. Thus
if men needed speech in order to learn to think, they had even greater need of knowing how to think in order to discover the art of speech. . . . So that one can hardly form tenable conjectures about this art of communicating thoughts and establishing intercourse between minds; a sublime art which is now very far from its origin. . . .
He holds that “general ideas can come into the mind only with the aid of words, and the understanding grasps them only through propositions” – a fact which prevents animals, devoid of reason, from formulating such ideas or ever acquiring “the perfectibility which depends upon them.” Thus he cannot conceive of the means by which “our new grammarians began to extend their ideas and to generalize their words,” or to develop the means “to express all the thoughts of men”: “numbers, abstract words, aorists, and all the tenses of verbs, particles, syntax, the linking of propositions, reasoning, and the forming of all the logic of discourse.” He does speculate about later stages of the perfection of the species, “when the ideas of men began to spread and multiply, and when closer communication was established among them, [and] they sought more numerous signs and a more extensive language.” But he must, unhappily, abandon “the following difficult problem: which was most necessary, previously formed society for the institution of languages, or previously invented languages for the establishment of society?”
The Cartesians cut the Gordian knot by postulating the existence of a species-specific characteristic, a second substance that serves as what we might call a “creative principle” alongside the “mechanical principle” that determines totally the behaviour of animals. There was, for them, no need to explain the origin of language in the course of historical evolution. Rather, man’s nature is qualitatively distinct: there is no passage from body to mind. We might reinterpret this idea in more current terms by speculating the rather sudden and dramatic mutations might have led to qualities of intelligence that are, so far as we know, unique to humans, possession of language in the human sense being the most distinctive index of these qualities. [7] If this is correct, as at least a first approximation to the facts, the study of language might be expected to offer an entering wedge, or perhaps a model, for an investigation of human nature that would provide the grounding for a much broader theory of human nature.
To conclude these historical remarks, I would like to turn, as I have elsewhere, [8] to Wilhelm von Humboldt, one of the most stimulating and intriguing thinkers of the period. Humboldt was, on the one hand, one of the most profound theorists of general linguistics, and on the other, an early and forceful advocate of libertarian values. The basic concept of his philosophy is Bildung, by which, as J.W. Burrow expresses it, “he meant the fullest, richest, and most harmonious development of the potentialities of the individual, the community or the human race.” [9] His own thought might serve as an exemplary case. Though he does not, to my knowledge, explicitly relate his ideas about language to his libertarian social thought, there is quite clearly a common ground from which they develop, a concept of human nature that inspires each. Mill’s essay On Liberty takes as its epigraph Humboldt’s formulation of the “leading principle” of his thought: “the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.” Humboldt concludes his critique of the authoritarian state by saying: “I have felt myself animated throughout with a sense of the deepest respect for the inherent dignity of human nature, and for freedom, which alone befits that dignity.” Briefly put, his concept of human nature is this:
The true end of Man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal and immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole. Freedom is the first and indispensable condition which the possibility of such a development presupposes; but there is besides another essential – intimately connected with freedom, it is true – a variety of situations. [10]
Like Rousseau and Kant, he holds that
nothing promotes this ripeness for freedom so much as freedom itself. This truth, perhaps, may not be acknowledged by those who have so often used this unripeness as an excuse for continuing repression. But it seems to me to follow unquestionably from the very nature of man. The incapacity for freedom can only arise from a want of moral and intellectual power; to heighten this power is the only way to supply this want; but to do this presupposes the exercise of the power, and this exercise presupposes the freedom which awakens spontaneous activity. Only it is clear we cannot call it giving freedom, when bonds are relaxed which are not felt as such by him who wears them. But of no man on earth – however neglected by nature, and however degraded by circumstances – is this true of all the bonds which oppress him. Let us undo them one by one, as the feeling of freedom awakens in men’s hearts, and we shall hasten progress at every step.
Those who do not comprehend this “may justly be suspected of misunderstanding human nature, and of wishing to make men into machines.”
Man is fundamentally a creative, searching, self-perfecting being: “To inquire and to create – these are the centres around which all human pursuits more or less directly revolve.” But freedom of thought and enlightenment are not only for the elite. Once again echoing Rousseau, Humboldt states, “There is something degrading to human nature in the idea of refusing to any man the right to be a man.” He is, then, optimistic about the effects on all of “the diffusion of scientific knowledge by freedom and enlightenment.” But “all moral culture springs solely and immediately from the inner life of the soul, and can only be stimulated in human nature, and never produced by external and artificial contrivances.” “The cultivation of the understanding, as of any of man’s other faculties, is generally achieved by his own activity, his own ingenuity, or his own methods of using the discoveries of others. . . .” Education, then, must provide the opportunities for selffulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way. Even a language cannot, strictly speaking, be taught, but only “awakened in the mind: one can only provide the thread along which it will develop of itself.” I think that Humboldt would have found congenial much of Dewey’s thinking about education. And he might also have appreciated the recent revolutionary extension of such ideas, for example, by the radical Catholics of Latin America who are concerned with the “awakening of consciousness,” referring to “the transformation of the passive exploited lower classes into conscious and critical masters of their own destinies” [11] much in the manner of Third World revolutionaries elsewhere. He would, I am sure, have approved of their criticism of schools that are
more preoccupied with the transmission of knowledge than with the creation, among other values, of a critical spirit. From the social point of view, the educational systems are oriented to maintaining the existing social and economic structures instead of transforming them.[12]
But Humboldt’s concern for spontaneity goes well beyond educational practice in the narrow sense. It touches also the question of labour and exploitation. The remarks, just quoted, about the cultivation of understanding through spontaneous action continue as follows:
. . . man never regards what he possesses as so much his own, as what he does; and the labourer who tends a garden is perhaps in a true sense its owner, than the listless voluptuary who enjoys its fruits. . . . In view of this consideration, [13] it seems as if all peasants and craftsmen might be elevated into artists; that is, men who love their labour for its own sake, improve it by their own plastic genius and inventive skill, and thereby cultivate their intellect, ennoble their character, and exalt and refine their pleasures. And so humanity would be ennobled by the very things which now, thought beautiful in themselves, so often serve to degrade it. . . But, still, freedom is undoubtedly the indispensable condition, without which even the pursuits most congenial to individual human nature, can never succeed in producing such salutary influences. Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very being, but remains alien to his true nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness.
If a man acts in a purely mechanical way, reacting to external demands or instruction rather than in ways determined by his own interests and energies and power, “we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is.” [14]
On such conceptions Humboldt grounds his ideas concerning the role of the state, which tends to “make man an instrument to serve its arbitrary ends, overlooking his individual purposes.” His doctrine is classical liberal, strongly opposed to all but the most minimal forms of state intervention in personal or social life.
Writing in the 1790s, Humboldt had no conception of the forms that industrial capitalism would take. Hence he is not overly concerned with the dangers of private power.
But when we reflect (still keeping theory distinct from practice) that the influence of a private person is liable to diminution and decay, from competition, dissipation of fortune, even death; and that clearly none of these contingencies can be applied to the State; we are still left with the principle that the latter is not to meddle in anything which does not refer exclusively to security. . . .
He speaks of the essential equality of the condition of private citizens, and of course has no idea of the ways in which the notion “private person” would come to be reinterpreted in the era of corporate capitalism. He did not foresee that “Democracy with its motto of equality of all citizens before the law and Liberalism with its right of man over his own person both [would be] wrecked on realities of capitalist economy.”15 He did not foresee that, in a predatory capitalist economy, state intervention would be an absolute necessity to preserve human existence and to prevent the destruction of the physical environment— I speak optimistically. As Karl Polanyi, for one, has pointed out, the self-adjusting market “could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness.” Humboldt did not foresee the consequences of the commodity character of labour, the doctrine (in Polanyi’s words) that “it is not for the commodity to decide where is should be offered for sale, to what purpose it should be used, at what price it should be allowed to change hands, and in what manner it should be consumed or destroyed.” But the commodity, in the case, is a human life, and social protection was therefore a minimal necessity to constrain the irrational and destructive workings of the classical free market. Nor did Humboldt understand that capitalist economic relations perpetuated a form of bondage which, as early as 1767, Simon Linguet had declared to be even worse than slavery.
It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat, and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live. It is want that drags them to those markets where they await masters who will do them the kindness of buying them. It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him. . . . What effective gain has the suppression of slavery brought him?. . . . He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune. The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him. But the handicraftsmen cost nothing to the rich voluptuary who employs him. . . . These men, it is said, have no master– they have one, and the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is need. It is this that reduces them to the most cruel dependence. [17]
If there is something degrading to human nature in the idea of bondage, then a new emancipation must be awaited, Fourier’s “third and last emancipatory phase of history,” which will transform the proletariat to free men by eliminating the commodity character of labor, ending wage slavery, and bringing the commercial, industrial, and financial institutions under democratic control. [18]
Perhaps Humboldt might have accepted these conclusions. He does agree that state intervention in social life is legitimate if “freedom would destroy the very conditions without which not only freedom but even existence itself would be inconceivable” – precisely the circumstances that arise in an unconstrained capitalist economy. In any event, his criticism of bureaucracy and the autocratic state stands as an eloquent forewarning of some of the most dismal aspects of modern history, and the basis of his critique is applicable to a broader range of coercive institutions than he imagined.
Though expressing a classical liberal doctrine, Humboldt is no primitive individualist in the style of Rousseau. Rousseau extols the savage who “lives within himself”; he has little use for “the sociable man, always outside of himself, [who] knows how to live only in the opinion of others . . . from [whose] judgement alone . . . he draws the sentiment of his own existence.”19 Humboldt’s vision is quite different:
. . . the whole tenor of the ideas and arguments unfolded in this essay might fairly be reduced to this, that while they would break all fetters in human society, they would attempt to find as many new social bonds as possible. The isolated man is no more able to develop than the one who is fettered.
Thus he looks forward to a community of free association without coercion by the state or other authoritarian institutions, in which free men can create and inquire, and achieve the highest development of their powers – far ahead of his time, he presents an anarchist vision that is appropriate, perhaps, to the next stage of industrial society. We can perhaps look forward to a day when these various strands will be brought together within the framework of libertarian socialism, a social form that barely exists today though its elements can be perceived: in the guarantee of individual rights that has achieved its highest form – though still tragically flawed – in the Western democracies; in the Israeli kibbutzim; in the experiments with workers’ councils in Yugoslavia; in the effort to awaken popular consciousness and create a new involvement in the social process which is a fundamental element in the Third World revolutions, coexisting uneasily with indefensible authoritarian practice.
A similar concept of human nature underlies Humboldt’s work on language. Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation. The normal use of language and the acquisition of language depend on what Humboldt calls the fixed form of language, a system of generative processes that is rooted in the nature of the human mind and constrains but does not determine the free creations of normal intelligence or, at a higher and more original level, of the great writer or thinker. Humboldt is, on the one hand, a Platonist who insists that learning is a kind of reminiscence, in which the mind, stimulated by experience, draws from its own internal resources and follows a path that it itself determines; and he is also a romantic, attuned to cultural variety, and the endless possibilities for the spiritual contributions of the creative genius. There is no contradiction in this, any more than there is a contradiction in the insistence of aesthetic theory that individual works of genius are constrained by principle and rule. The normal, creative use of language, which to the Cartesian rationalist is the best index of the existence of another mind, presupposes a system of rules and generative principles of a sort that the rationalist grammarians attempted, with some success, to determine and make explicit.
The many modern critics who sense an inconsistency in the belief that free creation takes place within – presupposes, in fact – a system of constraints and governing principles are quite mistaken; unless, of course, they speak of “contradiction” in the loose and metaphoric sense of Schelling, when he writes that “without the contradiction of necessity and freedom not only philosophy but every nobler ambition of the spirit would sink to that death which is peculiar to those sciences in which that contradiction serves no function.” Without this tension between necessity and freedom, rule and choice, there can be no creativity, no communication, no meaningful acts at all.
I have discussed these traditional ideas at some length, not out of antiquarian interest, but because I think that they are valuable and essentially correct, and that they project a course we can follow with profit. Social action must be animated by a vision of a future society, and by explicit judgements of value concerning the character of this future society. These judgements must derive from some concept of human nature, and one may seek empirical foundations by investigating human nature as it is revealed by human behaviour and human creations, material, intellectual, and social. We have, perhaps, reached a point in history when it is possible to think seriously about a society in which freely constituted social bonds replace the fetters of autocratic institutions, rather in the sense conveyed by the remarks of Humboldt that I quoted, and elaborated more fully in the tradition of libertarian socialism in the years that followed.
Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid-twentieth century. It is incapable of meeting human needs that can be expressed only in collective terms, and its concept of competitive man who seeks only to maximize wealth and power, who subjects himself to market relationships, to exploitation and external authority, is antihuman and intolerable in the deepest sense. An autocratic state is no acceptable substitute; nor can the militarized state capitalism evolving in the United States or the bureaucratized, centralized welfare state be accepted as the goal of human existence. The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival. Modern science and technology can relieve people of the necessity for specialized, imbecile labour. They may, in principle, provide the basis for a rational social order based on free association and democratic control, if we have the will to create it.
A vision of a future social order is in turn based on a concept of human nature. If in fact humans are indefinitely malleable, completely plastic beings, with no innate structures of mind and no intrinsic needs of a cultural or social character, then they are fit subjects for the “shaping of behavior” by the state authority, the corporate manager, the technocrat, or the central committee. Those with some confidence in the human species will hope this is not so and will try to determine the intrinsic human characteristics that provide the framework for intellectual development, the growth of moral consciousness, cultural achievement, and participation in a free community. In a partly analogous way, a classical tradition spoke of artistic genius acting within and in some ways challenging a framework of rule. Here we touch on matters that are little understood. It seems to me that we must break away, sharply and radically, from much of modern social and behavioral science if we are to move toward a deeper understanding of these matters.
Here, too, I think that the tradition I have briefly reviewed has a contribution to offer. As I have already observed, those who were concerned with human distinctiveness and potential repeatedly were led to a consideration of the properties of language. I think that the study of language can provide some glimmerings of understanding of rule-governed behavior and the possibilities for free and creative action within the framework of a system of rules that in part, at least, reflect intrinsic properties of human mental organization. It seems to me fair to regard the contemporary study of language as in some ways a return to the Humboldtian concept of the form of language: a system of generative processes rooted in innate properties of mind but permitting, in Humboldt’s phrase, an infinite use of finite means. Language cannot be described as a system of organization of behaviour. Rather, to understand how language is used, we must discover the abstract Humboldtian form of language – its generative grammar, in modern terms. To learn a language is to construct for oneself this abstract system, of course unconsciously. The linguist and pyschologist can proceed to study the use and acquistion of language only insofar as they have some grasp of the properties of the system that has been mastered by the person who knows the language. Furthermore, it seems to me that a good case can be made in support of the empirical claim that such a system can be acquired, under the given conditions of time and access, only by a mind that is endowed with certain specific properties that we can now tentatively describe in some detail. As long as we restrict ourselves, conceptually, to the investigation of behavior, its organization, its development through interaction with the environment, we are bound to miss these characteristics of language and mind. Other aspects of human psychology and culture might, in principle, be studied in a similar way.
Conceivably, we might in this way develop a social science based on empirically wellfounded propositions concerning human nature. Just as we study the range of humanly attainable languages, with some success, we might also try to study the forms of artistic expression or, for that matter, scientific knowledge that humans can conceive, and perhaps even the range of ethical systems and social structures in which humans can live and function, given their intrinsic capacities and needs. Perhaps one might go on to project a concept of social organization that would – under given conditions of material and spiritual culture – best encourage and accommodate the fundamental human need – if such it is – for spontaneous initiative, creative work, solidarity, pursuit of social justice.
I do not want to exaggerate, as I no doubt have, the role of investigation of language. Language is the product of human intelligence that is, for the moment, most accessible to study. A rich tradition held language to be a mirror of mind. To some extent, there is surely truth and useful insight in this idea.
I am no less puzzled by the topic “language and freedom” than when I began – and no less intrigued. In these speculative and sketchy remarks there are gaps so vast that one might question what would remain, when metaphor and unsubstantiated guess are removed. It is sobering to realize – as I believe we must – how little we have progressed in our knowledge of human beings and society, or even in formulating clearly the problems that might be seriously studied. But there are, I think, a few footholds that seem fairly firm. I like to believe that the intensive study of one aspect of human psychology – human language – may contribute to a humanistic social science that will serve, as well, as an instrument for social action. It must, needless to say, be stressed that social action cannot await a firmly established theory of human nature and society, nor can the validity of the latter be determined by our hopes and moral judgements. The two – speculation and action – must progress as best they can, looking forward to the day when theoretical inquiry will provide a firm guide to the unending, often grim, but never hopeless struggle for freedom and social justice.
Suggested Reading
[1] F W J Schelling, Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, trans. and ed. James Gutmann (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1936).
[2] R D Masters, introduction to his edition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, First and Second Discourses, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964).
[3] Compare Proudhon, a century later: “No long discussion is necessary to demonstrate that the power of denying a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death, and that to make a man a slave is to assassinate him.”
[4] Cited in A Lehning, ed., Bakunin, Etatisme et anarchie (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967), editor’s note 50, from P Schrecker, “Kant et la révolution francaise,” Revue philosophique, September–December 1939.
[5] I have discussed this matter in Cartesian Linguistics (New York: Harper & Row, 1966) and Language and Mind (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, extended ed., 1972).
[6] See the references of note 5, and also my Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), chap. 1, sec. 8.
[7] I need hardly add that this is not the prevailing view. For discussion, see E.H. Lenneberg, Biological Foundations of Language (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967); my Language and Mind; E.A. Drewe et al., “A Comparative Review of the Results of Behavioural Research on Man and Monkey,” (London; Institute of Psychiatry, unpublished draft, 1969); P.H. Lieberman, D.H. Klatt, and W.H. Wilson, “Vocal Tract Limitations on the Vowel Repertoires of Rhesus Monkeys and other Nonhuman Primates,” Science, June 6, 1969; and P.H. Lieberman, “Primate Vocalizations and Human Linguistic Ability,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 44, no. 6 (1968).
[8] In the books cited above, and in Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (New York: Humanities Press, 1964).
[9] J W Burrow, introduction to his edition of Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969), from which most of the following quotes are taken.
[10] Compare the remarks of Kant, quoted above. Kant’s essay appeared in 1793; Humboldt’s was written in 1791–92. Parts appeared, but it did not appear in full during his lifetime. See Burrow, introduction to Humboldt, Limits of State Action.
[11 ] Thomas G Sanders, “The Church in Latin America,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 48, no. 2 (1970).
[12] Ibid, The source is said to be the ideas of Paulo Freire. Similar criticism is widespread in the student movement in the West. See, for example, Mitchell Cohen and Dennis Hale, eds., The New Student Left rev. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), chap. 3.
[13] Namely, that a man “only attains the most matured and graceful consummation of his activity, when his way of life is harmoniously in keeping with his character”–that is, when his actions flow from inner impulse.
[14] The latter quote is from Humboldt’s comments on the French Constitution, 1791–parts translated in Marianne Cowan, ed., Humanist Without Portfolio: An Anthology (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963).
[15] Rudolf Rocker, “Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism,” in Paul Eltzbacher, Anarchism (London: Freedom Press, 1960). In his book Nationalism and Culture (London: Freedom Press, 1937), Rocker describes Humboldt as “the most prominent representative in Germany” of the doctrine of natural rights and of the opposition to the authoritarian state. Rousseau he regards as a precursor of authoritarian doctrine, but he considers only the Social Contract, not the far more libertarian Discourse on Inequality. Burrow observes that Humboldt’s essay anticipates “much nineteenth century political theory of a populist, anarchist and syndicalist kind” and notes the hints of the early Marx. See also my Cartesian Linguistics, n. 51, for some comments.
[16] Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).
[17] Cited by Paul Mattick, “Workers’ Control,” in Priscilla Long, ed., The New Left (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969), p. 377.
[18] Cited in Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958). p. 19
CHOMSKY.INFO
Holy Willie's Prayer (pages 21-25 of the The Glenriddel Manuscripts, which contain a selection of Burn’s poems and letters, compiled in two volumes, for presentation to Burns's friend, Robert Riddell of Glenriddell (1755-1794), during the years 1791 to 1793.) The first volume, contains copies of poems both in Burns's hand and in that of a scribe. It contains over 50 poems, most famously a full version of Holy Willie's Prayer. This is the most devastating and amusing of Burns's diatribes against the apparent hypocrisy of certain sections of his native Church. It is directed against William Fisher, a farmer in Montgarswood and an elder of Mauchline Kirk. Burns uses this hypocrite - who had initiated disciplinary action against the poet's friend, Gavin Hamilton, for failing to attend the Kirk regularly - to savage the orthodox Calvinist doctrine of double predestination. The satire was so severe that it circulated in handwritten form for some three years before its publication as part of a pamphlet. Written in August 1785, this is one of the poet's earliest satirical works on orthodox Calvinism and is the only version of the poem in Burns's hand.
Yes, I know. You think I am an evil human being. I had no idea my little mantra, which was going to be placed front and center on a Tee Shirt, would actually come to pass, sort of, on the morning of October 2, 2020, with the announcement that the First Couple of the United States had tested positive for COVID-19.
With trumps death from natural causes, I surmised we would never have to hear that raspy, cloyingly annoying voice ever again bullying, insulting or humiliating anyone. Never again be told lies, half truths and conspiracy theory laden statements to create fear in those who are wont to believe his sort of trash. At least, those were and still are my thoughts. I certainly wouldn’t want another human to harm him, as then he would become a martyr to his cult, a Jim Jones of politics with statues erected in the parks of small towns in every red state. (Insert vomiting sounds here!)
To me, it’s absolutely appalling to see the people who are usually publicly condemning him, other politicians, media people and so, so many of us ‘little folk” on social media who are shocked and sickened by him, his actions and the vast lies he tells, the dastardly deeds he does, the illegalities, financially and constitutionally, he is alleged to have made and the threats he continues to make, appalled that those same people are now ‘sending their prayers’, ‘best wishes for a speedy recovery”, ‘healing thoughts’ and other sappy Hallmark sentiments while you know damn well they are muttering under their breath, ‘Die, Die You Motherfucker’. But I understand their predicament. Being public figures they don’t want a backlash on their careers, their place in government or their particular religious beliefs on wishing someone dead. Me, I have no such boundaries. I do not subscribe to any past or present mythologies that cloud my logic as to what is right and what is wrong. And trump is wrong. Dead wrong.
I am not evil. In fact, based on what others think of me, I am a very good person. A nice person. Caring, kind, very aware and very respectful of the natural world around me and the life that is in it. I’m also aware that Donald J. Trump is the most dangerous threat to Democracy and freedom that this country, the United States of America, has ever seen. If Mother Nature does decide to eliminate that threat on a permanent basis, I’m all for it and am cheering her on. Rah-Rah Mother Nature! But I’m not holding out hope that she will permanently remove him from this mortal coil. With all the help and medical support anyone could wish for, I’m sure he will make a total recovery…..UNLESS…….
Being the consummate liar that is trump, it wouldn’t surprise me one iota to discover he is not really COVID19 positive. That he is totally faking it, creating another sham to avoid having to deal with another debate debacle, or maybe just a show to gain sympathy from his cult to gain votes from those who may have been swayed a bit with his White Supremacy support or his tax evasion or the fact he is the main reason for the misinformation circulating across the US regarding COVID19 along with his downplaying of the disease from the get go; even though he knew full well how dangerous and deadly it was, he thereby condemned to death thousands more people who may have survived if proper precautions had been taken early on instead of being ignored or mocked. Only time will tell.
I do hope Melania totally recovers from her symptoms, if she, too, really has them. I wish no ill will on her. I believe she had no idea what she was really getting into when she met trump, getting in far over her head, flailing and floundering ever since she preceded him down that golden escalator of the trump Tower. Almost as though she was being escorted by Satan himself on her way down to Hell.
WCH October 2, 2020
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Mah piercing,mah tattoo,mah life in the shadow。。。！
✖✖✖ If you like you can see Punk ☆'s photos on Flickriver
Song : Jesus of suburbia
Singer : Green Day
[Part 1]
I'm the son of rage and love
The Jesus of Suburbia
From the bible of none of the above
On a steady diet of soda pop and Ritalin
No one ever died for my sins in hell
As far as I can tell
At least the ones I got away with
And there's nothing wrong with me
This is how I'm supposed to be
In a land of make believe
That don't believe in me
Get my television fix sitting on my crucifix
The living room or my private womb
While the moms and Brads are away
To fall in love and fall in debt
To alcohol and cigarettes and Mary Jane
To keep me insane and doing someone else's cocaine
And there's nothing wrong with me
This is how I'm supposed to be
In a land of make believe
That don't believe in me
[Part 2: City Of The Damned]
At the center of the Earth
In the parking lot
Of the 7-11 where I was taught
The motto was just a lie
It says home is where your heart is
But what a shame
Cause everyone's heart
Doesn't beat the same
It's beating out of time
City of the dead
At the end of another lost highway
Signs misleading to nowhere
City of the damned
Lost children with dirty faces today
No one really seems to care
I read the graffiti
In the bathroom stall
Like the holy scriptures of a shopping mall
And so it seemed to confess
It didn't say much
But it only confirmed that
The center of the earth
Is the end of the world
And I could really care less
City of the dead
At the end of another lost highway
Signs misleading to nowhere
City of the damned
Lost children with dirty faces today
No one really seems to care
[Part 3: I don't care]
I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't
I don't care if you don't care
[x4]
I don't care
Everyone is so full of shit
Born and raised by hypocrites
Hearts recycled but never saved
From the cradle to the grave
We are the kids of war and peace
From Anaheim to the middle east
We are the stories and disciples
Of the Jesus of suburbia
Land of make believe
That don't believe in me
Land of make believe
And I don't believe
And I don't care!
I don't care! [x4]
[Part 4: Dearly beloved]
Dearly beloved are you listening?
I can't remember a word that you were saying
Are we demented or am I disturbed?
The space that's in between insane and insecure
Oh therapy, can you please fill the void?
Am I retarded or am I just overjoyed
Nobody's perfect and I stand accused
For lack of a better word, and that's my best excuse
[Part 5: Tales of another broken home]
To live and not to breathe
Is to die In tragedy
To run, to run away
To find what you believe
And I leave behind
This hurricane of fucking lies
I lost my faith to this
This town that don't exist
So I run
I run away
To the light of masochist
And I leave behind
This hurricane of fucking lies
And I walked this line
A million and one fucking times
But not this time
I don't feel any shame
I won't apologize
When there ain't nowhere you can go
Running away from pain
When you've been victimized
Tales from another broken home
You're leaving...
You're leaving...
You're leaving...
Ah you're leaving home...
The Concept of this photo is about Hypocrites. They practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. The Plastic Mask symbolize their hidden evil identity and the Cards represents their daily activity of influencing and destroying other people lives.
I should perhaps make it clear that this was not my meal: hypocritically, I have difficulty eating creatures that fix me with their gaze!
When people like us are born we are white meaning pure and innocence. In the photo this is represented by the white finger. But as we get older that purity goes away and we become “muddied”,and are now represented by the shadows. The contrast between the two colors really makes it seem like in this world you are either pure or you're not.
This photo also demonstrates depth of field because i placed the thumb over other crumbs and also placed this thumb in front of other half thumbs. By showing depth of field I made the photo 3D and make it seem as if its pooping up at you.
To me this photo is a type of hypocrite. meaning that humans are represented by this white color but in that we are pure and innocent but in real life that is not true.
This photo really helped me understand the process of trial and error when working with photography. when i first imagined this photo i thought of having more than one finger all different shapes and sizes, but after taking the photo i realized that that was too much to swallow and didn't have a point behind it. So i crushed other fingers and was left with one.
There have been many and varied references to the Marquis de Sade in popular culture, including fictional works and biographies. The namesake of the psychological and subcultural term sadism, his name is used variously to evoke sexual violence, licentiousness and freedom of speech. In modern culture his works are simultaneously viewed as masterful analyses of how power and economics work, and as erotica. Sade's sexually explicit works were a medium for the articulation of the corrupt and hypocritical values of the elite in his society, which caused him to become imprisoned. He thus became a symbol of the artist's struggle with the censor. Sade's use of pornographic devices to create provocative works that subvert the prevailing moral values of his time inspired many other artists in a variety of media. The cruelties depicted in his works gave rise to the concept of sadism. Sade's works have to this day been kept alive by artists and intellectuals because they espouse a philosophy of extreme individualism that became reality in the economic liberalism of the following centuries.
...taken on the stairs of the Deutsches Verpackungs Museum, the packaging museum...
Heidelberg, Germany...